Still, while tolerated, Missy raises eyebrows, and Colette doesn't gloss over the real struggles faced by gender non-conforming people in a society that was still overwhelmingly conservative. "Words are either masculine or feminine. There's no word for Missy," Willy tells Colette at one point. Even the relationship between Colette and Willy skirts the boundaries of bourgeois morality, while never quite escaping it. Yes, they can both have affairs, but Willy only tolerates Colette's because she's sleeping with other women, which he doesn't see as a threat to his own masculinity. What's more, as the man in the marriage, he legally still holds total sway over the couple's finances, a fact that becomes more and more problematic as Colette's star rises, and Willy's dims. (See, you don't even have to wait two more weeks for A Star Is Born!)