Homeric, even.
Here’s a video round-up of some old time movie Broad Slapping. That is the actual name of the video BTW.
Fair warning, I hesitated about posting a link as the vid has a fairly glib attitude toward misogyny. Some people might be offended.
I can’t recall a slap either.
I do recall the helpful woman who offered the Duke 'a stick to beat the lovely lady" with, however.
splash of water in the face
slap!
no – don’t hit! Don’t hit! It doesn’t help, it only increases my sense of danger!
I don’t think Wayne slaps O’Hara in THE QUIET MAN either, and, if he does, she certainly does NOT say, “Thanks, I needed that.” Nor does Katherine Hepburn reply that way to Cary Grant in the opening of PHILADELPHIA STORY (not a slap, he pulls back his fist for a punch and then thinks better of it – shakes his head and growls – and simply pushes.)
Robert Mitchum slaps Jean Simmons’s face to calm her hysteria in Angel Face.
Interesting behind-the-scenes from here:
But Reagan’s character was SUPPOSED to be an evil bastard in The Killers. Nothing he does is supposed to indicate what acceptable behavior is.
Bur for most of the movie, Maureen is mad at the Duke because he’s too mellow and WON’T fight!
I dunno. A couple years ago, the guy who was living with me made me and a friend sit down and watch an old episode of The Honeymooners with him. He’d been telling me how knee-slapping hilarious The Honeymooners was, and neither my friend nor I had ever sat through an entire episode. He laughed and chuckled and slapped his knee through the entire episode. My friend and I just blinked at each other. When it was finally, mercifully, over, he looked at me all butthurt, trying to figure out why I hadn’t really been all that amused. Note, there was no actual wife-slapping in that particular episode. I never know if the husband ever made good on his threat to punch his wife straight to the moon. I was just appalled and horrified that people were once so entertained by the notion of a presumably loving married couple sniping at each other and treating each other like complete shit. She was a shrewish harpie who was condescending and disrespectful. He was a clueless arrogant asshole who was condescending and respectful. How was this ever a model of a great marriage? People really looked to this show for ideas about what marriage should be like?
I guess I’m just not entertained by seeing people treat each other badly. Because it’s not entertainment to me, it’s just real life. I can look around me and see that all day long.
I hear this kind of complaint about ***The Honeymooners ***a lot, and it’s never made a bit of sense to me.
If you just don’t think it’s funny, fine- tastes vary. But the idea that the show condoned spousal abuse is just silly, because Ralph Kramden would never have dared lay a hand on Alice, and they both knew it.
Alice was unmistakeably the boss in that household! Ralph’s threats to send her “to the moon” were empty and feeble, and frequently delivered AFTER Alice had put him in his place and left the room.
She intimidated him, not vice versa.
It wasn’t, and no.
I did not suggest at all in my post that the show condoned abuse, nor that Ralph was the perpetrator of abuse. It was clear that Alice intimidated him with her bullying, assholilsh behavior. His empty threats to pop her in the face was less than a mature way to handle it. It wasn’t a matter of – for me, anyway – labeling one spouse abusive over the other, or saying that one was dominating the other. I just thought they both treated each other rudely and disrespectfully and it’s not funny. It’s just two mean-spirited people treating each other like shit, not as if they value and deeply love one another, is not amusing or entertaining to me. Perhaps bullying and haranguing your husband until he threatens violence before kow-towing to your manipulations is funny where you live, but it just doesn’t do shit for me.
FTR: My parents used to quote this show at each other all the time. I didn’t know they were using quotes from a show, because I’d never seen The Honeymooners. I just thought my dad and stepmom didn’t like each other very much and thought treating each other like shit was funny. I thought the reason people get married was because they* like *each other, not to have a convenient whipping boy/girl for the rest of your life.
I’m not a big fan of The Honeymooners. But your description of the show is a caricature. It was a show about a loving, if bickering, couple. Which is a description of about 90% of all home-set sitcoms since. And before, if radio is included.
If you hate it, fine. All reactions to art are equal. I’m just saying that when other people praise the show it’s not because they approve of abuse. The show they see doesn’t contain the stuff you describe.
I guess I just don’t see the love there. All I see is the bickering. I’ve never found watching a couple take pot shots and snipe at each other as entertaining. Note: I don’t care much for this in modern sit-coms either, which is probably why I don’t watch any.
Were the Kramdens ever shown kissing and making up, or being genuinely kind or affectionate toward one another?
Half the episodes end with “Baby, you’re the greatest!” and an embrace/kiss.
Exactly. There were more endings like like than on almost any other show except I Love Lucy. A show legendary for the explosive outbursts of the husband at the antics of his wife.
What I like about that scene in Philadelphia Story is that he is about to smack her a good one (a punch, not a slap)… and she doesn’t even flinch.
Sure, like anyone is going to accept your recollection of Cary Grant’s character in The Philadelphia Story.
I fell on my keys.