I really enjoyed watching a movie called Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons ... until its end. It's a fun, comedic takeoff on finding enlightenment and has a good message ... until its end. There it was: the gender oppression.
The plot: two demon hunters are in love with each other, but the male refuses the woman's love because he's trying to find enlightenment and believes that there is great love and small love. When she dies, his remorse brings him to enlightenment, and he realize that there is no "great and small love."
I am sick of plots in which a woman dies in order for a man to become enlightened. Or plots in which her death gives him the apparently requisite rage to finally conquer his enemy—who, of course, killed her.
Women's lives are not props for a man's story or his victory. A woman's death should mean more than its relationship to a man. Think for a moment about the results of a woman's death constantly portrayed in films as having no importance beyond its impact on a man.
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This is called fridging, and I have a few links for this that might interest you: http://lby3.com/wir/ http://tvtropes.org/pmwik
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Great minds think alike. Thanks so much for your comments!
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Thank you! I've been making this argument for years and unfortunately have sometimes felt like a lone voice in the wilderness. I
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Thank YOU for your supportive words, and for being willing to speak out for years despite sometimes feeling like a lone wolf. And