Trainwreck

I wouldn't have the vision for Tenouttaten that I do if it weren't for Film Crit Hulk. His brilliant, post-modern dissections of cinema are among the most thoughtful and inspiring validations of criticism that exist in the pantheon of the internet, and he consistently makes me want to be better than I am. In his essay on Gone Girl, he cites an interview with Gillian Flynn in which she addresses some of the criticism leveled at her work for being sexist; that Amy Dunne was nothing more than the 'psycho bitch' trope. Gillian's response is that Amy isn't a psycho bitch, she's just psycho. More than that, women deserve a character like this; a character that transcends their gender to become a monster. The media we consume projects women to be either to-their-core nurturing and good, or outwardly negative through their 'bitchiness'. Both of those extremes still hold gender to their identity. In his essay, Hulk takes these quotes to theorise that in Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn finally offers women a female Hannibal Lecter, a character whose identity doesn't stem from being a man, but from being a monster. And, in that regard, with Trainwreck, Amy Schumer offers women a female Bill Murray in Groundhog Day; an affirmation that you are allowed to be damaged, and to be a shitty human being, because you are human, and you're trying your best. And maybe, if you can finally admit that you have a problem, you can start to get better.

There's a scene in Trainwreck where Amy (Amy Schumer) is eulogising her late father. As we see in the first scene of the film, he's the one who taught Amy that monogamy is a fallacy, and set her on her path of having as good of a time for herself and herself only. She starts off professional, and well-meaning, before acknowledging that her dad was kind of a shithead. He was a racist homophobe, and with a show of hands, everyone at the funeral had been personally offended by him at some point in their lives. But in the same thought, she also acknowledges that he was honest about himself, and his shortcomings, and each person who had raised their hands could leave them raised for a time in which he had touched them with the good person he was at his core. To me, the only scene that even comes close to as accurately portraying the deep pain beneath Amy's surface is when her boyfriend Aaron (Bill Hader) suggests that they take a couple of days off and walks out the door, leaving Amy on the couch desperately trying to hold back sobs before hard-cutting to her getting wasted and dancing against her workmates in a club. There may have been a point in Amy's life when this lifestyle was exactly what she needed, and she should not be held accountable for that. This movie is not slut-shaming anybody. But Amy's at a point in her life now where that lifestyle isn't reaping the same benefits. Her flippant, carefree lifestyle is now hurting people. Her boyfriend at the start of the film, Steven (John Cena), finds out about her promiscuity, and when she can't see how it could possibly be hurtful for him to have this knowledge, he says, "Fuck you, Amy. You are a mean person." Try as she might to continue looking out for number one, she spends the film losing the battle inside of herself that's trying to tell her she's looking for something more. And it all comes from that eulogy: her parents were just as damaged as she is now, but they were good people deep down, and so is she. So are we all.

It could be argued that the fact that Amy gets the guy in the end in spite of herself isn't an earned victory. To me, it wasn't a victory, it was a second chance, and to say that she wasn't deserving of that is to say that Fight Club celebrates Tyler Durden. Trainwreck makes you work hard to see the good person beneath Amy's shell, but it is there. I can name innumerable situations in which I've been unbelievably selfish, with little to no regard for those I care about, but I still consider myself to be a good person. Why? Because I can admit the times when I wasn't good. Amy's efforts to win back Aaron demonstrate a person admitting that she needs to get better, and she wants to try. This transcends her gender, and demonstrates, as I've mentioned before, feminism as it truly is: equality. Feminism is about recognising that every human being has the capacity to be the same person. More so, in her final act of penance, a synchronised dance with the Knicks City cheerleaders, she transcends the deep, cultural understanding we have that only one body type can dance, and dance good, and look good. She knocks it out of the fucking park because she's a human being laid bare, and you can trace that back through the rest of the film. We don't see her and Aaron old and happy together; for all we know, he is but a chapter in her life. What we do know is that Amy has acknowledged that she isn't happy with who she is, and she wants to change. She doesn't win the guy, she earns the opportunity to try and get better. She's a character that is more than her gender. She's Bill Murray in Groundhog Day. She's fucking brilliant.