Double standard


Any movie that has a man cheating on his wife he is vilified and is made out to be horrible, but in this movie are we supposed to be happy for Michelle Williams finding this new man and reinvigorating her love life? Just seems a bit absurd.

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[deleted]

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Blame men for not making more movies that making a cheating man sympathetic. Hollywood is run by straight white males. It's their fault.

My First Film: http://youtube.com/watch?v=SfRtdtWC09A

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Soo kellycastlebridge black people are not equal huh? What racist inbreeding hole did you crawl out of? This is 2012 and backward racists like you still exist. Amazing.

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Took longer than I expected for somebody to play the race card.

"It's better to have a gun and not need it, than to need a gun and not have it"

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"glazed nuts"......I'd counter with "I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy." I'm sure Randall P McMurphy said that at some point in his life.

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Well, if you use the word "blame" it means you agree that what the OP is pointing out is kind of a bad thing, right?

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Agreed.

However I didn't get the impression that this was about any sort of "female journey of sexual discovery". I also didn't feel like her reaching outside of her marriage was initiated by a sexual need.

I think the final scenes showed the arch of relationships. No matter who you are with, if you are broken in some way you may never be satisfied.

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[deleted]

I think that's a very good point.

Not that anyone is going to read this now, but I also don't think the movie was trying to say she made the right choice. She was part of a loving relationship and family before, and she seemed depressed at the end of the movie with the new man.

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Comments like yours really shed a light on a chilling worldview.

The implied logic is thus...

"The fact that heterosexual white males make up the majority of Hollywood execs should stand to reason that everything shown by them benefits heterosexual white males."

One really gets an insight into the sort of nepotism the person who makes this argument possesses. In this, the arguer is either unaware of how someone could ever possibly strive for egalitarianism in spite of their color, gender, and sexual preference OR they refuse to acknowledge that this particular (arbitrarily defined group) could be/would be capable of such egalitarianism.

Horrifying.

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Hollywood is not a corporation, It is not " run". Anyone can makes film if they wish

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@ Zeus 707. When you say the #1 reason both men and women commit adultery is 'A lack of character' do you mean a lack of character of the adulterer or a lack of character by the person who has been cheated upon?

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re: When a woman cheats on her husband, it's his fault somehow and the audience should applaud her decision to leave him for another man.

THANK YOU for that...OR, she should be applauded because "she's empowering herself" or "going on a journey of self-discovery." "EAT PRAY LOVE," anyone? Julia up and leaves her husband to go globe-trotting & it's hailed as some sort of feminist achievement!

I'm not saying there aren't guys that do their thinking with their wee-wees -- there are, and they can be jerks. But do women ever do their thinking with their hoo-hoos? You betcha they do -- otherwise, why do so many women go for the "bad boy" or "n'er do well" types? But I agree, there IS a double-standard: Guy cheats, it's because he is of low character; Gal cheats, it's because she felt unfulfilled, etc.

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All valid points you bring up regarding cheating spouses, but you're judging this film in the context of real life. This is a work of fiction and should really be evaluated in its own context. Any character and any storyline in any film can be second-guessed as it relates to reality; same can be said of any work of art. But this is fiction, and should be evaluated on the basis of the creativity, how well the characters and situation were executed, such as they were.

Frank S.

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That's not completely true. Agreed, there is some fiction that should be regarded only as an esthetic picture. Like a drawing of a pretty flower - it's just that, a pretty flower. But most artists tend to mirror reality in some way in their works. They most often try to tell us something. In this case, I think the creators wanna tell us that when a woman is in heat men should drop everything and try to satisfy her.

Ok, so the main character was emotinaly unstable - that doesn't justify anything. It's a sexist thing to think, that if a woman is sexualy unsatisfied, emotionaly unstable or whatever it gives her the right to ruin other people's lives. Come on, if a man is sexualy unsatisfied by his wife, it's his fault and his a pervert. *beep* Both men and women have certain needs and both have a responsibility to eachother. Women should not be privileged in this way. Or any way for that matter. They fight for their rights - ok. But no special treatment, no more opening doors for them, no more pulling up the chair!

Now, if we hear this line in any movie: "not today, my head aches" it means two things. First, the man is a horny, unsatisfied pig with no regard for her feelings. Second, the woman is unfullfilled and probably banging the gardner. Which is OK, because we all know, it's not her fault. And the audience should pitty her for having such an egoistic husband. Ahh, sickening, just sickening.

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Exactly!! Well said.

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I thought the same thing as I watched Crazy, Stupid, Love. When a man cheats on his wife he is a monster. When a woman does it it's because their husband drove them to it.

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What double standard is there in Crazy...?

No man in that cheats.



Wish You Were Here Film Review!
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1684925/reviews-2

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I think Eric is referring to the fact that in Crazy Stupid Love, the wife's adultery is kind of blamed on her husband pushing her away. Then, he has sex with other women and we are supposed to feel bad for her like he did something wrong.

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Yes, it is a double standard.

Except men are very different than women. For men, it is usually sexual. For women, it is usually emotional.

Not saying that it makes it better, of course, just different.

Yours in Christ,
~Molly~
www.hcdoxies.com

"Elephants are not purple. This is wrong."

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It may "usually" be sexual for men and "emotional" for women, but what's so interesting about this movie is that Margo clearly wanted sex more than her husband did. And unless you think it's adultery for a woman to have a relationship with a man who's not her husband, there actually was no adultery. Margo and the other man never have sex, they never even kiss. And when he touches her in the swimming pool scene, she immediately gets out of the pool and leaves him. She's extremely ambivalent, doesn't really know what she wants, and that is one of the themes of the movie.

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I happen to agree with you, which (one might assert) makes women's infidelity that much worse. If a man cheats, it's not emotional, it's just sex. When a woman cheats, she puts her heart and soul into it. So when a man cheats and he says, "it was just sex", he means it. A woman cannot say that. When she cheats it is much more involved, she is giving her heart to the man she is cheating with.

What is the usually the first thing a wife asks her husband when she finds out her husband is cheating? "Are you in love with her?" If it's just sex, that's one thing, but if he says, "I'm in love with her", that is devastating. The chances that it is just sex when a man is cheating are quite high. However, when a woman is cheating you can pretty much bet she's in love.

So, which is worse? I suppose that is a matter of opinion. This much is true though, a man can easily fall into bed with another woman with none of his heart invested, the chances of a woman doing that are very slim.


"...nothing is left of me, each time I see her..." - Catullus

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Honestly when I saw the trailer I was going to start a thread about how ridiculously unfair Hollywood is with social issues like this. Nice to know other people can see through the crap. It wouldn't be so upsetting if films like these weren't actually persuading viewers, but they are.

"You are neither cold nor hot. So because you are lukewarm, I will spew you out of my mouth!"

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Any man who whines about how "ugh, there's a double standard, why do women not have to do X too?" is no man at all, but a little bitch. Sack up and be a man, you pussies.

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You do realize that this was quite possibly the most unintelligent post here, right? LOL okay good, just checking ;)

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What I see here is a belligerent *beep* trying to pretend he's an alpha male. Men of the past didn't have the entertainment industry churning out misandry-laden propaganda like we do today, bub. In fact, what entertainment there was when those men of the past were constructing the world we have today is now considered sexist, racist, homophobic, etc. Those men of the past are now vilified as out-of-touch chauvinist dinosaurs that we're supposed to "progress past" and "move on" from.

So sorry if it hurts your delicate sensibilities that popular culture denigrates the men of the past, as well as their attitudes that some people(like us, and clearly not you) still hold dear. We're sick of being blamed for every problem in the world, especially when *beep* like you seem to think that we are somehow obligated to take the abuse and still produce civilization.

And I'm really *beep* sick and tired of this "white men get all the advantages" crap. Not in the modern world, bub. People are passed over for jobs and opportunities every day thanks to government regulation and laws "compensating" various demographics for perceived slights. Prospective college students are rewarded for their racial or ancestral backgrounds, while those who don't have said backgrounds are made to pay their way through. Where is this magical money tree? You *beep* victim fetishists are appalling, and it's your entitlement-minded attitude, along with your knee-jerk impulses blaming "white men" for all your problems, that is dragging society into the economic and moral sewer in which we're increasingly finding ourselves. Take some *beep* responsibility for your own choices in life, and try to be something more than a whiny bitch that judges others based on their skin color and gender.

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Society doesn't denigrate men of the past, it denigrates men like you. Because you're a loser who's afraid of women. Society will always look down on losers. Men of the past weren't afraid of women, and they weren't afraid of competition. I'm sorry you didn't get the job you wanted, but instead of blaming black people or women or whatever maybe you should look at yourself.

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Wow.

The negative threads, the name-calling, the "online psychologist" approach to total strangers...

You're a petulant child. Your posts leave little else to the imagination.

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Really lovely watching people for whom double standards work in their favor lecture others about not complaining about those same double standards. You're a leech.

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I don't think there is really a double standard. I can think of a lot of movies where the guy finds the girl cheating on him- Love Actually, Barney's Version, 50/50 are some that I just watched recently. In Barney's Version, he is cheated on by a really unsympathetic wife and this is after he tried to run away with another woman DURING their wedding, later he gets with that girl and then he cheats on her while drunk but is still a sympathetic character. The Heartbreak Kid is about a guy who meets a new woman on his honeymoon and realizes she is right for him. In the movie Major League, the baseball player cheats on the girl and gets a paternity suit and wins her back. How about Forgetting Sarah Marshall and the whole "He stopped mid blowjob for you!" joke?

If you think about it though, traditionally it has been that a man who cheats loses his wife, a woman who cheats loses her husband and also gets social stigma. So I think that the second story is more interesting in that perspective, like why does she do it? But yeah, doesn't mean that a-hole girls don't exist. I think we do see them in movies sometimes though, often at the beginning of the movie before the guy goes off and finds the dream girl. I can think of Eurotrip as an example if anyone remembers "Scotty Doesn't Know".

I honestly think that it is just about the portrayal. Like I think we all know that cheating is bad 99 percent of the time (I think it's acceptable in some movies like Titantic where the other partner is a crazy a-hole, arranged marriage situations, etc). But I mean, I think characters can do bad things and still be sympathetic people. They can also do bad things because they are *beep* I don't think gender really enters into it. Like if someone in a movie is emotionally upset and goes off and gets drunk and cheats, we are more like understanding to them but can still think that they are totally wrong. In the TV show the Wire, pretty much all the cops cheat on their wives but we still like all the characters. In the show Curb Your Enthusiasm he cheats on his wife and so does his manager but they are still funny characters. It is something we can understand (not accept) if we see the person as genuinely flawed and human I can think of movie examples where that applies to both genders. But if someone cheats just to be like "f you" to there partner or can not mentally understand that cheating is wrong then they are unlikeable. I think men do that more.

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Men of the past didn't have the entertainment industry churning out misandry-laden propaganda like we do today, bub. In fact, what entertainment there was when those men of the past were constructing the world we have today is now considered sexist, racist, homophobic, etc.

"Anna Karenina", "Madam Bovary", "Moll Flanders" and many of Graham Greene's novels presumably escaped your attention then, among a vast swathe of other stuff. If you want to find older stuff that says it's OK for men to screw around but not women you may be looking for a while, although I'm sure it's out there.

However, anyone who watches this film and sees an apologia for specifically female infidelity is not paying attention. Quite apart from the fact that the central character's decision is shown as extremely problematic, almost any man should be able to relate her dilemma to his own life. The commitment/excitement dichotomy is not exactly unknown to those of us with a Y chromosome, after all.

I used to want to change the world. Now I just want to leave the room with a little dignity.

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Is it a double standard? Hell, yes. But if you are a white male complaining about this (and basically all of these type of films center around white characters) then you need to get a grip. After all 95% of the Hollywood filmmakers are white males and 90% of the Hollywood movies center around white men (another 7% center around white women and the remaining 3% center around everyone else). So all you have to do if you are a white male is to ignore the 10% or less films that you think will antagonize you and enjoy selecting amongst the remaining 90% which will portray you as God's gift to mankind. In other words....go see the ::bleeping:: Avengers, a film in which women don't play an important part and the white males and put on pedestals. Complaining about the few flicks that lean towards a biased female perspective makes you look extremely small and insecure.

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Not that I was complaining about this before, but there is a difference between a biased perspective and a film that portrays a female's adultery as somehow empowering to women.

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[deleted]

Sounds like you have issues with women. Maybe the problem lies more with you than with them.

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I like when people use intellectual instead of intelligent as an adjective because they think it makes them sound smarter. It doesn't really work (I guess a comment can be intellectual, if you reference Proust to make your point or something, but not really), and certainly not on imdb, where the dumbest people in the world live.

But look at your other posts, they're all about how you hate women, and then one about how you hate black people. At least try to own your disgusting nature man, no one's gonna judge you here.

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We call these kind of people "trolls" where I come from, try not to feed it.

“My movies are funded with NAZI gold.” – Uwe Boll

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You're an idiot.

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"enjoy selecting amongst the remaining 90% which will portray you as God's gift to mankind."

Goddamn, you're a worthless slimebag. Straw man a bit more.

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Society has this double standard placed in every field. Women can do no wrong. Even in crime drama shows, the female criminals have a backstory where they had an abusive dad or boyfriend etc. there was even a real life case where a female murdered another female, and blamed it on her husband, claiming that he "convinced" her verbally to do it, and they gave the guy more time in prison than her. Women want to be treated as equal to men, yet they do wrong they act like children and blame it on bad influences (men).

Please excuse any typos, this was typed on an iPad

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I don't truly disagree with the idea behind this thread. At a basic level, a man cheating on his wife is the same as a woman cheating on her husband.

However, it's important to understand that the basic story in this film (and many others) are based on archetypes. "Married woman meets new and interesting man, has an affair, grows as a person...life changes for the better" has become a stock narrative that scriptwriters often use. Now, the fact that this is a frequently used plot does not mean that anyone thinks that there is some kind of truth to it. It is simply a compelling storyline (as the box office attests). I, as a man, have found these kinds of films compelling.

So, I would caution viewers not to read too deeply into this issue. It's about as fair as an argument that goes "Hollywood hates women, 99% action heroes are male."

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This trend has been going on for a long time now. Two revolting exmples are 'Moonlighting' with Cher and Nicholas Cage and 'Bridges of Madison County' with Steep and Eastwood. In both cases, a woman cheats on a hard working, nice, and generous husband or fiance because she is unfulfilled. As Dennis Leary would say, "she's unhappy." Boo hoo. But for women she's a heroine, a role model that women valorize and admire. Turn these scenarios around and you've got a lecherous, callous cad in a mid-life crisis who's betraying his long-suffering wife for some home-wrecking whore. Women cheat on their marriages at almost the same rate as men (who are all the men cheating with?), and about one out every ten children is being raised by a man who only THINKS he's its biological father. For years, feminists disseminated totally fabricated statistics about domestic violence (including the notorious phantom United Way study that was cited hundreds if not thousands of times in major news media) and helped cover up the truth that women are the instigators of such violence in a large number cases. There is a double standard that allows women to decide when they wish to be treated as equals and when they wish to betreated as privileged. If women truly want equality, it's time they accepted what that actually means instead of defining it to mean preferential treatment and retroactive retribution for past injustice.

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