[Tyson]

I'm not sure if many of you know this, but I have been on a quest to watch the "great movies" as designated by the leading critics.  I've actually made some pretty good headway into it, and my latest viewing was of the movie "Gertrud", directed by Dreyer.  Yes, the same guy that directed Joan of Arc. 

As I'm watching this, its clear that it is all about unrequited love, maybe even about love that can never really be actualized.  The main character (Gertrud) flops about from man to man looking for some form of true love, never finding it.  But that's not the interesting part.  The thing that strikes me most is that these guys are all wusses.  The very epitome of the "sensitive guy".  In other words, feminized men.

So it occurs to me, as all these non-virile men vie for the attention of a woman that can never be satisfied by them, that maybe its not her fault, it's the fault of the men.  Considering that this film was shot in 1964, clearly it had infested Europe a generation ago.  The alarming thing is that it seems to have spread around the globe. 

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying a woman's place is in the home or any crap like that.  But this film was made by a man, a great director at that, and he was clearly confused about gender roles in the millennium.  From my perspective, I think that's normal.  Of course he is confused - he wants to be an "enlightened" male.  But, IMO, men are not women, and we should seek to understand them, but not mimic them. 

[North Star]

I'll have to give that one a go, eventually. ...Is it safe?

[Tyson]

Safe?  I'm not sure I know what you mean?

[North Star]

Like not emotionally disturbing? ...Yes.

[Tyson]

Oh no, not at all.

[Elizabeth]

"Dreyer has gone from serenity to senility...Not a film, but a two-hour study of sofas and pianos."
Read the wiki discussion of the film. Reads like it was not very well received. Got a lot a trash reviews. The story about the directors life for the  prior years also reads like he was just imcapable of finding anything to film, and finally settled on this drivel.

As far as men turning into pussies..? What a John Wayne-esque comment.
Cultured men did/do not indulge in barroom brawls nor forget how to carry a conversation.
The guys you hang with over a six pack and a football game are basic troglodytes: not fit for human conversation.
I suppose to you they are more fun than a buch of guys discussing philosophy.

[Tyson]

Ruh-roh.

[S Clark]

Tyson ol man, I enjoy reading your post, and have the greatest respect for your classical and culinary knowledge...

....ooops. Fawlty post.

[Tyson]

Understood, and appreciated S Clark. 

[S Clark]

Oops, sent send far too soon....
So...

Tyson ol man, I enjoy reading your post, and have the greatest respect for your classical and culinary knowledge... but I was kinda waiting for the shoe to drop on this post. 
I, on the other hand, I have studied ardously at the Basil Fawlty School of Gender Sensitivity and feel qualified to answer any of your questions regarding the tender sex.
After 39 years of marital bliss with my cuddly little pit viper (thank god she doesn't read AC), I still take lessons from the master...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gcO3Zxh2UA

[Tyson]

Edited the first post to remove the offensive term. 

[Folsom]

Tyson I think you're right. Unfortunately people's idea of embracing gender gets chalked up to over-simplified, immature ideas. One of the biggest problems we have these days in first world countries appears to be the attempted erasel of gender instead of fostering to mature it. Both parties end up preferring more strong relational dynamics; to which gender is biologically congruent. How you define those is really a state of mind and emotion, and not bar-fights or cooking. There isn't much of a "guide book" to it, so some naturally do it, some don't, and others fight it.

Humility is important.

Tolerance to those that are in-between is important to me, but I think we can easily say that things are more difficult for these people that can't encourage things they don't have. They have to work at creating dynamics, values, etc. But we shouldn't inherit their problems with our empathy (seems popular). It's an unfortunate situation because people without strong gender dynamics don't often have the life-long partnership. It appears homosexual relations that share a dynamic of sorts seem to retain length, too.

Sometimes we have to consider that what some say they want, isn't represented by their patterns. What we think we should want, and what we need the humility to admit to liking, are very different. It's a massive problem with a lot of social-feminism that has been addressed by more contemporary thinkers among the higher-educated minds on the subject. Basically they encourage women to like what they like and not feel the pressure of having to unnaturally reject anything because they think they need to do so for whatever reason - being a house wife who slaves away in the kitchen is totally ok if that's what you want, but so is wanting to be a CEO who owns a Lambo. Unfortunately it doesn't appear to be a well practiced virtue because it promotes self-security (difficult) and not collective-insecurity support (easy).