COMM 380:  Media Criticism

Introduction

Gone Girl is an original film adaptation directed by David Fincher and written by the best-selling author, Gillian Flynn. The story revolves around the dysfunctional marriage between Amy Elliot Dunne (Rosamund Pike) and Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck). The film begins on the day of their fifth wedding anniversary, Nick goes out for a drink exclaiming about how displeased he is with the status of his marriage. Soon after, his integrity is tested as he comes home to an uncanny accident finding no trace of Amy at all. Believed to be an abduction, senseless Nick heads out to report the incident to the authorities, only to be pinned as one of the main suspects for her disappearance and soon-to-be murder. Nick is driven into a status conferral frenzy as journalists and reporters chain him down to a misandrist stereotype: The abusive husband that killed his wife.

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Though not expected from many film directors, this Fincher piece is undoubtedly a literary masterpiece painted on the big screens as it captures every bit of amazing there can be found in the book itself. Partnering Fincher’s naturalistic film techniques with Flynn’s poetic and sinister writing, translates beautifully into a psychological thriller everyone needed in 2014. Garnering at least $160,000,000 in the domestic box office alone (Box Office Mojo, 2014), this perplexing thriller wreaks of havoc for every feminist out there as it is argued to be “decisively misogynistic” for presenting a wide range of awful female characters and their worst traits (Capello, 2014).

Although it is questionably a misogynistic approach to a murder mystery, this film presents us with direct implications of gender stereotypes influencing behaviors. Understanding how gender stereotypes heavily influence society and a person’s character is important to developing a greater understanding of the contextual implications of the film. Furthermore, picking apart the different layers to a film like Gone Girl will help us gain a broader idea of feminism that is essential to harnessing equality among everyone.

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When dealing with Gone Girl, several approaches can be hypothesized in order to reach a general understanding. To the eyes of many, Gone Girl is 1) a mess of gender roles and an insult to women, 2) an elongated failed marriage story, 3) a misandrist retribution thriller or 4) a haunting reality about female sociopaths. Still, most critics focus on the argument that Gone Girl is a misogynist film that defeats the purpose of feminism and presents the audience with a hurtful collection of female behavior. Instead, I argue that Gone Girl is far from a misogynist film, but a beautiful literary awakening for every human being as it unravels a harsh depiction of men and women’s personalities only denied by many due to humans’ innate egocentric nature.

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A Misogynistic Struggle

Gone Girl is a beautiful yet disturbing film exposing short takes of female villainy by cutting up scenes into flashbacks and simultaneous cuts into the present. In the beginning, Amy, a smart, witty, and experienced writer is introduced to us as a cunning beauty not short of capability. She’s smart, successful, rich, and ambitious. She knows what men want and she makes sure that she doesn’t give herself too easily. In short, she’s a strong and independent woman that knows her worth.

As the film progresses, however, the only image being portrayed of Amy is that of a manipulative and vindictive woman that wants nothing but to destroy Nick and ruin his life for cheating on her with a 20-year-old. Not only that, but the film explores into detail the aspects of Amy’s personality that make her the most conniving villain: she fakes her disappearance, plans everything out to make it look like her husband murdered her, unapologetically stains his name and reputation, and comes back only to keep him miserably chained to her side by coercing her own pregnancy.

In the past years, the author and screenwriter of the film adaptation, Gillian Flynn has wrestled with comments and accusations made against her being feminist and more of a misogynist. Why? Because critics have seen Amy as the most heinous portrayal of a female character. No values, morals, or respect for anything. It’s through her stories that Flynn addresses the struggle between the true essence of feminism and general feminism. In fact, in an interview with The Guardian, Flynn rebuttals their accusations by saying that feminism isn’t just a movement for female empowerment, but “it’s also the ability to have women who are bad characters …”(2013). The reason why critics have claimed the film to be misogynistic is because they have only looked at the larger picture: Gone Girl, a film about a self-absorbed woman who manipulates people to get what she wants. Instead, what critics should really be focusing on is the dynamic of a female author writing about a woman who struggles to keep hold of her own identity because of the stereotypes embedded in society and hence uses these stereotypes as a leverage for success.

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Misogyny is the hatred or prejudice against women. It is a big word to blatantly throw at a scholar like Flynn because of her support for feminism. In fact, writer and editor, Amanda Dobbins, defends that calling out Flynn for writing a “misogynistic” piece completely ignores the main difference between misogyny and films with unlikable characters (2014). She explains in her written piece for Vulture that most people claim the film to be misogynistic because of Amy being “a true legendary piece of work.” She checks all the boxes for the crazy, emotional, manipulative, and conniving woman no one wants to be.

However, Gone Girl is not a misogyny, because it wasn’t created with the intention to prejudice or hate on women. Instead, it was created to dramatize the different aspects of a woman’s personality to be experienced by society. It is just the mere presence of an unlikable female character that make people hate the idea of Amy Dunne and of Gone Girl.

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It’s Not Misogynistic

Now, embracing the idea of female villainy can be hard for many since society has been built with gender-biased expectations. In fact, in a survey tackling what Americans value in each gender, the Pew research center found that about 97 percent of respondents used words like kind, honest, and caring to describe women (2018). Furthermore, the influence of brands and mega companies dictate how we perceive culture and society. Gendered media present to us an ideal image for women as they are portrayed as “significantly thinner passive, dependent on men, and only drawn to housework” (Davis, 1990).

Hence, the mere image of a conniving woman succeeding in her evil endeavors even builds more rage for sexists because women succeeding in their evil plans just isn’t acceptable, and for feminists because women shouldn’t be painted onto a dirty image of using their struggles and turning it into a fiction murder novel.