Millionaire Matchmaker= not anti-feminist?

Season two of Millionaire Matchmaker just premiered two Thursdays ago. Matchmaker Patti Stranger offers this courting service to the millionaires who are having trouble finding "the one". Stranger's goal is to successfully "cure" these millionaires from their poor dating habits and to find their perfect mate suitable for marriage. The millionaires of this show were all men up until this season. I unfortunately did not get the chance to catch the millionairess episode.

Being that the majority of her millionaire clients are men, Stranger treats her women candidates as objects. She tells them to show cleavage, wear high heels and basically look absolutely flawless when they attend the meet-and-greets. In the season premier, she actually told one of these hopeless woman victims that she was too fat for the men and that she needed to lose weight before she was presentable. Let's keep in mind that these millionaire men are no prized pigs themselves. In fact, they are more-often-than-not narcissistic, thoughtless, older and unattractive. And you would think some of them have never seen a woman before! Of course, this is where Stranger whips them into shape and shows them how to properly woo a woman.

For the above reasons, I felt that a lot of women (and hopefully some men out there- the few that would even watch the show) would feel that Millionaire Matchmaker is incredibly anti-feminist. But I was surprised to find a few entries online that opposed my accusation- including an interview with Stranger herself. In an interview with Zap2It.com, Stranger states the following:

"'The rules never change. Men are men, and women are women," she says. "No matter how many times you think you're going to be equal to a man or you're going to become more the man, you're just going to emasculate the man. Then you're going to have a child on your hands. You really have to be a woman, a feminine woman. People think that's anti-feminist, but it's not.'"

In the rest of the interview, she defends this position more by saying that she believes a couple is the most successful if they assume their traditional gender roles. In other words, men will always be physical creatures, so women must be as physically appealing as possible in order to attract them.

After reading this interview with Stranger, I'm starting to see her point of view. Men do not have an anti-feminist mind. If they see a woman who is at least slightly sexually appealing they will seek her. If they are not intrigued, then they won't. This is how the world works, unfortunately. It's that plain and simple.

The upside to all of this is that Stranger does put these men in their place. If they are being an asshole or are seeking a woman way above their own level of attractiveness, she will call them out on it and tell them that they need to be more realistic in their expectations. At least we have SOME justification.

It's your fault that he's just not that into you...

Last weekend, I saw He's Just Not That Into You. I knew the reviews were not the best, but I was intrigued by the book's success. I've never personally read the book but nearly ALL of my girl friends have read it and swear that it changed their life for the better. To sum up my experience of the movie, I was very disappointed.

I was told by my friends that the book is supposed to be self-help. It's purpose is to make girls feel better about themselves and to know that the jerk that they're dating is the problem- not them. The movie makes all of the females look like naive idiots who have no game. Scarlett Johanson's character is just a plain slut who thinks the married man she's seeing would somehow be a great husband for HER one day. Jennifer Aniston's character has a common law marriage with a man who wants to be with her forever but not marry her for some reason (but at least she finally cracks). Drew Barrymore's character has no style and falls for men on myspace like a thirteen year old girl. Ginnifer Goodwin's character probably has the worst game compared to any other tragic female character in Hollywood.

All of the men in this movie justify their positions very well. They are to the point and barely dwell on their flaws. In fact, the screenwriters make them look calm, cool and collected. And of course all of the women go crazy. All they do is dwell on their jerk boyfriends and husbands. They also tell each other what THEY are doing wrong and how they need to change themselves in order for the men to like them. Eventually, most of the relationships turn out for the "better." But one of the relationships bothers me the most.

Actors Jennifer Aniston and Ben Affleck play the long term couple who have a common law marriage. Ben Affleck never doubts his affections for her, but he is absolutely terrified about actually marrying the woman he loves. They are actually broken up a majority of the film because of his noncommittal ways but eventually get back together. They get back together because Aniston's character submits to his marriage-less standards. However, the predictable script ends with Affleck surprising Aniston with a proposal. But in the proposal he admits that even though he doesn't believe in marriage, he is willing to basically do it just to make her happy. Even though this pacifies the non-analytical viewer, I think that these actions make Aniston just look like a high maintence character because Affleck's character never agrees that marriage is actually the right thing to do. He just submits and in turn, looks like a "sweet" boyfriend.

This movie oddly made me feel more pessimistic about men and marriage. It seems like they all just submit to marriage in order to make us shut up and stop bugging them. I thought the book was created to make men look like the idiots- not women. The movie had the opposite effect.

Russ Bickerstaff offers interesting facts and opinions about the book and movie in his article " Book vs. Movie: He's Just Not that Into You." It seems like this project was doomed from the start and that the actual male authors of the book aren't that into the readers.