A Hollywood habit that won't go away.

in hollywood •  3 years ago 

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One of my favorite movies is Michael Mann's 1995 film Heat.

There's a scene where Vincent (played by Al Pacino), a homicide cop gets called away from a party with his wife Justine (Diane Venroa) due to a, you guessed it, a murder.

When he gets back Justine is giving him shit for leaving and they have a conversation about how he's not "sharing".

This is a scene that stands out to me, whether Mann intended this or not, as a push back against the scene that we have seen a million times in movies involving guys in jobs like homicide detectives and FBI agents and wives that never seemed to get it throughout cinema history.

Vincent finally just says, and this is almost a direct quote, "What do you want? Do you want me to come home and say, 'Hey baby. You know what happened today? Today I walked into this apartment off Slauson because this junky cooked his baby in a microwave because it was crying to loud. So, let me share that with you; and, maybe...by sharing we can somehow cathartically dispel all this heinous shit."

These scenes always bothered me and still do. Heat finally had a moment that called it out; but, I just don't believe that the wife of a homicide cop wouldn't get why asking him about his day might not be the same as if the husband were a used car salesman. I've never bought that the wife of an FBI agent wouldn't get why he might need to be cagey about what he was doing all day.

I really am only commenting on a Hollywood habit. It's just incredibly rare that the gender roles are reversed in movies.

I don't know. Those scenes always ring false to me.

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