"Thus Do All Women": Comedy, Sentimentality, Ambiguity, and a Così fan tutte for the #MeToo Era

Abstract

Misogyny and Ambiguity in Così fan tutte In 2018 actor Molly Ringwald published an essay in response to the #MeToo movement in which she reevaluated the ethical implications of classic 1980s films such as The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, and Sixteen Candles.1 While understandably reluctant to condemn movies that were not only formative to her career but also exciting at the time because “no one in Hollywood was writing about the minutiae of high school, and certainly not from a female point of view,” she acknowledges that in hindsight, many of the interactions between male and female characters were highly problematic, depicting sexual harassment and, in some cases, assault. She describes a famous scene from Sixteen Candles, which today feels profoundly disturbing: