Source: Voltage Pictures
If you are looking for something quite interesting to dissect and over-analyze over a laissez–faire weekend, might I suggest a Netflix pick, which gives you insight into the curious world of hyper-masculinity.
Many mainstream feminists have christened former “Third Rock From the Su”n actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s first directorial debut called Don Jon, a triumph in feminist theory filmmaking for its alleged satire of society’s narrow standards of what men want and what women want from a “relationship.”
Even Levitt himself has said that he wrote the film as his testimony on patriarchy (mainly through its constructs of religion, media and family pressure) and how it creates unreasonable expectations for both genders. He particularly notes:
“We learn a lot of expectations from movies, or TV shows, or commercials, or magazines, or pornography, and those expectations are unrealistic and maybe not so healthy. And if we’re busy comparing our own lives and our partners to those expectations, we’re doomed.”
It’s a great premise for a movie, however I’m not quite sure how this film really challenges either dichotomies of normal masculinity and femininity. If anything, the film actually does more to reinforce some pretty oppressive ideas about women in particular.
[Note: this is the part of the essay where I might conceivably spoil the film for you. If you have a problem with that; watch the film first and then come back and read the piece. No really, it’s fine. It will still be here.]
For those who haven’t seen the film, Levitt, who was also starred in Inception and The Dark Knight Rises, plays a New Jersey, Italian guido named Jon Martello, who has a strong addiction to internet porn. His life is consumed with the stuff to the point that he watched upwards of 10 porn films a day.
Martello’s obsession with porn, has made him incapable of forging real life connections with the opposite sex, who he regularly objectifies through nights of random bar hookups (and of course, more porn).
That is until he meets Barbara Sugarman (played by Scarlett Johannson), who for all intents and purposes, is drop dead gorgeous. A perfect 10, as he describes her. However she too has an addiction and that is to romantic comedies. You know: boy meets girl; boy does something to mess up relationship with girl and girl leaves; boy does something to prove his love; and boy and girl live happily ever after? Those films. Well Levitt (by way of Martello) thinks these films are unrealistic and like porn, play a major part in why Sugarman, (and women like her), have issues connecting truly with Martello.
Without giving too much of the plot away (hopefully), I’ll say that eventually Martello meets his match by way of Ester, an older woman, who recently suffered a major tragedy and who doesn’t mind his porn or having aimless sex. It is through the compatibility and overall ease of this new relationship, that Martello discovers how to connect on a deeper level with a woman. Oh and he also gives up porn. It’s a happy ending for Martello but what happens to Barbara?
The film itself takes an interesting approach to the Barbara Sugarman character. Her beauty, as I mentioned previously, is undeniable and is a central part to her character. But while Martello is fleshed out more humanly, Sugarman is a bit more linear. She’s blonde and hot. She is also bossy, shallow and beholding to traditional gender roles (as illustrated by one scene in which she scolds Martello for Swiffering his own floors). She even walks around, with glittery wide eyes, just like all the heroines in romantic stories. And she is never satisfied. Sugarman has all the characteristic of what many men refer to as princesses. A beautifully stunning woman, who expects to be catered to and treated like royalty all the time, just because she is beautiful. Or special. Or worthy. It’ a particularly common belief, which it seems that Levitt has no problem pandering too in the film.
In the film Levitt paints this kind of woman as a manipulative personality, who engages in things like 30-day rules and making “unreasonable” and “unrealistic” demands that her mate not watch porn, all as a means to control and coerce men into relationships. However the only inference of Sugarman’s alleged character flaws comes by way of Martello, who only regards her as a beautiful object and is actually engaging in perpetrating a fraud to be with this girl. Because we do know that Martello doesn’t have to engage with her and her “unreasonable” demands, but he does so out of purely selfish reasons. Yet somehow in the film Martello’s deception (and ultimately his entitlement) becomes Sugarman’s onus, which in many ways is it totally aligned with current societal standards of blaming women for their own victimization.
Also while it is true that women are fed through social conditioning to aspire to be brides and wives and that the same social conditioning (particularly through the constant disembodied commercialization of the female form through all forms of media) require men to view women only sexually and as objects. However the comparison fails as the amount of porn produced annually is in no way equal to that of romantic comedies, which come out of Hollywood. Hell, many romantic comedies don’t even do well at the box office whereas porn remains a multi-billion dollar a year industry. Therefore the rom-com’s influence on a woman’s relationship cores and values are likely not as important as Levitt is leading us to believe.
Likewise the classification of Sugarman’s relationship expectations leaves us with little room for her own agency. Whereas Martello is lying to both himself and her in the relationship, Sugarman is honest, upfront and precise in what she wants and expects in a partner. This is illustrated in one scene in which Sugarman and Martello are hanging out with his friends, and their girlfriends for the evening, in a club when one of the other girlfriends asks her if he does the whole muscle-pose thing when they are doing it. Barbara purses her lips and says something to the effect of, “oh we haven’t done it.” The other girlfriends faces light up in adoration for both Sugarman and Martello and one of the girlfriends remarks, that his willingness to wait is what makes them respect him more.
While Levitt might have hoped this scene better illustrates how women collectively hold up temporary abstinence in the beginning of relationships of what a proper sexual relationship is supposed to develop, another missed nuance here is how women collectively feel pressure to engage sexually – including in acts that might seem demeaning or even childish (like making muscle man poses) – in an effort to keep the affections of the opposite sex. Likewise, the “respect” the other girlfriend felt for Martello could be centered in his apparent desire in liking his girlfriend enough to make her feel comfortable prior to having sex. However in Levitt’s world, there is no room for her wants and comforts, or a woman being able to have a say over neither. And the only reason why a man would consider a woman’s wants and comforts is because it might lead to sex, which are men’s ultimate goals, which is what we see from Martello.
Even more curious is how this film reinforces the classic misogynistic notion that beautiful equals mentally disturbed. As it is long believed, pretty people, particularly women, never have to stress for anything romantically because they are pretty and as such folks just give them things. Like relationships, affections and love. According to popular cultural lore, these beautiful species have been been getting their way with men since birth. Therefore after years of never being told no, she just doesn’t know how to handle rejection whenever it does happen to her. This is exactly what happened to Sugarman when she finds out about Martello’s porn addiction and breaks up with him.
Again, it is a popular belief but one that is not grounded in full truth. While it is true that a beautiful woman can make some headway in certain fields, in many other a pretty woman can actually face more discrimination than her less physically attractive counterparts. Matter of fact, it is not uncommon for fathers to play down the attractiveness of their daughters in hopes that she focuses on the book and the same for mothers, who hope the “curse”of her daughter’s beauty doesn’t lead her to being fast in the ass. Not to mention the countless relationships with men, who demean and abuse the pretty girl in hope of knocking her down a peg so that he feels secure enough to date her.
So while being a pretty girl in society may appear to come with its own rewards, it can also be very much a hindrance to thing too. And Levitt’s portrayal of Sugarman’s beauty does nothing to challenge or even depict fairly the complexity of what a woman has to go through to navigate those constraints and belief we have about beautiful women. Instead we are only left with the idea that Sugarman’s agency and obsession with love taken from romantic comedies is unreasonable and manipulative, when in actuality it could be defensive. Or more importantly, based in a need to bring about a level of comfortability and familiarity on her part, so that she can too feel comfortable and familiar with another person. But we as viewers are not made privy to Sugarman’s inner workings. Based upon the film we can’t even be sure if she has any, which is an objectification in itself.
I think one of the most peculiar part of the film’s ideology on misdirected femininity is how Levitt trivializes and demonizes Sugarman’s romantic agency for being “unrealistic” and yet uses the same schism to sell us on Martello’s ultimately metamorphosis from porn addict unable to maintain healthy relationships with the opposite sex to a man in a meaningful relationship, who no longer needs porn. Seriously let’s review the gist of the film here [this is a big spoiler so continue to read at your own risk]: boy meets beautiful girl; boy stalks girl on Facebook until he convinces her to go out with him; boy and girl have a falling out because they are not compatible; boy meets new girl, who is more aligned with his values; boy and girl kiss (or in their case: screw); and boy and new girl find happiness with each other. It’s hard not to see the parallels between your typical romantic comedy – down to the happy ending. And yet Martello’s ultimate adherence to the formula is somehow more legitimate than Sugarman’s.
Likewise, while we are led to believe that the Sugarman character and her unrealistic expectations are doomed to spinsterhood unless she forges a change, there is no direct action for Martello to alter himself. He doesn’t have to stop watching and using porn – that is something that happens only because he finally has something better. Martello is free to continue being himself. And eventually he is rewarded for it with everything he always wanted. Meanwhile what do we learn about Sugarman? Well according to Martello’s sister, whose sole purpose in the entire film was to roll her eyes at her entire family and deliver this one profound one-liner, Sugarman always had an agenda. That’s why he is better off without her. Even as this guy spent most of the film being a womanizing, lying jerk, he still gets to be seen as a good guy and worthy catch. And Sugarman, well she is just a pretty delusion bitch.
Levitt’s feminist film illustrates one of the main problems I have with some male feminists. They preach the virtue of egalitarianism as if it is a zero sum game, which in actuality, it is not. First off, there is no equal ground for men and women in society. Men have privileges – way more than women will likely ever have. And one of those privileges as we see in Don Jon is the ability to not only have their pursuits of love deemed legitimate, but the privilege to define what a woman should be looking for as fantasy and unachievable. If you ask me, it is the same tired movie we have seen many times before.
