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Sex & the Single Woman: Role Reversal
The formula for a romantic movie is pretty simple: beautiful girl meets stunning guy. Sparks fly, the girl wants a relationship, the guy wants to play the field. It’s the requisite situation.
In the new movie (500) Days of Summer, these stereotypical roles are reversed. Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Tom, a twenty-something guy who is looking for a seriously relationship, particularly one with Zooey Deschanel’s Summer. Summer is definitely not your average girl; she, gasp, isn’t looking for anything serious. Yes, that’s right—the guy wants to settle down and the girl cannot see herself tied down.
The story unfolds as the two drift through a sometimes fabulous, sometimes heartbreaking relationship. As I watched the movie, I was struck by the obvious—why doesn’t this guy exist in real life? More importantly, why isn’t Summer as head over heels for him?
I also think it’s interesting to see the girl in the position of not needing a man to define her. At the same time, I wonder how true to real life the movie really is. What do you think—how many women out there would rather play the field than settle down?
–Maggie
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I know plenty of women that in their 20′s and early 30′s that wanted nothing more than to “play the field”, me included. That’s what your 20s are for…to figure out who and what you want out of life. I think that is what’s so wonderful about today’s single-minded women, they don’t need a man to define them. Yeah, finally a movie that relates to all the single women that aren’t looking for the white picket fence!
Very enjoyable movie with a welcomed deviation from the standard rom com formula. Agreeing with Allison in that I don’t view this as a role reversal at all given their ages. Lots of young attractive interesting people (of both sexes) in their twenties and thirties are playing the field. Motivation of course being different for everyone, some good reasons: independence, mobility, knowledge, self awareness through others; etc, etc – and some folks for not so good reasons: fear of intimacy, inability to bond, distrust of men/women etc, etc. Ahhhh, the sweet agony and ecstasy of dating.