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Tyler Ness

ENGL 110

Ms. Matsakis

1/27/2021

Misogynistic Love in Film

Romance in films sells, so it’s no surprise when over 80 million people or two thirds of

Netflix's entire user base watched at least one romantic film in the span of a year (Rodriguez).

More often than not, these romantic films follow a tried and true formula, which ends up

following a counter hegemonic narrative. Start with a sad boy; sprinkle a pretty, adventurous,

odd girl in the mix and now the sad boy is happy, then just as fast as the girl enters the boy's life,

she leaves. This is what I will define and refer to as a “manic pixie dream girl”, where the female

character’s sole purpose is to be a feminine figure that can enhance and fix the male character.

How can we as a society stray away from this misogynistic trope? The most effective way would

be through films being self-aware and showing why it's a negative, antiquated line of thinking.

The film 500 Days of Summer takes the first step in using this manic pixie dream girl narrative to

speak out against the idea that women can’t be hyper femenine while supporting feminist ideals.

As well as following the manic pixie dream girl characteristic, romance films often

follow the idea of female characters having a sense of hyper femininity. This hyper femininity in

most cases enables a stereotypical binary oppression where women are either feminine or

feminist. Now what if films portrayed femininity in a positive, non oppressive, liberating type of

way? This could be defined as neoliberal femininity, and is exactly what Yael D Sherman wrote

about in the book Feminism at the Movies: Understanding Gender in Contemporary Popular

Cinema. Sherman took the film Miss Congeniality and looked at how the film recreated “the
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binary chain in which ugly, smart and feminist are opposed to pretty, stupid, and antifeminist”

(Sherman 81). The film makers ended up breaking those exact binary oppressions through the

story, despite it being unintentional. Neoliberal femininity is about embracing stereotypical

western femminine characteristics and using them to have self confidence and individualism,

proving women can have those femminne qualities while still being femminist.

500 Days of Summer is technically in the “Romantic Comedy” genre however the movie

opens up directly telling the viewers it’s not a love story. This film is about failed love; the most

relatable topic of all time. The two main characters are Tom and Summer. Tom is a greeting card

writer living in Los Angeles who went to school to become an architect. By growing on listening

to pop songs about love, Tom has always been a believer of finding true love. One day Tom’s

boss gets a new intern, Summer. Summer is introduced as a beautiful woman who Tom falls for

in an instant, in every cliche way imaginable. The viewer gets to experience every aspect of their

relationship but in a completely non chronological order which takes place over 500 days, so

viewers always have the question “How did they end up like this?”. An important thing to realize

while watching this film, is that the viewer only gets one side of the story and every character

introduced is how Tom views them. The viewers never see another side of these characters.

Throughout the film, Summer is introduced as a stereotypical manic pixie dream girl. The

second scene of the movie opens up on day 86, where Tom says “I love her smile. I love her hair.

I love her knees. I love how one eye is higher up on her face than the other…. I love the sound of

her laugh.” (500 Days of Summer), while the song titled “Every Little Thing She Does is Magic”

by The Police plays. On first thought, this is an incredibly cute and sweet scene but upon further

inspection, Tom is only listing physical qualities about Summer, showing he doesn’t think much

of her outside of her femininity. This would be fine since it is only day 86 of meeting each other,
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but this aspect of Tom’s thinking doesn’t change at all through the film, which promotes a

counter hegemonic narrative where men only see physical qualities in women.

Summer has a high degree of individualism while being hyper femenine. When Summer

is asked why she doesn’t have a boyfriend later in the film on day 27, her response is “I’m not

comfortable being somebody's girlfriend”. I don’t want to be anybody's anything, you know?”

(500 Days of Summer). This scene is exactly how Sherman describes that “Neoliberal femininity

implies a calculating care of the self, a form of self-management highly valued under

neohberalism. Neoliberal femininity no longer suggests an attempt to flatter individual men, but

rather announces the intention to compete in both the public and private spheres.“ (Sherman 83).

Summer isn’t saying these things in an attempt to flatter anyone, it’s because she has a high

regard for her wants and needs, which is a strong feminist quality.

Despite Summer being introduced as a manic pixie dream girl, she is intentionally written

as an incredibly dull and lifeless character. The only qualities known about Summer besides

physical, is her sense of independence. Which is arguably still surface level. This is something

viewers aren’t supposed to notice until further inspection. Since this film is through Tom’s

perspective, all we see of Summer is his thoughts of her. The only scene shown where Summer

truly opens up to Tom, her voice fades into the background while a narrator says “these weren't

stories routinely told, these were stories one had to earn. He wondered if anyone else had gotten

this far.” (500 Days of Summer). Even in Summer’s most vulnerable state, Tom is thinking about

himself; almost proud of it. Tom and the viewers both experienced that moment the same.

Nobody knows what Summer even said. This is meant to show that as a society, many of us tend

to be blinded through this type of misogynistic love. Where surface level knowledge about a

beautiful woman is enough to be in love. Despite all of this, even though Summer isn’t actually a
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manic pixie dream girl, it further proves the point that she has neoliberal femininity. Her

character proves time and time again that she uses her femininity not for the interest of men, but

for herself.

Misogynistic love is a central theme throughout 500 Days of Summer, and it

solely resides in Tom’s character. Tom grew believing he would never truly be happy until the

day he met his soulmate. The thing solidifying his belief was his early exposure to sad british

pop music and TV media. Two things that to this day, give an unrealistic misogynistic meaning

to the word “love”. The most prominent portrayal is that the man must stand up for the woman

and protect her at all costs. In the middle of the film, a man starts to hit on Summer in a bar in

front of Tom. After Summer rejects the man multiple times, Tom gets up and punches the man in

the face. Upon Tom and Summer leaving the bar, she’s furious at him. After Tom asks why

Summer is mad at him she says “Oh that was for me? You were, what, protecting me? Next time

Tom, don’t. I fight my own battles.” (500 Days of Summer). 500 Days of Summer uses the idea

of misogynistic love to show its negative effects. Through Tom only seeing physical beauty,

ignoring Summer during impactful moments, forcing the feeling of love, ignoring her readiness

for a serious relationship, and fighting battles for her, the relationship never works out.

On the first watchthrough, it’s too easy to relate with Tom, but that’s due to constant

negative reinforcements we experience through the media today. Most of society ends up going

through a relationship similar to 500 Days of Summer. If this film is used as a pedagogical tool,

people might not have to experience it in real life to learn the negative effects of misogynistic

love and the positive effects of neoliberal femininity. 500 Days of Summer is an incredibly well

written film that uses misogynistic love to promote realistic love and neoliberal femininity.
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Works Cited

Rodriguez, Ashley. “Romance Is Wilting in Theaters but Abloom on Netflix.” Quartz,

Quartz, 20 June 2018,

qz.com/1309442/romance-is-wilting-in-theaters-but-abloom-on-netflix/.

Yael D Sherman. Neoliberal Femininity in Miss Congeniality. Taylor and Francis Group.

2012.

500 Days of Summer. Dir. Marc Webb. Dune Entertainment, 2009. Film.