Sometimes a good OpEd helps me figure out what I think, when my Gemini brain is straight up split down the middle, hovering over both sides of an argument. This morning: Gone Girl: brilliant or misogynistic, or both? (It’s hard to talk about this book  — which I RAVENOUSLY DEVOURED LIKE I DID NOT SLEEP FOR A WEEK last year —  and movie, without spoiler-alerting, but I will do my best.) The lady protagonist of this book / movie is an evil, beautiful lunatic. What of this portrayal of a woman? Is this book / movie (written by a woman) hellbent on portraying women as psychos who cannot be trusted?

In an article in the  Times this AM, Maureen Dowd quotes the novelist, Gillian Flynn: “Dark sides are important. They should be nurtured like nasty black orchids.” I have to agree, especially when it comes to storytelling. How’re we meant to tell stories, if everyone is on their best behavior all the time? As long as dark behavior is motivated by human and relatable impulses, I’m good to go (and personally, in a sort of terrifying way — I find Amy, the Gone Girl,  relatable.) Maureen goes on to  tell me what I think: “Given my choice between allowing portrayals of women who are sexually manipulative, erotically aggressive, fearless in a deranged sort of way, completely true to their own temperament, desperately vital, or the alternative — wallowing in a feminist propaganda and succumbing to the niceness plague (I love that) — I’ll take the former.”  It all comes back ’round to this biased against things written by women / things featuring women: women are supposed to be good. Kind. They are the Nurturing Mother or Medea or the insane girlfriend and there is little room for flaws in-between. Gone Girl is deeply uncomfortable, but I don’t think it’s because she’s a black orchid of a gal —  it’s because she gets away with it. That’s what we can’t stand.