The New Generation of 'The Women' Have Arrived
By Carita Rizzo, Special to Hollywood.com
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Saturday, September 13, 2008
HW: There’s a theme of women losing their identity in a relationship. What’s your take on that?
Meg Ryan: I think it’s definitely something women deal with still. And I think it’s men, I don’t want to generalize, but it feels like it’s easier to be more outwardly defined as a man than a woman. Women just find their value in a lot of other or different ways so if a woman is eclipsing a man out there in the marketplace or whatever, I think it definitely is trouble in a relationship. It’s something that needs to be coped with intelligently, as intelligently as you can.
HW: When your character finds out she's being cheated on and she is adviced by her mother to stay quiet about it, she says to her "This is not the 1940s".
Meg Ryan: Well there’s definitely a generational difference. I think what Diane was trying to say is that there may be a generational difference in how women cope with male infidelity. As much as it’s individual, it’s also generational.
Debi Mazar: I think women in the 40s used to have to shut their mouths. A lot of men were gay and had to have wives because it made them look good or whatever. Today, nobody really accepts infidelity. If they do, they have an ‘open’ relationship. That didn’t exist in the 1940s across middle America. People are more open today, but certainly nobody deals with infidelity well. Period.
Cloris Leachman: My mother said once, "I think it takes the pressure off at home." You can’t blame them. It’s only one life. If you’re going to do it, then you have to justify it, you’ve got to say, they only have one life, let them have an experience or many.