The other thing that the Divergent movie really fucked up

I didn’t mention this in the previous post, because I got off on a dystopias-gotta-be-dark-or-they-don’t-work tangent. But there was one scene in the movie that was heavily modified from the book which infuriated me. It was such blatantly sexist gender-conformist bullshit that I want to strangle the asshole who made this decision. And no, it’s not the stupid ass-display poster. Not even close.

In the book, in Four’s fear-scape, his father comes after him with a belt to beat the shit out of him. Four cowers away, and Tris steps up to save him. She catches the belt, yanks it away, and lays into that abusive fuck. She stands up for her man. She saves him.

This is entirely appropriate. This is Four’s deepest fear. It’s childhood trauma, which is causing him to regress. It’s not Tris’s childhood trauma, so she can still act with rational agency. She’s been established as pretty bad ass, and she’s going up against an old drunk man. Everything about this scene was legit, it didn’t even strike me as something to question.

But apparently SOMEONE thought that this was SOOOOOOOOOO jarring that it couldn’t be left in the movie. A girl takes action to protect a guy??? Oh HELLS no! That is not allowed! Men are strong – grrr, rah! Women are weak – boo hoo, whimper. How dare anyone reverse this order, even when the man is a supporting character and the woman is the ACTUAL HERO OF THE MOVIE, and even when it makes complete sense and is exactly what would happen? No sir! Not while the penis-wielders have anything to say about it! And dammit, in Hollywood they most certainly DO!

So in the movie, when Tris steps up to rescue him, Four pushes her out of the way, grabs the belt himself, and decks his father.

Fuck you, Hollywood. Fuck you, whoever made that decision. You are worthless meat that doesn’t deserve a place in anything artistic.