I was talking with a friend today about Hallmark movies because we all seem to have at least one grandma who loves them around this time of year, and we're hashing out the tropes they all share because they're so formulaic that you could probably boil it down to a mad libs prompt, and something dawned on me because of one particular similarity, not in every film, but a lot of them - the Heroine quitting her high-stress executive job to move to a quaint little town and settle down with Mr. Right. It struck me as deeply misogynistic that the movies imply she can't have both and that her career goals aren't worth it compared to getting some dick.
The other side of that coin is, in almost every single one of these movies, the guy is a Prince who needs to marry, or secretly loaded, or otherwise financially stable unless the plot revolves around his family whatever on the brink of closure that the Heroine steps in to help save the day, and he's shown to be a good-if-distant dad to his kids, if he has any, but needs help raising them because work keeps him busy, or his nanny's retiring. It's never implied that he should be the one giving up his lifestyle to be a better partner for her; The only thing Mr. Right is ever doing wrong in these movies, if anything, is just not already being with her, and I get that these films are basically wish fulfillment fics, but she is always the one who has to make a change for him, to basically be a stay at home mom, or step closer to it than she was at the beginning of the film. Does anybody else see that? Am I wrong in thinking that's absolutely fucking greasy?
Not to veer too far from your original post, but I feel the same way about torture in Disney Pixar movies.
Every single one has a torture scene- torture defined as "I'll hurt you in some way if you don't give me information or do XYZ for me"
Toy story - "where are your rebel friends now?"
Toy story 2 - " you can go to Japan together or in pieces. If he fixed you once he can fix you again , now get in the Box!!!"
Toy story 3 " not the nehru jacket from The Groovy formal collection" (Ken as he is tied up and being tortured by barbie) " where's that manual!?!?"
I could go on forever, pick a kids movie from those publishers, there is a torture scene in it, for some reason.
I think Trends and patterns like what you describe are worth exploring because they give us warped senses of reality. There's a large swath of the population right now that believes torture works to produce good information or cooperative captives, that does not actually match up with reality. Much like what you describe, I imagine there are a lot of unhappy women out there because they watch these Hallmark movies
I just look at these movies now and I can't help but get this weird incel vibe from them? I dunno. The only other torture scene I can think of from a Disney movie is the Incredibles, but that was more for Syndrome to gloat at Bob.
Oh there's so many more
They strap Mike Wazowski to the machine and try to suck his face off or the screams out of him so that he tells Randall where the kid is in Monsters Inc
They literally torture a car to death in Cars 2. They want to know where the information is and he reveals that Mater has it. And at the end of the torture session his charred remains can be seen in a reflection.
In Finding Nemo, near the end when they're looking for Marlin again, they come across the two crabs that have seen him leave and the crabs say I'm not going to tell you where he went and there's nothing you could do to make me. Dory then holds him above the water and he starts screaming at the site of the seagulls that are eyeballing him " I'll talk I'll talk!!!"
Its literally every movie, someone gets tortured.
Think about how often you see someone get tortured in everyday life. PRACTICALLY NEVER. In the movies it's like quicksand, it's just one of those things that people seem to run into all the goddamn time for inexplicable reasons.
The problem is, it gives people an excuse to actually torture people. In fact, people are cooperative and offer information when they are cooperated with when they're promised protection, when they're treated with respect, when good things are done for them. When people are tortured they become more oppositional and more uncooperative. So in reality, torture doesn't work at all. People still torture people, because they think it works. It either produces bad information or no information. But they still do it because well they saw it in that movie where it worked, literally every children's movie they've ever seen. They saw in that one.
Holy crap, I've never thought about that.