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Friday, March 29
The Indiana Daily Student

opinion

Not all gone girls

If you have yet to see David Fincher’s new movie “Gone Girl,” or have read the book by Gillian Flynn, you need to stop reading this column and go do that instead.

It is the most talked-about movie of the season and deservedly so. The most divisive topic springing out of this examination of modern-day marriage is the psychopathic Gone Girl herself, Amy Dunne.

After discovering that her husband cheated, Amy fakes her own death in order to frame her husband for murder. This is just one of the many terrifyingly ruthless things she does that showcases her as obsessive, manipulative and narcissistic.

Many female watchers of the movie have found issue with this portrayal of a betrayed woman. Some feel this character falls into and validates the misogynistic stereotype of the crazy femme fatal.

The author, Gillian Flynn, has dealt with these comments since the book came out in 2012.

In an interview with the Guardian in 2013, she responded with a defense of her character as complex. Flynn says Amy can’t just be simplified as crazy with no legitimacy — she has an understandable motive, even if her methods are extreme.

The real problem with the character of Amy is society wants her to represent women as a whole.

It would be so easy for misogynists of the world to latch on to her character as proof of all the evil things women do to get back at innocent men.

It’s just as easy for feminists of the world to condemn the movie for representing that proof.

Both of these groups would be projecting onto a character that actively rebels against the idea that women fit into cookie cutter versions of how the public sees them.

One character in one movie is not representative of an entire gender. No one is expecting every male to act like Walter White or Hannibal Lecter.

The reason no one suspects male characters of containing the secret to every man’s inner workings is because there is a plethora of different male characters to relate to and draw from. For every Walter White, there are two Jim Halperts to remind the world men can also be harmless.

The few women we do see on the big screen have a larger job.

This is how you get sweeping generalizations in the media, such as the dichotomy of the virgin and the whore and the idea that one psychopath discredits honest women everywhere.

There are certain parts of Gillian’s character that aren’t unrelatable, and there is a certain wish fulfillment in making a patriarchal system suffer for the psychological abuse it imposes on women that makes Amy’s character ?intriguing.

There are also parts of Dexter Morgan that are relatable, but not everyone who thinks so also relates to his psychopathic nature.

The idea that Amy’s character will convince people that all women are vindictive and evil only justifies the need for more characters like Amy.

Media needs female characters of all kinds to fully represent half of the human population.

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