3 Things I don’t like about Gone Girl


I haven’t seen Gone Girl, but my wife condensed the 2 hour movie into a 30 minute play-by-play summary. There are three things I don’t like about the plot. (In case it’s not obvious….spoilers ahoy)

  1. In a world in which women already have a hard time getting their rape allegations believed, the plot point in which she fakes a rape to ruin her ex is quite damaging. Not quite Rolling Stone “we made up a story  because it was too perfect to fact-check” sort of damaging, but still provides a frame of reference for everyone who doesn’t want to believe a rape victim.
  2. It remains to be seen how well this works for anyone in practice, but I can imagine defense attorneys mounting the “my wife is Gone Girling me” defense in mariticide. At the very least, it may be just enough to create a shadow of a doubt in juries given how popular this movie is and how much it’s penetrated the popular culture.
  3. This is the least offensive point as it can be used against anything: movies, video games, books, etc : It’s probably given some of those less balanced members of society ideas they may not have had. Just as playing Team Fortress 2 or any other shooter hasn’t made me shoot up the world, most normal people wouldn’t act on this movie (starting with the fact that things need to go perfectly correct for this to play out well in real life), some people out there might now be planning some interesting scenarios.
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3 responses to “3 Things I don’t like about Gone Girl”

  1. I actually really liked this book. Given the twisty plot – the movie was less awesome, but mostly because I already knew what was going on.

    Crazies have been part of literature and movies forever. And there’s enough crazy in this book that I would say it would be hard to see copy cats or any convincing real life argument in this style. It’s like Fight Club or Clockwork Orange.

    • Yeah, the copy-catting is unlikely – as I said, more likely to be taken on by someone with issues. But the fake rape is problematic, I think.