Top 10 Times Movie Misogynists Got What They Deserved

When Marty McFly travels back in time, he meets his parents as teenagers, as well as the town bully Biff Tannen. Biff regularly makes creepy and unwanted advances on Marty’s mother, Lorraine. During the film’s finale at the school dance, Biff makes his creepiest move yet, assaulting her in the parking lot. Fortunately, Marty’s father George decides to step in. Finding his courage, he lands one of the most satisfying movie punches of all time. It doesn’t hurt that when Marty returns to the future, he finds that instead of being his dad’s boss, Biff now waxes his car.

After Buttercup’s true love Westley seemingly dies at sea, the wicked Prince Humperdinck tries to force her to marry him. When Westley returns to rescue her, Humperdinck imprisons her in his castle and has Westley killed. Or at least, mostly killed. The power of true love proves too strong though, and Westley survives and makes his way to the palace. In his final confrontation with Westley, Humperdinck is exposed as a coward and left alone, tied to a chair, to live alone with his cowardice. It’s a fitting fate after everything he’s put Buttercup through.

In this live-action retelling of the classic story, Jafar’s sexism towards Princess Jasmine is as desperate and oppressive as ever. The grand vizier is yet another villain who tries to marry the heroine against her will. Through all his machinations however, Jasmine remains defiant. She sings about how she refuses to be left “speechless”, and inspires the palace guards to resist their new ruler. At their wedding, she defies him again, making off with the magic lamp. Ultimately, Jafar’s own ego leads to his undoing, and he’s reduced to being a prisoner himself. Sorry, Jafar, your plan was utterly foiled.

Frustrated by Jack Kramer’s tennis tournament, whose top prize for women is a mere one eighth of that offered to men, Billie Jean King and other female players form their own tour. It ultimately leads to the formation of the Women’s Tennis Association. Meanwhile, after being thrown out of his house for his gambling addiction, Bobby Riggs decides to challenge the top woman player to a match, bragging of his superiority. This man DEFINITELY deserves a comeuppance! Billie Jean eventually agrees to play him, and ultimately defeats him, altering the face of tennis forever.

#6: Bill, Morty & Aaron “The First Wives Club” (1996)

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Reunited at the funeral of their former friend, Annie, Brenda, and Elise discover that they’re all struggling in their careers and relationships. Their problems are largely linked to their husbands, who have left them for younger women. In an effort to get back at the men, they form the First Wives Club and start digging up dirt. Ultimately realizing that revenge isn’t the right course, however, they end up blackmailing the men into financing a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting women in abusive situations.

This comeuppance is even more satisfying because it’s based on a true story! In “Bombshell”, Megyn Kelly, Gretchen Carlson, and the fictional Kayla Pospisil take on Roger Ailes, the CEO of Fox News. Ailes has been sexually harassing female employees for years. Carlson fires the first shot, and more and more women come forward, until at last the reluctant Kelly admits that she too was harassed. When Carlson reveals that she’s recorded conversations that support her allegations, Rupert Murdoch is at last forced to fire Ailes. Fox pays $20 million to settle the lawsuit, and eventually shells out $50 million to the other victims. While Ailes leaves with a generous $65 million in severance, at least he was ousted in the end.

Talk about “out of the frying pan and into the fire”. As a teenager, Celie Harris escapes her abusive father for her abusive husband Albert “Mister” Johnson. Years later, a defeated Celie meets the strong-willed Shug Avery, Mister’s mistress. The two women share their stories and a kiss, and Shug eventually helps Celie discover that her husband has been hiding her sister’s letters. With support from Shug, she finally finds the strength to stand up to her husband, inspiring her friends to do the same to theirs. Escaping at last, Ceclie inherits her father’s property, and is reunited with her sister and her children, while Mister watches alone and disgraced from a distance.

In this film based on a true story, Josey Aimes and the other women working at an iron mine face continual sexual harassment from their resentful male co-workers. When Josey tries to stand up for herself, her ex-boyfriend Bobby Sharp spreads lies about her supposed sexual promiscuity, saying she had an affair with her high school teacher. Josey sues the mine, and in an emotional courtroom scene, her lawyer gets Bobby to admit that the teacher in question actually assaulted Josey. In the end, her coworkers stand in solidarity with her and form a class action lawsuit that forces the mine to compensate the women and change its sexual harassment policies for good.

While the sadist Nils Bjurman isn’t the main villain of this film, his comeuppance takes our entry here. Early on in the film, Lisbeth Salander finds herself with a new state-appointed guardian who restricts her access to money, blackmails her, and violently attacks her. The indomitable hacker takes affairs into her own hands, returning to his apartment with video evidence of what he’s done to her. She torments her abuser and forces him to ensure her independence, before tattooing a message onto his chest to make sure that he’ll always be recognized for what he really is.

#1: Al Monroe & Ryan Cooper “Promising Young Woman” (2020)

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After her best friend Nina is assaulted by Al Monroe and takes her own life, Cassie Thomas becomes a kind of vigilante, confronting men who try to take advantage of women. Her ultimate goal, though, is to take revenge on the man who attacked Nina and those who helped him get away with it, which turns out to include her own boyfriend Ryan. She goes to Al’s bachelor party with the intention of punishing him, but he manages to kill her. Fortunately, that’s not where the movie ends. In a delightful twist, Ryan receives a number of scheduled texts from Cassie, and the police arrive to arrest Al using a video of the attack that Cassie uncovered. Thus, Cassie and Nina get their revenge from beyond the grave.