Firstly, a disclaimer. If you’re reading this I am assuming you have either read the book, don’t want to read it, or don’t mind me jumping ahead slightly to discuss an aspect of the book that comes around half way in. It’s not a massive plot ruiner although I guess I have to say that it could be a bit of a spoiler. Don’t read on if you want to either read the book or watch the film without knowing anything about it!
‘Being the Cool Girl means I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer...somehow maintaining a size 2, because Cool Girls are above all hot. Hot and understanding. Cool Girl never gets angry; they only smile in a chargrined, loving manner and let their men do whatever they want.
Men actually think this girl exists. Maybe they’re fooled because so many women are willing to pretend to be this girl....the Cool Girls are even more pathetic: They’re not even pretending to be the woman they want to be, they’re pretending to be the woman a man wants them to be. ...women across the nation colluded in our degradation! Pretty soon Cool Girl became the standard girl. Men believed she existed - she wasn’t just a dreamgirl one in a million. Every girl was supposed to be this girl, and if you weren’t, then there was something wrong with you.’
This is an extract from the book, page 250 and 251.
This is when I started to REALLY love this book. And this is when I felt that I was right is disliking Amy at first. The version of Amy that is revealed to be fake, a fabrication, who isn’t a really person and yet as a falsity we are all meant to like her. I’m not sure we are supposed to like the second Amy, but I really do. Ok, i know she’s a psychopath, she’s pretty evil and insane, and she certainly isn’t a girl anyone would like to be friends with in real life. But nor do I want to be friends with the first girl, who is so frustratingly ‘perfect’ and false that she will never have real friends but a blurry line of acquaintances. Is Cool Girl as fake as Amy suggests?? I’m not sure.
Doesn’t it depend on what you think is cool? I’m sure that someone somewhere has a idea of a Cool Girl who is slightly overweight, prefers staying in and reading to outdoor activities, doesn’t eat meat and doesn’t like watching sports, or really TV in general. Ah, well maybe not. Does that mean I’m doomed as a woman because I don’t fit into the norm of effortless perfection? I don’t think so. The reason I think this is because I know that I have a complete disinterest in Cool Boy. I’ve never been drawn in by the arrogant self confidence of blandly similar looking boys who all end of being different in the same way.
Saying this I think that girls have things harder. There is a lot of pressure to achieve perfection in so man different areas of your life. This is why I love that this has been brought up in this book. Amy has achieved Cool Girl status, and yet we all know she’s awful. To be honest I think I can say that I actually know a Cool Girl. And yeah, she’s rather awful. She’s constantly perfectly made up and has the clothes that everyone wishes they could afford and fit into. She has managed to create a life for herself that could also be considered perfect. Perfect house, perfect kids, the list goes on. But she is awful. And miserable. All she talks about is how unhappy she is and how she spends her money. And you do get the impression that the effort to create that kind of life is immense.
I like the way that this is presented in the novel really emphasises the notion that not everyone is what they seem. Everyone has a self that they present to the world which counteracts with the self that is on the inside, that only you know about. And this feels brutally honest. I don’t think many people can manage to say ‘This is what I’m trying to be like, but I’m not like this really’. I feel like Gillian Flynn is standing up for the girls of the world by asking the world to give us a break. But you know, I’m reading a lot into this. I’m sure that most people will skim over the couple of pages that focus on Cool Girl and then read a beauty magazine, or turn on the X Factor and see thousands of women that have been professionally made up and airbrushed and feel that they should be cooler.
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