COUNTERPUNCH LETTERS : The ‘Short Cuts’ Debate Over Misogyny

When are people going to realize that a filmmaker’s examination of misogyny does not make the director a misogynist (“Robert Altman’s ‘Short Cuts’ Is a Blunt Attack on Women,” Nov. 29)?

I saw “Short Cuts” and walked away very disturbed. Admittedly, I got really tired of looking at female pubic hair (especially when the absence of male pubic hair was so noticeable). However, what disturbed me was the sad distance women as a sex have come.

It stands to reason that, as the physically stronger sex, men in this century will only allow the women to go so far before they reign them in with violence or antipathy. Altman’s a realist, not a misogynist. He’s holding the mirror up to life, which, in its cruelty, shatters our complacency and hopefully makes us think twice before we quash the intelligence and creativity that women can bring to the game.

Applaud the man who can see it and wisely bring it up for all to see.

LINDA GOETZ

Los Angeles

*

Having lived for almost seven decades, I was able to perceive a lot more balance than did Sandy C. de Grijs in “Short Cuts.” The underlying theme of “Short Cuts” was how little sensitivity people have--male and female--and how increased awareness and honest communication could improve all of our lives.

What de Grijs cites as the best example of Altman’s attack on women--Matthew Modine’s character confronting his wife about an old affair while she walks around semi-nude, leaving him “cowering and pathetic”--I saw as an exposure that, while men can fantasize about nudity, when confronted with it they are out of their element, not in control of their feelings.

Altman did a masterful job in portraying the tragedy of life due to our lack of sensitivity (awareness) and communication.

ANNE S. PAUL

Laguna Beach

Gender Wars, Part II

How fitting that your recent section featuring Will Bryant and Warren Farrell should be called Counterpunch, a brutal image so appropriate for the twin celebrations of brutality that graced it today (“A Gender Bias in ‘Short Cuts’? Debate Goes On,” Dec. 13).

Bryant makes a callow analysis of “Short Cuts” and condescendingly finishes, in the manner of “real” men everywhere, by telling writer Sandy de Grijs, “trust me” while explaining what she ought to have felt about the film, what it actually showed about relationships between men and women.

Farrell makes much of the existential Angst of men. It’s true that many men, especially minorities and the poor, have a rough time in our society, but, almost without fail, women have it rougher. The rules of patriarchy are: older or more powerful men dominate younger or less powerful men; men dominate women.

Farrell seems unaware of this. He succinctly sums up “The Piano” for us but overlooks the primal fact and metaphor, surely noticed with pleasure and recognition by most women who viewed this film, of the brutal economic system that sent women off into bartered marriages with brutal, selfish men where the women were expected to willingly, even gladly, exchange sexual access for economic support.

J. L. PHILLIPS

Capistrano Beach

*

“The Piano” is a disturbing film to me. Isn’t this woman manipulating and blindly abusing these two men through what amounts to sexual teasing? And don’t both men seem to be excessively and unbelievably restrained?

Ada seems to have no idea what she is doing. Does she know that she arouses? Does she care? Ada gives nothing, no flicker of recognition, no apparent acknowledgment of rekindled desire--she is mute in more ways than one. Still, both men keep trying.

I saw a story of a blindly domineering female and unbelievably accommodating men with wonderful acting and beautiful production detail. Taken all together, it’s not a very pretty picture. Nobody wins.

SHELBY HIATT

Los Angeles