GONE GIRL AND THE COOL GIRL

taken from www.screenrant.com

“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 fucking 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 fuck someone else. Because “I like strong women” is code for “I hate strong women.”

― Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl

I managed to catch the movie version of the book Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. Initially, there was a rumour that Reese Witherspoon will be playing the role of Gone Girl Amy Dunne but it turned out she was become the producer of the movie. Rosamund Pike was perfect as the icy “perfect” blonde wife. Ben Affleck as the Nick Dunne, the husband was a good choice too but I can also imagine Ed Burns for the role. Carrie Coon as the Nick’s sister Margo, Kim Dickens & Patrick Fugit as the two detectives and Tyler Perry as Nick’s Attorney, all added color to this spell-binding movie. Neil Patrick Harris was convincing as the Amy’s obsessed old boyfriend. Most people know that Neil Patrick Harris is openly and happily gay so I don’t know how people would react to his bedroom scene with  Rosamund Pike.(Opps… Spoiler! Too late.) Gillian Flynn did the screenplay so there wasn’t a big diversion from the book.  David Fincher did the book justice by telling the story in how it should be. He masterfully manoeuvred the challenging plot beautifully. Watching this film is very reminiscent of the how Alfred Hitchcock would make films in the olden days with a similarly looking blond girl, Grace Kelly.  What do I think of the film? I think it was superb!

So now that I have made my mini-review of the film, let us dissect this quote about the cool girl by Amy Dunne. I can’t believe that I am agreeing with psychopath Amy (Opps… Sorry! Spoiler again) that men loves the cool girl or sometimes they call her the Manic Pixie Dream Girl (referring from Kirsten Dunst’s character in Elizabethtown). But I am sorry I have to break it to you guys, the cool girl is an illusion. Most writer-directors  (I am talking to you, Farrelly Brothers!) created this type of unrealistic woman who men hopes they will find. A woman who can hang with the boys, talk about sports, drink real beer but still look smoking hot & doesn’t gain a pound. A woman who doesn’t complain, only have sex to please her partner, doesn’t have a smidgen of makeup but still stunning and is kind & adopts stray dogs. You will have a lot of reference for this type of woman: Cameron Diaz in Something About Mary, Natalie Portman in Garden State, Kate Hudson in How To Lose A Guy in 10 Days, Zooey Deschanel in 500 Days of Summer or media-enhanced promotion of the real Jennifer Lawrence. Yes, there are really women who likes beer, who loves sport and naturally pretty. But here are the flaws of exalting the cool girl archetype.First of all, it is a very unrealistic goal set for women to be all that. Honestly, boys, if you want us to eat all that burger and drink all that beer with you, we will get fat. Men gets irritated with women who eats only salad but also wants a girlfriend with flat tummy & toned butt. Men says they want the natural- looking ladies without a ton of make-up. I have to tell you, guys, that natural-looking face that you admire so is a skilful artistry of perfectly blended foundation, concealer, a natural-looking blush, a near-to-same-shade-of-lip lipstick with added highlighting for that “natural” healthy gleam. Some women now would fake liking watching sport games when she rather watch romantic-comedies with a big pint of ice cream. The mythical cool girl always puts his man needs in their home, careers, kitchen and bedroom first and forgetting her own. She is okay to be the mean-time girl because she is too cool to want marriage or kids anyway. She doesn’t need the cuddle at night or needs affirmations of “I love you’. The cool girl is a unicorn in men’s wet dreams that women struggling to achieve. The problem with glorifying  this type of archetype is that men thinks it’s real and that women forgets her femininity. Or more so, women rejects her femininity. I believe the real Gone Girl is the Feminine Girl in every women. Women now are ashamed to be too girly and fragile-looking but we didn’t realise that is where our strength lies. I am all for loving pink, being soft, being emotional and wanting to be loved. Now women are afraid to be real women. If  there is something we can take from this movie as women is that we shouldn’t allow facade to take over your life. So instead of Gone Girl, we can just say Go Girl! (I am being so corny and such a girl.)