Anti-male propaganda - The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio (2007) Discussion

[–] Midon 18 years ago

That's silly - it's a true story and fyi - my Father of the same generation was alot like Kelly Ryan (and there were so many around like that) - it's pro-Evelyn propaganda - because she managed the situation! Jane Anderson didn't make the story up she brought it to screen which is a blessing and as others have said - it would make a great stage play!!

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[–] brittbevis 18 years ago

I think the lack of replies speaks for itself!

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[–] patchesdf 18 years ago

It's not so much anti-male, it's just the father is such a totally useless piece of ****. Banging 10 kids out of his wife like a breeder cow when he obviously has a job that obviously can't support them, you can just as easily blame that on the Catholics. The kids hide in the closet like a bunch of crazy people while rubbing rosary beads to pray for divine intervention.

This family doesn't need divine internvention or $3000 in prizes to get them out of the hole. They need someone to go through that house with framethrower, several grenades and a machine gun and scuttle the lot of them.

That doesn't mean I hated the movie, I liked the movie, I liked its honesty. But I still think that family needs a j-damn up the wazzo and the ending was proof.

"This was the first time I ever ate a meal I didn't have to cook, off a plate I didn't have to wash, and bathed in a tub I didn't have to scrub."

If that's your life and you have not even thought about suicide, you are insane.

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[–] 18 years ago

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[–] kohlerdeb 18 years ago

I debate as to whether I should post a reply to your message. I was afraid it would look as if I support, that is not the case. I know this is a free country and we are allowed to voice our opinions, but some things should just be left UNSAID..need i say more!!!

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[–] a-n-i-l-a-n-d-s 12 years ago

You're an idiot.

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[–] kendog792001 18 years ago

Dude that is hilarious! F 'em if they can't take a joke.

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[–] Everyone_loves_Alyssa_77 18 years ago

maybe she wanted the kids too...it takes 2 people to make a baby...and 2 people to kno the consiquences of having sex before they do it..being a mom is hard work...1 kid or 10.... any mother in america would LOVE a day off...but it doesnt mean they dont love there kids! take a reality check...ask your mom if how she would feel if she had a day off huh??

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[–] jordangirl 18 years ago

It also was at a time when the options we have not weren't as available ~ plus being a Roman Catholic family, they wouldn't be an option anyway ~ and wives weren't necessarily as free to say no.

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[–] captmarkmaui 17 years ago

Happy to see that YOU won't be breeding. What the world really doesn't need is any more self-absorbed little pr**cks like yourself. I would pity any poor child unfortunate enough to end up with such a selfish, useless twit as yourself for a parent.
Check you out again in about 30 years. You have SO much love to offer... no doubt we'll find you living alone and talking to yourself... or maybe the odd housecat.
Enjoy the rest of your miserable, lonely life... No one will miss you when you're gone.

captmark

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[–] readyeddie9 17 years ago

hmmmmmmmmmm..........too bad his point was valid and you didnt hammer away on that. Wonder who and what youare by that reply.

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[–] rygel_da_16th 17 years ago

"Enjoy the rest of your miserable, lonely life... No one will miss you when you're gone."

This was much more uplifting and obviously steeped in wisdom. *eye roll*

Both of you need something to broaden your shallow perspectives...

"Maybe because I don't say say *beep* up things like that to people?"

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[–] charleecrat 15 years ago

Im afraid I will have to agree with you except for the flame throwing and violence however if I had been Mrs. Ryan I would have cut "father" off after the 1st sign of this behaviour. I guess that is not the catholic way but you can use common sense as birth control. You simply say No !.

Had she done that im sure he would have ske-daddled in a heart beat. Probably taking a 2nd or 3rd on the house before doing so LOL

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[–] GaelicLass 12 years ago

Big families were the norm back then due to lack of birth control and men who wouldn't hold back. We were lucky and then birth control came around the 60's and ended big families. All my aunts had 9-10 kids each.

Her ending is true of most wives of the times, but our big families did a lot of chores like dishes and cleaning to help out.

IMDb; where 14 year olds can act like jaded 40 year old critics...another poster

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[–] WhenGreyjoysCry 9 years ago

Well, she was party to it. She too decided to bang out 10 kids knowing they didn't have the resources.

"Gold buys a mans silence for a time. A bolt to the heart buys it forever"

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[–] rrtyson2 17 years ago

I think that there is a thread of feminism that runs through parts of the film, but I think that "Anti-male" is a bit strong. I think that it may take multiple viewings (or someone looking for it) to catch it.

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[–] dblouin 17 years ago

The feminism in this movie is of the most positive kind-not male bashing, not martyring of the woman, just simply showing that this particular woman was of a supremely strong resolve. She never tried to ostrascize her husband for his selfish and self-indulgent behavior; after her shopping spree, when Kelly is moping and feeling sorry for himself, she gently but persistently keeps inviting him to join in the fun of discovering the new flavors of the exotic foods she had chosen. She is also not unaware of his behavior-she says in the movie that he must be forgiven for his behavior-he lost his voice(presumably in a drunk driving incident, but the author, screenwriter and director don't belabor or even draw attention to that likelihood), while she kept hers.
She truly feels for her husband. But she isn't a milktoast doormat, either-she honestly and clearly expresses her concern to their priest. Unfortunately, he is also a drunk, and especially in that era it was typical to put the hearth and homelife squarely at the foot of the Mother. That this is appalling to some viewers now shows how far we have come from that viewpoint, at least on some level.
Anyway--
We spend far too much time trying to find negative "messages" (or positive ones for that matter) in movies, instead of first focusing on the STORY.
Let the story be told without categorization. Then look at it objectively-is the author truly trying to say something about society or women or men or whatever; or is the author simply telling a story, and the message, if there is one, is one for the viewer to attach, remembering that in doing so the viewer says much more about themselves than the author could ever do.
Evelyn was Evelyn, not a symbol or metaphor for Womankind; and Kelly was Kelly, not an example of the screenwriter's or author's opinion of men in general. To label this movie as "anti-male" is more indicative of the original poster's sense of identification with the male lead and feelings of inadequacy or impotence in the presence of strong women than it is an accurate reflection of the movie's intent.

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[–] Lady_Cersei 17 years ago

Saying the film is anti-male is just as generalizing as saying that one male portrayed represents all men.

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[–] generationswine 17 years ago

wasnt a bad movie. either this woman was perfect, which is highly unlikely, or she enjoyed the power she held over her weaker husband. too bad the oldest dike hated her father so much though.

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[–] dblouin 17 years ago

I must say, your user name is quite an accurate self-description.

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[–] Danusha_Goska 17 years ago

this movie is vomit inducing.

Don't know what else to say. if you don't get sick watching the psycho drama in this movie, you ... are not firing on all burners.

And, yes, the father character is treated shabbily.

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[–] Noir-It-All 17 years ago

The message to me was about choices. I think Evelyn had more choices than we are led to think. Not every Catholic family in the Baby Boom had ten kids. But, there were times, like the scene at the mortgage office, the loan officer's discounting the desire of a wife who earned the down payment in the nick of time would want to co-sign a loan, when I think that she was ready to break out of the strictures of the time.

"Two more swords and I'll be Queen of the Monkey People." Roseanne

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[–] Mccadoo 17 years ago

Some of you are commenting as if this movie takes place in the 18th century for gods sake, it was the late 1950's and the 1960's!!

No one had to have ten kids if they didn't want to, yes, the Catholic Church forbade birth control but most people ignored that, otherwise there would have been a hell of a lot more ten kid families around. And people, yes, even Catholics, got divorced back then, lots of them. You could even get an annulment from the church, if you wrote them a big enough check.

I grew up in a Catholic household during this time, (I only have two sisters by the way), so I was there. My whole family was Catholic (my aunt was a nun!)and some of them got divorced, and none of them had ten kids.

Women could buy houses and take out mortgages and own businesses...imagine that! My mother was a CPA for gods sake. Did some men still treat women like objects? sure, was there still a glass ceiling in a lot of the business world, of course, but an intellegent woman could make her own way without any problem. They could even vote!!

I also grew up with an abusive alchoholic father in the house and I can tell all of you, she did more damage to those kids, and more of an injustice to them by not leaving her husband than by keeping him around. And don't say she had no choice because again, it wasn't the middle ages, lots of women had careers in the fifties and sixties, lots of women got divorced and lots of women were single mothers, not nearly as many as now I grant you but it happened quite regularly. I really doubt she would have been stoned to death or run out of town.

Choosing to stay in an abusive relationship scarred her children, you can see it all over the daughters portrayal of her father. And by the fact that out of ten kids, nine of them got the hell out of town as soon as they were able, that in itself speaks volumns. Keeping her kids in that environment was child abuse, I can tell you that from personal experience.

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[–] emilythebrave 17 years ago

I think people reading this movie as any kind of propoganda are saying more about themselves than the movie. If you think it's all right for a husband and father to get liquored up every night and scare the poop out of everyone, you're a really screwed up person. Were they supposed to portray that in a positive light? Surely that cannot be the original poster's intent.

Exactly one man in this movie is portrayed particularly negatively, because he's an alcoholic, abusive SOB. Family sizes were indeed larger (though, yes, 10 would've still stood out) and divorce, among everyone, not just Catholics, was relatively rare even as "recently" as 50 years ago, and it did seem she enjoyed all her kids and being a housewife. Careers outside the home were far rarer and harder to pursue as well. So, she chose to treat her husband with kindness, sympathy and understanding. He didn't deserve it, and maybe she should have left him, anyway, but it doesn't seem she treated that as an option at all, which really makes me question how this is so "anti-male."

Yes, by today's standards, it may seem abusive to stay with a husband such as this, but conventional wisdom until around the 1970s was that divorce was just about the most traumatic thing one could do to a child, and people frequently stayed together, the expression I believe was "for the sake of the children." The idea of divorcing to benefit one's children would've sounded insane.

I have, by the way, even known people my own age, by which I mean born in the 1970s who consider a man who is supported by his wife, or even just makes less money than she does, to be a useless layabout. I disagree thoroughly, as does Mr thebrave, but a great many men even today consider it a humiliation not to be able to take care of his family.

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[–] TheEmulator23 15 years ago

Alcoholism is what many of the men did. Functional drunks. I don't care who says that it doesn't run in the family because it sure as hell does. This isn't a Hollywood picture by any means, but it didn't pull punches as far as the men were concerned. My entire family struggles w/addiction. I don't need any medical evidence or tests that eventually will prove it runs in the family either. The film wasn't bad.

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[–] gwaring2002 15 years ago

Of course, all white men are alcoholic wife abusers. He was probably a racist as well. If men are not all those things then they are buffoons.

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[–] 15 years ago

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[–] mv5 14 years ago

Troll..? I hope?

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[–] 14 years ago

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