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00:00It's been a decade since David Fincher's adaptation of Gone Girl hit our screens and
00:04sent waves through society. Amy Dunn was villainous, vengeful, and also kind of relatable.
00:10You think I'd let him destroy me and end up happier than ever? No way. He doesn't get to win.
00:16And while the story was grounded in its era, it's in many ways even more relevant today.
00:21So let's take a look back at the film, how its commentary on splits of the self,
00:25existing in the public eye, and the problem with the media all fit into our current world,
00:30and why Amy's wrath still connects with audiences. The film was impactful in many ways, but the one
00:36thing that many viewers really latched onto was the breaking down of the cool girl, a trope that
00:41was so incredibly pervasive at the time. Cool girl is hot. Cool girl is game. Cool girl is fun.
00:47We've even got a whole video breaking down the trope in the many ways it popped up on our screens
00:52and in real life. Men always use that, don't they? As their defining compliment. She's a cool girl.
00:58As Amy explains, the cool girl isn't a real person, but a facade a woman feels the need to put up in
01:04order to be accepted by a man. Pretending to like whatever he likes, regardless of how she actually
01:09feels about it. Coming across as totally nonchalant and easy going, while also making sure to always be
01:15put together and ready for anything. Focusing her entire life around his wants and needs, but making
01:20sure that he thinks she's just oh so happy to do so. The cool girl persona was running rampant during
01:26the era in which Gone Girl was released. Movie characters going on and on about how they like
01:30sports and cars, not any of that icky girly stuff. Real life celebs making sure that we knew that they
01:35loved beer and carbs. But oh, don't worry, they'll still remain rail thin without even having to
01:40work out. It was a very trying time. But what Amy's monologue gets at is that this wasn't born out of
01:46some deep desire to be a cool girl. But because so much of society's messaging was that behaving in
01:53that way was the only way a woman could be accepted. When I met Nick Dunn, I knew he wanted
01:58cool girl. And for him, I'll admit, I was willing to try. If she showed that she cared about anything
02:04too much, she was branded uptight. If she didn't like crass jokes, she was a prude. If she actually
02:10liked sports, she was lying. If she ate healthfully and exercised, she was too self-centered. But if she ate like
02:16a cool girl claimed to and didn't remain thin, she was a slob. And so this all led to many women
02:22like Amy working to really excel at the cool girl game, to so thoroughly adopt the cool girl ways that
02:28even she could sometimes forget that it wasn't really her. But of course, cracks always start to show.
02:35I lived in the moment. I was f***ing game. But Nick got lazy. He became someone I did not agree to marry.
02:42While the cool girl phenomenon of that era has died out, we can see its echoes today.
02:47Social media is filled with people attempting to put forth an idea of who they think will be
02:51the most appealing. Hiding their true selves behind a false self that is more marketable.
02:56Though this time, not to just one specific guy or group, but to everyone. The line of caring enough
03:02without seeming like you care too much is still razor thin. And this leads to a lot of pressure to
03:07never slip up. But as Amy found, no matter how well you play the game, it's set up to make sure
03:13that you never really win. When the film released, social media wasn't quite yet the totally all
03:19encompassing behemoth that it's now become. Facebook and Instagram were still mostly for sharing stuff
03:24with people you actually knew. Influencers were certainly starting to make their way into the
03:27mainstream, but it was still often a surprise to see them hit the big time. And the first official
03:32version of Musical.ly launched only two months before the film premiered, and it would be four
03:37more years before it was bought out and turned into TikTok. But the idea of the split between
03:41one's public and private selves goes back millennia. And even by 2014, the idea of having a version of
03:47you for public consumption was something that even everyday, non-influencer people were beginning to
03:52consider. Amy's story hit on that feeling in a way that continues to feel relevant, both with the way she
03:57worked the media to her advantage, and with the way she was thrust into the spotlight at an early
04:02age by her parents, who wrote a book series based on her.
04:05Your parents literally plagiarized your childhood.
04:08No, they improved upon it, and then peddled it to the masses.
04:12Or rather, based on the version of her that they wish she was.
04:15When I was ten, I quit cello. In the next book, Amazing Amy became a prodigy.
04:20They created this idealized version of who Amy should be. A version of her that was perfect and beloved.
04:27And one that she could never really live up to in real life. There was an entire audience of
04:31people who loved this false version of her. And she learned from an early age that to succeed,
04:36she couldn't fight back against it, but instead had to do everything she could to compete.
04:41Regular, flawed, real Amy. Jealous as always of the golden child. Perfect, brilliant, amazing Amy.
04:49She, unsurprisingly, came to resent both her parents and Amazing Amy because of the trap this put her in.
04:54But it also all worked to shape her ideas around how one must play into whatever unreal version of
05:01yourself other people want to see from you, if you want to get your way.
05:05Start with the fairytale early days. Those are true, and they're crucial. You want Nick and Amy to be
05:11likable. After that, you invent.
05:15She carried this false self into adulthood, molding it into the cool girl persona she's perfected by the
05:20point we meet her. Nick loved a girl I was pretending to be. And the specter of the spotlight followed
05:26her, continuing to shape her behavior and view of herself. And this is why so much of her revenge
05:30plot focused on making sure Nick was skewered in the media. It wasn't just enough to have him be
05:35regretful in his own life. She wanted to make sure that he felt the full weight of that public perception,
05:41of the burning eye of the media and the world looking down on and judging him.
05:45We see this kind of thing play out in smaller ways on social media now, as people call out those they
05:50feel have wronged them in the hopes that dragging their issues into the light will allow them to
05:54feel vindicated in the public arena. You don't know if she has friends, you don't know what she
05:59does all day, and you don't know your wife's blood type. Sure y'all are married.
06:02In Amy, we can also see how living in the spotlight can lead to a feeling of superiority. As far as Amy is
06:08concerned, she is the smartest and hardest working person in any room she's in. She justifiably looks down
06:14on Nick for being lazy and not putting any effort into their relationship or seemingly anything else.
06:20But we also see this in the way she only sees everyone around her as tools to be used for her
06:25own personal gain. She constantly derides Noelle while pretending to be her friend,
06:29just so she can use her as part of her scheme.
06:32You befriend a local idiot, harvest the details of her humdrum life,
06:38and cram her with stories about your husband's violent temper.
06:42She feels that she's entirely above the couple she meets at the motel, and soon learns that
06:46smarts can't save you from everything. And she works her way back into her stalker ex-boyfriend
06:51Desi's life because she knows she can use his obsession for her own ends. In the same way that
06:56she's had to detach herself from the idea of her true self to more securely hold onto the false
07:01persona that keeps her afloat, she's also lost the ability to connect with other people in any real,
07:07meaningful way. Amy's rage at its core stems from feeling trapped, figuratively in her cool
07:13girl and amazing Amy personas, literally in the suburbs after being forced to leave Manhattan and
07:18move to Missouri. She feels like she's done everything she's supposed to, and yet things
07:23continue to not work out the way she wants. This is the most clear in her relationship with Nick.
07:28We were happy pretending to be other people.
07:30She became the person he wanted and needed her to be. She's been funding their entire life with
07:35her trust fund since they lost their jobs, and she takes care of essentially everything else in
07:40their lives. And he just… exists. And cheats on her. And if anything, resents her for all that
07:46she does because he feels emasculated.
07:49Nick Dunn took my pride and my dignity and my hope and my money. He took and took from me until I no longer existed.
07:58Amy has had to keep a tight lid on her true feelings, because being upset isn't cool.
08:03And this is another reason her revenge is so based on being loud in public. She wants to finally be
08:08able to feel like she's screaming the truth to the world that she's had to keep quiet for so long.
08:13And it's telling that her plot is not to do the obvious thing, or, well, the obvious thing for a
08:17murder mystery at least, and kill Nick, but instead to erase herself. She's had a lifetime of practice
08:23doing that. And so feels more secure with knowing that while she's gone,
08:28the persona she worked so hard to craft will remain.
08:31I am so much happier now that I'm dead. Technically missing. Soon to be presumed dead. Gone.
08:40Her initial plan is to end her own life after she's made her getaway.
08:44And after all the outrage, when I'm ready, I'll go out on the water with a handful of pills and a
08:50pocket full of stones. But she soon comes to realize, in the same way she can't outrun her
08:55problems, she also can't outrun that true self lurking within her. The true self that wants control
09:02more than anything. She decides instead to return to Nick and her old life, but this time with her
09:07rage even more finely tuned and sharpened into something that will allow her to wield control
09:13in a new way. No longer the cool girl, the real, devious, terrifying Amy is out in the open.
09:19At least within their relationship. The only time you liked yourself was when you were trying to be
09:24someone this cunt might like. I've killed for you. Who else can say that? You think you'd be happy with
09:31a nice midwestern girl? No way baby. I'm it. She's flipped the script so that now her anger,
09:38rather than something to be hidden by her and ignored by Nick, is the central driving force of
09:43their relationship and her life. The film also works to critique the media apparatus and how it
09:48blows up stories, digs into people's lives, but is also most interested in whatever will sell,
09:54instead of what is true. You implied that I had carnal relations with my sister. I didn't use the
10:00I word, I said you two were extremely close. This still sounds pretty familiar, as social media has
10:06allowed for the same, but on a much larger scale and faster pace. And the other themes at the heart of
10:11the film also still feel relevant today because, as much as we'd like to think we've made big strides
10:17forward, things haven't actually changed all that much. If anything, after a bit of forward momentum,
10:24it's felt like we've taken a few steps back in recent years. And so that simmering anger and that
10:29desire to enact revenge on a world that boxes us in and makes us miserable is still there. Drew Gregory
10:35wrote in her piece on the film for Bright While Dark Room, it's true that Amy is psychotic, but her
10:41actions feel rational and satisfying, not to mention downright impressive, set against the backdrop of
10:47patriarchy. Can someone really be psychotic in a psychotic world?
10:51You said she was complicated. Nick! Everyone knows complicated is code for bitch.
10:57Amy Dunn was never meant to be someone likable or who people were supposed to emulate. Like other
11:02antiheroes, she's a vector for a larger idea and commentary. And this is one thing that actually
11:07made the film so interesting. It just let her be evil in calculating, without couching it in some
11:13aww but in a soft way. She totally feels bad about it deep down because she's a lady wishy-washiness.
11:18I'm not a quitter. I'm that.
11:21This is what allowed the film to have such a clear-eyed, focused view of the struggles and
11:25pressures that molded Amy into the monster she became, and what made her story so relatable to so
11:30much of the female audience. All we did was resent each other and try to control each other and cause
11:36each other pain. That's marriage. Now I'm getting ready. She's a reflection of the dark truth that
11:43many want to ignore, and sometimes it takes someone bad to drag that kind of darkness out into the light.
11:50What have we done to each other? What will we do?
11:56That's the take! Click here to watch the video we think you'll love,
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