The past two decades have seen an increase in the popularity of traditional self-help literature and various scholars have theorized why this contemporary cultural moment has found American consumers so interested in self-improvement, prescriptive how-to-manuals, and the overall "Do-It-Yourself" mindset that align with both. (The self-help industry has recently reached an all time high, pulling in over 12 billion dollars in 2012 alone). Aligned with this explosion of standard self-help texts has been the tendency for entertainment products (fictional books, television, and films) to take on a self-help angle. In fact, a great many texts that have started out as self-help products have been converted into films, making them a sort of quasi-self-help/entertainment hybrid product. (A recent example would be the 2012 film What to Expect When You’re Expecting). However, long before this recent trend of self-help-going-Hollywood, I’d been thinking that romantic comedies have been serving in that type of role: assisting in the social construction of gender behavior and informing men and women on how to date/mate (often in problematic ways).
Here are a few examples: Released in 1996, Swingers is a staple of this genre. The plot follows a group of unemployed actors navigating the dating scene. Trent (played by Vince Vaughn) acts as the dispenser of advice instructing Mike (Jon Favreau), a recent Los Angeles transplant, how to pick up women. The film is known for its infamous list of dating rules (there are fifteen in total), such as the “three day rule” (how long a man should wait before calling a girl who has given him her number). The idea of “how to” successfully (or unsuccessfully) navigate the dating field is often highlighted in the titles of films themselves. An example would be the 2003 film, How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days. In this movie, a magazine writer, Andie (played by Kate Hudson) sets out to write an article about her experience of purposely driving a way a man, Ben (played by Matthew McConaughey), by using the classic mistakes women make in relationship. Another example is the The Ugly Truth, which suggests there is a “truth” to be learned about successful male/female romantic courtships. The story centers around Abby (played by Katherine Heigl), a morning show TV producer (and avid reader of self-help books) who ultimately seeks out relationship advice from her cynical, misogynistic on air personality, Mike Chadway (Gerald Butler).
The films I find the most intriguing, however, are those that actually base their contents (and titles) around actual dating self-help books. Released in 2009, He's Just Not That Into You is an American romantic comedy based on the self-help book of the same name written by Sex in the City writers, Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo. This ensemble film stars Ben Affleck, Jennifer Aniston, Drew Barrymore, Jennifer Connelly, Bradley Cooper, Ginnifer Goodwin, Justin Long, and Scarlett Johansson (among others). The plot focuses on nine young twenty-somethings in Baltimore struggling with various romantic problems. The central storyline features Gigi (Ginnifer Goodwin), who constantly misinterprets the behaviors of the men she is dating, deluding herself into believing there is romantic potential where there is none. While getting stood up on one of these dates she befriends Alex, a local bar owner, who ultimately teaches her the strategies that men use to avoid women, pointing out the ways in which she has been obsessing over imagined signs she receives from men. In this film Alex is channeling the author’s of the ancestor text. The message behind Behrendt and Tuccillo’s book is simple: “If the guy you’re dating doesn’t seem to be completely into you, or you feel the need to start ‘figuring him out,’ please consider the glorious thought that he might just not be that into you. And then free yourself to go find someone that is.”
In their book they try to put an end to the excuse-making that many women get sucked into when it comes to men. They write:
If he’s not calling you, it’s because you are not on his mind. If he creates expectations for you, and then doesn’t follow through on little things, he will do same for big things. Be aware of this and realize that he’s okay with disappointing you. Don’t be with someone who doesn’t do what they say they’re going to do. If he’s choosing not to make a simple effort that would put you at ease and bring harmony to a recurring fight, then he doesn’t respect your feelings and needs. “Busy” is another word for “asshole.” “Asshole” is another word for the guy you’re dating. You deserve a fucking phone call.
In the film Alex gets to touch on two of these motifs at various moments while dispensing advice to Gigi. In response to her musings on why a guy hasn’t called Alex responds pragmatically: “If a guy doesn’t call you, he doesn’t want to call you.” At another point, while arguing that it could be more complicated than that, Gigi argues: “Maybe his grandma died or maybe he lost my number or is out of town or got hit by a cab.” To which Alex responds: “Or maybe he is not interested in seeing you again.”
The film touches on the “be wary of the ‘I’m busy’” response through a different scene. While on a date Gigi calls Alex to ask for more advice:
Gigi: Hey sorry to bug you gain! Uh, quick question.
Alex: What’s going on?
Gigi: Okay, I’m making out with this guy, PG stuff. But he mentions he’s going out of
town so he’s gonna be out of touch.
Alex: Run.
Gigi: But maybe he is going out of town.
Alex: To where? New Guinea? Where’s he gonna be that he’s gonna be out of touch?
Gigi: (Opens the bathroom door to ask the man behind it): Where are you going out of
town to again?
Gigi (back on the phone): Pittsburgh.
Alex: Run.
Gigi: So what now? I’m just supposed to turn from every guy who doesn’t like me
Alex: Uh, yeah.
Gigi: There’s not gonna be anybody left.
While Alex often relays his advice in a harsh manner, the original text (in the fashion of self-help) does so with much more sugar coating. Behrendt and Tuccillo note that they are “tired of seeing great women in bullshit relationships” and tell women “Don't waste the pretty.” Their intended self-confidence building, uplifting prose is littered with pet names and thickly applied flattering adjectives. Take this rah-rah moment where they urge their female readers to stop chasing dead end relationships and shoot for higher standards
Let’s start with this statistic: You are delicious. Be brave, my sweet. I know you can get lonely. I know you can crave companionship and sex and love so badly that it physically hurts. But I truly believe that the only way you can find out that there’s something better out there is to first believe there’s something better out there. What other choice is there?”
Ignoring the fact that being delicious is not a statistic, and is a bit degrading as a descriptor, the overall content of the message is not necessarily problematic but I’d argue the tone certainly is. (In fact, I would argue this in regard to all self-help books as they tend to infantilize readers, especially female readers). While there is nothing wrong with telling someone to be brave, or in acknowledging how feelings of loneliness can spark detrimental behavior, much of this message loses its effect with the addition of the unnecessary address of “my sweet.”
There is only one point in the film where Gigi herself gets to channel the authors of this text in a relatively empowering scene. She has this monologue which is lifted directly from the pages of He’s Just Not That Into You:
Girls are taught a lot of stuff growing up. If a guy punches you he likes you. Never try to trim your own bangs and someday you will meet a wonderful guy and get your very own happy ending. Every movie we see, every story we're told implores us to wait for it, the third act twist, the unexpected declaration of love, the exception to the rule. But sometimes we're so focused on finding our happy ending we don't learn how to read the signs. How to tell from the ones who want us and the ones who don't, the ones who will stay and the ones who will leave. And maybe a happy ending doesn't include a guy, maybe... it's you, on your own, picking up the pieces and starting over, freeing yourself up for something better in the future. Maybe the happy ending is... just... moving on. Or maybe the happy ending is this, knowing after all the unreturned phone calls, broken-hearts, through the blunders and misread signals, through all the pain and embarrassment you never gave up hope.
The problem with this speech within the film is its interpretation of the final line “Or maybe the happy ending is… that you never gave up hope.” In the book it is pretty obvious that the authors mean that you never gave up on the hope of finding love. However, in the film this idea of never giving up hope seems to mean never giving up on a given person despite the miscues, missteps, and mishaps. (Which is the message of most romantic comedies).
In fact, the film actually goes against the premise of the book when Gigi talks back to Alex (the narrative stand in for the authors’ point of view). Gigi says:
I may dissect each little thing and put myself out there so much but at least that means I still care. Oh! You think you won because women are expendable to you. You may not get hurt or make an ass of yourself that way but you don’t fall in love that way either. You have not won. You’re alone. I may do a lot of stupid shit but I’m still a lot closer to love than you are.
In this scene Gigi claims that all of the “stupid shit” well documented in Behrendt and Tuccillo’s book actually lead to love (which goes completely against their thesis).
The ending of the romantic comedy further debunks the message of their book. The storyline of Gigi and Alex follows the typical rom-com formula: the meet cute in the bar, the battle-of-the-sex comical banter, a friendship that slowly reveals romantic undertones, an obstacle that prevents an easy union, and the prerequisite happy ending. In the film it is Gigi who first falls for Alex; she is rejected; she moves on; he then realizes the error of his way, returns, and wins her heart. So while Behrendt and Tuccillo would argue that once writing is on the wall that someone is just not into you – that you should move on because you won’t get your happily ever after, the film sends the message that you might still get that twist ending if you just wait long enough.
A secondary storyline within the film also undoes the message Behrendt and Tuccillo sought to deliver. Beth (played by Jennifer Anniston) is frustrated that her long term boyfriend, Neil (played by Ben Affleck), won’t propose marriage. She eventually breaks up with him (acknowledging that he won’t give her what she needs). Had their plot ended there it would have aligned with Behrendt and Tuccillo’s call to find comfort in being alone instead of hoping for change that won’t happen in a go-nowhere relationship. But, their story does not end there. Like Alex, Neil realizes the error of his ways and at the end returns to Beth (who, realizing what a great guy he is, says she doesn’t need the proposal to be happy). But this is Hollywood – so, of course, she gets it, and one of the final scenes of the film is of their wedding ceremony. In fact, besides for the two characters who committed adultery (note the didacticism here), every character is happily paired in a romantic partnership by the end of the movie. An accurate rendition of the self-help book would have found the majority of the characters (if not all of them) un-partnered, not “wasting the pretty,” finding solace in the fact that it’s better to be alone waiting for someone who truly deserves them.
The problem I have with the narratization of self-help books, or more accurately their mutation into romantic comedies, is that they send conflicting messages. In order to conform to the genre requirements, they do what all romantic comedies do and rest upon predictable tropes, characters, and outcomes. They portray women and men in stereotypical roles and sell the hope of a happily ever after (even if the guy is a cad because surely a woman can always change the man she loves). In borrowing the title of the self-help books and a few structural motifs, these films falsely imply that they are more similar to their ancestor texts than they are. So, a viewer of Kwapis’s He’s Just Not That into You, having enjoyed the happy outcome of the film, may turn to the self-help aisle to seek out Behrendt and Tuccillo’s original text which will, unbeknownst to them, contain a very different message. And while it is problematic in and of itself that our entertainment formats are already serving a pseudo self-help role – instructing us on culturally expected behavior, it seems all the more troubling that they are also directing consumers to become more seeped in this self-help culture through their connections to this ever-expanding publishing genre.
Ah, maybe I’m just being grumpy. Perhaps I should dust off my copy of Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus, write up a screen play for it, and capitalize on this growing trend. Oh wait, I can’t, it’s already in production…
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