Gender Roles, Reversed
I Am Not An Easy Man, New on Netflix
It’s a man’s world. It’s not fair, and it’s not right, but it’s the truth. Sexism is a huge problem in modern society, though so many men seem to be in denial of their own privileged position, further fueling the status quo of inequality. A new comedy coming to Netflix looks to shine a spotlight on this massive blight on the modern world through the sharp eye of satirical comedy.
I Am Not An Easy Man is a French comedy from director Eleonore Pourriat, and an expansion of his 2010 short film, Oppressed Majority. In the movie, a misogynistic womanizer (Vincent Elbaz) gets into an accident and wakes up in a world where gender roles are totally reversed. Women are the dominant class, leaders of every industry with a stranglehold on all positions of power. Meanwhile, men are made to feel more like sex objects than real people, and are under severe societal pressure to invest in the vapidity of physical appearance rather than their skills and character.
It’s a premise ripe with comedic potential, and the trailer delivers plenty of big laughs, but it’s also full of dramatic significance in the era of #MeToo and the Women’s March. It may sound a bit corny, but I Am Not An Easy Man is aiming to be the type of comedy that makes you laugh, and also makes you think about how easy it is to be a man in modern society, and how men really wouldn’t like it if the shoe were on the other foot, especially if that foot is raw from a lifetime of uncomfortable footwear with inconveniently high heels. As the trailer states, “Change your perspective, open your mind.”
I Am Not An Easy Man premieres April 13 on Netflix.
