This might contain spoilers, and if that bothers you then read this article instead of mine.
Is Gone Girl sexist? That, my friends, is the question of the hour. Now, I'm going to be one of those super annoying people who distinguishes between the book and the movie because it's really important for my argument. If you have the read the book then great. If you haven't, I think you'll still find this interesting (fingers crossed).
After I read the book I was a total wreck. I needed to talk about it. Unfortunately, I read it about two years after everyone else and none of my usual intellectual conversation friends had read it at all. I was pretty blown away by the book. I felt like Gillian Flynn wrote a complicated, nuanced, and utterly relatable woman. A woman who was overwhelmed and corrupted by a world that never let her fulfill her potential. A woman who was constantly changed and crushed by a patriarchal system that simultaneously worshipped and shamed her. A world that wanted her to be the Amazing Amy of her parent’s books instead of the Amy of her reality. But, most importantly, a character that began to embody and symbolize women on the whole.
There’s a fantastic chapter in the book, right after the switch of perspectives, that had me nodding along in vigorous agreement. I was sitting on the airplane avoiding my dissertation and I just felt like Flynn was saying everything I ever wanted to say about being a woman, about the standards and expectations placed on us, about the pain (physical and emotional) of shaping ourselves into the mold that society has created for us. So, in that chapter, Amy lost her individual identity. She became all of us. I no longer understood Amy as a believable character, she was a symbol. She was an archetype turned on its head. Flynn writes about the Cool Girl phenomenon in that chapter, and it’s just completely brilliant.
Is Gone Girl sexist? That, my friends, is the question of the hour. Now, I'm going to be one of those super annoying people who distinguishes between the book and the movie because it's really important for my argument. If you have the read the book then great. If you haven't, I think you'll still find this interesting (fingers crossed).
After I read the book I was a total wreck. I needed to talk about it. Unfortunately, I read it about two years after everyone else and none of my usual intellectual conversation friends had read it at all. I was pretty blown away by the book. I felt like Gillian Flynn wrote a complicated, nuanced, and utterly relatable woman. A woman who was overwhelmed and corrupted by a world that never let her fulfill her potential. A woman who was constantly changed and crushed by a patriarchal system that simultaneously worshipped and shamed her. A world that wanted her to be the Amazing Amy of her parent’s books instead of the Amy of her reality. But, most importantly, a character that began to embody and symbolize women on the whole.
There’s a fantastic chapter in the book, right after the switch of perspectives, that had me nodding along in vigorous agreement. I was sitting on the airplane avoiding my dissertation and I just felt like Flynn was saying everything I ever wanted to say about being a woman, about the standards and expectations placed on us, about the pain (physical and emotional) of shaping ourselves into the mold that society has created for us. So, in that chapter, Amy lost her individual identity. She became all of us. I no longer understood Amy as a believable character, she was a symbol. She was an archetype turned on its head. Flynn writes about the Cool Girl phenomenon in that chapter, and it’s just completely brilliant.
Cool girls never get angry; they only smile in a chagrined, loving manner and let their men do whatever they want. Go ahead, shit on me, I don’t mind, I’m the Cool Girl.
Ironically, I liked Amy so much more in that moment than I had at any other point in the first half. One of the best lines in the book is when Amy describes how her relationship with Nick has changed her. She says It was as if he hollowed me out and filled me with feathers. Amy goes from passive victim to empowered villain and it felt refreshing and new and exciting to read a female character that way.
In this light, then, when Amy does get angry, when she stops smiling and letting Nick do whatever he wants she becomes a symbol of empowerment. She gains control over her destiny and her future, over herself and who she is. She is no longer the Cool Girl because she is herself. Everything after that is forgivable, to me, because it is not a real person doing it to other real people. It’s a parable. It’s a story. It’s a symbolic quelling of patriarchy by the thing they fear most; a crazy, strong, determined woman.
The problem, the thing Fincher didn’t get right in the movie, is that Gone Girl is not just a work of fiction. It’s an allegory. It’s Pilgrim’s Progress not The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. There is no doubt in my mind that Flynn is a feminist. Another awesome excerpt from the book comes when Amy describes a parallel universe; a utopia where women rule.
In this light, then, when Amy does get angry, when she stops smiling and letting Nick do whatever he wants she becomes a symbol of empowerment. She gains control over her destiny and her future, over herself and who she is. She is no longer the Cool Girl because she is herself. Everything after that is forgivable, to me, because it is not a real person doing it to other real people. It’s a parable. It’s a story. It’s a symbolic quelling of patriarchy by the thing they fear most; a crazy, strong, determined woman.
The problem, the thing Fincher didn’t get right in the movie, is that Gone Girl is not just a work of fiction. It’s an allegory. It’s Pilgrim’s Progress not The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. There is no doubt in my mind that Flynn is a feminist. Another awesome excerpt from the book comes when Amy describes a parallel universe; a utopia where women rule.
I waited patiently - years - for the pendulum to swing the other way, for men to start reading Jane Austen, learn how to knit, pretend to love cosmos, organize scrapbook parties, and make out with each other while we leer. And then we’d say, Yeah, he’s a Cool Guy.
So brilliant. Flynn is pointing out some very basic but nuanced things about gender relations and patriarchy. She is essentially arguing that Amy is a natural product of a patriarchal society that belittles and demeans her. Flynn is not a passive feminist. She is angry. She’s that angry feminist that Aziz Ansari dismisses.
Amy is not a real sociopathic woman who reaches her breaking point. She is a postmodern Everywoman and Nick is Everyman because Flynn’s book is a picture of society, boiled down to a dispute between a married couple. Fincher did not get that when he made the movie. Amy had three lines about being a Cool Girl. Fincher made her too real. He made her a real, believable woman and when that happened she became the psychobitch of heterosexual men’s nightmares; and the bane of every feminist’s existence. She is fulfilling that unfair mysoginistic stereotype - a woman who cries rape whenever she feels cheated. A woman who uses her perceived vulnerability to entrap and manipulate men. A woman who is beautiful and interesting and smart must have some hidden unforgivable flaw. Why else would she be single at 30? That’s what Amy becomes in Fincher’s movie. She becomes predictable, sexist, and thoroughly unlikable. It's a shame, because Flynn's Amy had such great potential to spark useful conversation.
It's also worth saying that all this discussion is important and interesting. But let us not forget that Flynn is a woman who wrote a bestselling novel and now a screenplay that made over 37 million dollars. This is an excellent article arguing that the pressure on female celebrities is unsustainable. Every move is picked apart because they are under such an intense microscope, and this kind of criticism will not empower or create more female writers, artists, or CEO's.
So, while it is invaluable to have debate about and among feminists. It's also important to build each other up, to celebrate victories and even failures, because more women writing and making art is a good thing.
Amy is not a real sociopathic woman who reaches her breaking point. She is a postmodern Everywoman and Nick is Everyman because Flynn’s book is a picture of society, boiled down to a dispute between a married couple. Fincher did not get that when he made the movie. Amy had three lines about being a Cool Girl. Fincher made her too real. He made her a real, believable woman and when that happened she became the psychobitch of heterosexual men’s nightmares; and the bane of every feminist’s existence. She is fulfilling that unfair mysoginistic stereotype - a woman who cries rape whenever she feels cheated. A woman who uses her perceived vulnerability to entrap and manipulate men. A woman who is beautiful and interesting and smart must have some hidden unforgivable flaw. Why else would she be single at 30? That’s what Amy becomes in Fincher’s movie. She becomes predictable, sexist, and thoroughly unlikable. It's a shame, because Flynn's Amy had such great potential to spark useful conversation.
It's also worth saying that all this discussion is important and interesting. But let us not forget that Flynn is a woman who wrote a bestselling novel and now a screenplay that made over 37 million dollars. This is an excellent article arguing that the pressure on female celebrities is unsustainable. Every move is picked apart because they are under such an intense microscope, and this kind of criticism will not empower or create more female writers, artists, or CEO's.
So, while it is invaluable to have debate about and among feminists. It's also important to build each other up, to celebrate victories and even failures, because more women writing and making art is a good thing.