“Dad Rescues Daughter” Trope is Boring, Worn Out, and Unrealistic

“One Battle After Another” mines the old script

Graphic: Warner Bros Pictures

I’ve read a few glowing reviews of the new movie One Battle After Another, and I still intend to see it, but I was disappointed when I learned the plot line involves a dad rescuing his daughter. I have a lot of problems with this cliche and overused plot.

1. Stop using women to justify male violence

Men have been using women and girls to ennoble and justify their violence for centuries. This must stop. Women and girls are not the reason men murder and harm each other and us. Social conditioning is — the kind of toxic conditioning which glorifies brutality in movies and elsewhere, and insists it’s a defining characteristic of masculinity.

Before and during the Civil Rights Movement, “protecting our women” was used as a rallying cry for the KKK — the first terrorist group in the USA — and an excuse to murder Black men.

Particularly during its early years, the male Klan held two contradictory images of femininity and womanhood, one imaginary, and one a concession to the reality of concretely existing people. In their imagination, white Protestant women (femininity applied only to these) were innocent, virtuous creatures whose…