Written by Megan Kearns. | Spoilers ahead.
[Trigger Warning: Discussion of rape and intimate partner violence]
Is Gone Girl a misandry fest, a subversive feminist masterpiece, or a misogynistic mess? All of the above?
I loved Gone Girl. It intrigued me with its labyrinthine plot, complex characters and noir motif. It simultaneously enthralled and enraged me. There is so much to unpack regarding gender. While a whodunit mystery revolving around the disappearance of Amy Dunne (Rosamund Pike), and whether or not her husband Nick (Ben Affleck) is the culprit, the crux of the film is the dissolution and destructive unraveling of a marriage. It begs the question: Do you ever really know the person you marry?
Deftly written by Gillian Flynn (who wrote the novel as well) and expertly directed by David Fincher, it’s an uncomfortable film that boldly examines the underbelly of love and marriage and how the media shapes perception. Told from the perspectives of both Amy (often through her diary) and Nick, Gone Girl cracks wide open and shines a spotlight on the often gendered expectations within a heteronormative marriage. Society pressures women to be flawless, never wavering in an aura of perfection. Gone Girl takes a sledge hammer to that.
In an outstanding and riveting performance by Rosamund Pike, Amy is a fascinating character. She’s brilliant, pragmatic and narcissistic. We watch her shift effortlessly from a devoted and then fearful wife to a calculating and fearlessly manipulative villain. A ruthless, Machiavellian anti-hero, Amy morphs into whatever persona she needs to don to obtain her objective. She wears personalities like a cloak, shrouding her true nature and intentions. Filled with rage, she discards the role of the docile wife. She’s not going to live on her husband’s or any man’s terms. She refuses to fulfill society’s expectations.
Amy uses her femininity to achieve her diabolical goals. She uses her sexuality, wielding it as a weapon. They are tools in her arsenal to ensnare and punish men. But just as she readily adopts stereotypical feminine traits when she needs them, she also utilizes stereotypical masculine traits of anger and violence. Her gender informs her actions and the way she perceives the world. However, Amy despises gender norms and doesn’t want to be constrained by them. She doesn’t want to be a satellite to a man. She wants to do whatever she pleases, regardless of the consequences.
We don’t get to see women as anti-heroes or villains nearly enough. As it is, we suffer a dearth of female protagonists in film. While an abundance of female anti-heroes in film reigned during the 1930s, we suffer a lack of female anti-heroes in film today. We do see more female anti-heroes on television: Patty Hewes (Damages), Olivia Pope (Scandal), Gemma Teller Morrow (Sons of Anarchy), Skyler White (Breaking Bad), Carrie Mathison (Homeland), Elizabeth Jennings (The Americans) and Claire Underwood (House of Cards). But we still see far more men in anti-hero roles on television.
Now, I don’t believe that female protagonists need to be “likable.” There’s a compelling argument by Roxane Gay as to why they shouldn’t be likable. Conventionally unlikable women don’t give a shit about what others think of them. And neither does Amy. That’s what makes Gone Girl somewhat refreshing. Here we see an unapologetically ruthless woman.
I have to applaud Amy’s rage and defiance. Although I’m horrified by her disturbing, sociopathic and misogynist tactics. This is why I relish Amy’s notorious “Cool Girl” speech. “The cool girl. The cool girl is hot. Cool girl doesn’t get angry. … And she presents her mouth for fucking.” This is a scathing commentary on how men see women as objects, as vessels, as accessories, not as entities unto themselves. I couldn’t help but say, “FUCK YEAH,” while Amy recited it. Her speech succinctly encapsulates the Male Gaze and hetero men’s expectations of women, while shattering the illusion that women are never angry and that women merely orbit men, suffocating their own needs and desires. Amy’s speech illustrates that society tells women to contort themselves to seek men’s approval.
As much as I cheer for the astute and searing commentary in the “Cool Girl” speech, Amy also condemns women complicit in this charade. She despises how women fall into their prescribed roles, all for the enjoyment of men. When Amy recites this speech, she’s driving in a car, gazing at myriad women passing by. As David Haglund points out, director David Fincher chose the images, not of men but of women, to coincide with Amy’s words. So while the words condemn men, the corresponding images implicate women, making everyone culpable. It becomes a condemnation of women themselves, that they shouldn’t fall into the trap of pantomiming this performance.
What could have potentially been a feminist manifesto mutates into something ripped out of a misogynist’s or Men’s Rights Activist (MRA)’s warped fantasy.
The biggest problem with Gone Girl lies in the tactics Amy utilizes to punish men — by faking intimate partner violence and rape. Amy ties her wrists with rope, squeezing and tightening them while turning her wrists and she hits her face with a hammer to simulate abuse. She repeatedly shoves a wine bottle up her vagina to simulate the bruising and tearing from rape. Amy falsely accuses men of rape, stalking and abuse, all for her own ends. Amy convincingly plays the role of an abuse survivor. It’s scary because this is the kind of bullshit people believe — that women lie and make shit up to wreak vengeance on men.
Author/screenwriter Gillian Flynn said that Amy “knows all the tropes” and she can “play any role that she wants.” But therein lies the problem. Abuse victims and survivors are not merely “tropes” or “roles.” Amy pretends she is being abused in order to frame Nick by writing in her diary that she fears for her life and worries that her husband might kill her. She says she feels “disposable,” something that could be “jettisoned.” Women murdered at the hands of abusive partners are typically treated as disposable in our society. People tell victims/survivors that they should have known better, they must have provoked their abuse. People question why victims/survivors stay with abusive partners. People put the onus on women to prevent rape. These are the myths that films, TV series and news media reinforce. It’s extremely problematic to equate Amy playing “the role” of an abused rape victim with actual women abused and raped.
As a domestic violence survivor, I find the turn the film takes extremely offensive. This is the narrative too many people already have embedded in their minds — that women exaggerate, fabricate and lie about abuse and rape in order to trick or trap men in their web of lies. This is one of the biggest, most pervasive and most dangerous myths about abuse. Here’s the reality. One in four women in the U.S. report intimate partner violence. One in three women worldwide will experience partner abuse. One in five women report being raped. Yet here is this film (and book) contrasting reality and reifying rape culture.
We also see victim-blaming underscored in the film from Amy’s neighbor Greta. When they first meet, Greta comments on the bruise on Amy’s face saying, “Well, we have the same taste in men.” Yet when the two women are watching a news program on Amy’s disappearance and how the leading cause of death for pregnant women is homicide (it is), Greta calls on-screen Amy (feigning ignorance that the real Amy is right next to her) a “spoiled,” “rich bitch.” She goes on to say, “While she doesn’t deserve it, there are consequences.” While this is a commentary on privilege and Greta has survived abuse too, this also amounts to victim-blaming 101.
But the victim-blaming doesn’t stop there. One of Amy’s exes talks to Nick and tells him how she falsely accused him of rape and had a restraining order placed on him. He tells Nick that when he saw her on the news missing, “I thought there’s Amy. She’s gone from being raped to being murdered.” Again this underscores the myth that women lie about rape and abuse. But the numbers are so low for reports of false rape and domestic violence that they are almost non-existent.
Victim-blaming myths permeate every facet of our society. Janay Rice’s abuse and the resulting #WhyIStayed conversation recently highlighted the myriad myths people believe about intimate partner violence, particularly when it comes to women of color. People feel they need “proof” to verify or corroborate a victim/survivor’s trauma. Society perpetually places the onus on women for their abuse rather than on where it belongs: with the abuser. As we’ve seen with Marissa Alexander, the legal system doesn’t reward but rather punishes domestic violence survivors. This happens again and again, over and over. Women are not believed. And it’s dangerous to keep feeding this narrative.
Rape is “an epidemic.” Violence against women is an epidemic. We live in a rape culture that inculcates the abuse and objectification of women and dismisses violence against women. Society makes every excuse for abusers while it unilaterally shames and blames victims and survivors of intimate partner violence, rape and sexual assault.
Some might try to assuage Gone Girl’s misogyny by declaring Amy’s misandry or by underscoring that there are two female characters – Detective Rhonda Boney and Margo Dunne – who are onto Amy’s game. But it doesn’t. When you have a protagonist doing despicable things, the film/TV series often straddles a fine line between condemnation and glorification. However, there is a way for a film/TV series to delineate their message: by the comments and perspectives of ancillary characters. Breaking Bad illustrates this beautifully. Despite what many fanboys got wrong, we are NOT supposed to identify with power-hungry, abusive, rapist Walter White. We may be fascinated by Walter’s fierce intelligence. But we are supposed to identify with Jesse and Skyler, both of whom are the heart and conscience of the show. They are the ones telling us the audience, both overtly and covertly, that Walter’s actions are despicable and monstrous.
In Gone Girl, almost every character condemns and despises Amy. They loathe her for her manipulations and how she has framed Nick. But no character comments on how Amy’s actions reinforce rape culture. Not one. Rhonda could have easily mentioned the stats for women reporting rape or domestic abuse, how few rape and abuse cases are brought to trial and even fewer convicted because of victim-blaming biases. Nick’s sister Margo could have said how horrible Amy’s schemes are not only for her brother but the implications for other women too. But everyone in the film only focuses on how Amy’s actions impact Nick. Nick even says at one point in the film, “I’m so sick of being picked apart by women.” (Boo hoo, poor Nick. Isn’t that every misogynist’s anthem??) So when Nick slams Amy’s head into the wall and calls her a “cunt” towards the end of the film — despite his abusive actions and misogynist language — we the audience are supposed to sympathize with him because he just wants to be a good dad, because he’s the one victimized by this manipulative shrew.
I wish I could love this film without reservations. I wish I could say that Gone Girl is a subversive feminist film exposing myriad gender biases and generating a much-needed dialogue on rape and domestic violence. Yet it reinforces dangerous myths rather than shattering them. The embedded “Cool Girl” speech rails against the patriarchal notion that women serve as nothing more than accessories and sexual objects to men. But the film falters by playing into a victim-blaming narrative reinforcing rape culture.
We need more complex female protagonists. We need more female anti-heroes and villains. If only we could have one in a film that doesn’t simultaneously perpetuate the misogynist notion that women lie about rape and abuse.
Megan Kearns is Bitch Flicks’ Social Media Director, a freelance writer and a feminist vegan blogger. She’s a member of the Boston Online Film Critics Association (BOFCA). She tweets at @OpinionessWorld.
This has been my favorite Gone Girl commentary! However, towards the end of the film when Nick hits Amy against the wall, I took it to remind us that we should not be tricked into thinking that Nick is the “good guy” in this story and that he is capable of being violent towards his spouse.
Wow thank you so much!
That is a great point. I never believed Nick was a “good guy” but I got the impression that we’re supposed to pity him. But considering the whole story arc is about unreliable narrators, you very well may be right that his violence towards Amy is intended to remind us that he’s not someone we should sympathize with after all.
I think the film made him more sympathetic…at least until that moment? In the book I felt they were equally morally repugnant. (Well Amy more so)
Excellent point, I agree. Also, I think we should take into account the fact that Amy was completely unfazed by it, and it quite possibly gave her a bit of satisfaction because she had manipulated him so masterfully that she actually drove him to a moment of violence. Also the fact that she royally fucked him up, but she never did anything physical. He doesn’t have the intelligence, tact, patience, cunning, and lack of scruples to the level that she does. He can’t leave her. He can’t hurt her. He can’t touch her because he just narrowly avoided being convicted for her murder and she’s carrying his child. So, he resorts to something physical. The most primal human instinct. In the book it is more extreme- he nearly strangles her. I can imagine her interior monologue being something like “Well, when I said you were violent before I was just making it up, but now look at you. I was right, you are just like your father. You’re just proving that you are what everyone thought you were.” And we all know that Amy loves nothing more than being right. Also interesting when you consider that typically men are more logical and women emotional, yet here we see a reversal.
Still, I don’t think Amy taking satisfaction in riling Nick to abuse her makes the scene okay. That is also a common trope that plagues survivors of domestic violence–that women deliberate wind men up to hurt them. So, I’m not sure if it does undo the idea of Nick as a “good guy”–I think it might reinforce the idea that women make “good guys” hurt them in a very victim-blaming way.
No, of course it doesn’t make it okay. I was just speculating on how I think Amy would have responded to it. And no one (at least no one I’ve talked to about GG) ever considered Nick a “good guy.” Everyone knows he’s a douche.
But honestly, for all intents and purposes and STRICTLY from a storytelling point of view, could you see that scene playing out any other way and having the same impact?
So after his wife tries to have him killed for cheating on her, then literally slits a man’s throat you still try to defend that she is the victim because she gets thrown up against a wall. Crazy.
That’s not what I said, I said that I don’t think the movie is trying to get us to sympathize with either Nick or Amy.
So much misandry in this blog article. It’s sad how messed up some women are nowadays. All you can do is call them out or ignore them, I guess.
God, you’re boring.
no, he’s right. You Americans are martians! I’m amazed by the way you behave.
Love the comparisons you draw between Breaking Bad and the film/novel.
Thank you very much, Scarlett!
Thank you! You put into words everything that bothered me about the film.
So you call for more female villains / anti-heroes as long as they don’t portray women in a vile, villainous ways. Sounds like feminism alright!
It also speaks to the reason why women cannot simply be protagonists because every time someone tries to write about a female lead the whole of feminism takes that one specific application and applies it to the entire gender of women, as if every single inkling of female behavior as represented in a book or movie is supposed to be a representation of women as a whole.
This movie was about an evil woman. Period. Not just a ‘psycho bitch without motive’ or a ‘spiteful bitch’ but a truly evil woman with evil intentions and an evil past of abusing people for her gain. Instead of taking this at face value YOU go on to write an article of how this is a mischaracterization of ALL women. Instead of attributing HER actions of exploiting real rape victims and domestic violence victims as just more reason why this particular character is evil, you instead blame the author / director for doing what they set out to do, by reaching into your feminist handbag of inflated rape and domestic violence statistics and accusing them of victim blaming. Sorry but this movie wasn’t about you and it is selfish of you to think so. How narcissistic is that?
I can see why this cognitive dissonance is hard to cope with, because a lot of the misandry in this film is justified by actual women’s issues. But just like men don’t cry out against every time Adolf Hitler is portrayed in a movie as ‘Hitler is not an accurate portrayal of all men’ women need to learn that the longer we experience this thing called gender egalitarianism the more women will have to shed the ‘sugar and spice and everything nice’ label that’s long been utilized when it benefits them but cast aside when it doesn’t. You don’t get to have your cake and eat it too. Either women enter this world of pure evil that most feminists will argue ‘has been a man’s world’ or stop complaining that nobody is writing about female protagonists. Because this is what happens – feminists pick apart these characters as if they were intended to be an extension of feminism itself.
You, sir, nailed it.
“But the numbers are so low for reports of false rape and domestic violence that they are almost non-existent.”
That entire “study” is one gigantic fallacy and carries absolutely no weight. It uses its sum as its proof and is circular logic. It uses the number of rape prosecutions as its own evidence that every single one of those accusations were true, which goes against THE ENTIRE ARGUMENT that men can be/are wrongfully prosecuted for rape. This ‘study’ doesn’t speak to the fact that any number of those 5,651 prosecutions were intentionally false, or ***unknowingly false*** but were still carried out in the court system where a man could have taken a plea down to sexual assault out of fear of fear of a life sentence (hey just like in Gone Girl). It ONLY defines a false rape accusation as when a woman seeks prosecution for rape and either recants her prosecution or openly admits that she was lying. Which that is the only place that ‘study’ is correct. That IS the least likely situation that a false rape accusation takes form.
The most likely form of a false rape accusation is the kind that goes completely unreported. It is the kind where a guy does something to anger a girl and out of revenge she spreads rumors to people but never actually seeks to prosecute him in the court of law because she knows it is all bullshit. She gets to play the victim to all her friends and family while still damaging the reputation of the guy. So go ahead and chalk that up to another “unreported rape” statistic while the only legal defense a man can take is to charge her with is slander – which NEVER happens – because if it is not physically written there is no evidence.
I have been falsely accused of rape two times in my life – once while I was still a virgin. Neither of which ever went to court. Neither of which ever saw any kind of punishment. As a matter of fact, the first one manifested itself with her spreading the vicious lie and then convincing 4 guys to beat my ass all because I broke up with her, admittedly, not in a very nice way. The second was so shockingly bizarre that I’ve been told that what she did was a form of rape to me. Basically I wouldn’t have sex with her because I started dating someone and she threatened that if I didn’t she would tell everyone I raped her. That’s correct. She tried to blackmail me with a false rape accusation into having sex with her. We had had sex before (basically friends with benefits) and I started dating someone and wouldn’t appease her. She was naked “waiting for me” and I told her no and walked out. She welled up tears and in front of 10 other friends ran down the stairs naked, screaming for me to “get the fuck out of her house” as she threw a glass ashtray at my head when I was walking out the front door.
So don’t sit here and spout your bullshit that false rape accusations rarely happen. Just like every single woman knows someone who has been raped every single man knows someone who has been falsely accused of rape. Using the number of prosecuted rapes juxtaposed to the number of recanted / untruthful rape accusations is about as stupid as assuming that every single guy that gets acquitted of rape was 100% innocent. In other words, that would be like stating that because only 60% of rape prosecutions lead to convictions that 40% of all rape accusations are false.
Rape is a hard topic. I am fully aware and willing to admit that. Rape definitions are far from objective and we live in a society with a criminal justice system that adheres to the idea that EVERYONE is innocent until proven guilty. It is a system, that no matter what the crime, puts the burden of evidence on the victim. The sole reason for this is that EVERYONE has the capability to lie or be subjectively perverted a fabricated, disillusioned version of their own truth. And when women such as yourself are fervently aiming to expand rape to be defined as “anything that I feel constitutes as rape” or you have CDC survey’s asking ambiguous questions like, “When you were drunk, high, drugged, or passed out and unable to consent, how many people ever had vaginal sex with you?” to inflate American rape statistics to mirror that of the Congo, someone needs to be able to step back and look at all aspects of the big picture.
I will tell you what is scary Neo-Narcissists like the author of this article. The real myth is that WOMEN DON’T MAKE FALSE ACCUSATIONS. C’MON…CHECK OUT THE NOW WEBSITE, I CAN GIVE YOU 20 THAT TEACH WOMEN TO LIE TO GET their ex out of the House, to get the Step-Father appointed Father, and to take all the property and leave the man homeless and begging on the street. And if you don’t think so, contact me and I will tell you my HORROR story at the hands of a hostile aggressive female who wanted a baby, then decided it was ‘restricting’. But denied my right to be the Parent that the Child needed.
Nominated – Funkmaster Astronaut for clear thinking in a room full of fuzzy thinking gender profilers. NOW proposes that If a man hasn’t battered a woman yet, he will eventually, so lock up men at the age of 18 and that will solve the Problem for all the Amazon Nationalists that swoon over this website.
One in five… raped: that is utterly ridiculous. The world would stop in its tracks, overnight. Five percent, I believe you even that is very high, ten percent, that is very high, 20 percent, you are just trying to destroy society.
Pussy Pass: The Movie