Are Straight Couples O.K.?

Critics at Large | The New Yorker · Oct 19, 2023 · 48m

Throughout film history, heterosexual relationships have served as a battleground for questions of sex, power, and equality. From the 1949 screwball comedy “Adam’s Rib,” in which a husband and wife’s careers become a source of conflict, to the 1979 legal drama “Kramer vs. Kramer,” which reflected new cultural attitudes about divorce, fictional couples have long been tasked with working through the biggest social issues of the day. In the wake of the #MeToo movement, a different dynamic has emerged onscreen—one in which the woman holds the reins of the relationship. On this episode of Critics…