Last Friday we went to see Crazy, Stupid, Love, the new rom-com with a stellar cast, including Steve Carell, Julianne Moore, Emma Stone and some ugly, fat dude whose name I didn’t catch. Ron Duckling or something.
Overall the movie was pretty funny, pretty entertaining, pretty much worth seeing, except for one dark undertone that kinda ruined it for me.
It’s a theme I’ve noticed elsewhere in popular culture and I have to say, I find it pretty abhorrent.
It goes something like this:
If you’re a woman (Julianne Moore) and your husband of twenty-five years (Steve Carell) isn’t the best communicator, and has let himself go a little, then you are completely and totally justified in cheating on him with another man (Kevin Bacon).
Rarely seen shot of Ron Duckling before they brought in the CGI wizards.
After all – so the movie tell us – he needs a wake-up call so that he’ll start dressing nicer and taking you to play miniature golf again and generally paying you more attention. And there’s no better wake-up call than confessing that you and the Bacon got it on. Wait. Miniature golf?
Here’s a list of things a woman in Julianne’s position is actually justified in doing:
- talking to her husband about the way he dresses, the lack of attention he pays her, etc.
- suggesting individual or group counseling if communication is proving really difficult
- explaining to her husband exactly how his behavior makes her feel, and the things he could do that would make her feel better
- taking ownership for things she may or may not be doing that are contributing to problems in the marriage
- if all the above fails, leaving the marriage
At that point, and only at that point, is she justified in Baconating herself.
I mean, can you imagine a Hollywood movie in which a husband sleeps with another woman because his wife has let herself go physically, and isn’t that interested in paying him attention or doing things that appeal to his interests? Sure. But what if the happy ending of that movie was that the passed-over wife got her shit together and pandered to her husband enough to win him back? As a collective audience we would say that the movie was horrible, misogynistic, offensive.
And yet, that is the happy ending of Crazy, Stupid, Love. Steve Carell wins back an unapologetic Julianne Moore and is decidedly thankful for her interlude with the Bacon Bits – because it taught him a valuable lesson about fighting for his soulmate.
And let’s be clear about one thing. I definitely didn’t decide to hate this movie because Ron Duckling’s torso made me feel about as inadequate and unattractive as it’s possible for a dude with an English accent and this hair to feel. Nosireeebob.
Some interesting points you make here, and that would make it difficult for me to enjoy the movie. The easy resolutions of many movies do drive me a bit batty. This one sounds like it would be no exception to that. If the movie had moved in opposite ways, flipping the wife/husband actions, I can definitely see how it would be very poorly received.
Strange and not quite sure how to feel about it,
Troy
I found the end of “The Kids Are All Right” to be grating for the same reason. I’m all for showing that divorce isn’t always the answer, but how about something like the end of “Parenthood” where the wife takes some time alone, doesn’t cheat, Rick Moranis realized what a jerk he’s been and re-woos his wife, then they find a way to communicate and find a happy medium and live happily ever after?
There are a ton of films that follow this line (“Dan in Real Life” for one). Movies I loved for their characters who weren’t too quirky to be realistic, who I grew to like through the course of the movie, who made me wince with their terrible relationship decisions. And at the end of these movies they were all wrapped up neatly and the entire journey of getting me to believe in these characters seemed like a sham.
Maybe the idea that life is like a movie is reflected here. None of us have really figured out how to handle something like this in our own lives, and the idea that it will be hard work no matter what path we choose is scary, so we (well, Hollywood) keeps making these movies because we’re scared to try to figure out how else it might end.
Tom, I’m in complete agreement with you on this. In fact, there have been two other critically acclaimed films with similar undercurrents – “The Bridges of Madison County” starring Meryl Streep and “Unfaithful” starring Diane Lane. Both films featured women who chose to cheat on their boring, inattentive husbands with manly-men like Clint Eastwood. Of course that was just what the doctor ordered! I deplore such films because this is such an unrealistic, deluded and destructive message.
There are many underlying tones in movies and tv shows in general that are brought against men, as a part of dumbification of wide masses.
It’s obvious and anyone who says different is kinda an ignorant fool, because only thing that prevents ruling class from taking all the control, are healthy, intelligent males.
According to movies seems like we should be grateful for even being with the women..
Majority of guys are selling themselves short, that’s why this trend is ongoing.
Duckling = Goesling awesome pun. And I love mini golf. I’d be thrilled if Paul took me on a romantic trip to the local putt-putt course.
I completely agree with Tom’s idea of switching the gender roles and the double standard. I really liked Spanglish because the woman cheats and even though Adam Sandler can be annoying, he deals with it in a very realistic way.
@Troy – it’s difficult because the emotion of the movie wants to carry you along, but when you think about the message, you realize how irresponsible it is.
@Jenny – clearly Julianne Moore is to blame as the common denominator
@Terez – thankfully I managed to avoid TBofMC. I think I’d find it appalling for all sorts of reasons
@Bojan – I don’t really think it’s completely a male/female issue, though I’d agree that the ‘ha ha, aren’t men dumb’ themes you see in a LOT of media (particularly TV commercials) is cause for concern.
@Stefanie – is mini golf (or “crazy golf” as my people would call it) awesome? Heck yeah. Is it the activity that I think will most make Melissa feel fulfilled as a woman and alive to the possibilities of life, love and marriage?
Maybe not.
Tom, I think you raise such a good point when you note that this whole idea of infidelity being acceptable would be looked at so differently if the gender roles were reversed…. think about the reactions to some of the cheating men who have been in the media lately. People definitely have double standards for judging male and female infidelity, and to me it’s interesting that the woman somehow ends up as the “victim” whether she’s the one who cheats or is cheated on.
In some ways it’s far too complex an issue for Hollywood to tackle, and one thing that frustrated me about the movie was that it played into a lot of male and female stereotypes (men just want to have sex all the time, women wear tight little dresses and are suckers for Dirty Dancing). It would be great to see a similar issue tackled in a more complex way (The Kids Are All Right maybe approaches that… what’s up with the Julianne Moore typecasting, actually?)
Still, I wonder if there’s not a valuable message in the movie underlying it all, which is that a strong enough marriage can even survive infidelity, if a couple is willing to communicate, grow, learn, listen, change and forgive?
For the record, I’d love to be taken for a rousing date night of mini golf.
And, it might take me a while to forgive you for what you did to The Gosling in photoshop!
Great point about flipping the roles. It sounds like it just keeps reinforcing the same stereotypes. I haven’t seen this movie yet, but sounds like it would leave me disappointed. I love the take on it though. Not that I would wish it on anyone, but would love to hear your thoughts on the lame looking “freaky Friday with dudes” remake “the Change Up”. Hard to imagine holloywood can get much worse than that. Until the Change Up 2 comes out.
Wait a second…but hasn’t it for the most part been the other way around for many, many years with the guys being the ones cheating?? I mean, in those movies the girls usually went nuts and cut something off or ran them over with a monster truck but isn’t it time the ladies got their turn in this type of portrayal?
Brandon, but that’s kind of my point!
If we see a movie where the guy cheats and the woman goes nuts and throws his xbox in the lake, we’d all cheer and say hurrah!
But it it’s a movie where the woman cheats, we’re supposed to see *her* as the victim. What if the betrayed husband set fire to all her shoes? Would we cheer and say hurrah then?
Probably not.
all i have to say here is that am in total agreement with you Tom..the movie surely made it look like its okay to fight for and take back an unapologetic cheating wife/ soul mate….