Look Back in Anger by John Osborne
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A lot of people may not like this play for more than obvious reasons: it's misogynistic, it's offensive and vulgar, and it goes against everything feminism and gender equality stand for, at least on the face of it!

The reason, then, that this play got a 4/5 from me is not for its characters, which are each more insufferable than the other, but for the realism. Here, perhaps, is a near-accurate if not completely accurate account of the insecurities men often tend to harbour within themselves. In other words, this is exactly what patriarchy and gender defined roles do to a man. The subject, thus, is not how women suffer at the hands of patriarchal control but also how men suffer.

Jimmy Porter is a vulgar, rash and violent man, made so because of his need to express his masculinity, his strength, something which he does not possess. In a post War society, where he finds himself depleted and lost, snatched of the opportunity to exhibit his valour and his manliness, he directs his anger towards his wife. Also, denied of expression of grief and remorse at an early age, he envies women to the point of hatred for being able to express themselves through tears.
His anger and frustration all stem out of a basic need to be loved, understood, to be allowed to do what: a suppressed childhood throwing tantrums through an adult body.

This happens to be the reality of most men across the world, who are told to be strong, who are raised on false notions of masculinity and strength and so, this play may otherwise make no sense whatsoever, until you stand in Jimmy's shoes instead of Jimmy Choo, and read it.

A kind of an eye opener really which may not be feminist at the outset but is radical when it comes to the rhetoric: Why the world needs gender equality?

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