When the movie “First Wives Club” came out in the fall of 1996, the men’s movement had never done a multi-city protest. The internet was new and the possibilities endless. Within 10 days a 25-city protest was organized that received a historic quantity of national attention.
Our point was not to urge a boycott of the movie, but to do an informational picket at movie theaters everywhere reminding people that the movie was not a comedy – rather – it was the best documentary ever filmed on sexism in America.
As it turned out, a lot of people in media and the theaters we picketed agreed with us. Some movie reviewers rated it that way. You can see articles reporting our efforts in Time Magazine and the Washington Post (which agreed with us).
For those who have not seen “First Wives Club”, here is the basic plot line: Three women who have supposedly been abused by their husbands terrorize them, steal their money, kill their businesses, destroy their lives, and abuse them in just about every way imaginable. The husbands in the movie are portrayed as nice guys who apparently never did anything wrong and are shocked at what is going on.
First Wives Club is truly a sick attempt to popularize Valerie Solanis’s ultra-radical hate of men with a sour candy coating. It is raw sexism equivalent to views once held by the Ku Klux Klan towards blacks.
Our protesting was quite successful. The movie did not last long in the theaters, despite the huge opening. The uproar caused Universal to cancel the sequel which was already scripted and headed to pre-production.
Unfortunately, theatrical feminists in San Diego have not learned their lesson. The Old Globe Theater is resurrecting a theatrical version of this diatribe, opening July 15 and running through August 23.
We need a dedicated group of activists in the San Diego area to contact the Globe management, express these truths, and then leaflet the dickens out of the Globe every possible night educating the public about the indefensible hate this play attempts to profit from.
The only difference between racism and sexism is the target of hate. Anybody who thinks hate is funny needs a good lesson in their face until they get it right.
