When I took my fiance to see Little Women with me, I feared that we were about to have two different experiences.
I, having both read the book growing up and adored the 1994 film adaption, would sit crying in the theater, and he, having absolutely no familiarity with the story, would turn charitably toward me afterward and say, “That was nice.”
Instead, he loved it.
After the film ended, we walked out of the theater talking about how Little Women dealt with women’s issues in a way that didn’t feel partisan or preachy and how it also touched on universal themes such as grief, family, and finding your calling.
We all wrestle with those experiences, though women experience them in our own way. That doesn’t make Little Women a “chick flick.”
Nevertheless, I’m willing to entertain the idea that it’s not for all men. Little Women does not, however, have a men “problem,” as writers at the Washington Post and the New York Times have proclaimed. Most men aren’t interested in it, and that’s not the result of some offshoot of the patriarchy.
There is a legitimate concern that the star-studded, beautifully shot, and brilliantly directed film will be snubbed this awards season. The male powers that be in Hollywood may not be its biggest fans. But when it comes to the film’s broader audience, that’s not the case at all.
In fact, 39% of moviegoers were men. Wall Street Journal critic Joe Morgenstern, a man, named Little Women one of the best films of the year. In his review, he called it “an ostensible women’s film that should appeal equally to men, if they’ll give it a chance. Enormous emotions know no gender.”
Overzealous feminist writers may complain that men have “fragile masculinity” or some complex that keeps them from going to see a film about women, but that really isn’t the case. The film has made more than $50 million thanks to many women who read the book as children (e.g., me) and some new (male) fans.
But instead of giving the film its due, some conservative commentators, from Washington Post contributor and Rebeller editor-in-chief Sonny Bunch to National Review’s Kyle Smith, have gone out of their way to proclaim that men don’t have to go see it. “It’s a peculiar feature of our culture that men who behave in predictably masculine ways find themselves chastised and scolded for not being more feminine,” Smith wrote.
Of course, men shouldn’t be scolded for not seeing the movie. But that misses the point.
Men can enjoy Little Women for a variety of reasons. One, it will help them understand women better, and hasn’t that been their great desire for a millennium? Two, it is not actually just for women. Yes, Louisa May Alcott herself said she didn’t find the story too interesting — “So I plod away,” she wrote in her diary, “although I don’t enjoy this sort of thing” — but director Greta Gerwig’s adaptation of the classic novel is a beautifully rendered film that touches on not just “women’s issues” but human nature.
Entertainment reporter Kevin Fallon wrote that Gerwig “finds impeccable ways to tap into the specificity of how gender impacts her lead characters, but also the universality of their ambitions.”
In A Handful of Authors, English philosopher G.K. Chesterton wrote that one iconic scene in Alcott’s Little Women, the German professor’s proposal to Jo, was “one of the really human things in human literature.” He added that “when you read it you feel sure that human beings have experienced it often.”
Apparently, lots of men agreed with Chesterton, and they certainly showed up to movie theaters. So those complaining that men were afraid to see Little Women were wrong. But those protesting that men needn’t be interested in seeing the film also missed the point.
The conversation surrounding Little Women points to a larger trend in discussions about feminism between liberals and conservatives. Liberals overshoot their arguments, contending not only that women’s issues matter but that men must be concerned with them to any extent that feminists demand. Then conservatives reflexively reply that they don’t have to pay attention to women’s stuff and that it’s a free country, by golly!
It’s too bad they can’t meet in the middle. There’s a great movie there.
