/r/books Completely Misses the Point of One of the Least Subtle Stories In Modern Fiction

For those uninformed, Gone Girl is a story about a turbo-r-slurred foid doing the absolute most absurdly stupid things possible for the most petty reasons you could imagine, and completely gets away with it because women are not expected to be responsible for their actions. It's a feminist screed about the ultimate .

Now, I'm a guy so maybe I'm missing it, but here is my basic read on the story: a guy puts on a bit of an act to get a girl who's out of his league. He loses his money, his mother gets sick, it quickly becomes clear the marriage doesn't work, and he has a kind of gross affair with a younger woman. This all makes him a standard bad dude that you feel a little bit of pity for because he's had a tough go of it but ultimately you dislike imo.

Ok but then his girlfriend is literally psychotic and not in a “well he/the patriarchy made her that way” kind of way. No, it's in a “shes so crazy, and has always been so crazy, that I'm now rooting for this mediocre guy because he now looks like a saint in comparison” way.

I see isolated feminist moments like the cool girl monologue. But, at least by my reading, the point of this monologue is less that trying to play to male fantasies eventually drives people crazy, and it's more a supremely inauthentic person projecting. Amy's act didn't start because she wanted to appeal to mediocre men; it started with Amazing Amy. She makes a feminist point, but that doesn't make this an inherently feminist story.

Moreover, she fakes being assaulted multiple times and regularly poses as a victim to engender sympathy. The media absolutely trashes Nick for looking insufficiently disappointed his wife is missing and immediately takes her side. If anything, Amy appears to be using her female identity and the “damsel in distress” implications that come with it to take advantage of and literally kill a man.

Now, I've seen some arguments that the very existence of a female villain as unrepentantly evil as Amy is feminist because women are rarely portrayed as so unlikable in media. I could kind of see this, but I don't get how the storyline itself is in any way feminist. It just seems to me that it's about a sociopathic woman who will use any and all means at her disposal to take control of and destroy someone's life. This makes for a very entertaining read and a very compelling character portrait, but idk how this makes a larger statement about feminism.

I was actually interested in Gone Girl because I had read somewhere that women should use it as a “litmus test” for their boyfriends. I guess I failed because I utterly fail to see Amy Dunne in any sort of positive light, apart from feeling bad that her husband cheated on her and initially pitying her for being in a loveless marriage. I get the cool girl thing too, but it seems to be a great example of a terrible person having a good idea.

This quote has to be bait but it's worth it's own little

It's been a while since I read this one, but the above was my feminist take-away. I think you're overthinking it, to expect there to be a larger statement somewhere. You're not meant to like Amy or root for her, but you are meant to marvel at her capacity for evil, her cunning and the power she has to control the people and situation around her. Things don't happen to her. She makes things happen. As you said, it's rare to see a female villian like this and that's refreshing, in a way.

Amy is not a good role model, nor is she a feminist in any meaningful sense of the word. If anything, she (ab)uses feminist structures and movements for her own ends. For example, she's counting on the activism of victim advocates to incriminate her husband, even if he's innocent.

Fight Club is a "dudes rock" book/movie, gone girl is a "chicks rock" book/movie

Yeah, this was my first thought about this post too. She is kind of a Tyler Durden.

Our society is so patriarchal that the novelty of a female character that powerful actually existing in an story is progress.

A woman taking her future into her own hands and making the man who caused her suffering pay for it ( right or wrong), is pretty feminist to a lot of people. Neither Nick or Amy is a good person, which is what causes trouble, there isn't anyone to really root for.