Misrepresentation of Women as Repair Tools for Broken Men: Enough Already
The cultural mainstream relentlessly promotes the extremely toxic concept of women as saviors for broken men, glorifying gender-based violence in the process. “After” by Anna Todd is yet another infuriating example.
Do you know that fuddy-duddy aunt that gets excited about a pop-culture phenomenon just about four years after it has passed? That’s me; hi! My yellow fever vaccine certificate that I need to renew says I’m 35, culturally I’m probably close to 64.
I was late to Facebook, Twitter and never fit in; I never tried Instagram or pot. I used to be late to movies, gadgets and books by months, now as a medical resident in a competitive field, I’m late by years. That Taylor Swift album 1984 that I already despise? I’ll probably get to hear it in 2024 after I graduate residency.
Nonetheless, the current pandemic forces me to spend less time at work as the manure hasn’t hit the fan quite yet in our Midwestern neck of the woods (we wait until dark, anxiously…) Unsure what to do with this newly found time-space, I ended up watching teenage comedies on Netflix last weekend (Contagion would have been too cringeworthy although I was seriously tempted.)
Teenage comedies used to suck when I was that age group with all their unabashed sexism and misogyny (looking at you, American Pie et al.) Yet the new ones I watched were actually semi-decent to my most profound surprise, with non-offensive plots and rather pleasant soundtracks (yeah, I’m normally a cultural snob that exclusively talks about Tarkovsky). Except “After” directed by Jenny Gage.
The movie was such utter garbage I almost gagged, but sometimes I miss the British accent having left England some 7 years ago, so I lasted to the anticlimactic end. I wasn’t surprised the movie was based on a book series (everything comes with a platform these days; sometimes I look around my yogurt with a suspicion), and thanks to my morbid curiosity, I ended up on a self-publishing platform where these books by Anna Todd first appeared. Against my better judgment, as a proud bookworm, I decided to hate-read it.
To be fair, I had minimal expectation prose-wise; I tried reading Fifty shades of Grey with a genuine effort yet didn’t get past the first 25 pages. However, “After” is so incredibly poorly written that I likely lost some words from my vocabulary in the process of reading it; English is my third language, but even a foreigner would have done a better job in terms of syntax and punctuation.
As I was about to put down the cliché garbage where everyone is exceptionally beautiful, tragically broken, has all the money needed and never acne, period or halitosis (enough of these ‘making out in the morning’ scenes), I noticed some bubbles next to individual paragraphs. Those turned out to be comments from readers, and shortly I was rolling on the bed with reflex tears dripping off my eyes from laughter on some of those. Most were so common-sense that it brought me some consolation, but some so hysterical that my concerned husband used to me reading medical abstracts or stock market news only (what have we become, as residents!) raised his eyebrows.
I kept reading for the reader's comments only, and I admit the comments and nothing else got me through the first book. As much as I tried, the second book became so offensively stupid that I was defeated: the obnoxiously repetitive mantra of someone getting underage-drunk, messing up more predictively that a Fox news anchor uttering a racist comment, breaking something up then trying to fix it in the most ridiculously implausible way accompanied by glorified intimate partner voice meant I couldn’t finish it in spite of my valiant effort.
I don’t know what happens with these two in this WASP-y bad boy fantasy, but I strongly suspect he will see through his blindness and realize the eternal value of marriage as the noblest way to honor a woman, propose to win her back after some ridiculous and poorly written argument, then with some Jesus time he kicks the bottle, and eventually fulfills all her white, middle-class ambitions she has (at 18 nonetheless!): children, a house in the suburbs, plus a golden retriever. Bad boy cured. He will probably remove his face piercings and laser off his tattoos (snore).
If he were to become a Bible-waving televangelist who secretly runs a brothel in Las Vegas, I might be tempted to continue reading, but in too big a segment of American mainstream culture, only the church redeems lost tattooed souls, which is one of its many problems. The churchy lens of values and dichotomy pervades essentially all aspects of the book: classically, women are either innocent angels or whores, church-going future wives or underdressed skanks not worthy of redemption. Their filthy desires must only be controlled by men (the male character is pretty much in charge of any intimacy, obviously), legitimized by marriage, or they shall be doomed for eternity.
I’m painfully aware such doctrines eventually evaporate from pages of a trashy teenage romance into the collective political subconsciousness, which is why it bugs me endlessly: most recently, the state governments of Texas and Ohio tried to smuggle an abortion ban into COVID public health measures.
The worst aspect of the book? There is not a single basic English aspect about the supposedly British character (the food he eats, the music he likes, his word choice), he doesn’t even say ‘rubbish’ one single time (such a lovely word, so horrendously underused in American literature.)
I seriously doubt whoever wrote this knows where to locate England on a map, the less how to carve a semi-plausible character off its culture. In fact, parts taking place in London were so ludicrous that those represent a neurotoxic hazard, such as the part where the main male protagonist meets his former English lover in London whom he humiliated with a sexual escapade. Instead of spitting in his face, she thanks him and claims that after her alleged — very unBritish — public shunning following the outing of their affair she “changed church” and met her current fiancé. Pendeja, by Satan’s balls, what are you talking about? Church of Scotland? This is supposed to be London, it’s not like there is a church of distinct flavor at every corner, that’s Texas.
Most offensively, all those bad-boy fantasies have one thing in common: the bad boy changes, somehow becomes “bettered” by the devoted and innocent love of the kind and nurturing woman, and all is well if only she loves him enough. It is never about accepting the person for exactly who he is, not wanting to change one bit about them, no matter how flawed they may be. Because that’s what actual love is.
The whole premise of redeeming “flawed” people with manipulation masquerading as love, molding them into a preconceived heterosexual ideal of a tamed semi-castrate that follows the rules, after all, is nauseating and should not represent any cultural aspirations. It’s unexciting, uninteresting, and terribly judgmental. You want a bad boy? You should want him bad, not in an ironed shirt.
I’ve been through a “bad boy period” myself, and while many of my actions at that time belong on the ‘questionable choices’ list, I was never trying to change anybody (if anything, I was trying to change myself, only to realize I don’t have to.)
What concerns me is — yet again —not only the disingenuity of parading love as a gadget to change somebody, but also the glorification of intimate partner violence and its misrepresentation as a sign of romantic devotion: the main male character is verbally and emotionally abusive in the most appalling manner, goes on a bloody rampage every time the girl he is supposedly “in love” with looks at someone else, leaving broken noses and damaged property in the process.
Violence and abuse isn’t sexy, it’s dangerous and damaging. In fact, intimate partner violence is a major public health threat globally, as up to 38% of all murders of women are committed by intimate partners (https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/violence-against-women). It needs to be addressed on a policy level, not celebrated in books for horny teenagers.
I was appalled by seemingly endless parts of the book depicting physical violence against perceived romantic threats as edgy and displaying a ‘protective’ nature of the male protagonist: it is the epitome of toxic masculinity which in itself is a public health problem.
As an MD, while reading this I’m wondering: who is going to pay for those CTs, ED visit co-pays and ambulance rides? Are you on your parent’s insurance or do you have Obamacare? Why are such unhealthy acts romanticized?
Do you wonder how frustrating it was caring for drunken fools with broken knuckles, torn lips, chipped teeth and slashed eyebrows during my ED rotation, wasting my knowledge and resources on their folly rather than caring for people who never chose to be there?
Very, thanks for asking (I guess they lacked the true love of a virgin that would “fix them”.)
It has been said before but it needs to be emphasized again: misrepresentation of women as repair tools for broken men isn’t right nor healthy. We must stop spreading this false illusion that the “right woman” will somehow magically fix a wounded and broken man. Only such man himself can do so through his own conscious choices.
Sure, love can be the impetus, but not the source of redemption. That must come from within, and pinning the mightly burden of self-reflection, the hard work of getting your shit together to be a better person on women and the degree of their love is outright lazy and misogynist.
Think also of the utter sexism of such notion; where is the blockbuster novel about a female that is profoundly traumatized and violent, who heartlessly takes advantage of others, hurts everyone with no mercy, turning the knife in their heart as far as they let her, yet the good devoted male keeps coming back, offering his love on a silver plate, if only she were smart enough to take it. She would be considered a toxic bitch, he would be seen as a dweeb with no self-esteem, and rightfully so! There is nothing romantic about hurting others physically or emotionally, nothing cute or funny.
“After” by Anna Todd is far from being the first offender, she’s in a good company of e.g. “Wuthering Heights” by Emily Brontë which she often references and I personally didn’t finish, “Twilight” by Stephenie Meyer and many more prime examples of fiction in which the ability to inflict emotional damage is presented as a desirable trait. I cannot reiterate how extremely noxious that is.
To draw on an example from the clinic yesterday, an elderly prisoner presented in scrubs, shackled like a wild beast, accompanied by two male guards. When I asked his permission to carry out a physical exam, he responded: “You can touch me anywhere you want,” and the three of them snickered (my angst-filled rant on the treatment of women in medicine will come someday later.)
I wanted to bang him on his head with a clipboard holding his written consent, but as the professional I am, I just went on with my job completely ignoring the remark.
During my exam, I noticed an old, healed, massive scar in the middle of his abdomen and asked: “what is this from”?
“Oh, I was on the phone with my sister, and my girlfriend that was pregnant with my baby was cutting a chicken.”
I know where this is going.
“When I got off the phone, I stepped towards my girlfriend to kiss her from behind, but she turned around and stabbed me saying ‘how dare you to tell another woman you love her when I’m pregnant with your baby’, but I was on the phone with my sister.”
He clearly said this story so many times he believes it.
“Did she go to jail?”
“No, I couldn’t put her in the jail, she was pregnant with my baby,” he says with a surprisingly soft expression.
“What happened with the baby,” I can’t help but ask.
“Oh, he’s fine, he’s 43 now, I’m a granddad,” he says proudly.
It’s not the usual happy-end reserved for romances, as it’s neither happy nor an end, but it serves to illustrate the massive difference between the literary world hijacking intimate partner violence and the real one, and the real one never ends well.
The only credit I give Anna Todd for those books is the open message regarding the use of condoms (always, everywhere, as it should be), as that can never be said too many times. But other than that, it’s total rubbish.
