Revisiting The Four Seasons: From Misogyny to Empowerment in Netflix’s Bold Remake

Alan Alda has been famous for decades as one of Hollywood's earliest male feminists. He campaigned for the Equal Rights Amendment, popped up on the iconic Free to Be. You and Me record, and used his fame to take a stand for women's rights during a time when many of his peers held their tongues. In 1981, Alda wrote, directed, and starred in The Four Seasons, a bittersweet comedy of midlife marital angst. While the film was popular when it was first released, a contemporary re-viewing has disturbing undertones that, upon reflection, appear radically misogynistic. The new Netflix remake this year, however, offers a significant re-consideration of the original piece, bringing much-needed feminist lenses to the story.

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The Original Film: A 1980s Take on Marriage and Gender Roles

In Alda's original The Four Seasons, three long-married couples—played by Alda and Carol Burnett, Jack Weston and Rita Moreno, and Len Cariou and Sandy Dennis—spend a weekend in the woods to celebrate a wedding anniversary. Nick (Len Cariou) early in the play confesses that he plans to leave his wife, Anne (Sandy Dennis), since she "doesn't do anything." Nick is annoyed with Anne's lack of drive. She is a passive, disinterested character, described as "inert" and cut off from the world outside. To Nick, she no longer operates as a faithful companion but rather as a source of tedium he wishes to escape. He soon replaces Anne with a younger, more energetic girlfriend, a flight attendant who is an echo of his inflated self-image.

The problem with this portrayal is the ease and rapidity with which Anne is replaced. Nick's inner conflict is presented as the film's core conflict, while Anne's viewpoint is scarcely explored. She appears as a two-dimensional character, her emotional growth and suffering irrelevant to the narrative. Anne's character is introduced as expendable in so many ways, and this is a theme prevalent in much of the 1980s cinema, where women were reduced to nothing more than a plot device. As much as the selfishness of Nick propels the narrative of the film, the emphasis in the film on his anger at his wife's passivity highlights an underlying misogyny. Anne, all complexities of emotion, is ignored for Nick's need to begin again.

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Alda's Own Feminism and Its Disconnect

Alda's dedication to feminist and women's causes is widely reported, yet Anne as a character as developed by The Four Seasons would seem to stand diametrically opposed to what he held true to life. Women here are presented as worth no more than their potential as active, dynamic, interesting participants in relationships and not for loving who they naturally are—flaws and all. Anne's so-called "failure" is that she cannot participate in a more traditional, proactive part to be admired. In The Four Seasons, Alda is exploring the fragility of marriages, but never quite questions why Nick's rejection of Anne—and his desire to replace her with a younger woman—is wrong, or indeed why it occurs. It is this lack of depth in the depiction of women that is most apparent when viewing the movie from a modern feminist viewpoint.

The Netflix Remake: Female Empowerment Character

Flash forward to 2023, and the Netflix production of The Four Seasons has arrived with a more progressive twist. Lang Fisher, Tracey Wigfield, and Tina Fey wrote this new version, which retains the essence of the original story—three couples with problems in their long marriages—but it goes out of its way to reorient the priorities of the narrative. The women are no longer bit characters relegated to the sidelines; instead, they are given their own agency, complexity, and development.

In the redo, Kerri Kenney-Silver's character of Anne gets the room to grow. Her marriage troubles are not a contrivance to further Nick's story. Rather, Anne is a well-developed character, struggling with the actual pain of her husband's infidelity and the collapse of her marriage. Her journey is one of discovery, courage, and empowerment. She will not be defined by her husband's actions, and over the course of the series, she learns to reclaim her own self-worth.

This version is different because it shows Anne finding her way through the mess of her emotions without turning her into a victim. She falters at first, not knowing where she belongs in the world, but gradually begins to rebuild herself. When she stumbles over flirting with a younger man, her ineptness is charming, and her search for self is one of strength, not shame. Unlike in the original movie, Anne is not discarded or left behind by the narrative. She emerges as a character of resilience and fortitude—something that was glaringly lacking in her 1981 equivalent.

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Marriage and Gender: A More Balanced Approach

The remake also balances the drama of marriage better. The original film placed a great deal of the emotional weight upon the men, particularly Nick's crisis of being, and the Netflix adaptation divides the focus to the struggle of both genders fairly. The new Nick, played by Steve Carell, is as narcissistic, but his behavior is not the only thing to observe. The story then comes out of frame to observe the women's interior lives, and demonstrates that their agendas, their battles, their desires are every bit as authentic as the men's.

Anne's character development particularly highlights the emotional toll that long-term relationships and midlife crises can take on women. In the original, Anne's agony is all but ignored, but in the remake, it is not only acknowledged but explored with sensitivity and nuance. She grows not by conforming to the social expectations of what women are expected to do, but by taking back her independence and finding happiness beyond her marriage.

The new version of The Four Seasons also reconfigures some of the more unsatisfactory dynamics of the original. While the initial film has quite a dismissive take on women and their roles in marriage, the remake has a far more sympathetic and multifaceted approach. Instead of dismissing Anne's feelings or relegating her to passive status, the Netflix version allows her to grow, to make errors, and to find joy in her own way.

Conclusion: A New Tune for a New Generation

In the end, the Netflix remake of The Four Seasons demonstrates just how far our cultural understanding of gender, marriage, and agency has come since 1981. Though the original film, with its period-specific gender expectations and problematic women's roles, now rings off-key, the remake brings the narrative into the 21st century with a refreshing feminist spin. By focusing on the emotional depth and agency of its female characters, the new The Four Seasons offers a more empowering and relatable exploration of marriage, self-discovery, and personal growth.

The shift from Alda’s original to the remake reflects a larger cultural shift toward more inclusive, empathetic storytelling. The remake is generous to the characters who had been underrated previously and gives them space to grow larger than what the initial script had assigned to them. Through this, it not only addresses the shortcomings of the 1981 film but also serves as a timely reminder that stories on relations and gender are always evolving.

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