I have a habit of watching Netflix, thanks to Netflix, especially the Maid series.
But one thing that's surprising is that these TV series consciously or unconsciously portray men as villains, making it easy for people to slide into a hatred of men.
This is not righteous anger, but a stupid, fanatical disgust for the male community.
"The Maid" was released last year, and it is already one of the standout achievements of Netflix in 2021. (Announced last week, it would replace "The Queen's Bet" as the highest-rated Netflix miniseries.)
The show is the spiritual food of many women, and after a few late nights, episode after episode, I can see why. The play is based on a true memoir of an American woman who escapes her abusive boyfriend to support herself and her young daughter by working as a cleaner. The film stars Margaret Qualley, the daughter of Andy McDowell, who plays the destructive, polarized (but still sexy) mother.
The Maid is well written and well acted, but the secret to its success lies in some rather unique place. What makes it unique is that each male character is the ultimate horror and evil.
Yes, every man in the play is a negative character.
There are fathers of infant abusers who oscillate between violence and remorse; The maid's father, another domestic abuser; There is also a series of cunning, greedy stepfathers. Playing other male roles is also shocking: ruthless landlord, arrogant doctor. Even men we've never met, but only heard of, are abusive. The only man who initially looked decent was a lad named Nate who rescued our heroine from her homelessness. But then he chased her away again because she didn't want to sleep with him. (According to social media reports, this is a typical "poison knight.") ）
The review said that "The Maid" is "very ugly, but it must be seen". Well, that's not true. "The Maid" is not uncomfortable to watch, which is why it is so popular, but why it is also harmful. It's about turning disgust into a powerful female A-movie. Everyone sits down, get a bucket of popcorn, and enjoy the feeling of throwing hatred and disgust at men, to all men.
And I'm afraid I did. After brushing up on the play, I drank my favorite drink, just drank a little, and it tasted good. I asked my husband how he felt as an oppressor class. I accused him of male preaching–I felt rounded and content when the word came out of my mouth. I looked back at any strange, unsolicited impulses of my past and suddenly saw that it was part of the male sin continuum that ended with the beating of the wife. I completely forgot that men used to suffer between a woman's legs and that a woman can be as ferocious as a bag of rats.
My journey to power lasted 24 hours. At breakfast the next day, I remembered that I wasn't oppressed in any way, and I began to understand why Maid had such an effect. Netflix is offering a placebo. If you brainwash women and say all men are bad, then all women will immediately become victims. If you're a victim, all the free-floating guilt —about privilege, about the ecology of the planet, about parenting—will disappear.
I suspect it's ubiquitous now, and this almost invisible paranoia that penetrates into our hearts through Netflix and Amazon Prime—what french philosopher Élisabeth Badinter called 'the militant neo-feminist dualistic thinking'. For example, there is 2019's "Thunderbolt Baby"; And then there's DC's spin-off, Asuka Episode: For two hours, no man is to be praised. How could it be something else? Think of all the forces at work, touching the hearts of writers, producers, and shareholders. Selling false solidarity to women sitting alone on the couch has big profits. Then there's the "sensitive reader." Someone should make a horror movie called "Sensitive Reader."
Am I wrong with my fears? My female friends think so. When I pointed out the problem with The Maid to them, they said it was a true story and that domestic violence was a serious problem that deserved to be better understood. I said, that's off-topic. This series is like a Cadbury selection box of male sin – no vice is not represented.
Can you imagine anyone today who would dare to make a gender-swappable version of this miniseries, starring a man who didn't make any mistakes? Come on, try it. We call it Baristas, and it goes something like this: An attractive young man and an alcoholic, coercive girlfriend who escapes from her one night with his children. His mother was reluctant to help him because she was also an alcoholic. He survived by working in a coffee shop but lost custody because the female judge hated men and was prejudiced against him. All the women he dated were PUA repeat offenders and gold worshippers, but in the end he found fulfillment in an all-male self-help group for victims of "female psychosis." What do you think? Can it be listed on Netflix?
Oddly enough, most of the people I spoke to didn't think men were snubbed on the screen, they agreed that it wasn't fair to women, it was just a form of revenge and didn't move at all. For at least a century, they say, the image of women on screen has been distorted. Male directors make films based on the creations of male screenwriters, representing women in the way men want to see. Now is the time to correct that balance! What a strange way of thinking??? So we should burn men, because men have burned witches? Should they take away their votes, and maybe their children? And what about our untouched girls, who quietly absorb this distorted truth and treat it as fact?
In the 1980s, American cartoonist Alison Bechdel proposed a test to measure the image of women in fiction. She said a book or a movie would only qualify if there were at least two women talking to each other about something other than men. Beshidder was joking at the time, but this was known as the "Becheder test" and is now widely used.
I think in 2022 we will need another version of the "Beshidel test", but this time in defense for men. If there isn't a single male character in any movie or TV series who is either useless or evil, then it's unqualified. If there is no better idea, we can call it a "maid" test.