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Waiting to Exhale

A novel by Terry McMillan and later made into a movie in 1995. Getting To Happy, a sequel to the book was released in 2010.

Savannah Jackson (Whitney Houston) is a successful television producer who holds on to the belief that one day her married lover (Dennis Haysbert) will leave his wife for her. Bernadine Harris (Angela Bassett) abandoned her own career and desires of having a catering business to raise a family. Her husband (Michael Beach) is now leaving her for a white woman. Robin Stokes (Lela Rochon) is a high powered executive and the long-time mistress of Russell (Leon Robinson). She has problems finding a decent man of her own, while waiting for Russell to leave his wife. Gloria Matthews (Loretta Devine) is a beauty salon owner and single mother raising a teenage son (Donald Faison) who is preparing to leave home and travel the world with Up With People. After years alone, she falls in love with a new neighbor, Marvin King (Gregory Hines).

Tropes used in Waiting to Exhale include:
  • Abuse Is Okay When It Is Female On Male: Justified almost every single time. Most guys are such assholes in this movie that it's a wonder why a sane woman would even bother give them any time of the day.
  • All Men Are Perverts
  • All-Star Cast: Very much so. The movie had pretty much all of the famous black actors of the 90's.
  • Big Beautiful Woman- Gloria
  • Break-Up Bonfire
  • Chick Flick - Subverted. About women but embittered, vengeful and disillusioned instead of all smiley and fluffy with Babies Ever After.
  • Death by Woman Scorned: Almost all reactions to men's wrongdoings seem justified. But in all fairness, for some cases it is.
  • Defenestrate and Berate- Bernadine gets dumped by her husband for another woman. This is after she's spent the last 11 years sacrificing her dreams of owning her own business to help him build his. Her reaction? Taking his entire very expensive wardrobe, stuffing it in his very expensive car and setting the whole shebang on fire. And what she couldn't get in the car, she sold. For a dollar.
  • The Film of the Book
  • Hey, It's That Guy!- Can be said for just about everyone in this movie as they are played by well known African-American actors and actresses. The only people that aren't recognizable is the white mistress of Bernadine's ex and the white girl that Gloria catches her son with in the pool house.
  • Incompatible Orientation- Gloria finds out her ex-husband is gay after trying to seduce him when he comes to visit.
    • Arguably, the fact that Savannah is essentially the point-of-view character from Whitney's hit "Saving All My Love For You" is worth a few chuckles.
  • Lifetime Movie of the Week - A particularly egregious full-length example but it still better than average.
  • The Mistress- The white woman Bernadine's husband was with, and also Robin to Russell.
  • Roaring Rampage of Revenge / Revenge Against Men: This is what the movie is mostly about, except it's more about humiliating men and making them pay for their Jerkassery and their ungratefulness than killing them.
  • Sisters Before Misters: The whole aesop of the film. Friendship and "sisterhood" are much better assets to a woman's life than being The Mistress of a married man who leads you on so as to have sex with another woman than his wife.
  • The Unfair Sex: Goes without saying. The movie is so bitter against men that only a few of them have any redeeming qualities.
  • Unflinching Walk: Bernardine sets fire to her husbands car, walks away, and in a painful subversion, proceeds to have a total nervous breakdown.
  • Woman Scorned: Hooo boy...

Bernardine: "GET YO' SHIT, GET YO' SHIT AND GET OUT!!"

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