In cinema you tend to stumble upon a cool girl character stereotype in predominately male produced films. You might commonly see a ‘cool girl’ drinking beer with the guys, playing golf, liking cars, and talking about eating game-day foods. Though this seems great on the surface, in which straight men can be attracted to a masculine, tomboy type characters, it creates an unnecessary expectation that is not liberating in the slightest. This trope was created simply to strengthen the “i’m not like other girls' ' character and poke fun at traditionally femanine characters. It creates a bridge between women which is frankly horrible. If men didn’t already criticize women for everyday things, this cooler girl trope puts girls against each other in a race for desirability. This trope would be more liberating if it was not created by men and made for men. A cool girl character cannot argue with her partner or be too good at what she does or her partner later dumps her. In the TV show friends (The One At The Beach), Ross finds a new girlfriend, Bonnie, and adores her ‘cool girl’ qualities until she becomes ‘too individual’ and shaves her head. This implies that being too darring or too masculine would drive away your partner, so, in turn, be comfortable for them and nothing else. Gillian Flynn calls out this trope and gives it a name in her best-selling novel, “ Gone Girl”. She claims that this trope only works when the cool girl in question is undeniably attractive. A good example of this would be in “Miss Congeniality” when our protagonist is spat on by her male co-workers when she is not seen as beautiful. After the pageant, she is desired by her co-workers in a dress, yet, praised for her traditionally masculine personality. The cool girl character has to be one of the guys unless she takes it too far in her individuality. She is considered undesirable once she defies her partner or shows any anger whatsoever as I explained earlier. This sets an unrealistic expectation for women which can be extremely harmful. The character Black Widow in the Marvel Universe is set as an example of women by the fanbase because she was powerful and attractive while not outshining the male superheroes. Once Captain Marvel showed up into the Marvel Universe, she was universally disliked by the male audience which was subconsciously fueled by their dislike of truly powerful women. Since Captain Marvel was more powerful than her male counterparts, she was disliked and described as “cocky” and “annoying. Though her powers are comparable to their beloved Thor, men tend to dislike this powerful woman much more. This trope created by subconsciously sexist men has created a negative setback for gender equality and expectations. Instead of praising a toxic trope that pretends it is celebrating women on their individuality yet, punishes them in the process, let’s make space for more strong female characters that are not made for men and instead celebrate their own individuality.
by Julia Han
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