Feminism & Revolutionary Road

Revolutionary Road is a tough movie for a woman who grew up after the women's movement of the 1970s to watch, but after watching it a couple of times I actually think that it should be required watching for all young women who think that feminism is irrelevant. (Disclaimer, I am a consultant to the studio and organized a blogger screening for the film.)

The film tells the story of April and Frank Wheeler living the post World War Two "American dream" that morphs into the American nightmare. It is the era described in the Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan the book that articulated for women the "problem with no name" which Kate Winslet read while preparing for her role as April. She stated in an interview: "It was the era of prescription medication, you know, and women really starting to believe ...Maybe I'm crazy, because I don't want this life, I think there's something wrong with me.'" (The Guardian)

April and Frank were was supposed to be different. But they weren't. They were exactly the same as everyone on their boring suburban street and that's what was driving them both crazy. But the thing is that Frank had options and choices and given the fact that it is 1955, April did not. Frank went into the city everyday on the train with lots of other men to their boring jobs and April was stuck at home.

She had no choices, no options.

A scene that really shows April's suffocation is when she takes out the garbage cans and positions them perfectly on the curb. She then looks up and sees all the other garbage cans perfectly positioned on the curbs up and down the street. Her face at seeing all the cans, the disbelief that this has become her life is palpable. Juxtapose that with the scene of Frank standing on the train smoking and breathing in the fresh air and the suburbs fly by. He's free, she's in a box.

April wants out and does her best to get herself and her family out but Frank, who can't perceive the depths of her unhappiness because each day he escapes to his office and his lunches with the guys and his affair with a young woman who works in the office, is not in the same place. When April finds out she is pregnant for the third time it sends her over the edge. She knows that if she has another baby she is never, ever, getting out and she can't bear it. Women took abortion decisions into their hands in the days before it became legal, and April performs a DIY abortion which leads to devastating consequences.

Winslet shows that she is the greatest actress of her generation in her portrayal of April Wheeler. She is able to raise Leonardo DiCaprio's performance to another level and he should be thanking her for all his glowing notices. April is a real feminist hero as the film's director Sam Mendes (and Winslet's husband) said in an interview about the film. "She's the only person in the movie that is big enough to face the truth. You know well this is not a movie about a woman who wants to go to Paris. It's a movie about a woman who wants her life back and can still remember the dreams she once had and is finally wakening up, which a lot of people do in their 30s and 40s, who go, 'How did I get here? This is not what I wanted." (LA Times)

Revolutionary Road shows what life was like for women before feminism. It's an important history lesson from the not too distant past. Watch it and read The Feminine Mystique and be thankful that there was a feminist movement or who knows what life would be like now.

Originally posted on: Women & Hollywood

Comments

[brooklyncitizen]

I think in many ways it is great that younger women today take feminist changes that were won for granted. There is no making an issue of whether women are equal they simply act the part and claim their equality. THe truth is that we had to go through the bra-bruning and marching to get to this place of ease.

Having said that, we do in fact live in a bubble in the USA. Women around the world remain victims of brutal oppression with very few, if any choices. THe US is further along in its expectations of equality especially in the workplace; you wouldn't want to be a woman in India that's for sure.

[coopersmom]

Bottom line, women are both inclined to fall into using sexual identity to get attention and to succumbing to being wives and mothers in lieu of building strong careers. Yes, the culture will push any woman who is the least bit ambivalent into traditional roles, but, if a woman makes it clear she wants options, they are there for the taking. How many uber successful women say that having children is the single most important thing they have ever done?

As a childless, relationship free woman, I finally had to acknowledge that 99% of women do not crave the free market challenges that I live for. It means I have to let the men I do business with know that I am all business, early on. Once they know that, there are rarely additional obstacles.

I wish that with liberation, woman had become more individualistic. That maybe 65% of them took the traditional route and 35% looked for a more unique journey. Alas, that doesn't seem to be the case.

[brooklyncitizen]

I see...this is the blame women post.

[ElBruce]

I do think that people could use reminders from time to time of the straitjacketed gender roles that society used to put people in.

Besides that, Kate & Leo are two of the fiercest actors working today - you could put them in a cardboard box and have them do a play about a paperclip and they could probably make it riveting. So I'm gonna definitely go see this anyways.

[texastrixie]

I don't know where all these women are who are putting their own dreams and desires ahead of their children. All I see is women who drag themselves out of the house everyday to (if they're lucky) help their spouse put food on the table, and if they're unlucky, try to fund the household all by themself.

Born in the first wave of baby boomers, I was mildly liberated. I married young, got a degree in a worthless liberal arts major, divorced and spent my life in a series of low-middling clerical desk jobs. I married again, and this time kept my name, and my own opinions.

I went from a society where SUPPOSEDLY some man was going to take care of you and the kids to the reality of a world where relying on anyone but yourself is a sure ticket to pain and suffering. All feminism did for women was make them face the fact that all those perfectly lined up trash cans didn't guarantee anything.

I have never worked with a woman who didn't spend the first week back from maternity leave crying more than her baby at the separation. And I have never met a woman, going through divorce, who didn't thank her lucky stars for having a job or career.

I do not think the problem in this world is feminism. I still the problem in this world is men - and I am married to the greatest guy in the world.

[Filegirl]

First of all, thanks for giving away the entire plot of the movie.

Secondly, the reason that younger women think that feminism is irrelevant is that it has become its own constricting box. Look at the grief younger women got who didn't vote for Hillary. Look at the grief Michelle Obama is getting for stating that her main focus for awhile will be getting her children adjusted to life in the White House.

Feminists talk a good game about respecting women's choices, but they clearly don't.

[maxfax]

You are wrong. Feminism is about having a choice, or don't you get that?

[zombie fairy]

Yes, but second wave feminists will certainly tell us when our choices are wrong.

[bhopeful]

They have not been de-powered...they were never empowered. Many women born in the 50's wanted nothing to do with feminism or the woman's movement. My mother is one of them. She married at 18, a month after high school graduation, with grand dreams of being a wife and mother. After her divorce in '79, she was a single woman with two children and no desire to stand on her own two feet. My sister and I grew up hearing our mother say she wanted a man to say those three little words to her "quit your job". She instilled in us that the perfect life was having a husband to support you and your children. It's hard to break out of that mindset no matter what you hear outside of your home. I thought I was a feminist. I scrapped the traditional marriage...kept my maiden name...I volunteer as a clinic escort...yet I am April...down to the third child I had wanted to abort and felt like a monster for admitting that to myself. I quit working 12 years ago when my first child was born and haven't been back since. I defended the act as true feminism...because I had the choice to stay at home. I line up my trashcans so my neighbors won't back out into them on their way to work....I'm living the life of quiet desperation.

[writerjohnny]

First of all any posting that includes key plot give-aways should be HEADLINED with a warning to people who don't want to get that info. Secondly, the idea that a guy who takes public transportation to work everyday while his wife stays at home is the key indicator of a woman's dilemma in that time period is seriously flawed. Not having "options" was a distant second to the severe mental and physical abuse and control exerted by "good" men over their women. I grew up on the Southside of Chicago in the 50s in a mostly Catholic neighborhood where beating wives and children was not only accepted but expected. It was the death spasm of complete male dominance. "Options" is such an elitist word as most working class people know that "options" are for the rich and particularly for the super rich. Let's see, will I be a truck driver or a plumber, a waitress or a hairstylist, a beggar or a thief?
Further, feminism wasn't invented in the 60s. American history is filled for hundreds of years with brave women fighting for equality against insurmountable odds.

[FabulousAt52]

"Options" is such an elitist word as most working class people know that "options" are for the rich and particularly for the super rich. Let's see, will I be a truck driver or a plumber, a waitress or a hairstylist, a beggar or a thief?


I see it differently.
"Options" (in reference to the changes between 1950 and 1970 - for women) means:

Let's see... should I go to college to find a HUSBAND who will take care of me and father my 3, 4, 6, 8 children? Hmmm... Or should I ..... try to find a husband *without* going to college, who will take care of me and father my 3, 4, 6, 8 children? Those were the options.
Now women have the option to be college educated to become wage earners and independent.
Lawyers, doctors, psychologists, scientists, professors, astronauts, and a whole slew of other career options are open to them.
But what do too many young girls dream of becoming when they "grow up"? Slutty pop stars and playboy bunnies and super-models.
Feminism did not cause the world as we know it to evolve into a society that needs two incomes to survive.... I won't even venture to say ANY one thing caused that. But it is what it is... My mom worked, and I worked for 20 years out of my 30 year marriage. It does not mean the ruin of the next generation simply because mother's have to work. Feminism is not to blame.
YMMV

[FabulousAt52]

I was born in '56. Had I been born just a few years earlier, I would have no doubt been a very active participant in the late 1960's -to-mid-1970's Women's Movement. I participated as only a young teen could; by observing, reading about, and evaluating "Feminist" ideals in magazines, news stories (many of them negative news stories, too!) and current events of the times.... and realizing Feminism was a necessary and viable alternative to the lifestyle my mother was 'stuck with'.

For me, Feminism has always meant one thing, (above all else) "OPTIONS".

Girls and young women in the generation following mine do take things for granted. Once things are taken for granted, it is so easy for them to slip away. Now girls start wearing gobs of make-up, jewelry, sexually provacative clothing, talking like street whores, using sex to 'catch boyfriends', (or steal them from other girls), and contemplating how soon they can get breast enhancements, all before they are old enough to drive!

In my day the "hippy chicks" and "feminists" didn't do much of that. Most makeup was shunned for the "natural look" and yet we FELT BEAUTIFUL without it! Oh we were wild... no doubt about it. I'm still no prude about sex, but back then, it still had an air of dignity, value and respect about it... not like today.

[Annemariefay]

Before or after seeing this film, you should read Richard Yates' novel. It is a masterwork
of American literature, THE novel capturing the desolation beneath the optimism of the
postwar baby boom years. The novel is subtle and brilliant in ways that no movie
can possibly capture, irrespective of how good the actors are. I certainly hope the film
will drive people to the novel, which was underrated in Yates' own day, but was
lauded by the best of his writing peers. As Sinclair Lewis's Babbitt was to the forties,
RR was to the early sixties.

[Bethab]

It's not that we think feminism is irrelevant. It's that second wave feminists have become irrelevant. When they say that any woman who does not vote for Hillary Clinton because she is a woman is "betraying the sisterhood", they have become irrelevant.

[butofcourse]

Wow, I really wanted to see this movie, but I think Ms. Silverstein dropped several spoilers that I was not expecting. Thanks a lot.

[texastrixie]

You must not have wanted to see it too much.

[StrangerThanFiction]

BORN IN 1950, I WATCHED AND PARTICIPATED IN THE EMANCIPATION OF WOMEN IN THE 70'S & 80'S. I SAW WOMEN MOVING INTO WORK AREAS PREVIOUSLY FORBIDDEN AND DESPITE NEVER REACHING TRUE SALARY EQUALITY...WE MOVED UP THE RANKS WORKING HARDER, LONGER, CARRYING BABY'S ON OUR HIPS, DEMANDING OUR RIGHTS AS AMERICAN CITIZENS.

I KEEP TRYING TO FIGURE OUT WHAT HAPPENED. TODAY'S YOUNG WOMEN HAVE NO LOYALTY TO EACH OTHER, THEY ARE VIOLENT AND HAVE NO QUALMS ABOUT USING THEIR BODIES TO GET WHAT THEY WANT...MEN...MONEY...MATERIAL ITEMS! I AM NO PRUDE, BY ANY MEANS...TRULY A LIBERATED LEFT-THINKING WOMAN WHO WILL NOT ALLOW ANYONE TO CONTROL MY THOUGHTS NOR DEEDS...EVEN 2 HUSBANDS WHO I LEFT WHEN THEY TRIED TOO MUCH CONTROL.

EVEN WOMEN MY AGE DRAG THEMSELVES TO LARGE CHURCH MONOPOLIES AND FOLLOW THE CROWD TO DO AND THINK ALL THE SAME. THE "STEPFORD WIVES" ARE THEY...AND WATCH AS THEIR DAUGHTERS AND GRANDDAUGHTERS THINK NOTHING OF FOLLOWING THE CROWD...WHICHEVER CROWD THAT MAY BE!!! BRAIN-DEAD!!!

THEY ALL HAVE BEEN DE-POWERED BY SOMETHING AND I WANT TO KNOW WHAT!!!

[zombie fairy]

The feminists who led the revolution had mothers at home to raise them. Today's girls are brought up by day care facilities, public schools, and television because their mothers are at work. The ugly thing that feminism doesn't acknowledge is that mothers like April Wheeler were there to teach their girls about right and wrong and make them strong. The impression that girls get when their mothers put their own desires above their childrens' needs - as many feminists have done and continue to do - is that they are not important, they are on their own. If you want to know what's happened to young women today, this is it: feminism happened.

[clevernamehere]

Lots and lots of women worked in the 1950s and before. Poor women and widows were not sitting around in the 1950s baking cookies, they were off earning the living their families needed to survive. It is a myth that prior to the feminist movement most women were at home spending quality time with their children. Far more were busy tilling the soil, working in a factory or waiting on someone wealthier than them.

If having a job or desires other than raising children makes someone a incompentant parent, where is your condemnation for men who work, particularly those who work long hours so they can achieve outside accolades rather than just what is needed to support their families?

[oxfordreader]

unfortunately or fortunately most brain development in human beings takes place in the first three years....therefore how a human is cared during this time for affects his/her ENTIRE life. if both parents are working and this care is given to other people, those people, and their emotional, psychological history will play a large part in the child's life. if parents want a greater hand in the development of their child, someone has to be with them a lot. not all the time, but for a good chunk of time. babies sleep A LOT so if you work full time you are likely to see your kid or or two awake hours during the day at most. if someone (a woman or man) builds a career, yes it's hard to get back to it after a long break to care for young kids, but that time doesn't have to be a sentence. today with many people working from home, online and for themselves, there are more options. but i'd hate to think that feminism would result in children not being properly cared for. just because you don't work (or work as much) when your kids are little, doesn't mean you're a housewife.

[bhopeful]

They have not been de-powered...they were never empowered. Many women born in the 50's wanted nothing to do with feminism or the woman's movement. My mother is one of them. She married at 18, a month after high school graduation, with grand dreams of being a wife and mother. After her divorce in '79, she was a single woman with two children and no desire to stand on her own two feet. My sister and I grew up hearing our mother say she wanted a man to say those three little words to her "quit your job". She instilled in us that the perfect life was having a husband to support you and your children. It's hard to break out of that mindset no matter what you hear outside of your home. I thought I was a feminist. I scrapped the traditional marriage...kept my maiden name...I volunteer as a clinic escort...yet I am April...down to the third child I had wanted to abort and felt like a monster for admitting that to myself. I quit working 12 years ago when my first child was born and haven't been back since. I defended the act as true feminism...because I had the choice to stay at home. I line up my trashcans so my neighbors won't back out into them on their way to work....I'm living the life of quiet desperation.