A Good Example of
Female Chauvinism
This miniseries has many problems that I find to be increasingly commonplace in the contemporary "feminist" movement. For one, it portrays a very grim picture of men as slave-holders and the likes. While some men are like this, so are many women, yet try telling that to most modern "feminists".
After a while, the film descends into the depths of the all-too-common female chauvinism and man-hating. This is NOT what feminism is truly about. Feminism is about having women and men be equals, but much of this film, to me, seems to be more anti-man than pro-equality. The members of the first generation of feminism understood the difference between equality and man-hating female chauvinism. I feel that many people, however, do not and that this film does much to obscure true equity-based feminism with a combination of female chauvinism (which is just as bad as male chauvinism) and general man-hating.
For what it's worth, feminism is dead. It has been replaced by a group of man-hating chauvinists who don't seek equality with men (which was the goal, may I remind you, of true feminism) but rather to emulate the power structures which historically put men in a dominant position. They don't want equality, but rather they want a matriarchal society in which men are inherently inferior to women and women control things. This is NOT feminism, and this certainly is not a good philosophy.
I'd suggest reading both Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture by Ariel Levy and Who Stole Feminism by Christina Hoff-Sommers.
Beyond the female chauvinism and betrayal of true feminism witnessed in the film, I found that just judging by its artistic merits, the film is mediocre at best. The narrative style is long, drawn-out (yet with little purpose for doing so). It also borders on narcissism in many aspects, and it seems more like a vanity project done by a film school student than a serious attempt at making a documentary.
Overall, Flying is a mediocre attempt at making a documentary with a poor philosophy behind it.