Of course, the ‘70s were a decade frought with Meaning anyway – new wisdom, new paradigms, discovering one’s self, getting in touch with one’s inner child/mystic/mother-in-law/what have you. What could have been (and was surely meant to be originally) a mildly engaging suspense yarn became a pseudo-drama, painting a picture of societal tensions present in the minds and op-ed columns of the sensitive intelligentsia at the time. Not bad for a Monday Night Movie on ABC.
Nathan Shumate is the proprietor of Cold Fusion Video Reviews and the publisher of Cold Fusion Media.
#1 by ProfessorKettlewell on August 8th, 2010
“As much as I hate to employ trendy critical methods, this movie cries out to be analyzed in the light of feminism”
Don’t apologise, please. The day the B-Masters start apologising for being educated and smart is the day I’ll know the world is f***ed.
Nothing inappropriate or ‘pretentious’ about applying a feminist critique to a text that obviously invites one. You’re correct that feminism wasn’t new in 1979, but 1979 was a year which saw a particularly nasty schism really begin to take effect; the one between the Liberal and Radical feminists (look, I’m paining with a broad brush here, I know). The liberals demanded equal pay and conditions, and the recognition of mothering and housekeeping as jobs that should carry a salary. The radicals demanded gender separatism, in varying degrees of extremity (eventually leading to the marriage-in-hell of the radical feminists and the fundementalist right.). The dissonance between the two groups became harsher and more aggressive as the decade wore on, and I don’t think what you’ve described in this movie as being unrelated to that conflict.