Dating:The Concept of Male and Female

Jessica Rodriguez
English 313H
Professor Wexler
13 October 2009
Dating: The Concept of Male and Female
From the time we are children we are taught what is feminine and what is masculine. We take these concepts and apply it to our own identity. Girls are taught to be proper and polite. While boys, generally tend to be on the rowdy side. However, one thing that I really stood out to me as a little girl was the concept of if a boy is mean to you, it means he likes you. The movie “He’s Just Not That into You,” takes this concept applies it into today’s world of dating. It also shows the use of distancing oneself through technology, and the influence of Feminism in a relationship.
The main character in this movie, Gigi, claims that little girls are brainwashed into believing this concept. Therefore, women will try to rationalize that the guy is being a jerk because he likes you too much, or he is intimidated, or that you are too good for him. So throughout the movie she is obsessed with the current guy that she is with just to that she can have a relationship. This reminds me of the relationship between Brick and Maggie in “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof”. Maggie is willing to work at the relationship no matter how bad Brick treats her. According to Chris Barkers book “Cultural Studies”, Gigi is playing into the typical female character, she is completely dependent on, and anxious to please the current guy that shows the slightest interest in her that she doesn’t take the time to evaluate and see if he is truly into her. This in itself is radical because she is willing to be in a bad relationship rather than being alone, or looking harder for someone better.
On the reverse perspective of gender is between the characters Anna and Connor. Connor is in love with Anna but she just uses him whenever she doesn’t have a date. Anna takes on the role of a male within the relationship because she is the one who as Barker states is “Dominant, self-centered, decisive, rational, and conniving”. She is the one who ends the dates, or when they are going on a date. While Connor, is dependent, sacrificing, and anxious to please Anna. One major demonstration of Connors anxiousness to please Anna is the fact that he is about to buy a house for her if she likes it. Buying a house is something that is a really big step in a relationship and at the time they had just started to date again, so I saw this as being extremely radical.
Another concept of Barker’s that I saw in the movie that all of the female characters play into is defining the world through family relations. Every time a situation with the opposite sex doesn’t go as planed or the boyfriends are acting like jerks the friends tell a story about a friend who had a friend that was in a similar situation and how it worked out in the end. The main male character in this movie Alec, who is helping Gigi is very harsh when helping her understand guys, he falls into the typical macho guy role that Barker establishes for masculinity, he is self centered, self-confident, decisive, and rational. Barker states that “identification of oneself as male or female is a foundation stone of a self-identity”. I found this and interesting concept because with his advise he gives Gigi a male perspective when choosing how to go about dating. Gigi takes on a radical change in that aspect of being able to interpret the guy’s rejection allows her to not get hurt. She is in a sense distancing herself from rejection and taking on a male attitude when it comes to getting close to guys.
A different radical concept that I saw was how the character Mary see’s dating. She talks with her gay co-workers about this guy that she is interested in and how he myspaced her for a date. She says that she misses the organic way of dating and how now if she wants to attract a guy she has to update her profile rather than get a haircut. I thought this was radical because dating in today’s society has really become cyber based. Barker states that “electronics are the basis of modern information technologies. They are at the heart of global wealth production, communications networks and personalized information and entertainment systems”. With all of these E-Harmony, and Match-Maker.com’s it is easy to associate dating with the internet. At one point Mary even has a date over video chat. Using technology so much allows us to distance ourselves from others and romance isn’t a part of starting a relationship anymore, it’s more of let’s get right to the sex. This is demonstrated in Bret Easton Ellis’ “The Rules of Attraction”, none of the characters seemed to be in love with those they are obsessing over. Even when Sean claims to love Lauren he lets her go and then at the end of the book it is implied that he is about to have sex with a hitchhiker he just picked up.
The last demonstration of radical romance is between the characters Neil and Beth. Neil doesn’t want to get married. He states that “Married people are not to be trusted”, and “they do it because they are insecure”. I believe this is a radical idea because within our culture men are considered to be whipped when they get married. In television today the wife is portrayed as domineering while the man is subordinate, such as in Desperate Housewives. I believe this has to do with the raise of Feminism within our culture. Barker gives examples of different kinds of Feminism such as liberal, difference, socialist, poststructuralist, black, postcolonial, and postfeminism. According to Barker the Poststructuralist Feminism is the most influential, “Given its stress on culture, representation, language, power and conflict, poststructuralist feminism has become a major influence within cultural studies”. I also believe the fact that Neil who is friends with Mark, who has a domineering wife, has something to do with his opinion on marriage.
To conclude, “He’s Just Not That In To You” is a great movie to study the concept of radical romance. I really liked how the main characters fell into the typical male and female roles, and then at the end changed roles. Then there was the portrayal of characters that were opposite from their natural gender characteristics. It made me really think about the typical role that a woman plays and how we have changed that role with the ideas of Feminism. We have become more independent rather than being dependent on men. I also liked the fact that it showed how we as a culture tend to distance ourselves by using technology, as well as simply using the opposite sex for sex and enjoyment rather than having a relationship.
Works Cited
Barker, Chris. Cultural Studies
Great Britain: TJ International Ltd,Padstow,Cornwal, 2008