Comments on: Hollywood romance movies and the infidelity double standard.

By: Burbanked

Burbanked — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 18:01:06 +0000

@Annoyed: way to stay on topic. If you're out there reading movie blogs, what exactly are you looking for other than critique and analysis that picks movies apart? Consider: maybe you don't really like to engage in detailed movie discussion. In that case, read something else. Hey, maybe you like puppies! Consider #2: I'll allow for a difference in opinion if you truly consider The Notebook to be a romantic movie. But if you're holding out that it's the best film ever made, I'd suggest that you haven't seen many movies.

By: Annoyed

Annoyed — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 15:21:22 +0000

Um, excuse me, but dont you have any sort of life , apart from picking ridiculous holes in movies and then writing about it?
FYI, the notebook is the most romantic film ever made, and the best film ever made.

By: Flixfind.com::A Directory Of The Finest Movie Links On The Web!

Flixfind.com::A Directory Of The Finest Movie Links On The Web! — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 19:19:42 +0000

[...] Hollywood romance movies and the infidelity double standard. [...]

By: Burbanked

Burbanked — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 23:50:59 +0000

Piper: On behalf of your no doubt frequently eye-rolling wife, thanks for the intel. Unfaithful is pretty much straight-up non-romance adultery-drama, but as I mention above, I think it's interesting that the woman is the one who cheats yet she's the ONLY one who doesn't pay a price for it. Isn't that somewhat of an approval for her act which leads to murder and guilt and misery for everyone else? Or is that simply Adrian Lyne stretching out his controversy welcome? I never saw Horse Whisperer. What's the "motivation" behind the cheating there?

By: Piper

Piper — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 16:43:15 +0000

This is good work, Alan. And a good point.

I myself cannot get into a movie if infidelity is involved, unless of course it’s a porn. And then I find that my kink meter hits 11.

But seriously, folks. Call me old-timey but I found no romance in Unfaithful or in The Horse Whisperer. I think what makes it disturbing is that men do it because they’re horny but when women do it, it’s for love.

By: Marilyn

Marilyn — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 16:17:19 +0000

The Bridges of Madison County is a good movie that has an idealized view of romance uncluttered by the appearance of Streep’s husband. In that sense, the film/book are very much in the Harlequin Romance tradition. Yes, women read these books and see these movies, but we’re taught from an early age that getting married is the greatest and most beautiful thing that can happen to us. We’re given dolls to train to be mommies. Gender-role assignments happen to boys and girls at an early age. It doesn’t really have anything to do with what ought to be. The myth-makers in Hollywood like it this way.

By: Burbanked

Burbanked — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 00:54:50 +0000

Marilyn, I basically agree with you, but if men are primarily responsible for Hollywood "romance" movies such as Bridges, who is the primary audience that turns out for them? Who makes such movies and others cited above into romantic "classics" when the infidelity themes are so similar throughout? And I don't know about you, but I'm not sure that Sulu At the Helm above is having ANY trouble expressing his emotionality. Dude needs a muzzle.

By: Marilyn

Marilyn — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 20:02:46 +0000

I’ve got a little bit different take on this that I’m expending a lot of brain power on right now in writing an essay. The idea that women cheat because their husbands drive them to it is simply another way of desexing women. Women generally cheat for the same reasons men do, but in Hollywood, it’s not ok to give women the same sexual agency as men. It is the men who make these films who feed the myth that women are the more emotionally connected sex, and force both women and men to deny their sexuality and emotionality, respectively. Remember, the novel The Bridges of Madison County was written by a man.

By: Sulu at the Helm

Sulu at the Helm — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 14:55:37 +0000

I think we’re all missing a larger point here. Chick movies suck! They suck, suck, suck, suck, suck! Is there any better reason to explain why they carry on this stupid romantic notion that women are justified in cheating and that it’s somehow romantic and liberating and without any consequences that might hurt other people who’s lives and feelings might just be as important as some flea-brained heroine who’s somehow justified in making these decisions either to make up for her previous boneheaded life choices or because she’s a bit bored with life, so unlike the rest of the population that apparently is thrilled with the prospect of toiling away in some joyless job just to come home to an adulterous skank who’s bangin’ some effeminate loser because she thinks he’s sensitive when he’s really just a balless wuss? These movies suck cause they’re supposed to suck cause that’s what brings the chicks in along the men who honestly believe it’s worth sitting through this kind of crap just to “get some” later. What better explains why one half of the population is so relieved to watch movies where dudes shoot crap up and blow up things real good? Cause it’s payback. We go to action flicks for the villians. Cause we know that even when we have to say goodbye to our favorite baddies who have made life so interesting and brought us so much entertainment only to end up riddled with bulets, blown up or thrown off the top of a skyscraper, that guy has found his reward because he will never again have to hear something like, “Honey, let’s go see that new film about the older women who learns to love again by having an affair with the sensitive guy who runs an animal adoption agency.” They have their fantasies. We have ours.

By: Burbanked

Burbanked — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 11:40:19 +0000

Ray: I suppose that the men-as-jackrabbits stereotype is fine to some extent because there is truth there, but you'd think that we could list a handful of movies where some thoughtful film artist figured out a different, acceptable way for a man to show such conflict, longing, whatever. Ah never mind. I think I need a beer and a raucous sporting event on my big screen TV. And power tools.