Today we’re going to talk about a newly released movie. French cinema, always committed to social causes, brought us this feature film by the director. “Am I not an easy man? It’s a romantic comedy that reverses gender roles and is pretty tragic. A film full of easily recognizable and standardized clichés and stereotypes that become terribly painful when the opposite sex suffers.
The film, which can be found on Netflix, shows a world in which women hold leadership positions, are “heads of the household” and in which men are victims of street harassment, sexual violence and discrimination of all kinds. A parallel reality in which the feminine is considered inferior, but this time that is what characterizes men. A world that is absolutely ridiculous, but whose mirror, our reality, is quite normal.
- Damien is the protagonist of this film.
- An extremely sexist character.
- With clearly patriarchal attitudes.
- Treat women as sexual objects at their service.
- He has built a brilliant career in the world of advertising.
- Often resorting to every sexist cliché imaginable.
- Damien feels great about himself.
- Playing the role of male.
- That has given him the patriarchal system.
After a blow to the head, Damien wakes up in a world he doesn’t recognize, it’s your life, but it’s upside down. She wakes up in a world like hers, except that in this reality it is women who behave in a masculine, sexist and patriarchal way, men have been relegated to the same roles as women in their previous world.
The approach of? Am I not an easy man? This film does not show us a different world, it does not show us a world with feminine values, the predominant values are still masculine, but in this case it is not men who impose them, but women.
Caring for children and family, underestimating work, easy jokes about their bodies, sexual harassment, hair removal, infidelity, sexual violence, singles . . . All patriarchal clichés are absolutely normal in this world, but they attack men.
Damien, horrified by the discriminatory treatment he is subjected to, joins a group of “masculinists. “Masculinists are men who fight for their rights against the oppression of a system that considers them inferior, a system that assigns roles to men who can hardly be left out, so he is also assaulted and defamed. Not only for women, but also for many men who accuse masculinists of homosexuals, nor do they believe that there is anything to change in this abusive reality against men.
When Damien awakens in this parallel world, he meets a woman who is his reflection, a dominant, successful, manipulative, sexist and arrogant woman who sees men as something that can be used to his advantage, begin a very strange love story and a kind of redemption for Damien. Although the end of, I’m not an easy man, it may seem predictable, it’s not. In fact, the whole film is an effort to show the absurdity of gender roles and how essential it is to educate for equity.
The film is a bet to destroy once and for all gender differences and demonstrate that they are arbitrary constructions, with no biological basis, but that they were created and maintained to control a part of the population. A highly recommended film, whose purpose invites us to think personally about ridiculous and harmful sexist attitudes, micromaquisms and the patriarchal system. “Am I not an easy man? It is a masterpiece that offers us the opportunity to see clearly the unequal nature of our society, and not thus immersing ourselves in a complete cognitive dissonance.