**Warning: This piece contains spoilers to Gone Girl.

In late 2014, Gone Girl, the movie adaptation of Gillian Flynn’s 2012 novel, hit theaters and caused quite a stir with the public. The plot involves main character Amy Dunne faking her own murder, elaborately framing it on her husband Nick as revenge for cheating, killing a man to create a kidnapper fall guy when her plans fall apart, and then forcing her husband to keep playing house with her after she returns as if nothing happened; of course, the movie got people talking.

But one of the biggest controversies raised among audiences has nothing to do with Amy’s extreme criminal actions. As Amy drives off into the sunset after “killing” herself, she introduces viewers to the idea of the “cool girl” to explain why her marriage didn’t work and how it all drove her to do what she did. The long version of her monologue is excerpted from Flynn’s novel in a separate post, but essentially, Amy tells the audience that she got her husband by playing the “cool girl,” tailoring her personality to be the woman that he wanted. For Nick, this was the stereotypical “cool girl” with the beer drinking, football watching interests of a bro and the body of a Victoria’s Secret Angel. However, the “cool girl,” Amy tells us, can be any variety of personalities depending on the man (a tree hugging animal rights activist for the vegan environmentalist, a World of Warcraft expert for the gamer guy) as long as she above all “likes every fucking thing he likes and doesn’t ever complain.” More importantly, this girl does not exist according to Amy. All “cool girls” would rather be someone else but keep playing along to keep their man around. After finding out that Nick is cheating on her with a “newer, younger, bouncier cool girl” despite all of her efforts to maintain the cool girl charade for him, Amy decides to get her revenge.

Anyone who has seen the movie or read the book can clearly tell from Amy’s actions that she is some sort of -path. Psycho-? Socio-? I don’t have the psychiatric expertise to properly diagnose her condition. The point is, audiences could have brushed past this diatribe as the ramblings of a mentally far gone character in a psychological thriller plot and let it go after finishing Gone Girl in the same way that they let go of all the impossible stunts they see in a good action movie. But the “cool girl” monologue has gained a lot of cultural stock as a topic for discussion. Some cheer Amy on through this speech while others decry her as a misogynist.

There is an element of misogyny to Amy’s logic. After all, you can’t really throw around phrases such as “awful pretender women” and say that “cool girls” are “even more pathetic” than the men they’re trying to please without sounding like someone who hates women and feels superior to them. It’s also very un-feminist to say that no woman could genuinely like sports and beer or that men should pretend to like Jane Austen and knitting to please women. But people shouldn’t take this as permission to dismiss Amy’s point entirely and “reduce [Gone Girl]’s message to ‘bitches be crazy'” (Dockterman). Despite Amy’s flaws (and clearly she has many), the “cool girl” monologue opens the door to an important discussion about the pressure on women to be palatable for others by fitting into certain molds.

Starting from a very young age, girls are bombarded with the message that they need to look and act a certain way so that they can gain acceptance from society. The media starts by telling them to dress and do their hair a certain way. As girls make their way into their teens, the messages also start addressing the need for flawless faces and perfectly toned bodies. Parents want their children to be liked, but they seem to place an extra pressure on girls to be particularly sweet and accommodating for others. As they mature, girls are flooded with tips for getting men’s approval specifically, starting with how to make boys in their class like them and then transitioning into how to please a man in bed. The underlying message of all this socialization tells girls that they need others to like them and approve of them in order to be a proper woman in society and the only way to get this seal of approval is to be perfect.

I’m not trying to deny that men feel their own social pressures to fit into certain molds. The popularization of certain male athletes, actors, and models sends the message that the ideal man has an attractive face, a chiseled jawline, and an eight pack of abs. The main character in most television shows and movies is often a “manly” man who has stereotypical masculine traits such as strength, dominance, and hardened emotion. While I don’t have any reliable insight on the male experience as a woman, I can surmise about the burdens that men experience when faced with these messages.

However, I’ve found that there is a lot more forgiveness and acceptance for your flaws if you’re a man than if you’re a woman. When considering body type representation in the media, I can think of many different male body types that are shown: guys on the short side and guys on the tall side; guys with abs and guys with beer bellies; guys with model faces and guys without. Women have a much smaller range when it comes to how their bodies are represented. Most of the women I think of as popular female icons look like they’re 5’9’ and do yoga. If a female icon is plus size (Let’s also note that we rarely feel the need to add body type labels like this to men.) or on the short side, she is still somehow drop dead gorgeous, even if she has been cast as the “ugly girl.” Additionally, our society’s “boys will be boys” attitude gives men a lot more latitude when it comes to how to act as a person. It seems like the most popular trope for male characters in television and movies these days is the lovable asshole. His questionable morality may feature sexist jokes related to his promiscuity and inability to commit (i.e. Barney Stinson on How I Met Your Mother) or some casual criminal behavior (i.e. Walter White in Breaking Bad). No matter what flavor of jerk he is, viewers can’t help but fall in love with this character as they overlook or rationalize unacceptable behavior with an “Oh, you!” Audiences tend to be less forgiving toward female characters with similar flaws. Some women become cutthroat to succeed in a male dominated work place while others lash out at others in response to a traumatic incident. Some audience members can appreciate these flaws for allowing women characters to be more complex and interesting than traditional female roles who are one dimensionally nice all the time. But sadly, most viewers refuse to see past the surface badness of a woman. If a female character does something bitchy, most people will just see her as a bitch and that’s it.

This is where the “cool girl” persona comes in. Since women have learned through socialization that they need to be perfect and that they’re probably going to be punished somehow for their flaws big or small, it really isn’t surprising that they’ve evolved this survival mechanism to help them get around that. I have no doubt that there are women who genuinely love sports, video games, and whatever other “cool girl” interests people think they might be faking. But I’ve also been the girly girl interested in ballet and musicals who boys weren’t interested in talking to, as well as the girl who drank beer and said “cool girl” statements like, “I hate other girls,” basking in the glow of the male approval I received. Additionally, women don’t put on the “cool girl” act strictly for men or romantic interests. Many women will tell you that the easiest way to get through most social situations as a female is to be the palatable, understanding sweetheart. For example, I went to a lecture on how to negotiate salary and benefits for a job offer. The presenter told us that men have leeway in how aggressive they can be in pushing for what they want, but women need to be “relentlessly pleasant” by smiling a lot and showing concern for the negotiator in order to get what they want.

Though Amy Dunne’s argument is somewhat problematic and is taken to the extreme by her mental delusions, some of the points brought up by the “cool girl” monologue have their merits. It’s time for society to really analyze and adjust the high standards that we expect women to live up to.

Sources:

Dockterman, Eliana. “Is Gone Girl Feminist or Misogynist?” TIME. 6 October, 2014. Web. 21 April 2015. <http://time.com/3472314/gone-girl-movie-book-feminist-misogynist/&gt;.

excerpted from Gone Girl (novel) by Gillian Flynn:

“That night at the Brooklyn party, I was playing the girl who was in style, the girl a man like Nick wants: the Cool Girl. Men always say that as the defining compliment, don’t they? She’s a cool girl. Being the Cool Girl means I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex, and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she’s hosting the world’s biggest culinary gang bang while somehow maintaining a size 2, because Cool Girls are above all hot. Hot and understanding. 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.

Men actually think this girl exists. Maybe they’re fooled because so many women are willing to pretend to be this girl. For a long time Cool Girl offended me. I used to see men  –  friends, coworkers, strangers  –  giddy over these awful pretender women, and I’d want to sit these men down and calmly say: You are not dating a woman, you are dating a woman who has watched too many movies written by socially awkward men who’d like to believe that this kind of woman exists and might kiss them. I’d want to grab the poor guy by his lapels or messenger bag and say: The bitch doesn’t really love chili dogs that much  –  no one loves chili dogs that much! And the Cool Girls are even more pathetic: They’re not even pretending to be the woman they want to be, they’re pretending to be the woman a man wants them to be. Oh, and if you’re not a Cool Girl, I beg you not to believe that your man doesn’t want the Cool Girl. It may be a slightly different version  –  maybe he’s a vegetarian, so Cool Girl loves seitan and is great with dogs; or maybe he’s a hipster artist, so Cool Girl is a tattooed, bespectacled nerd who loves comics. There are variations to the window dressing, but believe me, he wants Cool Girl, who is basically the girl who likes every f*cking thing he likes and doesn’t ever complain. (How do you know you’re not Cool Girl? Because he says things like: ‘I like strong women.’ If he says that to you, he will at some point f*ck someone else. Because ‘I like strong women’ is code for ‘I hate strong women.’)

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.

But it never happened. Instead, women across the nation colluded in our degradation! Pretty soon Cool Girl became the standard girl. Men believed she existed  –  she wasn’t just a dreamgirl one in a million. Every girl was supposed to this girl, and if you weren’t, then there was something wrong with you.

But it’s tempting to be Cool Girl. For someone like me, who likes to win, it’s tempting to want to be the girl every guy wants. When I met Nick, I knew immediately that was what he wanted, and for him, I guess I was willing to try. I will accept my portion of blame. The thing is, I was crazy about him at first. I found him perversely exotic, a good ole Missouri boy. He was so damn nice to be around. He teased things out in me that I didn’t know existed: a lightness, a humor, an ease. It was as if he hollowed me out and filled me with feathers. He helped me be Cool Girl  –  I couldn’t have been Cool Girl with anyone else. I wouldn’t have wanted to. I can’t say I didn’t enjoy some of it: I ate a MoonPie, I walked barefoot, I stopped worrying. I watched dumb movies and ate chemically laced foods. I didn’t think past the first step of anything, that was the key. I drank a Coke and didn’t worry about how to recycle the can or about the acid puddling in my belly, acid so powerful it could strip clean a penny. We went to a dumb movie and I didn’t worry about the offensive sexism or the lack of minorities in meaningful roles. I didn’t even worry whether the movie made sense. I didn’t worry about anything that came next. Nothing had consequence, I was living in the moment, and I could feel myself getting shallower and dumber. But also happy.

…

I was probably happier for those few years  –  pretending to be someone else  –  than I ever have been before or after. I can’t decide what that means.

But then it had to stop, because it wasn’t real, it wasn’t me. It wasn’t me, Nick! I thought you knew. I thought it was a bit of a game. I thought we had a wink-wink, don’t ask, don’t tell thing going. I tried so hard to be easy. But it was unsustainable. It turned out he couldn’t sustain his side either: the witty banter, the clever games, the romance, and the wooing. It all started collapsing on itself. I hated Nick for being surprised when I became me. I hated him for not knowing it had to end, for truly believing he had married this creature, this figment of the imagination of a million masturbatory men, semen-fingered and self-satisfied. He truly seemed astonished when I asked him to listen to me. He couldn’t believe I didn’t love wax-stripping my p-ssy raw and blowing him on request. That I did mind when he didn’t show up for drinks with my friends. That ludicrous diary entry? I don’t need pathetic dancing-monkey scenarios to repeat to my friends, I am content with letting him be himself. That was pure, dumb Cool Girl bullshit. What a cunt. Again, I don’t get it: If you let a man cancel plans or decline to do things for you, you lose. You don’t get what you want. It’s pretty clear. Sure, he may be happy, he may say you’re the coolest girl ever, but he’s saying it because he got his way. He’s calling you a Cool Girl to fool you! That’s what men do: They try to make it sound like you are the cool girl so you will bow to their wishes. Like a car salesman saying, How much do you want to pay for this beauty? when you didn’t agree to buy it yet. That awful phrase men use: ‘I mean, I know you wouldn’t mind if I …’ Yes, I do mind. Just say it. Don’t lose, you dumb little twat.

So it had to stop. Committing to Nick, feeling safe with Nick, being happy with Nick, made me realize that there was a Real Amy in there, and she was so much better, more interesting and complicated and challenging, than Cool Amy. Nick wanted Cool Amy anyway. Can you imagine, finally showing your true self to your spouse, your soul mate, and having him not like you? ”

-=copied from http://www.freebooksvampire.com/mystery/Gone_Girl_by_Gillian_Flynn/30.html

This past January, Viola Davis won Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series at the Screen Actors Guild Awards for her role as Annalise Keating on ABC’s How to Get Away with Murder. In her acceptance speech, she thanked the show’s creator, writers, producers, and executives for “thinking that a sexualized, messy, mysterious woman could be a 49-year-old dark skinned African-American woman who looks like me.” Who is this character? For those of you not watching the show, Annalise Keating is one television’s newest anti-heroines. HTGAWM centers on Keating’s law school class and defense attorney practice, both of which earn her a tough reputation to say the least. Without giving too much away, affairs and murder slowly entangle Keating’s personal life with her professional one, challenging her moral compass and leading her to manipulate, deceive, and more. Sexualized? Messy? Mysterious? Check, check, check.

Anti-heroism isn’t new with characters such as Tony Soprano and Walter White ruling the screens for years. Anti-heroism also is becoming more common in female characters with the rise of Cersei Lannister and Amy Dunne. However, this subversion of idealized morality is not usually explored in people of color. Awfulness for characters of color tend to have roots in bad racial stereotypes, inextricably intertwining their race with their flaws, and are usually written as one dimensional—i.e. the black drug dealing gang member or the strict, overbearing Asian mom.

Annalise Keating is one of the few nuanced leading women of color on mainstream television. Throughout the show, Keating subverts conventional femininity in many ways. As a high-powered attorney and law school professor, she is a dominant alpha female who is at least equal to her psychology professor husband, if not the breadwinner of the family. Her character also opposes the traditional sweet, emotional female role with the notoriously tough, emotionless persona she takes on in public as she grills students and defends clients for the most extreme of crimes. However, Keating also uses her femininity to her advantage. She uses seduction and feigned maternalism to manipulate men into doing what she wants. Scenes of her taking off her makeup before putting herself into a vulnerable position and putting it on before going head to head with the police in a questioning liken it to a suit of armor that helps keep her protected. Finally, Keating submits to femininity, standing by her man as a loyal wife despite his great moral failings and acting as a surrogate mother to her cohort of interns when protecting them could lead to her downfall. What is powerful about Keating’s character is that she’s balanced. Her race is not fully ignored. It’s used in the show when it is relevant, and in fact, it was a key to one of the show’s most powerful displays of femininity in which she takes off her wig and shows her natural hair as a part of her end-of-day ritual along with removing her makeup. But the creative team focuses on writing the “sexualized, messy, mysterious” aspects of Keating as a woman, instead of centering her characterization on her race.

As a woman of color myself, I am just as thankful as Davis to the team that created such a character as Annalise Keating. They didn’t just put a woman of color in the story as a token minority for diversity points. They gave Keating a story. A complicated, fleshed out, interesting story of a three-dimensional human being.