Interesting enough, Faith from “Buffy” looks like she might be a “Cool girl”, at first… but that quickly changes after she kills a man (accidentally), tries to blame it on her friend, tries to strangle a guy (that she had previously slept with) after he confronts her about it (or maybe rape him and then strangle him to death, the scene isn’t very clear), teams up with the villain trying to cause an apocalypse, and stabs an elderly man to death so he wouldn’t stop them from causing the Apocalypse.
Gee, people unfamiliar with the show reading this must feel pretty confused or weirded out.
As noted, Amy is a narcissist psychopath, probably Borderline as well. She has no morals, she views every interaction and human relationship as transactional, and so assumes everyone else does, too. She’s pretending, so she thinks everyone else is.
She’s like really the worst kind of person. If you don’t understand, they look and act just like “real” people. Until they stab you in the back. Because you were going to do it to them, sooner or later, so why not?
I once dated someone that was a “good girl”. She liked so many things I did that I actually got suspicious if she was faking it. I mean, on the one hand, I liked all that stuff, so sure, but on the other hand, what are the odds? I had to break up, because I couldn’t trust her.
I’ve occasionally heard woman complain, justifiably, when men try to tell them what women think. This monolog strikes me as the opposite. A woman, writing dialog for another woman, and cited by women on the internet, are in no position to tell me what men think, or want.
I think most of the comments in the OP are women saying that this is something they see (and sometimes do) in real life, rather than talking about it as a movie trope.
The first fictional one that came to mind is Karen Allen’s character in Raiders of the Lost Ark. I think Lily in How I Met Your Mother might qualify, though I haven’t seen a lot of that show. Maybe Penny in Big Bang Theory?
Cool Girls as a trope are like Magical Negroes, or Manic Pixie Dream Girls. Characters that don’t really have a life of their own, they are just there to do something for the (usually male) main character. In this case, be the perfect, compatible girlfriend.
What is happening with it in real life is a lot more complicated, nuanced and variable, as you would expect.
So the complaint here is that people hope to find a partner that likes what they like. Women don’t do this as much as men do? And what’s wrong with it?
Without commenting on how much of a trope this really is, either in fiction or as a real-life-thing-people-look-for, one character who fits pretty well, at least on the surface, is the titular Mary from There’s Something About Mary.
I think the trope is more than just liking what another person likes. It’s that the “cool girl” would never challenge the other person to make a choice or otherwise disrupt the guy’s life, like asking him to go clothes shopping with her, or complain about his timespent watching sports or playing video games. Most importantly, she’ll never argue with you.
No, you won’t find women like that in real life, but you will find guys get really upset if you don’t agree with them, and won’t even look at you if you’re not slender…
If this person is based on a real person or collection of people they were probably brought in a Drama Triangle and are attracting abusive people. If you don’t think this way, congratulations, you probably weren’t brought up in a triangle. Moreover, you probably don’t know anyone like this, because you would have avoided these people.
I don’t think you will find many “cool girl” types in media because they would be boring or cardboard, or as said above “Stepford Wives”. The only one I can think of is the Buffy-bot from BTVS. The cool girl is specifically about having a drama free girlfriend, and media runs on drama
Exactly. The point is not that any particular character in any particular fictional work is “the perfect” Cool Girl. There isn’t really such a thing as “the perfect” specific instance of a generalized trope; every fictional individual will have some individual characteristics that contradict the general description (unless the general description is so broad and vague as to be basically meaningless).
The point is that there is a basic theme in a lot of male fantasy versions of a female partner that boils down to “as companionable and undemanding as one of the guys, but also really hot and sexually satisfying”. That’s a very different vibe from being just a passive doormat who puts up with anything.
Yes, the actual “Cool Girl” speech is hyperbolic and over-the-top, but it accurately pings the existence of that basic theme.
There was The Perfect Mate from Star Trek TNG. She was genetically engineered to be the Cool Girl with whatever male was in the vicinity, but would eventually conform permanently to her intended mate. Hijinks ensued when she imprinted too early, and wound up being Picard’s perfect mate, even though she was marrying someone else. But yeah, like the Buffy-Bot, a very artificial example.
[quote=“Robot_Arm, post:26, topic:971454, full:true”]A woman, writing dialog for another woman, and cited by women on the internet, are in no position to tell me what men think, or want.
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You can find men complaining about women in the same tone. None of it should be taken seriously. Frankly I don’t understand what’s worth discussing here. It may be a rant from a psychotic woman but it’s not a psychotic rant, it’s rather common instead. Just old fashioned ‘war between the sexes’ fare. If it’s the kind of thing people take more seriously than they should then maybe discussing why would be worth while.
I think that the part of the trope that is both somewhat true and also objectionable has an almost exact parallel in complaints men have of women. You want someone who likes what you like? Who doesn’t? You want someone drama-free? Who doesn’t? The implication, however, is that they will also give you some space when you want it, just like the rest of the guys will. I find it unlikely that someone who was into everything you liked would be enthusiastically interested in sharing time with you doing it exactly when you wanted to.
Stereotypically, men also have the same complaint about women, namely, that they have unreasonable expectations for sharing activities together. The difference is, according to polls at least, that women will have an expectation of emotion support from other women that men do not and thus would be more understanding if their mate does not share all of their interests. I don’t think, however, that women would not be happier if their mate shared their interests and wanted to spend time with them doing them exactly when they wanted.
This doesn’t seem like a trope to me. This just seems like human nature. The starting point is to want someone who wants what you want when you want it. If you are an aware and empathetic human, however, you learn that this is just a fantasy. The “cool girl” trope seems to suggest that this is the sign of some kind of degenerate personality disorder.
Sure, but isn’t the whole point about unrealistic relationship expectations precisely the fact that many people get tripped up by them because they don’t always clearly distinguish reality from fantasy?
Nobody (or almost nobody) is consciously saying to themselves that they want some obviously contradictory or unrealistic set of qualities in a partner. They just have some not-fully-articulated assumptions floating around in their minds and then get upset about behavior from their partners that contradicts those assumptions.
That might be somewhat affected by gender socialization, though. Men are traditionally encouraged to take their own wants and desires very seriously, and to regard being able to achieve their desires as an important criterion for successful manhood.
Women’s socialization, on the other hand, tends to emphasize the goal of being wanted. The key conventional criterion of successful womanhood is that a man saw you as worthy of being wanted and desired.
Again, even for aware and empathetic humans, the disentangling of the realities of life—especially the realities of relationships between individual human beings—from socialized expectations heavily bound up in gender stereotypes is not automatically a trivial or quick process.
A whole lot of people have found the “Cool Girl” description to be psychologically insightful or valid because it describes something in their experience of getting stuck in socialized expectations that are unrealistic as far as real human beings are concerned.
Seems be a duplicate (or at least closely related to) to the Pixel Dream Girl trope. Which is definitely a thing in both movies and white cishet young men’s imaginations.
Is that what the kids are calling online porn these days?
Seriously, yeah, the “Manic Pixie Dream Girl” and the “Cool Girl” stereotypes are similar in that both of them are super hot and fun chix who at first glance seem very independent, individual, quirky, wild, free-spirited etc., but who ultimately have no real identity or purpose outside of bringing fulfillment and meaning to the life of the man they love.
The MPDG is more ostentatiously “unconventional” in her behavior and helps the guy to “loosen up” and overcome his own fears and conventionalities that are getting in the way of his happiness. The Cool Girl might not be such a zany curveball smacking unexpectedly into his life; in fact, she might already be his wife, or a long-established friend or partner.
Agreed, there are an endless number of hallmark/lifetime movies with a Hunky McSensitive character who has no unmet needs to distract them from supporting the protagonists realizing their own best self.
I usually find that these screeds can easily be rewritten as gender neutral, or gender opposite.
