"The Way We Were" as a Case Study in Male Objectification

Media sources are reporting that tax refunds in 2019 following the Republican tax code overhaul are 8% lower than they were in 2018; but that hasn’t been my experience as a Tax Bwana: My clients seem to be getting significantly more money back.

Doug is still a reptilian weasel, but at least this year he’s pronouncing my name correctly. Hewitt has gained a significant amount of weight, which takes him off my list of Men I Might Want to Boff.

It was too cold to run when I got home from TaxBwana-ing, so instead I fell asleep.

When I woke up, I was too out of it to do anything but watch bad romcoms, so in rapid succession I viewed Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (which doesn’t actually qualify as a romcom), Two for the Road, and The Way We Were.

I really liked The Way We Were!

It’s one movie in which the male character is objectified much the same way that female characters are objectified in countless male cinematic fantasies. Offhand, I can’t think of any other movie that pulls this off. Robert Redford is almost as perfect and vacuous a blond shiksa as Cybill Shepherd was in The Last Picture Show. (Of course, Shepherd didn’t play shiksa in the movie but in the movie director’s actual life.)

Does seem like this particular fetishism is always a means of coping with social anxiety. The objet, imbued with effortless cool, is the ultimate magical accessory that will somehow get you to the top of the status chain from whose heights you can spit at those who tried to stand in your way before you found magic.

Of course, female objectification fantasies don’t run the same course as male objectification fantasies. We seldom see ourselves as rapists. When we objectify, we think pair-bonding, which generally translates as marriage.

Also, the objectification of men tends to focus on hypermasculinity, which one might argue serves to enhance male status.

In contrast, the objectification of women tends to diminish their status. I wonder why?