So tonight, I saw the musical, "The Full Monty" with a friend. Now, I haven't seen the film on which the musical is based, so I might be missing something.
On the whole, I think I liked it. At first, I wasn't sure how to proceed - after all, the play makes quite a lot of traditional gender roles, where the man makes the money and the woman keeps house.
... or does it?
The men in the play are feeling depressed and emasculated because they've been out of work and are being supported by their wives. I don't think it's too much of a stretch to say that someone who is not working and desperately wants to is subject to depression, male or female. There was also no real question of the families having to go on the dole - the women were making enough to support their husbands. It's just that the husbands wanted to work so they could meet their own financial obligations (the main plot revolves around a man wanting to be able to make his child support payments).
The play also dealt with the 'female gaze'. The men find themselves having to live up to what they believe is a woman's expectation of their physical appearance. Nearly all of them have to deal with living up to the stereotypes and what they think women want. They get to experience the pressures women have on them, and they recognize while flipping through a fashion magazine that women do have to deal with this. And it's not even physical expectations - one man struggles because he's afraid his wife will leave him if he can't provide enough material items.
The play ends on an upbeat note, with the women reassuring their husbands that they love their men for the whole person (or, in the case of two dancers, riding off into the sunset together), in spite of flab or repo men.
All in all, it has my stamp of approval.
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