It's obvious purely from the title that the film was going to play heavily on stereotypes, so it was no surprise when the script went out very hard on men. The majority of men's thoughts turned out not just to be sexual, but vulgar. We had a 16 year old girl in our group of watchers, and it was too heavy for a 16 year old.
The real issue was that the female heroine of the movie turned out to be a man. Instead of "what men want", you might as well have called it "what Taraji Henson wants". She was pursuing business deals, doing one night stands, dominating sex, treating co-workers with contempt, everything we were supposed to hate about men, and then being told she needed a special experience in order to understand men? Meanwhile, the most stereotypical woman in the movie was the male PA. If we're going to hit hard on stereotypes, at least play fair.
The original What Women Want did a huge amount to defend women, glorify them and reveal their best qualities to men. What Men Want was mensploitation (if there's such a term, along with whitesploitation) and lacked the class of the original, and while that's not uncommon, I was hoping for a lot more than just a bunch of hoopla laughs. In fact, the movie would have been a lot more fun watching a naive girly woman discovering the secrets of men, learning to avoid their pitfalls and then taking on some of their best qualities to improve herself. That's what the original did.
The real issue was that the female heroine of the movie turned out to be a man. Instead of "what men want", you might as well have called it "what Taraji Henson wants". She was pursuing business deals, doing one night stands, dominating sex, treating co-workers with contempt, everything we were supposed to hate about men, and then being told she needed a special experience in order to understand men? Meanwhile, the most stereotypical woman in the movie was the male PA. If we're going to hit hard on stereotypes, at least play fair.
The original What Women Want did a huge amount to defend women, glorify them and reveal their best qualities to men. What Men Want was mensploitation (if there's such a term, along with whitesploitation) and lacked the class of the original, and while that's not uncommon, I was hoping for a lot more than just a bunch of hoopla laughs. In fact, the movie would have been a lot more fun watching a naive girly woman discovering the secrets of men, learning to avoid their pitfalls and then taking on some of their best qualities to improve herself. That's what the original did.