Hollywood and Cheating by Mary Siever

http://www.ourthoughts.ca/2006/07/20/hollywood-and-cheating/

Mary's

Last night I was watching “Insider” (yeah, yeah, I know, trash TV, but we only have basic cable and nothing else remotely interesting was on and I had to fold laundry) and of course they were all in an upheaval about Christie Brinkley’s husband cheating on her. And one correspondent remarked (after mentioning that Halle Berry’s boyfriend had cheated on her), “If Christie Brinkley’s husband and Halle Berry’s boyfriend cheat on THEM, what hope is there for the rest of us?”

That brought me up short. So basically, drop-dead-Hollywood-beautiful women shouldn’t have cheating husbands? The reason men cheat on their wives is because they don’t fit some sort of attractiveness ideal (or that was the thought)? Not from what I can see. What they are also saying is that it is the WOMAN’S fault when her husband cheats. Now, I know that sometimes there are contributing circumstances where both spouses have a role to play in what went wrong, but to make a comment that a man is less likely to cheat because his wife is a gorgeous model completely overlooks an important factor. It is the husband who has the problem, not his wife. When men cheat it is because of issues they have, not because of a problem their wives have. Even if they blame their wives for whatever reason, it is not their fault. It is the person cheating (ok whether this be a husband or a wife, I know I am focusing on husbands, but that’s because of the remark the correspondent made. I would have to wonder if she would have said the same thing if the roles had been reversed).

Mine

I am creating a similar blog to yours for my gender in media class. I think it is very interesting that you pointed this factor out and I never would have realized this even though it seems so obvious. It is definitely true that people always gawk over why a woman was cheated on and not why the man cheated on the woman. I mean you would never hear or see a person talking about how a man gets cheated on even if he is amazing looking.

I believe this relates to my blog because I think it very much adds to the portrayal of women in Hollywood. It makes it seem as though all there is to women is their looks. If it were about beauty then I think it would be obvious that no one would leave a gorgeous women. There evidently must be more to women than their appearance and Hollywood simply isn’t acknowledging this.