I watched “Mogambo” on TV the other day, and Grace Kelly was playing the same sort of brittle, superior ice princess with a faux-Brit accent and without empathy for anyone else that I’d seen her playing in other films, To Catch a Thief and Rear Window, mainly (can’t think of much else I’d seen her in) and I commented on how that woman needed the back of some guy’s hand to straighten her out, and MAN!! did my GF not care for that remark. Apparently, the word “woman” and “beating” in the same sentence triggers a response in some women that gets you so far in the doghouse it takes three days of 'splaining to work your way out of.
Ava Gardner in the same picture plays a real woman, vulnerable and sensitive and earthy, so the contrast couldn’t be plainer, but pointing that out didn’t do me much good, as it simply made my GF jealous of my open admiration for more authentic brunettes. Can’t win here–stuck up blonde makes me mad (no good), sexy brunette makes me horny (also no good). This is one movie I’d love to redub, a la what’s up, tiger lily, with dialogue that they couldn’t say in the 1950s, because the sexual dynamic is just terrific.
So - to be clear: you want and expect it to be considered Okay and Typical to discuss whether one woman vs another needs “a beating” to stop acting so uppity?
If any man were to lay a malicious hand on Grace Kelly’s body I would fully expect that hand to wither and fall off as punishment from the gods for offending one of their own.
This is a joke, right? This is one of those false-flag operations designed to draw out the knuckle-draggers so we can all have a laugh at anyone so unevolved as to think that any woman “needs a beating,” right?
Well you GF may have disliked your words because she had considered that if you think “needs a beating” applies to another woman, you might eventually think it applies to her.
Also, better phrasing could have helped here. If you had said, "Grace Kelly is badly in need of a comeuppance!’ she might not have been so alarmed, though effectively it could mean the same thing.
Well, it’s not as if I was saying that if my GF ever behaved like Kelly, I’d beat her bloody (though that was exactly how she took it). I mean, I coulda said, “That Grace Kelly–what a snooty bitch she always plays! It’s terrible how hateful and snotty she is in these pictures, the guy with her must really resent her attitude and would love to make her feel more humble,” and it would have been fine. I could have characterized her in any one of a number of offensive and hostile ways but that magical combo of “Woman” and “beating” set off a kind of “Niagara Falls” response that was almost funny in its self-righteous way.
IRL, I would have picked a fight with Kelly long before we ever got to the romantic stage. Well, I might have condescended to see her naked a few times first, but any way you look at it, I would have been out of been out of that relationship PDQ, blonde beauty or no. What an obnoxious creature, so totally about herself and her needs.
My dad used to beat the shit out of my mom. I don’t think she really “needed” any of them and if asked, she probably could have done without them. Fun fact: my dad is now slowly dying alone.
I’ll be more plain. If I heard someone say seriously that a woman needed a beating because of acting snooty, I would consider that person a contemptible asshole. It is possible that your girlfriend reached a similar conclusion.
Why did you create this thread? Did you think we would all find it interesting in a movie-critiquing kind of way?
Yes, advocating beating women does not go over well with women. Or with men who happen not to be sexist assholes. Yes, this is still true, even if you allow that other, less uppity women may not, in fact, “need a beating”.