The Quiet Man (1952)

John Wayne returns to the Irish village of his birth after emigrating to America with his mother when he was small. He immediately sets his eyes on fiery Maureen O’Hara. Problem is that “the Yank” set himself at odds with her brother by buying adjoining land the brother hoped to obtain himself.

This is a spirited movie with a trove of charming locals and an intense love story between two well-matched people. But… there was also a distasteful “women as property” vibe going on. I started to watch a Kirk Douglas movie called The Indian Fighter a couple of weeks back and couldn’t get more than 20 minutes in due to the rape-y vibe (an Indian woman is ogled while bathing in a creek then grabbed and forcibly kissed without consent), all played as good-natured "boys will be boys" behavior. The same vibe -- though maybe a bit softer -- was in this movie as well. At one point O’Hara is pulled off a train and dragged home (sometimes literally) on foot for 5 miles with a kick in the pants serving as punctuation while villagers chased along to watch the show. At one point a woman even offers Wayne a “good stick to beat the lovely lady.” I mean, I get that this may be a picture of a certain place at a certain time, but finding humor in the misogyny was impossible.

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