Spoilers for Gone Girl
Every now and then, somebody will post Amy Dunne’s the Cool Girl monologue from “Gone Girl” on Reddit or Tumblr or some other site (it is in both the book and the movie, albeit slightly different) and the post and comments will be full of “So true!” The comments section on the movie clip on YouTube isn’t much better either.
When you point out that Amy Dunne is a narcissistic psychopath and a murderer, the usual response is “Well yeah, but she is still right about this. She can be a bad person and still be right about something.” [Ignoring the fact tnat the monologue is highly subjective and it is supposed to encompass most of her character and her viewpoints. It is not like the psychopath saying “The Earth is round” or “You need air to survive”.]
When the movie first came out, most people seemed to agree that the monologue, even if it has some good points, is pretty biased and over the top, to say the least.
But over the last few years, it is like the world has gone mad.
(the comments section)
The quote (from the book) is:
"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.”)"
Here’s the thing. I’m a movie buff, I’ve watched thousands of movies and dozens of TV shows over the years. American, European, Asian and pretty much anything interesting. I even have a soft spot for Canadian cinematography (yes, that is a thing). And I don’t recall ever seeing the character that was a “cool girl”, as described by Amy. Not even in raunchy 80s sex comedies or edgy 90s teen movies (most of them written and directed entirely by men, with a bunch of sexual/controversial/gross/offensive jokes). There have been some female characters that are generally carefree and hypersexual, which many men find appealing, but nothing like the specific, over the top example described there. TV Tropes doesn’t have a page on it either, which is really saying something. TV Tropes does have a page on “Not like the other girls” trope, but it is still very different from “Cool girl”.
Even the essay linked above mentions like three movies, and none of them actually fit the criteria. The video essay uses Mila Kunis’ character in “Friends with Benefits” as one of the “examples”, because she… drinks beer and makes jokes? And claims that men use the trope to pit women against each other?
I’m sure there are women like “cool girl” (or similar) in real life, and men who fantasize about them and even seek them out. But it is not some common archetype/trope that is constantly promoted or pushed in society. Otherwise we would actually be seeing it in the popular culture. It literally does not happen, not even in movies that are obviously male fantasy.
That is also not specific to men. Women also have the fantasy of ideal men that does not match reality. You can only say that it is more common with men because most of them are more sexually inclined than women and are more of a visual type in general.
The ideal man fantasy won’t be as specific or ever the top (at least in most cases), but neither are all male fantasies. Every guy has his own fantasy/idea of a perfect girlfriend, and not all of them will want a girl who is exactly like them and wants to have sex all the time.
To be clear, the monologue itself isn’t saying any of that. But people who actually agree with it do, directly and indirectly. And it is absolutely baffling. They literally agree with a delusional psychopath. People are actually writing articles about deconstructing a trope that doesn’t even exist.
“Cool girl” monologue is the kind of thing that makes you go “Huh, this is kind of true” when you first hear/read it, but when you actually think about it, you say “No, not really”. Apparently, some people skipped the second part.