Gone Girl: Is it Feminist?
Hello! Been a while since I posted.
So after watching this movie for the fifth time, I’ve decided to do a brief analysis on the movie…
…especially on Miss Amy Elliot Dunne right here.
I know this movie’s hype has been long gone but I somehow can’t help but randomly think about it. So without further ado, let’s talk about Gone Girl (dir. David Fincher) and why it’s so phenomenal.
Let’s start with the plot.
This movie is about a woman who meticulously frame her husband for her own murder because of his infidelity and laziness. This is no spoiler guys, the movie is basically about that.
But in more details, here goes (spoiler alert!): From the beginning of the movie, all that is shown is that Amy Elliot Dunne was missing on the day of her wedding anniversary with Nick Dunne. Nick was very confused, but all suspicion was on him. We follow Nick along with the investigation. As the investigation goes on, flashback scenes from Amy’s diary was shown, from how she met Nick, how they had the best sex, how they were laid off of their jobs, until how they found themselves in the suburbs of Missouri and their marriage going to perils.
In the middle of the movie, it was revealed that Amy was the mastermind of the plotted crime. She explained her motive behind framing Nick into murdering her, along with how she could get away with such a well-planned staged crime.
The story ends with Amy returning home covered in blood, saying she had to kill her ‘kidnapper’, that is her ex (he didn’t kidnap her). Did she and Nick end up separating? Of course… Not! They stayed together as an infamous All-American couple because if Nick filed a divorce, he will be seen as the bad guy!
So, this movie was a huge, HUGE topic in the 2010s. One side said that this movie favors to the ‘female fantasy’. Women feel awesome that a character such as Amy Elliot was able to overpower the man who had mistreated her. Not with physicality, but with her wit and intelligence. Some women felt empower by this movie in an unconventional way, that is why it became so popular.
On the other hand, Amy is still a villain. She manipulated others to hurt his lying, lazy, cheating husband. Heartbreak was the motivation of her crime. She is emotional, she wants vengeance. How can this movie be empowering for women?
So... Is this movie feminist or not?
Answering that question is not as easy as I thought.
First of all, yes, Gone Girl was a novel written by a female: Gillian Flynn. Therefore Amy Elliot Dunne is written by someone who really understand how women think, what motivates them, how they react to crisis, and their strengths and weaknesses.
The crime that Amy did was an extremely well-planned one. She drained her own blood, faked her own pregnancy, wrote a false diary with at least 300 entries only to half-burned it, bought a getaway car, even almost killing herself. Her goal was to humiliate her husband, she'd die to see Nick in prison because of her.
To achieve her goal, she manipulates people The way men can't: appealing to her female qualities. Let's explore some of the female tropes (mostly written by men) that she exploited:
Drinking wine and crying to other suburban moms about her exaggerated problem: emotionally unstable husband.
Faking pregnancy because “America loves pregnant women.”
Planning everything very thoroughly due to her free to me being a stay-at-home wife.
Wrote in her fake diary that she wanted a child, but her husband doesn't.
Even after putting her husband through such hell (almost getting arrested, being the prime suspect of a murder, being hated by women from the whole country), Amy returned and got pregnant for real so Nick cannot leave him. Unless he wanted to be seen as the bad guy, of course.
Is she really that sweet, trophy wife type of girl though? No. She only used those acts for her own advantage. The way she acted in front of others vs. when she's alone is drastically different. Her fake smile quickly shifted when other characters walk out of the room. She is the perfect example of misleading narrator (a trope I dearly admire). Even I’m not sure which of the stories in her fake diary is real or not real.
The coolest thing about Amy Elliot Dunne is that she used female stereotypes (the cool girl, the trophy wife, the mad woman, the a type with a perfect degree), to achieve the goal nobody else could ever pull off so perfectly. In short, Gone Girl is a story written by a woman who uses the stereotypes men create for women to narrate a flawless criminal mastermind who uses said stereotypes for her own advantage.
But even with such a well-crafted plan, Amy still found herself in a bind and obstacle (she lost all of her money during her getaway due to someone she thought she could trust). Even so, she quickly found an alternative that didn’t only save her life, but allowed her to create a more convincing and sensational story for the media to fight over. That’s what make this story so phenomenal: It’s not ideal, but people can’t help but remember it.
In conclusion: I’m pretty sure this movie wasn’t created to appeal to the female fantasy or to empower women by narrating a “strong female character”. However, the creation of the character Amy Elliot Dunne takes female tropes in movie to a whole new level: therefore the film’s success.
ESSAY BY : Raina Safira Fachri
INSPIRED BY : that one Youtube video that I cannot find anymore ffs
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