A Woman In A Man’s World

Emma Burrows
Mar 28, 2019
3 min read

Intro

The other week I watched What Men Want and I must admit that I was probably far too excited for the release of this movie... unfortunately this resulted mostly in disappointment.

I think I can safely assume that we’ve all watched What Women Want, starring Mel Gibson and Helen Hunt, right? If not, spoiler alert! This movie shows us the transformation of the arrogant chauvinist, Nick, who is an advertising executive. Nick has an accident and wakes up to realise that he can hear women’s thoughts. He uses this to try to further his career and outwit his boss but, as all romantic comedies go, he finds a romantic interest in Darcy (his female boss).

Well... What Men Want was pretty much a rendition of this narrative. The only issue being that it wasn’t as good.

Gender Stereotypes

What Men Want portrays gender stereotypes to the point of exhaustion.

I just kept thinking to myself, “okay, we get it!" Yes, women can be emotional, irrational, and competitive but men can be these things too. And, do you know what, whilst men can be obnoxious and rude, so can women. This film, unfortunately took these stereotypes and made them so blatant that, in my opinion, the characters became more like caricatures.

There was so much judgement in this movie: it almost felt like an attack on masculinity and the male identity. The portrayal of phallocentrism was reductive and, at times, simply wrong. The most striking comment in this movie was when Ali (the female protagonist) said to Will that all men want is to “get paid and get laid.” She says this after being able to hear men’s thoughts for days, so surely she must have known that this simply wasn’t true. Will tells her how wrong she is and, whilst a bit cringe-worthy, he tries to tell her that men and women want the same thing.

Now, I thought that this was the turning point in the movie; the point when Ali realised that men are not the enemy, but no. After this scene she goes on to ruin her best friend's wedding and another best friend’s marriage by outing her homosexual husband! Okay, their husbands (to be) were unfaithful but surely there is a better time or way for her to express her concerns?

For Ali, men are the enemy throughout this entire movie up until the time she hits her head again and loses her ability to hear men’s thoughts. Only then does she realise that she was her own worst enemy. Ali uses Will and Ben to further her career, she hurts her best friends, and she tries to restrain Brandon’s career development.

I take it that the film attempted to approach the topic of gender inequality, in particular women's inequality within patriarchal society, but it did this so so poorly.

Humour

As we all expect from Rom-coms, this movie included a lot of humour. My favourite scene in the entire movie had to be the moment when Ali wakes up from spending the night with Will only to find Ben stood there with her underwear on his head. Ben asks to “borrow“ her mask and says “Welcome to Wakanda!” I was hysterical! BUT, this scene was also shown in the trailer.

Why is it that the best scenes are always in the trailer!?

Should I Watch It?

If you’re asking yourself, should I watch this film? The answer is yes, as I’m sure it will make you laugh. But don’t pay to watch it; wait until it’s on Netflix!

In contrast to the two people I watched this movie with (who are certain they’ll never watch this film again), I‘ll probably watch it again one day. Possibly when I’m in the mood to watch a crappy but funny movie. I won’t, however, be adding this to my blu-ray collection.

What Women Want, though, will forever stay in my top 10 movies!

Give it a watch and let me know what you thought :-)

*All images are courtesy of Google Images*