‘Fatal Attraction’ Is a Classic

Susan Faludi’s 1991 bestseller, Backlash, was subtitled The Undeclared War Against American Women. It imagined popular culture as a battlefield for the hearts and minds of paying customers and rubberneckers alike, with casualties strewn across the airwaves and movie screens. At its core, Faludi’s thesis claimed that advances made by the contemporary feminist movement had been overstated and even vilified by conservative media, whose simplistic and unflattering depictions of so-called “career” women as frustrated or emotionally stunted belied a deeper and pervasive sexism—one that sought to punish its rivals for wanting it all in the first place. In one chapter, Faludi quotes a 1987 interview with Michael Douglas in which the actor—then probably the biggest movie star in America—claimed to be “sick” of feminists, adding that “guys are going through a terrible crisis right now because of women’s demands.”