Instructional video

I went and saw the movie Professor Marsden and the Wonder Women this week.  It made a big splash in the polyamory community because it focuses on the relationship between three people that happened roughly 80 years ago.  Polyamory isn't well accepted now, and it was far more fringe then.  I don't even know that they had words for it at the time.  The title character, Professor Marsden, was also the original author for Wonder Woman, hence the title.

After I heard about the movie I read a review of it by Franklin Veaux, who is a bit of a polyamory celebrity.  His review was brutal and he made it clear that he thought the movie was a disaster, particularly in terms of how it portrayed polyamory.  I went into the movie expecting it to be pretty bad, largely on the basis of the review.

It wasn't bad!  I wouldn't give it a stack of awards or anything but I enjoyed it perfectly well.  One of the main things that ground my gears about the show was it portraying lie detectors as being extremely effective at ferreting out the truth, which they are decidedly are not.  They are unreliable and should not be used in law enforcement.

My review of the movie largely depends on the perspective a viewer goes in with.  If you expect it to be an educational treatise on how best to conduct poly relationships it is an utter failure.  The characters do all kinds of crappy things to one another and they don't do poly right.  In particular there are a lot of instances of couple supremacy where the established married couple place their relationship as far more important and permanent than their relationship with the third person involved and she ends up being badly treated.

But seriously folks, this is a movie.  Nobody going into a movie should expect it to be an educational video on how to live properly!  Romcoms aren't good education in how to run monogamous relationships either.  Everybody has to make lots of bad decisions for the thing to feel realistic and be entertaining.  Calm discussions about boundaries and good communication do not make great entertainment.

I think Veaux's problems with the movie generally stem from him hoping that it would be positive poly activism and it doesn't do that particularly.  It does show a poly relationship that works, mostly, and bring a lot of happiness, mostly.  If you go into it with the idea of seeing how such a relationship might work you will probably be satisfied with it.

The movie won't teach you how to do poly right, but it might give you an introduction that grants some perspective and normalizes it a bit and I am perfectly happy with that.  Personally I am just happy to see models of poly behaviour in mainstream media, even if they don't show it off at its best.

Unfortunately very few people will see the film as it flopped in theatres and is now stuck in a tiny run. I wish that it had done better as it could have been an positive vehicle for poly exposure, but I won't fault the movie for that. It was fine, though never brilliant.

So if you want to see a movie about a polyamorous triad, Professor Marsden and the Wonder Women does that.  Don't go in expecting model behaviour though, and please ignore all the nonsense about lie detectors.