History DoubleStandardAbuseFemaleOnMale / Film

!!Films -- Animated

* ''WesternAnimation/ChickenRun'' averts it. Mrs. Tweedy's treatment of her husband, while still comical, is clearly treated as terrible, dismissing and insulting him and literally kicking his butt. [[spoiler:By the end of the movie he's had enough and [[TheDogBitesBack shoves the entire barn door over on her]].]] Ginger does bitch-slap Rocky for deserting her and the other chickens at the end. Whether or not he deserved it is up to the viewer to decide.
* In ''WesternAnimation/MeetTheRobinsons'', Aunt Petunia is introduced smacking around [[HenpeckedHusband her husband Fritz around]] in a cartoonish way. Of corse, it's worth mentioning that Petunia is [[CompanionCube a hand puppet that Fritz controls]], meaning he's clearly [[CloudCuckoolander off his rocker]].
* There's a scene in ''WesternAnimation/TheRescuersDownUnder'' that has some domestic abuse played for laughs. A very large wife and a very small husband are eating dinner at a restaurant. The engagement ring Bernard was intending to give to Bianca rolls under their table, and Bernard, getting it, brushes up against the wife's leg. Assuming her husband is trying to play footsie (she never sees Bernard), she rather brutally smacks him, whereupon he cringes away from her in fear.
* ''WesternAnimation/WreckItRalph'' plays with this--Sgt. Calhoun [[GetAHoldOfYourselfMan slaps Felix to stop him from freaking]] out when the two are stuck in [[QuicksandSucks NesquikSand]], causing the sentient vines of Laffy Taffy to giggle and slowly make their way down towards them. Despite her reluctance to do so, Felix, who can instantly heal himself with his magic hammer, demands Calhoun [[AmusingInjuries continue injuring him]] until the vines are close enough for them to pull themselves out. Out of context, it's easy to imagine a gender-swapped version being rejected en mass, but the context in which all of this happens is so... [[ItMakesSenseInContext let's just say "specific"]] that it'd take a lot of second-thinking to come off as abuse. It helps that Calhoun clearly doesn't want to continue slapping him but she have no choice since this is the only way to get out of a deadly situation.
* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Tangled}}'', the female Rapunzel knocks the male Flynn unconscious twice in self-defense, since he is an intruder in her home at the time. However, she then ties him up and unnecessarily strikes him a ''third'' time while restrained. Later, after they have become friends and traveled together for some time, Flynn tries to argue with her to abandon their mission. She answers, "''I will use this''" holding up the pan that she had knocked him unconscious with three times, menacingly to his face. The whole thing is PlayedForLaughs in a way which would be ''much'' darker if a male character made a credible threat of bodily harm against a female character to win an argument.

!!Films -- Live-Action

* ''LifetimeMovieOfTheWeek'' movies almost always play this straight. The one {{subversion}} was Film/MenDontTell, which strongly {{deconstructed}} the trope with the story of a husband who's abused by his wife.
* The plot of ''Film/MySuperExGirlfriend'' revolves around a man who's super-powered ex, whom he's dumped for being emotionally unstable, [[WomanScorned proceeds to make his life a living hell]] with vicious acts ranging from throwing his car onto the moon, get him fired by using her powers to strip him naked in the office, and throwing a shark at him. What stops it from being DSA:FOM: TheMovie is that the guy is still presented as a victim, and the ex does eventually receive backlash from the city she defends when they discover that he isn't a criminal, but just some schmo who broke her heart. She's later BroughtDownToNormal in a plot to stop her tirade, eventually going toe-to-to with the guy's (much less unhinged) new girlfriend, who uses her new found powers to beat some sense into the ex when she still won't leave him alone. However, ''My Super Ex-Boyfriend'' couldn't possibly work as a comedy (in fact, such a scenario was played scarily straight in ''WesternAnimation/{{Megamind}}''), meaning this is still played straight.
* PlayedWith in ''Film/TheHangover'': Stu Price's girlfriend Melissa is both emotionally and physically abusive to him, and has cheated on him at least once. It's PlayedForLaughs, at least [[BlackComedy dark ones]], and Stu spends a lot of the movie trying to justify the physical stuff ([[WhatMeasureIsANonBadass "That was only twice!"]]), going as far as to [[WhyDidYouMakeMeHitYou blame himself]], but after his wild weekend with his friends, who constantly remind him that she's no good for him, he [[spoiler:wises up and [[SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome breaks up with her at the wedding]].]]
* Played straight in ''Film/NickAndNorahsInfinitePlaylist'' when the titular characters are arguing and Norah gets so upset that she hits Nick in the throat. The double standard is particularly striking, considering that Creator/MichaelCera (Nick) has the build of a twelve year old girl, making Kat Dennings (Nora) looks like an Olympic powerlifter compared to him. There's also the fact that Nick was getting over a break-up with Tris, who emotionally abuses him.
* Film/JerryMaguire is hit and punched out by his girlfriend when he breaks up with her. The scene is played for comedy and is never mentioned as abuse, even when the wound her ring left on his face is highlighted later in the film.
* Subverted in ''Film/{{Kingpin}}'' where the main characters, a man and woman, get into a fist fight. While it's played for laughs when the woman does a few {{groin attack}}s it's viewed as equally hilarious when the man responds by [[BreastAttack using her breasts like punching bags]].
* In ''Film/KungFuHustle'', the domineering landlady constantly beats on her lecherous doormat of a husband with comedic, slapstick violence. Along with anyone else who pisses her off. It later turns out that [[spoiler:his kung-fu ability is to absorb and redirect force, but nonetheless.]]
* Korean RomCom ''Film/MySassyGirl'' is 2 straight hours of this trope as an excuse for slapstick.
* ''Film/TokyoZombie'' includes a scene in which a meek abused man buries his mother in a giant mountain of trash and corpses at his girlfriend's instance (specifically, when threatened with sex deprivation). Not content with that the girl proceeds to ''kick her head into orbit'' while still belittling her boyfriend.
* ''Film/TheWarOfTheRoses'' is built around playing an EscalatingWar of domestic abuse for dark comedy. The wife is always played as far more brutal and vicious than the husband in an apparent effort to keep the two even.
* In the original ''Film/{{The Parent Trap|1961}}'', in a fit of anger at one point Maggie socks her ex-husband Mitch in the eye. His dialogue seems to imply she'd done stuff like that back when they were married: "Why do you have to get so physical? Can't even talk to you about anything, you're always trying to belt me with something." The movie tries to make the whole situation seem cutesy by the awkward and girly way in which she throws the punch, but for the [[ValuesDissonance modern viewer]] it casts an ominous tone over their eventual reconciliation.[[note]] [[Film/TheParentTrap1998 The remake]] acknowledges this in a conversation between Nick and Elizabeth, talking about one of their fights. Elizabeth asks "did I hurt you when I threw that...what was it?" and Nick coldly says "it was a hair dryer" which prompts a very guilty look from Elizabeth. Later on Meredith has thrown a ring at him and he says to Elizabeth in the same tone "at least it's smaller than a hair dryer".[[/note]]
* Played straight in ''Film/BirthdayGirl''. Sophia participates in the beating, robbery, torture, and kidnapping of her husband John. She gets angry at her co-conspirators later and decides to free John, but never so much as apologizes for her actions - and the fool nonetheless sticks with her and they live (happily?) ever after together. There are even disturbing intimations that John deserves to be victimized because he is a fan of bondage porn, although he never even hints at acting out his fantasies on Sophia, and he is mortally embarrassed when he realizes that she knows about his tastes, even though she implies that she regards them as harmless.
* Played straight in ''Film/{{Troll 2}}'': Holly and Elliot's relationship would probably have been handled differently if the roles had been reversed.
* More or less played straight in ''Film/BabyBoy''. Yvette (Taraji Henson's character), in a fit of rage, starts swinging her hands toward her boyfriend Jody (Tyrese's character). While one could certainly understand why Yvette's upset, what with Jody's constant cheating and lying, that does not excuse her violently whaling at him to the point of punching him in the ''eye'' really hard. So when Jody fought back after failing to restrain Yvette, he smacks her in self-defense, which anyone has the right to do. The movie unfairly paints Jody's actions as a KickTheDog[=/=]MoralEventHorizon moment.
* Discussed in ''Film/InBruges'' (overlapping with WouldNotHitAGirl). Ray mentions the phenomenon, and notes that he himself would not attack a woman in self-defense if she attacked him first, unless she was armed. [[ChekhovsGun This later becomes relevant to the plot.]]
* In ''Film/{{Chicago}}'', try telling me that audiences would find the song "Cell Block Tango" nearly as hysterical if it featured a bunch of male inmates describing how they'd killed their wives and girlfriends.
* In ''Film/GetSmart'' Agent 99 is absolutely brutal to poor Max who is treated as the ButtMonkey in PlayedForLaughs fashion. 99 slaps him, punches him and even sticks a loaded gun into his pants, at one point she claims she should’ve “slapped him harder” when he just was innocently being eccentric while they at restaurant together at which Max fairly and humorously calls out how mean and unnecessarily violent she’s being to him. As the movie goes on 99 [[DefrostingIceQueen stops being cruel to Max and falls in love with him]].
* ''Film/MaryPoppins'': In the Supercalifragilisticexpalidocious sequence, one large cartoon woman in plays a percussion instrument by slamming it on her diminutive husband's head.
--> '''Husband''': For example... \\
'''Mary Poppins''': Yes? \\
'''Husband''': Once I said it to me girl, and now me girl's me wife. \\
''Wife slams instrument on Husband's head.'' \\
'''Husband''': And a lovely thing she is, too.
* Played straight to the point of being disturbing in the romantic comedy ''Film/SeriousMoonlight'' where Meg Ryan's character knocks her cheating husband unconscious by a potted plant at his head twice and tapes him to a chair [[StockholmSyndrome until he loves her again]]. Switch the genders and it becomes a lot less funny.
* Throughout the film ''Film/{{Norbit}}'', Rasputia abuses Norbit both physically and emotionally. Although [[TheWoobie we're supposed to feel sorry for him]], most of the abuse is [[PlayedForLaughs played for laughs]]. [[DoubleStandard But if the genders were reversed]], then it would be a different story...
* A scene in Skip Woods's debut film, ''Film/{{Thursday}}'' involves the main protagonist being tied to a chair by a woman working for the film's antagonist; the woman then proceeds to rape and taunt him by saying she won't kill him until he achieves an orgasm, which he tries desperately hard to avoid, and adds that she hopes he'll get her pregnant. While the character finds the situation revolting, the scene is played for titulation.
* In ''Film/ThinkLikeAMan'', it's repeatedly implied that Cedric's wife is physically, verbally, and emotionally abusive to him--there are references to him having a black eye that he tries to play off as a sports injury--and that the very reason he's leaving her is because he's fed up with it. But the entire scenario is played for laughs throughout the film, with his friends constantly teasing him about it, and at the end, he goes back to her.
%%* Film/StepBrothers. Alice.
* The 2014 comedy ''[[Film/TheOtherWoman2014 The Other Woman]]'' features three women tormenting a cheating man (psychologically and physically). Like many other comedies of this ilk, audiences are expected to root for the female characters despite their near-sociopathic behavior. However, it's not likely that audiences would accept a film where three men get revenge on a cheating woman by ganging up on her...even if her relationship crimes were just as heinous.
* ''WebVideo/TheGamersNaturalOne'': Two masked men grab Ryan in an alley, throw a hood over his head, toss him into the trunk of their car, and drive off with him. He is later seen tied up at a gaming table because, as it turns out, this is all part of a trial to see if he can game, and thereby prove himself worthy to marry Monica. Ryan angrily calls Monica out for what she did, and she apologizes. When Ryan says he will expect "reparations" from her, Monica meekly agrees - and she smiles when he specifies that the reparations will be of a "kinky" nature. Although the film does not attempt to justify Monica's actions, the fact remains that a man who participated in his girlfriend's ''kidnapping'' would never have gotten off so lightly. More than likely, the audience would expect her to dump him immediately, or have serious trust issues with him. At the very least, it would take a lot more than an apology and some make-up sex to get him off the hook.
* Try to imagine the scene in ''Film/CaptainAmericaTheFirstAvenger'' where Peggy Carter punches a man to ground with genders reversed. Same thing applies to the scene where she shoots at Captain America without even giving him a chance to explain that he didn't initiate the kiss with the SexySecretary. (For the record: Peggy gets even worse during the first few episodes of [[Series/AgentCarter her own TV series]].) For someone who complains about sexism against her, she gets off scot-free after [[ArtisticLicenseGunSafety having fired a live weapon in an enclosed environment.]]
* Near the beginning of ''Film/{{Intermission}}'', Sam leaves his wife Noeleen for a younger woman. Near the end of the film, she confronts him outside the bank where he works and violently assaults him. In TheStinger, they're back together, and she openly assaults him in order to keep him in line. All of this is PlayedForLaughs.
* In ''Film/HotTubTimeMachine'', Jenny stabbing Adam in the eye for breaking up with her is treated fairly trivially. Despite knowing what she did Adam and his friends still think he shouldn't have broken up with her and when Adam does get angry at her it’s for her hypocrisy for [[spoiler:getting mad at him when she was going to break up with him anyway]] not for being violent in the first place. Not once does anyone comment that stabbing someone in the eye is a despicable, abusive act.
* Played Straight to the point of parody in ''Film/DinnerForSchmucks''. Darla is a psychotic {{Yandere}} who stalks Tim, forces herself on him and destroys both his apartment and car, with the latter happening in public. [[KarmaHoudini At no point does she ever get punished for her atrocious behavior]].
* In ''Film/TheManFromUNCLE2015'', Gaby slaps Illya twice after convincing him to dance with her and then escalates the situation by tackling him to the ground when he protests. There is no reason or justification for her behavior whatsoever, and the scene is PlayedForLaughs.
* Inverted in ''Film/{{Suffragette}}'', violence against women is considered perfectly acceptable by the police who beats the protagonist up for participating in a peaceful demonstration, and the husbands of the suffragists, who likewise see nothing wrong in beating their wives. Other men treat this as a laughing matter. When the protagonist finally strikes back against her abusive boss, this is treated as a very serious thing by the police, and she only gets out of a prison sentence because [[spoiler: they want to use her as spy inside the suffrage movement.]]
* Good lord. The Melissa [=McCarthy comedy=] ''The Boss'' not only devotes an entire scene to [=McCarthy=]'s character beating the hell out of a man (complete with a shot to crotch, of course) but it uses this "hilarious" scene to sell the movie in all the advertisements.
* Black-comedy film ''Film/RoughNight'' revolves around a bachelorette party accidentally killing their male stripper. The trailer then shows said stripper's corpse being treated in an undignified manner, all the while in his underwear with novelty glasses on. All of these moments are intended to be seen as hilarious. There's even a scene where a man shrugs it off as just ''"an accident"''. The fact that the trailer was released on International Women's Day was also viewed with criticism.
* In ''Film/GirlsTrip'', Dina gives Stewart an ArmorPiercingSlap because Stewart cheated on his wife, Ryan. While it's PlayedForLaughs due to how sleazy Stewart is and to sympathize with Ryan, nobody will laugh at a man for attacking a woman just because the woman cheated on her husband.
* ''Film/{{Blockers}}'' almost averts this, with a scene where Hunter confesses that, while he had cheated on his ex-wife, it was after she had cheated on him and beat him up in a restaurant. It was clearly humiliating for him, but then it's revealed the other characters in the scene weren't really paying attention and Hunter has to say NotListeningToMeAreYou.
* In ''Film/PhantomThread'', make no mistake, Reynolds Woodcock is an asshole with ''serious'' ControlFreak issues. This does ''not'' make it right when [[spoiler:Alma deliberately feeds him poison mushrooms so he will be too weak to keep her from doing things as she wants.]] [[spoiler:The film ends with her deliberately poisoning him again, and him allowing this to happen, playing it as a form of sadomasochistic romance.]] Not '''one''' critic has ever complained about this; in fact, many feminists have denounced the film as "supporting toxic masculinity", or as glorifying male-on-female abusive relationships, because Alma never leaves Reynolds, completely ignoring [[spoiler:the poisoning thing]]. Try and imagine what the reception would be to a film where [[spoiler:a man poisoning a woman to keep her weak, vulnerable and forced to accede to his desires]] is treated as romantic.
* ''Film/{{Overboard}}'' provides a meta example: The original 1987 film features a man abducting an amnesiac RichBitch who owes him money and tricks her into becoming his wife, causing her to eventually fall in love with him. You'd expect that a premise like this would never fly in 2018, but the film was actually remade, only with the genders flipped to make the protagonist's actions more forgivable.
* In the 1995 film ''{{Something to Talk About}}'', the character Emma Rae (Kyra Sedgwick) knees her philandering brother-in-law Eddie (Dennis Quaid) in the groin. The scene is played entirely for laughs and Sedgwick was nominated for a Golden Globe.
* ''Film/BatmanBegins'': The clearly distraught and depressed (male) Bruce Wayne reveals to his (female) friend Rachel Dawes that he'd been planning to shoot the man that murdered his parents. Rachel's response is to slap him. Hard. Twice. Now imagine a male character inflicting physical violence on a grieving female character in such a way.
* Viciously deconstructed in the ShortFilm ''[[https://vimeo.com/408623176 One in Five]]'' where the girlfriend's abuse is a combination of physical (stabbing him with a fork, throwing bleach in his eyes and hitting him with a shoe) and emotional (making him feel guilty for seeing his friends, implying that he's disrespecting her by using pet names). The double standard is highlighted in the end credits, which says it was BasedOnATrueStory but the end has some artistic licence; the man is shown answering the door to a postman and asking for help - but in reality it took ''nine months'' to do so.
----

** The film was basically a female remake of ''Film/VeryBadThings'', a BlackComedy often criticized for being a lot more black than comedy.

* There's a scene in ''WesternAnimation/TheRescuersDownUnder'' that has some domestic abuse played for laughs. A very large wife and a very small husband are eating dinner at a restaurant. The engagement ring Bernard was intending to give to Bianca rolls under their table, and Bernard, getting it, brushes up against the wife's leg. Assuming her husband is trying to play footsie (she never sees Bernard), she rather brutally smacks him, whereupon he cringes away from her in

* There's a scene in ''WesternAnimation/TheRescuersDownUnder'' that has some domestic abuse played for laughs. A very large wife and a very small husband are eating dinner at a restaurant. The engagement ring Bernard was intending to give to Bianca rolls under their table, and Bernard, getting it, brushes up against the wife's leg. Assuming her husband is trying to play footsie (she never sees Bernard), she rather brutally smacks him, whereupon he cringes away from her in fear.
* ''WesternAnimation/Rio2'' has Jewel more or less emotionally abusing her husband Blu for the entire film, making all of his decisions for him, allowing her stern father to berate him and showing a blatant disregard for his difficulty transitioning to jungle life. But because Blu is supposed to be a [[NervousWreck sheltered worry-wart]], all of his opinions are treated as hilarious inept. If the genders were flipped, there'd be an uproar.

* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Tangled}}'', the female Rapunzel knocks the male Flynn unconscious twice in self-defense, since he is an intruder in her home at the time. However, she then ties him up and unnecessarily strikes him a ''third'' time while restrained. Later, after they have become friends and traveled together for some time, Flynn tries to argue with her to abandon their mission. She answers, "''I will use this''" holding up the pan that she had knocked him unconscious with three times, menacingly to his face. The whole thing is PlayedForLaughs in a way which would be ''much'' darker if a male character made a credible threat of bodily harm against a female character to win an argument.

* In ''Film/HarryPotterAndTheHalfBloodPrince'' Hermione smacks Harry on the head with a large library book, true he was making light of her warnings that Romilda Vane was gonna drug him with a LovePotion but it was clearly painful for Harry and were roles reversed there would be an outcry. It’s also jarring since Hermione never raises hand against Harry in the books... Ron on other hand is a different story (see literature page).

* The plot of ''Film/MySuperExGirlfriend'' revolves around a man who's super-powered ex, whom he's dumped for being emotionally unstable, [[WomanScorned proceeds to make his life a living hell]] with vicious acts ranging from throwing his car onto the moon, get him fired by using her powers to strip him naked in the office, and throwing a shark at him. What stops it from being DSA:FOM: TheMovie is that the guy is still presented as a victim, and the ex does eventually receive backlash from the city she defends when they discover that he isn't a criminal, but just some schmo who broke her heart. She's later BroughtDownToNormal in a plot to stop her tirade, eventually going toe-to-to with the guy's (much less unhinged) new girlfriend, who uses her new found powers to beat some sense into the ex when she still won't leave him alone. However, ''My Super Ex-Boyfriend'' couldn't possibly work as a comedy, meaning this is still played straight.

* ''WesternAnimation/ChickenRun'' averts it. Mrs. Tweedy's treatment of her husband, while still comical, is clearly treated as terrible, dismissing and insulting him and literally kicking his butt. Ginger does bitch-slap Rocky for deserting her and the other chickens at the end. Whether or not he deserved it is up to the viewer to decide.

* In ''Disney/MeetTheRobinsons'', Aunt Petunia is introduced smacking around [[HenpeckedHusband her husband Fritz around]] in a cartoonish way. Of corse, it's worth mentioning that Petunia is [[CompanionCube a hand puppet that Fritz controls]], meaning he's clearly [[CloudCuckoolander off his rocker]].
* There's a scene in ''Disney/TheRescuersDownUnder'' that has some domestic abuse played for laughs. A very large wife and a very small husband are eating dinner at a restaurant. The engagement ring Bernard was intending to give to Bianca rolls under their table, and Bernard, getting it, brushes up against the wife's leg. Assuming her husband is trying to play footsie (she never sees Bernard), she rather brutally smacks him, whereupon he cringes away from her in fear.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Rio 2}}'' has Jewel more or less emotionally abusing her husband Blu for the entire film, making all of his decisions for him, allowing her stern father to berate him and showing a blatant disregard for his difficulty transitioning to jungle life. But because Blu is supposed to be a [[NervousWreck sheltered worry-wart]], all of his opinions are treated as hilarious inept. If the genders were flipped, there'd be an uproar.
* ''Disney/WreckItRalph'' plays with this--Sgt. Calhoun [[GetAHoldOfYourselfMan slaps Felix to stop him from freaking]] out when the two are stuck in [[QuicksandSucks NesquikSand]], causing the sentient vines of Laffy Taffy to giggle and slowly make their way down towards them. Despite her reluctance to do so, Felix, who can instantly heal himself with his magic hammer, demands Calhoun [[AmusingInjuries continue injuring him]] until the vines are close enough for them to pull themselves out. Out of context, it's easy to imagine a gender-swapped version being rejected en mass, but the context in which all of this happens is so... [[ItMakesSenseInContext let's just say "specific"]] that it'd take a lot of second-thinking to come off as abuse. It helps that Calhoun clearly doesn't want to continue slapping him but she have no choice since this is the only way to get out of a deadly situation.

* In ''Disney/{{Tangled}}'', the female Rapunzel knocks the male Flynn unconscious twice in self-defense, since he is an intruder in her home at the time. However, she then ties him up and unnecessarily strikes him a ''third'' time while restrained. Later, after they have become friends and traveled together for some time, Flynn tries to argue with her to abandon their mission. She answers, "''I will use this''" holding up the pan that she had knocked him unconscious with three times, menacingly to his face. The whole thing is PlayedForLaughs in a way which would be ''much'' darker if a male character made a credible threat of bodily harm against a female character to win an argument.