“Don Jon” And Why It Fails As A Pro-Feminist Film

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.