Gone Girl: why was this film controversial when it was released in theaters?

Released in theaters in 2014, the film baptized Gone Girl, worn by Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike, will be rebroadcast on Sunday January 9, 2022, from 9:05 p.m. on France 2. Directed by David Fincher, this feature film is in fact the film adaptation of the American bestseller Appearances (Gone Girl), written by Gillian Flynn. It features the characters of Nicholas “Nick“Dunne, played on screen by Ben Affleck, and his wife Amy, performed by Rosamund Pike. The latter left New York to settle in a small town in Missouri. On their fifth wedding anniversary, Amy mysteriously disappears and Nick finds the living room table pulverized.

At a press conference, he is incapable of playing the conventional role expected of him. He does not seem overly affected by the disappearance of his wife. He does not emphasize how wonderful she was, how much she was like “the amazing Amy“, barely fictional character that the books of the parents of the young woman made famous. Nick seems unimpressed by the affair which arouses deep emotion across the country. A scandalous TV host quickly named him the murderer of his wife. However, the death penalty is in effect in Missouri.

Gone Girl: the Dare feminism association very upbeat against this film

This film sparked controversy when it was released in theaters. He was notably accused of being a misogynist. Joan Smith had esteem in The Guardian that this feature film recycled “myths about rape“, citing scientific studies which established that false claims of rape, like the one recounted in the film, are extremely rare. She also said that:”the characters live in a parallel universe where rape victims are cared for with chivalrous attention. Go tell that to the victims, here or in the United States, whose statements have been rejected by skeptical police officers.“.

When leaving Gone Girl in France, the Dare feminism association accused the film’s plot of “turn to the perfect illustration of masculinist theses“. According to her, the character of Amy”embodies the patriarchal cliché of ideal female perversion, which uses psychological violence, supposedly a favorite weapon of women, to humiliate and hurt her husband. […] Conversely, Nick appears as a poor man victim of women, of his crazy beloved first, but also of the typical character of the horrible harpy of a journalist who accuses him without proof in front of millions of televiewers, and even the warned policewoman who finally abandons her to her sad fate“.

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