Peter Kavinsky from To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before is today’s movie
ideal of the perfect guy.
I beg to differ.
For me, someone like Marcus from Always Be My Maybe
is the real man of our moment.
This is Take Two
-- a series brought to you by The Take,
-- where we compare two opposing sides to a cultural debate of our times.
Today’s big question: Who is the ideal guy of our times,
according to modern rom-coms?
Take 1 will argue that it’s the secretly sensitive cool guy --
who has hidden depths and isn't the cliche the old tired script
has trained us to expect.
Take 2 will argue that it’s the secretly awesome dork --
who represents inner beauty and not just seeking the prize
everyone else is after.
So what does each type of “perfect guy”
say about our modern standards for men and romance?
“Are you Team Peter or Team John?”
And now, here’s Take 1.
The masculine ideal in today’s rom-coms is
the Sensitive Cool Guy.
“Are you more than just a hot jock?”
“Oh, you think I'm hot?”
“[Laughs] No.”
“To answer your question, I don't really consider myself a jock.”
This character type has long fallen victim to the false binary
we’re used to seeing onscreen: that a person can be either hot and vapid
or nerdy and deep.
“Maybe my body can like him,
but my mind knows that that's stupid,
because he's just... he's a jock,
and all he cares about is being cool and having fun.”
But, as recent rom-coms have revealed, the idea that the dreamboat
with social capital must be one-dimensional is passé --
and it doesn’t do him justice.
“I even packed the snacks.
I asked Kitty where to find those,
uh, those yogurt drinks you like so much.”
“The Korean grocery store is all the way across town.”
“I know.”
So what makes the jock-with-depth the guy for our times?
First, he embodies
a shift in what values make you cool.
Many movies of the 80s and 90s implied
that popularity was the sign of a bad person -- as what got them there
was being rich and arrogant and ruling through intimidation.
But today’s cool guy reveals that, in reality, being well-liked
by your peers can be proof that you treat people well.
“You're a good listener.”
So viewers come away with the message that coolness today is being a
good person who’s secure in themselves.
Just as the fake “nice guy” dork has emerged as the surprise
villain of our time --
“Maybe I’m not nice, you know?”
-- the popular guy may be the victim of an outdated form of pigeonholing.
“I cannot just be another one of your conquests.”
“Is that what you think of me?”
The irony is that it’s often the female protagonist’s typecasting
of the cool guy that creates conflict in their relationship, rather than
any actual biases he holds.
“You and I... we don't work together in the real world, Bo!
You're supposed
to be with someone like Bekah.”
Ultimately, this guy’s narrative arc is the inverse of the “invisible girl
revealed to be beautiful” trope -- he’s perceived as a simple
and superficially hot person, but actually has overlooked
inner beauty and complexity.
“I’ve been on anti-anxiety medication since I was 11.”
Because he’s experienced popularity, the cool guy understands how little
it truly matters.
He’s not necessarily into the most popular girl in school,
“I don’t like Bekah like that.”
because he knows status isn’t the key to a real connection.
“I really liked Maeve, you know.”
“What was it about her that you liked so much?”
“It's just the feeling, innit?”
One of the cool guy’s greatest strengths is that he’s emotionally earnest.
“Who writes letters these days?”
“I...
I thought it'd seem romantic.”
Since he’s often a jock, he has the athlete's expectation that success
comes from dedicated, consistent hard work, so he’s also willing
to put in the work in his personal life.
He’s able to assert his feelings
directly and without fear.
“I think you're beautiful.
To hell with anyone else who's ever
made you feel less than that!”
In To All the Boys, Peter makes himself open for Lara Jean
to express her crush to him -- challenging her in a healthy way
to be brave in love.
“If you want me to read that, then you need to give that to me.”
The Half of It’s Paul brings this same energy to his platonic friendship
with protagonist Ellie.
“What was your mom like?”
“Young, funny, dead.”
“No, before she died”
Peter’s consideration extends not only to his current girlfriend,
“I don’t want to rush you.”
but also to her family,
“This is for you.”
“Gerbera daisies are my favorite!”
and even to his ex, Gen, who still needs emotional support.
“She was upset because there's some things happening with her mom
and her dad and she just wanted to talk to someone who understands.”
Finally, the cool guy has sex appeal --
“[Breathless] Ah, sweet mercy.”
“[Smirks] Sorry.”
and that’s not a trivial consideration!
Movies targeted at men rarely have them
settle for a girl who’s not model-gorgeous.
The sensitive cool guy
is the leading man of our times because he represents no compromises.
He reminds us that we deserve someone who, in addition
to being supportive and kind, lights a fire inside of us.
“I burn for you.”
Stories centering this type of love interest feel like they’re
made for women, rewarding female desire -- not to comfort men that women
should want somebody more like them.
Ultimately, it all comes back to that age-old question:
can women have it all in romance -- both fireworks and friendship?
The sensitive cool guy says yes.
“To meet a beautiful woman is one thing.
But to meet your best friend
in the most beautiful of women is something entirely apart.”
And now for Take 2.
The masculine ideal of today’s rom-coms is the Awesome Dork.
There’s a reason that it’s a classic Rom-Com trope to have the heroine
start off enamored by the superficially attractive cool guy, only to realize
that she truly loves the awesome dork.
“I’m just making some mental revisions to my perfect boyfriend checklist.”
Why?
Because he has inner beauty -- valuable internal qualities
like humor, perspective, and deep interests.
The arc of a girl
overlooking the awesome nerdy guy
may be as old as the teen rom-com itself,
but it never gets old -- because as a society we continue to prize
superficial values over what really matters in life.
The awesome dork symbolizes a rejection of those wrong priorites.
“[Shouts] She's not an object.
You keep describing her
as inanimate objects, but she is a person!
Have you even thought
about asking her what she wants or what she likes?”
This character is often juxtaposed with the cool guy in ways that --
at first -- make the dork appear to come up short.
Always Be My Maybe’s
Marcus has to compete for his childhood sweetheart Sasha’s affections
with arguably the coolest guy on the planet: Keanu Reeves.
“[Slo mo, distorted] I think that guy is Keanu Reeves!”
“Oh hey boo!
[Sail by AWOLNATION plays]”
And initially, rich, famous, performatively sensitive Reeves
outshines Marcus to a degree that it’s laughable.
“Um, what about the bill?”
“I took care of it.”
“Oh, you didn't even give me a chance to fight you for it.”
“It's $6,400.
Less than a residual paycheck from my hit movie Speed.”
But over time, even this cool guy starts to feel superficial, boring,
and just kind of exhausting.
“I think he could dial down the theatrics by like 10,000.”
“Well, he’s an actor.”
“He’s a douche.”
Stories with this Cool Guy versus Awesome Dork set-up
prompt us to ask ourselves: what do we really want in a romantic partner?
Someone who is a prize others would envy, due to his hot looks,
popularity or wealth?
Or someone who --
due to his idiosyncratic chemistry with you -- actually makes your life
better when he’s around?
“It's nice to see you like this again.”
“Like what?”
“Yourself.”
Whereas past examples were frequently desperate to be noticed by their peers,
the modern Awesome Dork tends to be happy with his apparently
mediocre station in life, because he has his own thing going on.
“[Shouts] I think the band is great, too great to be stuck playing
in that s[BLEEP]hole!”
“Well, I love that s[BLEEP]hole!”
He has self-respect.
Past awesome dorks were so obsessed with pining
for the heroine, they might do anything to try to get her -- even harass her
in an entitled way.
“You can't do this, and, and respect yourself.
Y-You ju -- ”
“Well, I'll make that decision, all right?”
But today’s awesome dork won’t just hang around forever
if he’s not being respected, because -- while he struggles with insecurities
like the rest of us -- in the end he knows he’s a catch.
These stories imply there’s actually a value to being uncool.
When you’re not invited into the in-group, you learn to be alone with yourself
and find out who you really are; to discover and nurture weird,
authentic passions; and perhaps most importantly, to relate
to the feeling of being marginalized.
“You want embarrassing?
Try navigating sixth grade Shakespeare with a stutter.”
Even if the Cool Guy means well and tries to be nice, he usually
doesn’t have the slightest idea what it’s like not to be rich
or beautiful or accepted.
So his very strength and self-assurance
makes him kind of a jerk.
“I don’t have a problem, Sasha.”
“You’re a dick!”
Outside of high school, popularity is replaced with class.
“There’s a VERY middle-class man on the way up to see you.”
The awesome dork is not wealthy, famous and successful,
“I’ll take this suit for $219 and 32 cents.
It comes with a belt
and two pairs of pants.”
“Great for court dates, entry level job interviews.”
but this makes him a realer person.
“I called you 'a regular guy' as a compliment.
Like, you aren't
caught up in all the bullshit.”
“The way you are?”
By the end of Always Be My Maybe, celebrity chef Sasha
and “regular guy” Marcus’s mismatch in status helps them
give each other perspective: Marcus needs the driven Sasha
to challenge him, while she needs the grounded Marcus to remind her
of the value of authenticity.
“This is what I want to do, Marcus.
The kind of food that
makes people feel at home.”
Now back to Take 1.
The Awesome dork isn’t all that awesome.
Take 2 may believe that dorkiness makes you more sensitive and empathetic --
but isn’t feeling invisible just as likely to make a person bitter,
prone to acting out in problematic ways?
“She may look like a 34C, but she's getting all kinds of help
from our friends at Victoria's Secret.
She's a 34B, as in
barely anything there.”
Even in a film like Always Be My Maybe, where the awesome dork character Marcus
has many lovable qualities, he also quickly lashes out
when he feels overshadowed by his more successful girlfriend.
“Right.
It's because you're a ‘celebrity chef.’
Who came up with that term anyway?
It's so pretentious.”
We can see the problem with a partner who’s only “secretly” awesome:
sometimes even they can’t see their own worth.
The secretly awesome dork’s true heyday was the 80s and 90s.
In movies from these decades, there was value in the heroine
turning away from the hyper-masculine jerks around her in favor of the nerd
who appeared to represent a more thoughtful, sensitive or ethical
approach to life.
But since then, there’s been a growing awareness
that many of those iconic awesome “nice dorks” weren’t that awesome
or even that nice.
“That way you know she'll be drunk.
You know when girls say:
‘I was so s[BLEEP]faced last night.
I shouldn't have f[BLEEP]ed that guy’?
We could be that mistake!”
Being uncool does not automatically make you a nice person,
nor is it inevitable that the popular crowd is stupid.
“That guy is decent looking, that’s obvious, but y-you don’t
know him, he’s probably dumb as a -- ”
“[Solves equation]”
But for the final word on this, let’s focus in on To All the Boys:
P.S.
I Still Love You, where Awesome Dork John Ambrose is
the challenger to Sensitive Jock Peter Kavinsky.
While John Ambrose is just as romantic and friendly, we might also find him
a little pretentious.
“Future generations are gonna have their hands full with deforestation,
urban overcrowding.
And we'll probably be living underwater
at that point, right?”
He seems much more stuck in his head, like he’s trying to cultivate a persona.
And ultimately, he isn’t really nicer than Peter.
It’s key that
John Ambrose was Lara Jean’s crush as a younger person --
“I was obsessed with him in sixth grade.”
-- so she gets caught up in a juvenile idea of him
as this romantically deep person -- before realizing that her heart
actually belongs to the guy she's fallen for as a more mature
young adult.
In a world where Peter Kavinsky exists, there's never
really going to be a competition.
“You break my heart, Covey.
You break my heart
into a thousand pieces.”
Take 2: The Sensitive cool guy isn’t all that sensitive.
The “deep” jock isn’t a new phenomenon, and he’s never
really been all that deep.
“McClaren, do you remember when you had that stutter?”
“[Coughs repeatedly]”
“I just, I noticed you don't have it anymore.”
“Yeah, well, dude, thank you.
Appreciate it.”
Just look back at Jake Ryan from Sixteen Candles -- the original
prototype for Peter Kavinsky.
“So why do you like this movie?”
“Hellooo, Jake Ryan!”
“[Scoffs] I am way better looking than that guy.”
“You wish!”
Both Peter and Jake may be cute, but they’re ultimately examples
of glorifying the popular kid for being popular.
Saying he’s sensitive
or deep is compared to a really low bar of expecting him to have no sensitivity
or depth at all.
And while it may come off as sweet when the cool guy
tries to rise to the heroine’s level intellectually,
“What do you think Woolf meant by ‘the history of men's opposition
to women's emancipation is more interesting perhaps than the story
of that emancipation itself’?”
he’s also often doing this just as a ploy to get with her.
“You want him to help you get Maeve to be your girlfriend?”
“I mean, I can pay, if that's the problem.”
At his worst, the Cool Guy may lean into his deep act
“I like your band.
L'Enfance Nue?”
“[in French accent] L'Enfance Nue.”
to disguise the fact that he’s really an unfeeling jerk.
“You said you were a virgin.”
“No I didn't.
Cause I'm not.
And I haven't lied in 2 years.”
The sensitive cool guy is also not really the guy of “today” --
frequently he plays into outdated ideals of masculinity, like aggressively
defending a girl’s honor.
“Get in the car, Elle.
[Slams on the car]
Get in the car, Elle!”
Fundamentally, the Cool Guy (however “deep” he may claim to be)
represents the prize of status.
By winning his heart, the heroine
proves that she’s the most special, desirable girl -- because she’s
been chosen by the most special guy
“Don't lose sleep over the Kavinsky fan club.
Okay, you're the one that dethroned Gen without even trying.”
There’s an inherent inequality in this dynamic, since the heroine herself
is usually not super popular.
“How is it being at prom with the king?”
“Honestly?
Kind of lonely.”
But falling in love -- or finding a friend, or making
a connection of any sort -- isn’t about snagging the prize everyone else wants.
It’s about bravely facing your feelings to understand what you want.
“If I was really being honest, there was one letter that I remember
being a little more intense than the others.”
“It was mine.
Right?”
“It was me.
Right?”
Whereas older stories might suggest that the girl should choose the dork
because he was actually far superior to the jerky popular crowd,
today’s awesome dork really might be a loser in some ways.
“The man who embraces his mediocre nothingness shines greater than any.”
“Thank you, Keanu.”
The point isn’t that he’s objectively better than everyone; It’s that
he’s pretty great simply for being himself -- as any of us
can be when we unlock a self-esteem that’s not based on how others value us.
“And then, you walked in as a deviled egg.
And I realized...
maybe, I'm lame in a cool way.”
Most importantly, a relationship with an awesome dork is based on
friendship, equality and respect.
“The overthinking?
That doesn't happen when I'm with John Ambrose.”
It’s about what’s between two people when no one is around.
This ideal guy of our era is a symbol of that age-old message:
while we’re tempted to judge people by their covers,
it’s what inside that counts.
“I can't wait to be at an age where I'm not expected to think
that flip cup is fun.”
So, who do you think is the ideal guy of today?
Tell us whether your type is the sensitive cool guy or
the secretly awesome dork.
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