MovieChat Forums > Thirtysomething (1987) Discussion > I hated the women on this show!

I hated the women on this show!

posted 15 years ago by jtj909
7 replies | jump to latest

I watched this series for the first season, but by the second season, the male characters were reduced to punching bags for the whiney wives. The wives were always complaining about SOMETHING, usually that the men were working too much and not at home... or at home too much and not making enough money. They should have named the show "whiney selfish women, and the men who pay their bills"

could you image the feminist backlash if the roles of Elliot and his hateful, abusive wife were reversed? This show was a real eye opener to the double standards so many women embrace and the hypocrisy that plauges feminism.

[–] josephinemuscat 15 years ago

wow......some women hurt you real bad baby?!

By the statements you just made I'm starting to think that you never watched the show at all. Nancy an abusive wife....lol. She was the doormat of the show until Elliot moved out.....

[–] elysergooser 15 years ago

The last season was the worst. Hope complained about every little thing and I wanted to slap her silly. I found her very whiny and shrewish and always blaming Michael for everything.

Oh, and, incidentally, I am a woman.

[–] 15 years ago

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[–] parks8321 15 years ago

I would really have to agree with you here. Toward the end, Hope certainly wielded the rolling pin against Michael in sharp contrast to the first season.

It's funny, when I first started watching the show, I was newly married--however, rather badly--and I would have just loved to have been Hope with her fancy magazine job and handsome husband and cutesy falling-down house. Conversely, I despised Nancy with her stupid bobbed hair and ass-kissy ways and self-deprecation.

Again, when it was all over with, I much preferred the way that Nancy's character developed over Hope's, would have want to BE her (without, of course, the cancer--though this part is what defined her strength, etc.).

[–] 15 years ago

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[–] Uvtha 15 years ago

Well ive only seen the 2 seasons netflix has streaming, but I didn't feel like the men were either weak or abused. As for the women being whiney...everyone on the show is whiney, its not just the women.

And elliots wife hates him, because hes a dooshbag. I mean seriously not only did he cheat on her, he then left her out of the blue, hes always in money trouble, his lack of attentiveness ended up with his sons injury, hes self centered and obnoxious. I'd be annoyed if I had to deal with him too.

Of the two season I watched, I thought all of the characters were good, and fairly realistic, because people in real life are whiney and worry about things, but like I said I found elliot overly obnoxious, and hope sort of dissapeared in season two after being one of my favorite characters in season one.

As someone who watched the show only this year, I think alot of the criticism of this show is really unwarranted. No its not the best show ever, but its worth watching.

[–] archer1267 11 years ago

I'm a woman and am inclined to agree with you, but then again, I don't think the show did the men favors either. I could kind of understand Hope's dilemma of having the luxury of staying home, yet feeling sidelined by doing so...but the way she took it out on Michael, constantly, drove me nuts to the point where I was wishing he would just split or find another woman. She didn't seem to get that by virtue of her husband's work, she had choices she could make to begin with!! This whole "You don't see me as a person in the world" stuff was her projecting her own insecurities, and I think that's what the problem was with all of these women.

I don't know how much of this is a function of the Boomers, although I think if you made a show about Gen X or Gen Y thirtysomethings, the characters would also be annoying.