Is there a trend of anti-male films?
First of all, I want to clarify that Iâm not a Menâs Rights Activist or anything like that. I am just a woman who loves men and appreciates healthy masculinity.
What is worrying me is that there seems to be a trend in movies nowadays that is just like male bashing.
Brave (2012): The father was silly, the mother was competent and smart. This trope is something we have seen in several TV shows and advertisements. I find it tiresome to always portray fathers as âthe dumb, childish oneâ. Also, all of Meridaâs husband candidates were silly and of course they couldnât even shoot an arrow right. The only smart male characters were Meridaâs siblings who were portrayed as cunning but ultimately they had no relevant role other than comic relief.
Maleficent (2014): Oh boy, where do I start? Of course Maleficent only became âevilâ because of a manâs betrayal and she later redeemed herself. The man however is just evil. No redemption for him. The Prince was also reduced to being basically useless which was disappointing because I found him really likable in the original animated film. All of the male characters in this film were either useless or evil, with the exception of Maleficentâs crow who was her pet/servant. The ridiculous thing is that the original animated film was not even that sexist (the three good fairies were female and they saved the prince multiple times) so I have no idea why they had to make it like that in the live action film.
Mad Max: Fury Road(2015): I have no idea why they even called it Mad Max, they might have as well called it âFuriosaâ. Itâs like sheâs the protagonist and she completely overshadows Max. Also, all of the villains were men. All of the females on the other hand were good.
Ghostbusters (2016) : Ugh, they treated their male secretary as eye-candy and he was portrayed as totally stupid and useless. Why? In the original ghostbusters the secretary was NOT like that, she was shown to be pretty competent. Also, they shoot the villainâs penis. Not cool.
Zapped (2014): Only a TV movie, but it was still incredibly offensive. The men were portrayed as gross and the female had to control them to âimproveâ them. At least she learns her lesson in the end, but if the genders were reversed there would be an outrage.
Normally I wouldnât complain about little things like that, but itâs like it is becoming a trend. It is especially annoying that while the portrayal of women is improving, the portrayal of men is becoming worse and worse.
Forgive any grammatical mistakes, I live in a non-english speaking country and english is not my mother language.