In the last week I've seen two movies whose message about equality between men and women is astonishing the same even though their stories are nearly seventy years apart. It's pretty depressing, actually.

The earlier, released in 1931 and starring Norma Shearer and Robert Montgomery is "Strangers May Kiss" (the title meaning something to the effect that it's all right for men to behave badly - kiss, drink, carouse, keep wives in the dark - but that women may not). Shearer plays Lisbeth, as snappy and independently modern as any women in current films. She believes marriage is outmoded, something women strive for only to be disappointed as their husbands wander or leave and she vows she will not get caught up in such dishonest nonsense. She has two men in her life: Steve (Montgomery), a charming, frivolous, rich playboy who is mad about her and continually asks her to marry him; and Alan (Neil Hamilton), a handsome world-traveling reporter who thrills and woos her while sharing her disdain for marriage and passion for freedom. Smitten with Alan, Lisbeth spends several weeks in Mexico with Alan (and we all know what that means) but when he's called to an assignment, although he declares his undying love for her, he reveals that he is married, albeit unhappily (surprise). She banishes him because of her principles and her unwillingness to throw herself at a married man, then spends three years cavorting around Europe and living wildly (and we are meant to know what that means, too). Eventually, of course, both men re-appear, both wanting to marry her (Alan has divorced his wife) but when Alan learns of her wild behavior he drops her faster than a hot potato, as if a red "A" were emblazoned on her head, his own adultery evidently being beside the point. Steve, ever noble and good (a/k/a not the one any self-respecting heroine could choose) wants to marry her simply because he loves her. In fact, when she explains that Alan has refused to marry her because of her dissolute behavior, Steve even says something to the effect of "why is it all right for us to behave like that if it's not all right for you?" Indeed.

The other film is "Lost in Austen" which stars Jemima Rooper and Eliot Cowan, two comely Brits, and a bevy of familiar faces. It's the story of a 21st century Londoner who enjoys reading "Pride and Prejudice" more than living her own life, partly informed by the luscious Colin Firth (Darcy) and Jennifer Ehle (Elizabeth) version. Elizabeth Bennett slips through a bathroom wall into a modern apartment (okay, there's an element of science fiction but it's just a tiny one, more a suspension of disbelief) and convinces Amanda Price (Jemima Rooper) to switch with her. Amanda goes back through the wall and joins the Bennett household at the beginning of the familiar story. (As an aside, Hugh Bonneville is terrific as Mr. Bennett, perhaps the best characterization in the film, close to Lindsay Duncan's Lady Catherine and in great contrast to Alex Kingston' excessively shrill Mrs. Bennett. The most amusing change/twist is handsome Mr. Wickham turning out to have been completely misrepresented by Jane Austen.) Anyway, this 2008 film has it that Elizabeth becomes captivated by the modern world and Amanda by the 19th century or, more accurately, by Darcy, who in turn falls head over heels for Amanda . . . until he learns that she has had an active social life (we know what that means) at which point he abandons her for Bingley's twirpy sister.

Both films work things out in the end, of course, because happy endings trump social conventions in most romantic films. And it's almost the same message in both films - Shearer convinces Hamilton that she has never stopped loving him and that her "misbehavior" was only a way of surviving without him and that she will never stray again (no such promise from him, needless to say). Amanada convinces Darcy that she has thought and dreamed only of him and wanted only him even when she was with other men - and if he fails to realize that she read about him at 12 and therefore it was truly him she dreamt of, well, so be it.

But I find it astonishing that there is still such a powerful assumption that it's all right to disapprove when women are wild but perfectly reasonable for men. It's sad that dismay makes sense in a 2008 movie when a woman has led an active social life - that she is still seen as ruined and untouchable in some way although a man can have spent as much familiar time with many women. How can there have been so little change from 1811 to 1931 to 2008? Since movies vividly show the social mores of a time, I look forward to movies (soon, I hope) showing we have stopped labeling and judging men and women differently or even at all.

Labels: mores, movies, today's movie