Something I read recently mentioned the movie “Gone Girl”, which I knew nothing about. So I looked it up in Wikipedia, which is a great tool for finding out the plots of movies without ever having to waste my time watching them. Often there will be a section about the movie’s critical response. I was a bit surprised to find that this movie was pilloried by some groups as being anti-feminist, among other things. Based on the synopsis I read, if you could really say the movie was “anti” anything, it was anti-crazy-people.
But clearly we aren’t allowed to watch a movie as just a movie. Every movie is Important, and cannot be taken as just a small, personal story, but as representative of something larger and broader. Amy in “Gone Girl”, evidently, can’t just be Amy, who goes a little crazy, she’s supposed to be taken as Everywoman, and therefore anything negative she does is a slam against women and a sign of the writer/director’s misogyny.
Strange, but every time some group or another complains about the levels of sex or violence in a film many of the same people are quick to claim “Hey, it’s just a movie! It’s not meant to be viewed as anything but itself!”
Now, I’ve always thought that most human beings are able to tell truth from fiction and know that just because something happens in a movie doesn’t mean that it’s the same way in real life in every circumstance. I thought nearly everyone can figure out that just because Amy framed her husband as being abusive doesn’t mean that every woman who claims she’s been abused is lying. I was under the impression that people were able to evaluate situations on a case-by-case basis. Silly me.
Clearly, I’m behind the times and need to adjust my thinking yet again. So just to be clear:
- Sex in movies: Good
- Graphic violence in movies: Good
- Negative depictions of men: Good
- Negative depictions of women: Bad
- Decent plots in movies: Optional (so long as there is sex and/or violence and/or explosions)
- Critical thinking about movies: Unnecessary (You will be told what to think)
And people wonder why I don’t watch many movies.
Honestly, I would think that the message in this movie that the easily-offended crowd hates is that women are fully capable of doing things like this and getting away with it. Too many people want to believe that women are all magical creatures who do only good things unless deceived by icky men.