Gillian Flynn Peers Into the Dark Side of Femininity. By Lauren Oyler
The novelist and screenwriter has built an enormous following, especially among women, by portraying women at their worst.
... If Flynn is particularly popular among women, it’s because she doesn’t make a big deal out of writing about women, because being a woman doesn’t really feel like a big deal, even when, unavoidably, it is one. Doing press for the film, Flynn was discouraged by how frequently she was asked beside-the-point questions, like, “What do you want women to take away from this movie?”
Audiences want some kind of lesson, conventional wisdom says, something easily digestible and repeatable, for all the usual reasons: social media, laziness, discomfort with ambiguity. People like to be able to say what it is they’re doing. Flynn’s popularity suggests otherwise. “This isn’t a movie that’s made for women,” she told me. “It’s not a women’s-issue movie. It’s unnerving, the idea that if there is a movie that has more than two women onscreen together, it’s a message movie.” Which isn’t to say that it contains no messages, only that it resists being defined by them…
... If Flynn is particularly popular among women, it’s because she doesn’t make a big deal out of writing about women, because being a woman doesn’t really feel like a big deal, even when, unavoidably, it is one. Doing press for the film, Flynn was discouraged by how frequently she was asked beside-the-point questions, like, “What do you want women to take away from this movie?”
Audiences want some kind of lesson, conventional wisdom says, something easily digestible and repeatable, for all the usual reasons: social media, laziness, discomfort with ambiguity. People like to be able to say what it is they’re doing. Flynn’s popularity suggests otherwise. “This isn’t a movie that’s made for women,” she told me. “It’s not a women’s-issue movie. It’s unnerving, the idea that if there is a movie that has more than two women onscreen together, it’s a message movie.” Which isn’t to say that it contains no messages, only that it resists being defined by them…
The mainstreaming of
feminism (and online surveillance thereof) has made many women I know — and
myself — anxious about conforming to stereotypes, lest we perpetuate the same
conditions we find so constraining. At the same time, self-consciously
rejecting even harmless or positive ingrained ideas about women for the sake of
doing so feels ridiculous, maybe even regressive. If there’s any way to escape
this double bind and establish some agency, it may be to approach womanhood
like Flynn does, as just another perversity among many. Ultimately, women’s
issues are particular in the same way anyone’s are: How do we keep going, given
the circumstances?.. read more..
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/08/magazine/gillian-flynn-women.html?action=click&module=MoreInSection&pgtype=Article®ion=Footer&contentCollection=The%20New%20York%20Times%20Magazine
