Films make a number of assumptions about gender based on audience beliefs and expectations, and these are derived from the social structure prevalent at the time the film is made. A given film may present different images of gender roles through different characters. In both Fatal Attraction (1987) and the 1992 version of Cape Fear, there are gender roles based on the nuclear family that are held up as preferred or "normal" roles, and these are countered either by the actual behavior of some family member or by an outside force representing a different sexual energy, a different gender role. The films deliberately contrast what the filmmakers see as "normal" gender roles and deviant gender roles, and in both cases the deviant sexual energy threatens the family unit to such a degree that the outside force has to be killed to restore order to the family.
In both cases, the family is presented as ideal from the outside but as deeply flawed in reality, though the way this is seen is different in the two films. In both cases, though, gender is used as a manipulative element to draw the audience into the film and to challenge certain assumptions made by the audience. Consider first the gender shifts in Fatal Attraction. The central family unit is that of Dan Gallagher, his wife Beth, and their daughter Ellen, a six-year-old. This ideal family unit is offered as the example of "normal" gender roles, with the husband, the wife, and the child fulfilling their roles in the family unit. This unit is threatened because the husband is unfaithful. He has a roving eye, but he does resist to some degree when he first meets the attractive Alex at a party. When he meets her later, one weekend when his family is out of town, he succumbs to her sexuality with great enthusiasm. For him, this is only a weekend fling, while for her, it is much more.
The basic situation is one that the filmmakers see as common--the supposedly happily marri...