Presumed Skanky

In class we're watching Presumed Innocent as an example of crime, the legal system, the fifth amendment, etcetc. I read it when it first came out and loved the twist. I'd seen the movie, probably the first run on cable, but I hadn't cared for it and hadn't seen it since.

So far (the first half of the movie), everything has been said of the Mistress except 'Bitch deserved to die.' I guess that will be in the part we watch next week.

Here are the godawful things she does that cause her to deserve killing:

She sleeps with a married man...the married man who sleeps with her is the 'hero'.

She's ambitious...so is every male character but with them it's barely remarked upon even when they use unethical tactics to advance their careers.

She is a raging bitch because she lost interest in the married man when she realized he wasn't as career oriented as she was and she went on to have an affair with a single man who matched her ambition.

It's not like she is the only character like that in popular literature. Emma Bovary was a twit. The mother in East of Eden a Dominatrix Whore. Anna Karenina was only redeemed by stepping in front of a train (and if the accident investigations then were anything like the modern fatality accident investigation, she wasn't redeemed to the commuters on that train). And they were all more adultresses than other women.

Nonfiction is a little better but for every No Ordinary Time by Godwin where Lucy Mercer and Missy Lehand are acknowledged and discussed openly there's a Little White House where Missy is reverted back to 'loyal secretary' and Lucy isn't mentioned at all ('Who was with the President when he became ill?' 'Ummm......').

No one talks about it, sees it, admits the elephant is in the room.