3. Overboard (1987)
Another movie where the central premise is the issue, Overboard tells the story of spoiled heiress Joanna Stayton (Goldie Hawn) and Dean Proffitt (Kurt Russell), a widower with four sons who works as a carpenter.
After a disagreement with Stayton over some furniture he was hired to make, Proffitt is thrown overboard by the heiress. Later that night, she tumbles from the yacht herself, and is taken to a local hospital where she’s treated with amnesia (apparently from her traumatic fall into the sea). Her gold-digging husband sees his chance to take her money and run, and leaves her there.
After learning of Stayton’s condition and realizing he’s the only one in town who knows who she is, Proffitt decides to get a little revenge. He convinces her that she’s his wife, effectively employing her as his slave in order for her to work off her debt to him by cooking, cleaning and raising his sons.
Yes, really.
Now, as Overboard is a romantic comedy, you can probably imagine how things turn out, but the general idea is pretty cringe-inducing.
What makes it worst, is that there was even a 2018 remake starring Anna Faris that sought to fix the movie’s issues. Instead of addressing the problematic premise, it simply reversed the main characters’ genders. If only someone had explained that it doesn’t work that way…