Wives and husbands in fiction (TV, movies, novels, etc)

[Sophie 1,280]

I was watching Modern Family yesterday on my laptop and it struck me that while Phil & Claire are an awesome married couple, they both assume the stereotypes: Phil is rather dimwitted, fun, easy-going, and the "fun" parent while Claire is sharp, strict, humorless, and not a whole lot of fun. It's interesting how the old rules of society said that the man must be the head of the family or whatever because in fiction, the mothers (stay-at-home or not) seem to hold their husband and children in fear. Lol. That's what it was definitely like in my household...

Which is why I am determined to be a fun wife and a fun mother (although I know I may end up being too overprotective.)

1. What are your feeling on married couples in fiction?

2. What is your favourite fictional married couple?

My favourite married couple: Niles Crane and Daphne Moon

[Canada10024 722]

My favourite married couple: Niles Crane and Daphne Moon

Niles: "Well Daphne, when I was with Maris, I found myself thinking about you. When I was with Mel I found myself thinking about you. Now that I am with you, I'm still thinking about you."

[Jegsy Scarr 3,521]

1. Well, I guess as with everything, you get good and bad representations of married couples. However, I can't help but think of Monica and Chandler Bing in Friends...If you watch the later series, there's a recurring theme about Chandler watching porn, or about Monica getting it for him as a "treat". And that's seen as the normal thing to do, which is pretty bad. That always bothered me...

2. Off the top of my head, has anyone seen the movie "Fargo"? If you watch Marge and her husband Norm during the movie, she is a really really great wife to him the whole way through: he's got a pretty dull job compared to her, but she's always enthusiastic about it, and she stays really faithful to him at one point when she goes to dinner with an old friend from high school who tries to chat her up...I remember watching the movie thinking, "She is literally the nicest woman in the world!"

xxx

[Sophie 1,280]

Niles: "Well Daphne, when I was with Maris, I found myself thinking about you. When I was with Mel I found myself thinking about you. Now that I am with you, I'm still thinking about you."

I actually teared up a bit when he said that. Very jealous of Daphne!

[Sophie 1,280]

1. Well, I guess as with everything, you get good and bad representations of married couples. However, I can't help but think of Monica and Chandler Bing in Friends...If you watch the later series, there's a recurring theme about Chandler watching porn, or about Monica getting it for him as a "treat". And that's seen as the normal thing to do, which is pretty bad. That always bothered me...

I love the Chandler/Monica couple but I agree. That bothered me as well. I first started watching Friends when I was 14 or so, so I thought that letting your husband watch porn/giving him porn was completely normal and okay. Monica even bought him a stripper. I thought that was what wives did and I was uncomfortable with that. They were very liberal with porn in Friends so I thought all adults were. Well I'm 19, porn still disgusts me, and I AM NOT BUYING IT FOR MY HUSBAND. Lol. Nor am I buying him a stripper.

[erasercrumbs 506]

2. Off the top of my head, has anyone seen the movie "Fargo"? If you watch Marge and her husband Norm during the movie, she is a really really great wife to him the whole way through: he's got a pretty dull job compared to her, but she's always enthusiastic about it, and she stays really faithful to him at one point when she goes to dinner with an old friend from high school who tries to chat her up...I remember watching the movie thinking, "She is literally the nicest woman in the world!"

Fargo was great. I've rarely seen a movie that was so good at juxtaposing the gruesome with the quaint. It was like having tea with your grandmother while someone reads Charles Manson poetry aloud in the background.

I like to think that, in the slightly off-kilter universe of Fargo, Marge's enthusiasm for Norm's career was 100% genuine. Not because it was particular interesting, but simply because it was pleasant. In Marge's world, pleasantness is paramount, and she probably finds Norm puttering around in the garage painting ducks to be much more interesting than the ghastly stuff she has to deal with on a daily basis. However detached the protagonists in Fargo might be, I admire their pluck!

[robbyfine 7]

Trying to find a movie on a torrent site, remember very little except ... there’s a wife & husband, possibly feuding, on a boat in the ocean somewhere and the wife falls overboard. The husband motors around trying to find her, there are flashbacks to happier times (I think) and at the end the husband finds her in the water and jumps overboard to be with her. Maybe from the 70’s?