Women have been victimized countless times in cases of domestic violence and relationship abuse. But they are not always the victims; at times, they are the abusers that attack men not oly verbally but physically. Harry Winer’s Men Don’t Tell is a 1993 TV movie, written by Selma Thompson and Jeff Andrus, highlighting this fact.
Based off real-life stories of men suffering abuse from their wives or women with whom they are in relationship, Men Don’t Tell features the interrogation of Ed MacAffrey (Peter Strauss) for a serious injury suffered by his wife Laurie (Judith Light) one night as the neighbors call the cops on the couple for a noisy fight. In flashbacks, Ed’s marriage is shown falling apart as Laurie starts finding faults with him and attacking him during her frequent fits of violent rage.
This is significant work in films as it offers the counter narrative to the mainstream images of genders in the domestic abuse issue. Ed’s character is representative of all-American family men who are mindful of their responsibility as a husband and father that restrains them from retaliating against their wives. At the same time, social expectations keep them from speaking up about the physical assaults from their wives for fear of being shamed or having their manhood questioned.
Both Strauss and Light have played their roles to perfection with Strauss winning a deserving Golden Globe nomination for his performance in the movie that year. The supporting cast is good too with Carroll Baker playing a short but thematically important role of Laurie’s mother.
First aired on CBS on March 14, 1993, Men Don’t Tell is now available on YouTube to watch for free.
IMDb page: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107553/
