Barbie, Brett Kavanaugh, and Fair Play
New Netflix movies and what they say about patriarchal power dynamics
An age ago in New York, I made friends with someone from my professional world. We went for a friendly drink, and at the end, walking through Madison Square Park back to the subway, he tried to kiss me. I said no. I never expected what would happen next. He broke down crying and screaming. I can still hear his voice, full of pain but also full of rage. “Am I ugly to you? Am I disgusting to you?” I felt embarrassed for him and pitied him for the deep insecurity that he displayed to this woman he barely knew, and yet for some reason felt entitled to my affections.
But also, I felt fear. Here in the middle of a dark park at night, in the heart of a city that stopped for no one, I was with a man who could lash out further at me for wounds I did not cause.
Fair Play and Male Fragility
I’ve been reflecting on this incident since watching Fair Play, a moody thriller by Chloe Domont about a young woman in finance who gets promoted and becomes the boss of the man that she is secretly dating at the office. In the beginning of the film, they are in love, and he proposes to her in spite of their secret relationship. As the film unfolds, we watch her gain in her status, climbing the ranks of a boy’s club on the power of her decision-making, while around her rumors unfurl of sleeping her way to the top. And meanwhile, we watch her fiancé become unhinged, fueled by jealousy and entitlement, becoming increasingly dark and more terrifying. Once the power dynamics change in their relationship, we watch him devolve from being smitten to performing acts of violent misogyny.
Alden Ehrenreich, who plays the fiancé, captures the hurt rage that I saw that night in Madison Square Park, a man who is deeply affronted at the woman who does not play the role he expects her to play. It’s the same rage that I saw spill out of the Brett Kavanaugh trials, not just from Brett Kavanaugh but also from Lindsey Graham and others on the right, so angry that a woman would not fit in her box and do as they wanted on their march to power (and to subsequently destroying women’s right to choose).
Chloe Domont, who directed Fair Play, has said she’s not exploring women’s empowerment, but rather male fragility. Phoebe Dynover, who plays the main character, is just living her life, growing her career, joyful in love, until her love is threatened by her career. This is not the first 2023 film to turn the mirror on how male fragility can threaten women’s rise. Barbie, the ten-figure juggernaut, is as much about Ken and his rage at living in a non-patriarchal world as it is about Barbie.
Old Dads and the Bumbling Dad Trope
This is not new. It just hasn’t been seen through women’s eyes. The bumbling dad and resigned-but-supportive woman has been a sitcom trope for decades, with Homer Simpson being the classic and long-lived schlub who feels endearingly threatened whenever Marge breaks out of her mom role. And Marge, in the writers’ hands, always reverts back to her accommodating self, placating Homer and returning The Simpsons to its rightful chaotic universe.
There’s a whole generation of Homers on TV and in movies, struggling to fit in to a changing world. Old Dads captures this, with a trio of flawed men—one dealing with anger management, one dealing with such a deep desire to be accepted he’s embarrassing, and one dealing with a closed mind—making fun of, grappling with, and eventually learning to live in a world with changing values.
Meanwhile, outside of Netflix…
In Bill Burr’s hands, the male struggle is funny. The world around them is the joke. But this disconnect between identity, an outdated definition of masculinity, identity, and a changing world has real consequences. From a 2013 APA research article:
…men experience more anxiety over their gender status than women do, particularly when gender status is uncertain or challenged. This can motivate a variety of risky and maladaptive behaviors, as well as the avoidance of behaviors that might otherwise prove adaptive and beneficial.
And this has such an impact on the experience of women (or really, anyone who doesn’t validate this gender paradigm). I can count on one hand the times I’ve felt truly threatened by male fragility, but once is more than enough.
I know women who’ve had to go into hiding because of a man who purported to love her, but hated the parts of her that felt bigger than him. I’ve watched a high up executive friend of mine be almost leveled because she raised her voice in a meeting and a lower level man took it personally and had her investigated for targeting him (I was there, she was not). I’ve seen my friends stalked and threatened by men they’ve rejected in professional and educational settings where there should be HR or Title IX in place to protect them. Most women I know whisper these moments to each other, because they fear that trying to report incidents will be more likely to put them under the interrogation lamp than fix the problem. And they fear retaliation and ostracization more than managing the situation as they always have, by shrinking their lives and living with the discomfort of threat rather than opening the can of worms that is confronting it.
It takes more women telling their stories to change it.
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If you have a story to tell, Tasha Gideon & Nicole Peeler have a home for you on their new podcast on the patriarchy, with a voice mailbox for people to share what they deal with, anonymously.
You’ve just read Framing, a regular newsletter about what’s good culture, marketing, and business by Anita Schillhorn van Veen.
I’m Director of Strategy at McKinney, on the advisory board of Ladies Who Strategize, and a writer over at my other favorite Substack Why Is This Interesting.
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