someone deleted my previous post. my point is that there is something about the way he refers to the woman as a bitch to release his anger, as i wrote before, if the killer had been black and he would have used the slur nigger, i am guessing people would also think the slur was inappropriate and disgusting, but because bitch is a slur demeaning women, it is seemingly acceptable. and i really can't believe that anyone believes anyone here is equating killing someone with calling someone a slur, that is utterly ridiculous. the point is that making such slurs is disgusting.
I really hate his use of the word "bitch" in that movie. I just see him going down to her level, even if it's just for a second. He's smarter and more articulate than that for the rest of the film.
Come on you just equated a man calling the woman, who murdered his son and grandson, a bitch with the murder itself. This is ludicrous.
Of course slurs are disgusting. But would he call a black person a nigger under the same circumstance? Who knows? I certainly don't, and I wouldn't presume to say he would. In this day and age "bitch" is barely considered a slur. That's probably a bad thing, but it is the way it is. It's unfortunate that there are so many words denigrating women and so few that do the same for men, but that's a societal issue. Here we have a man so absolutely angry that he allows himself to lose control for a moment and call her a bitch. Does he mean it to say that all women are terrible? I doubt it, considering the loving relationship he seems to have with his wife. He calls her a bitch, with such force, because that is the word that jumps to his head and he blurts it out. And I'm sure the director left those scenes in the film just because it is hard to hear him say it. Sometimes it IS hard to hear people get angry and lose control of their emotions, and that makes Dear Zachary all the more powerful.
he is still a completely sympathetic character whose gender politics cannot be considered as a valid topic of discussion.
It doesn't seem to me that he has any "gender politics". He's just a guy with a socially learned vocabulary, just like the rest of us.
of course i agree that "it is probably a bad thing", except i do think it is a bad thing:) that said, we all have control over the words we use. and i do think that when we use language like this we perpetuate ways of being and thinking. had the guy not used the slur
bitch, and had just continued to act all tormented, i am sure we would come away with exactly the same sense of his anguish and hatred. i agree with you that his use and the seeming nonchalance at his use of
bitch reflects social attitudes, but i don't think that is a good thing, or excuses it. again, had the word that jumped to his head been "nigger" there would likely be a different identification with the character. and to claim that the socially learned vocabulary isn't gender politics is also weird - what are gender politics if not expressions of socially learned actions, whether language or non-language acts?