Stereotype | Frank Wheeler

Male eXperience feels strongly about stereotypical men. My son put in his blog, “if i ever become Frank Wheeler please tie me to a chair and punch me in the nose until I can smell my bullshit”. Having just seen Revolutionary Road myself I started thinking about Frank, thinking about the hopeless emptiness.Frank is the man that so many women meet and marry. Frank is the man that so many women fear they will end up with. Frank is so typical of so many men. He is overwhelmed with fear but doesn’t see it like that. He fears that underneath there is truly nothing there (I know that because for years that was me, I was scared I would be found out, scared that the truth would come out). He covers up that fear with concern for the children, promotion at work and a sense of responsibility for his wife. He pretends he wants to strike out for freedom, to go and find his passion, but he ends up like his mates and his colleagues. He settles for the ‘sensible’ option, a life of hard work and responsibility. He avoids the emotion but loses out on life.

Frank is also scared of his wife, as so many men are. Not only does he not understand her, he doesn’t try to. He is afraid of her wildness and her unpredictability. Why can’t she be more like him, why doesn’t she make sense? Of course, she’s a woman and, like so many men, he doesn’t understand them. He gets caught up in her passion when they are young, but expects her to settle down when they get older, get a house and have children and that that is enough as it is for him. As the song says, “Why can’t a woman be more like a man?” In the end he just sees her as mad, needing a psychiatrist, and her death at the end just proves it to him.

Men, wake up and see your women for what they really are, passionate, wild, unpredictable, chaotic, loving and so in need of some strength and presence from their man. You need to be a rock for her, strong and confident in yourself. You need to know yourself and you need to have conquered your fears. She needs to whirl around you and know you will still be there. She needs to have crazy ideas and know you won’t run away in fear. She doesn’t want you to control her or tell her what to do, but she wants you to understand her, even when she doesn’t understand herself. She wants you to know!

I throroughly enjoyed the film and thought the performances from Leonardo and Kate were amazing, even more powerful than Titanic. They really plumbed the depths of the characters and truly brought them to life. But even more stunning was the character of John, the ‘fool’ who spoke the truth. He brought an amazing film to life. Men, go and see this film and take action, never become Frank Wheeler.