First published in Medium
Have you seen Love and Monsters, yet? I recently "binged" it, or to be precise, watched it in parts throughout three separate, non-consecutive days like a true 30-something, who just became a parent. However, if I could have binged-binged it, I would have because I absolutely loved it! The movie follows Dylan O'Brien. I'll leave this sentence at that because if you're a Millennial or GenZ, you've probably already fallen head-over-heels with Dylan's boyish looks the moment you saw him in his breakout role – The Maze Runner. I mean, that should be enough to entice you: you'll get to see his face again.
However, if you're oblivious to Dylan's looks, you'll be happy to know that the movie includes a very good Boy: a dog called Boy helps the hero, Joel (played by Dylan), break out of his comfort zone and confront monsters along the way to finding his true love, Aimee – played by Jessica Henwick. For a few years now, Joel has sheltered himself from the outside world, and with good reason! The world is now a post-apocalyptic Earth, where gigantic insects, nematodes, crustaceans and other creepy critters hunt the lands and seas.
Apparently, in an effort to destroy a huge asteroid in a collision course with our planet, humans shot a bunch of rockets at the sky. Though incredibly successful, the chemicals from the rockets rained on Earth and specifically targeted those species, which acquired mutations that turned them into monsters. If like me, you come from a scientific background, your head might be spinning from reading that, but just go with it. It's fun to pretend! Also, if you're Cuban, or come from a country in the developing world, or for whatever reason have seen what a roach infestation looks like, please understand you will experience severe nausea with this movie. Nevertheless, as a Cuban and a scientist, I still really enjoyed the many adventures Joel and Boy go through on their way to Aimee.
Joel is an incredibly nice person who is suffering from the trauma of not being able to save his parents. He's a more complete male protagonist in many ways, and I am overall very happy with the way the writers shaped his character. As viewers, we root for Joel to face his fears, as he freezes every time he confronts a giant insect. I already do the same when they're tiny. But the problem with the script becomes quite obvious at the beginning: our failure to write gender-fluid characters because of our inability to do away with male and female archetypes of strength and nurturing.
In the movie, as a way of introducing the romance story arc, the writers immediately let us know through Joel's narration that he is very single. In fact, everyone in his colony is paired up, and having lots of sex. Is Joel an incel? No, thankfully, the insects devoured internet forums before Joel was recruited to find deeper meaning in that sort of community. Even though the writers paint Joel as a helper, they do so in a condescending way.
It's amazing that he tends to the cows, he cooks, and fixes thingies; he's a caretaker. These aspects of Joel's personality make him a well-rounded human being with high emotional intelligence, which he benefits from by having friends and turning strangers into a family in that colony. Yet, the writers make sure that we see his actions and traits as weaknesses by showing his peers reinforce Joel's feelings of inadequacy by cuddling and underestimating him because Joel hasn't killed a mutated roach yet.
Later on, when Joel makes his way to Aimee, he encounters a little girl, fully dressed in guns, that saves him from a monster, and in the process tells him his frightened voice is higher in pitch than hers. Cool beans! This scene is the chef's kiss of misogyny. Here we get to dismiss both genders, by crushing female traits, and making male traits one-dimensional. It's toxic high fives all around!
Early in 2010s, I began reading the Walking Dead comics, which I obsessively read...until the women in the comics began sewing clothes and doing "womanly" chores. I didn't even bother with the show. Sure, they had Michonne, but she was still wrapped around a stereotype of a deranged woman. I read later that when the writers tried addressing these stereotypes in the show, they made a character justify it by saying that the world ended.
The fact that writers full of imagination would think of those lines brought me much comfort because I often seek comics and fantasy shows not for escaping, but rather to root myself in the world. Unfortunately, perhaps less strongly than the Walking Dead, Love and Monsters is still very much palatably peppered with these stereotypes. But maybe I should seek solace in the fact that these tropes were merely sprinkled throughout an otherwise really lovely movie. Here's hoping we move past these issues in the future!
Comments