Yup, see also “Prince Charming”. What Disney prince, at least in the early movies, had any kind of inner life or individual goals beyond “be completely dazzled by and permanently devoted to this woman, thereby affirming her Wanted and Chosen 
status for all time”?
I think what makes fantasies like this toxic is the cultural myth surrounding the supremacy of “one true love” … “for ever and ever” … “only lover, sole partner, best friend” … the one person who will meet and satisfy all your needs … monogamy.
It’s this set of myths that makes “finding the one” a much higher stakes matter than it needs to be. Obviously, choosing to be a domestic partner with another person is always going to be high stakes. But it raises things to an insanely destructive level when the basic standard of our cultural myth demands that one person must be all things to you.
The old cliche about “it takes a village to raise a child” … maybe we should apply it to the entirety of a person’s life … it may take many people to meet all of your needs, and I know I mentioned monogamy above, but I’m definitely not just talking about sex here. Maybe you don’t need your domestic partner to be agreeable to do the things that you like but that person hates. Maybe it’s that very expectation that is damaging.
Find someone else to play Xbox with you. Find someone else to go shopping … whatever the cliches are (I think it’s bad enough that our cultural conditioning makes those two statements automatically impledly gendered).
Don’t make your partner be the one who must accompany you to X, Y, or Z occasions. I actually know couples that don’t make each other do this, and they are much happier for it.
Our cultural myth of the one and only partner and companion for all things … that’s the real toxic trope in our society, not this cool girl thing.
I think many of the female characters on Letterkenny fit the Cool Girl archetype pretty well: they love drinking beer and hanging with the guys, they have no time for chick bullshit and, most importantly for Cool Girls, they’re all smokin’ hot and pretty much always DTF. When I watch that show I’m always torn between how genuinely cool and strong the female characters are (Katy alone is smarter than pretty much all the men put together) versus how they all still feel like male fantasies, albeit a little more woke than the norm.
I dunno, I can’t really see her going along with being a doting partner for Indy’s shit (much less down for threesomes at his request). I think that, for a lot of potential examples, the “Does kick-ass guy stuff” part is at odds with “Perfect understanding and caring doormat of a partner”.
One that comes to mind is Katie Aselton’s character Jenny from The League. She’s hot, smart & competent, hangs with the guys and plays fantasy football, drinks, swears and eats trash food, is comfortable with her sexuality and doesn’t really stop her dumber husband from doing dumb husband stuff. But, in the context of the overall rant, I have a hard time believing that a bunch of impressionable young women were modeling their lives after an FX comedy series character. Overall, the rant sounds a lot like idiot guys who repeat shit from Fight Club or Joker or “Thanos was actually right”
In my experience a lot of these shows come down to any number of male characters… and the ONE woman character who is like this. Even going back to MAS*H, Taxi, Seinfeld. These shows ought to be able to accommodate more than one woman.
In real life relationships… I think there is a lot of social push that genders are neutral to bad, and that influences the ways these shows are written. That women would be belching and farting as much as men but for social pressure. Whether women WANT to belch and fart as much as men isn’t addressed. It also seems to imply that men are better somehow, and they aren’t. Genders are genders, they are complimentary IMO, they are beneficial IMO. I think a lot of people disagree, at least with their political minds, that they are beneficial. I don’t agree with that.
I have had two long term relationships. As far as a woman “faking interest” in topics to get a man, that was more my first. It was problematic down the road, I wish my ex hadn’t done that so much if she really couldn’t sustain the relationship. With the second relationship it was the opposite problem, not enough of that from my GF. We mostly did things she wanted to do. That didn’t work either. As a man, from what I have seen from others, I don’t think I can have a viable relationship without a woman being “by my side” at certain times. If she can’t do that, I would move on.
The monologue in Gone Girl makes about as much sense as Pacino’s monologue about Eddie Barzoon in Devil’s Advocate (spoilered below…is there a way to make a collapsed text section next time?)
I mean, in the former, it fits fine in the film, because it starts out as them as the perfect couple, and I took it to mostly be about her resentment and difficulty fulfilling that role, even though it’s phrased as if it’s talking about women in general.
Yeah I can’t relate to it at all as a general statement. Firstly, there are very few men who can be so picky as to put so many obligations on their partner in addition to her being hot. But secondly, even men who are good-looking and successful enough to have such a choice, I don’t know that they have such a concrete shopping list in mind either.
Eddie’s got himself in trouble again. And he wants me to save him. Only this time, I can’t…You ever have any experience with manic depression?.. Eddie Barzoon! Eddie Barzoon! Ha! I nursed him through two divorces, a cocaine rehab, and a pregnant receptionist. God’s creature, right? God’s special creature? Ha! And I’ve warned him, Kevin. I’ve warned him every step of the way. Watchin’ him bounce around like a f–kin’ game. Like a wind-up toy! Like 250 pounds of self-serving greed on wheels! The next thousand years is right around the corner, Kevin. Eddie Barzoon – take a good look, because he’s the poster child for the next millennium! These people - it’s no mystery where they come from.
You sharpen the human appetite to the point where it can split atoms with its desire. You build egos the size of cathedrals. Fiber-optically connect the world to every ego impulse. Grease even the dullest dreams with these dollar-green, gold-plated fantasies until every human becomes an aspiring emperor, becomes his own god! Where can you go from there? And as we’re scramblin’ from one deal to the next, who’s got his eye on the planet? As the air thickens, the water sours. Even the bees’ honey takes on the metallic taste of radioactivity – and it just keeps comin’, faster and faster! There’s no chance to think, to prepare. It’s ‘buy futures, sell futures’ when there is no future!! We got a runaway train, boy!! We got a billion Eddie Barzoons all joggin’ into the future. Every one of ‘em getting ready to fist-f–k God’s ex-planet, lick their fingers clean as they reach out toward their pristine cybernetic keyboards to tote up their f–kin’ billable hours!! And then it hits home! You gotta pay your own way, Eddie. It’s a little late in the game to buy out now!! Your belly’s too full, your dick is sore, your eyes are bloodshot, and you’re screamin’ for someone to help!! But guess what? There’s no one there!! You’re all alone, Eddie. You’re God’s special little creature! Maybe it’s true. Maybe God threw the dice once too often. Maybe He let us all down.
In Gone Girl Affleck’s character is cheating on her. That is kind of the go to for men of means, add on a mistress for variety or to escape the demands of the more social partner. The men who are perpetually unsatisfied with their women partners tend to be serial daters/cheats or mercurial, inconsistent guys. There are women as well who have affairs just for sex. But Affleck’s character was the more common trop.
This, I think, is the key component of the type (as others have also expanded on). It’s not so much about “she’ll play D&D and likes grilled meat, just like me!” but more “I will never have to learn to open up emotionally or have conflict of any sort because she’s happy maintaining a surface-level ‘fun’ relationship in perpetuity. And I will never need to change any of my habits or behaviors to accommodate her needs in any way, because she’s cool with me just how I am, and us just how we are. Forever. And she always wants sex, of course.”
Under the little cog in the Reply Box, there’s an option to Hide Details. That works well to collapse spoilers and lets you label what is in there.
Secrets of the Universe Within
…Or maybe not
Yeah, it’s true she is not a complete doormat, and they start off with a big fight. But then she gets over it. Mostly, Indy treats her like shit, and she basically puts up with it. I think Zyada is right that it doesn’t make for good TV to have a drama-free character.
I didn’t understand or relate to the Gone Girl speech until my daughters started dating. Seeing the lengths they would go to try to be the ‘perfect girl’ for their man, and would never call him on his bullshit. Of course they were young, and those relationships all failed. A lot of their behaviour came from dating advice they found on Youtube, but it must have resonated with them somehow that this would be a good idea.
Ah got it.
Much
appreciated
I don’t think this interview with Gillian Flynn has been posted yet. Her response to a question about the Cool Girl speech is too long to post here in its entirety, but it directly answers one of the questions in the OP:
I like that it’s become kind of shorthand. We all know what we’re talking about when we’re talking about Cool Girl. It’s the putting up with machismo bullshit, and smiling and nodding when you know better. That has a lot to do with it. There’s the pretending, the pretend aspect, but it’s also, “Sure, that’s great!” when it’s not. It’s pretty cool that it’s taken off. It’s a worthwhile conversation to have, and to continue having.
While the character who delivers the speech is a psychopath, the words themselves clearly resonated with Flynn to the point where she went out of her way to include it in the novel.
MaxTheVool mentioned There’s Something About Mary upthread, and that’s also who Flynn herself cites as an example. One example doesn’t a trope make, but if you think about that character I think others jump to mind, like anyone in a relationship with Kevin James or Adam Sandler.
As for whether it’s a conversation worth having, I think it is, but maybe for different reasons as I’m coming at it from a male perspective. Not to diminish anyone’s feelings on the topic, but I kinda view it the same way I do pockets in women’s clothes. Whenever women (rightfully) complain about the lack of pockets, men counter with the obvious “just don’t buy clothes without pockets.” It feels that simple, and yet it clearly isn’t.
Likewise, if guys are up front about wanting to do whatever they want to do and expecting their partners to just be “cool” about it all, then what’s the problem? I don’t think the men in question are masters of deception. If that’s not what women want in a partner, then they shouldn’t date those guys. I get that it’s not that simple, but it feels like it should be.
FTR whenever the pockets topic comes up with me, I like to discuss market failures and how even basic things like making clothes the right size for modern populations can take time to bubble through.
I bet it’s annoying though if other men you’ve encountered essentially say “Oh you can’t find clothes with pockets? Well, just buy clothes with pockets, then more stores will sell them”.
I can’t even count the number of online dating profiles of men I’ve seen who are looking for a gym partner/biking partner/hiking partner/skiing partner, and someone who is just as comfortable in a little black dress and heels as jeans and a T-shirt.
Everybody want to seem cool to somebody, and poses to try to make it so at times.
First of all, let’s look at the Cool Girl speech if it was written from the perspective of what some Hollywood caricature of a man might write:
"Great Guy. Women always use that, don’t they? As their defining compliment. He’s a Great Guy. Great Guy is hot and sexy without being an arrogant womanizing douche. Great Guy is effortlessly rich. Great Guy is popular but puts his woman first. Great Guy never gets angry at his woman no matter how absurd her requests. He only smiles in a chagrin loving manner and then takes off his shirt to present his rock-hard 6-pack for sensitive, but dominating (and yet non-rapey) lovemaking. He like what she likes. So, evidently, he’s a wine connoisseur who read Where the Crawdads Sing before the film. If she likes shopping, he will patiently hold her purse while she peruses the Prada and Jimmy Cho sales with her girlfriend. When I met [whoever], I knew she wanted a Great Guy, and for her, I’ll admit, I was willing to try. I did 1000 crunches a day. I drank pinot while watching Sandra Bullock rom-coms. I learned to cook French cuisine and maintained 3% body dat. I gave her a foot massage nightly. I attended to her needs without being overbearing. I was fucking awesome (without overshadowing her awesomeness). I can’t say I didn’t enjoy some of it. [whoever] enabled me to stay active…sexually. But I made her appear better and more successful than her friends. I inspired her to step up her game, lest one of her friends steal me away from her. "
The “Cool Girl” speech sounds like the ravings of a narcissistic psychopath (which it is).
Amy Dunne from Gone Girl has become the female equivalent of Tyler Durden/Narrator from Fight Club. Basically a fantasy ideal vision of themselves as a reaction to the frustrations of the modern world. In a way, they are very similar. Both characters are a rejection of having to pretend to be a version of yourself that you don’t like in order to fit in and survive in the modern world. I say “survive” and not “succeed” because “success” as often defined by modern society - marriage, good job, nice house/apartment, nice clothes, etc - are often things that people don’t even really care about. Both Amy Dunne and the Narrator are “working jobs they hate for shit they don’t need”. In the case of Amy, her “job” is being married to a choad and the “shit” she doesn’t need is living in the ass-end of the country doing the traditional housekeeping stuff.