"Real Wild Women" and/or "Wild Real Man"

As I began the assignment I started to think of “wild real men” and “real wild women” characteristics. Movies did not naturally pop in my head until I read the readings and then I began to think of movies that had these characteristics. The movie I choose to use is the movie “Enough”, starring Jennifer Lopez. In this movie is a woman who tries to flee her marriage with her daughter and does it successful by living a life under a new identity. After many years of turmoil and threats from her husband she realized it would never end unless she really did something about it, so she finally fights back.

The movie features Jennifer Lopez, Tessa Allen, Bill Campbell, Dan Futterman, Juliette Lewis, and Noah Wyle. The movie is about a working-class waitress named slim (Jennifer Lopez) who meets the man of her dreams named Mitch (Billy Campbell) one day at the dinner where she worked. Slim and Mitch ended up getting married and after the arrival of their first child Gracie (Tessa Allen), her picture perfect life shatters when she discovers Mitch’s hidden possessive dark side, controlling and abusive ego. Terrified for her daughter’s safety, Slim flees with her daughter trying to live a life under a new identity and look. Mitch continues to stalk Slim and harassing and threatening her, she realizes that it will never end unless she does something. She seeks a lawyer in the attempt to get him arrested and out of her life but the lawyer insist that she has waited too long to report it and there is nothing that can be done. The lawyer notifies her that self-defense is the only thing that can save her. Finally, Slim is forced to fight back so she seeks a personal trainer to help her learn good techniques in fighting and protection. In the end slim engages Mitch with a physical and psychological battle, showing him that she has had ENOUGH!

In the article “Seduction and Betrayal in the Heartland: Thelma and Louise”, the author mentions how this article is related to revenge and how it is viewed when women act this behavioral trait. The author goes on to describe the Thelma and Louise movie as avoiding “the trap of superficial gender – war movies, typified by female-abuse –and –knee –jerk revenge plots” (Boozer 212). I believe the character Slim played by Jennifer Lopez exemplifies a good “real wild women” because Slim is so pissed off about the abusive she is receiving from her husband that she wants revenge but instead of killing him she takes a different approach and fights back in self-defense. Mitch the husband of Slim, played by Billy Campbell also exemplifies a good “wild real men” in my opinion because behind closed doors he is this abusive, controlling and mean individual but to others he is known as a clean cut, loving man who loves his wife and family very much. The only trouble that I noticed about this film if your comparing to societal ideals is that the ending of the movie is not quite the same to real-life abusive situations. Not many women fight back, nor take classes to learn how to protect themselves. Instead most women go with the flow of life and do nothing, when in fact they should! No person deserves to be treated that way, regardless of the excuses.