I am trying to brush up on my French, so the other day I browsed the French movies available on Netflix. I scrolled through serious dramas, adventure sagas, and dark comedies. Among these was Je ne suis pas un homme facile, or I Am Not an Easy Man. The trailer was cute, a little goofy. It featured a man cheesily hitting on a woman, using a line he clearly uses often. Its theme was some kind of a switcheroo. It was hard to tell from the trailer whether it would be good or just gimmicky. But I had to pick a movie, so I decided to give it a chance.
The movie starts off with the main character going about his day with a good smattering of chauvinism. He doesn’t consider women’s needs in his product design, he treats women like objects to be acquired, etc. Then he hits his head and it all changes. Women are suddenly in charge.
Again, this concept could get gimmicky, and perhaps it is a little. But at the same time the movie is amazingly spot on. I think of myself as a feminist and I think about the ways the world is biased for men. Despite that there were still things that the movie switched up that made me think about the way I view the world. Things that I take for granted as just the way the world is were turned upside down.
I watched the movie with my husband and he enjoyed it. He also is a feminist and still, like me, found his view of “the way things are” questioned. We are so entrenched in the way things are that we make excuses, conscious or not, for inequalities that we observe.
I have been telling everyone about the movie and encouraging them to watch it. I was surprised by two instances of husbands of strong women I know seeming deeply uninterested in the movie. I encourage you to watch this, and if you have a male partner to encourage him to watch it. Please report back your thoughts and their responses!
A Portrait of the Scientist as a Young Woman 