“Oh, you are already falling in love with me.”
“I’m gonna make you wish you were dead.”
How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days draws heavily on
the irresistible charisma of Kate Hudson
and Matthew McConaughey to pull off a
pretty wacky premise. Hudson’s Andie bets
she can scare off any man in 10 days --
“Before the ten days are up, I'm gonna have this guy
running for his life.”
-- while McConaughey swears he can win over any woman
in the same period,
“Any single, available, straight woman -- yes.”
and the result is an absurdist battle of the sexes.
But beyond the lighthearted fun of their silly hijinks
on the road to falling in love, what is the film really saying?
“I could start by dating a guy, and then drive him away,
but only using the classic mistakes most women,
like Michelle, make...
all the time.”
Throughout the film, we watch Andie and Ben
promote regressive ideas about what men and women want,
painting women as joyless, desperate relationship-seekers,
and men as shallow commitment-phobes.
Both main characters are strikingly manipulative
and opportunistic,
“You used me...”
“Oh, I used you?”
“...to get ahead in your work.”
not to mention -- as they rightly point out
about each other -- egotistical and vain
”[Singing off-key] ...you probably think
this song is about you. Ben Barry, you’re so vain!”
Is this really a couple whose happily ever after
we want to feel warm and fuzzy about?
Here’s our Take on some of the most Toxic Takeaways
from How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days --
as well as one Meaningful Message
that redeems it in the end.
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Toxic Takeaway #1: Women are crazy.
(and obsessed with landing a man).
“Are you saying I’m some kind of
[yelling] mental person?!”
Andie’s main goal is to drive away a guy
by making the “classic” mistakes many women make in relationships.
“I’ll be clingy, needy -- ”
“Be touchy-feely.”
But who actually acts the way she does?
Andie pretends to be baselessly jealous
“Who is she?”
“Who’s who?”
“The girl you’re thinking about!”
insecure,
“My boyfriend thinks I’m fat!
[Fake sobs]”
and suffocating.
“Hi sweetie pea, it's me.”
“It's Andie, I guess you're not home!”
“Hey there, are you not answering your phone?!”
“It's me! [Strained laughter]”
She even goes so far as to name Ben’s private parts.
“Who’s Princess Sophia?”
[Gesturing to Ben's crotch and squealing]
These aren’t classic mistakes women make --
they’re straight-up unhinged.
“Blow. Nobody likes a Mr. Sniffles.”
But by casting this as expected behavior from women,
the film suggests that women in general lose their minds
upon encountering an attractive, eligible guy
“Did you just witness the one-woman homage
to The Exorcist, you saw it!”
The harmful stereotype that women are “crazy”
has been used throughout history to dismiss women’s emotions.
As Medium’s Karolína Fialka writes, craziness “has been perceived
as a strictly feminine trait throughout history,
making the word ‘crazy’ kind of a gendered insult...”
“You've got more than enough personalities to keep me
completely occupied.”
...Until not too long ago, a mental illness called hysteria
(a name derived from the Greek word for the uterus)
was diagnosed left and right in women whose behavior
didn’t comply with the societal norms of their time.”
“According to your diagnosis, hysteria seems to
cover everything, from insomnia to toothache.”
“It's not -- ”
“It's nothing more than a catch-all for
dissatisfied women.”
Toxic Takeaway #2: Men don’t want to settle down.
How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days plays into old cliches
by framing all early relationships as a battle of the sexes --
between a woman who obviously wants to settle down,
“It’s a baby fern.”
“Really? Oh, yeah.”
“Just like our relationship.”
and a man who wants to avoid that at all costs
and just have meaningless sex.
“Hanging with her for ten days is going to be no problem.”
“Right, so, it's only nine days longer than you've ever spent
with any other chick, huh?”
The film sets up men and women as almost two different species,
who want fundamentally different things from relationships,
and implies that this is why so many relationships
don’t work out.
“I even told him that I loved him.”
“After how many days?”
“Five...? [Pause] Two.”
But rather than advocating that people look for partners
with similar desires, the film sends a message
that relationships are normally a fight between two parties
negotiating for opposite goals.
Ben is horrified by Andie’s moves toward commitment
during their relationship.
“It's going to be a happy little family.”
Obviously, she’s intentionally taking it to a farcical extreme --
redecorating his apartment, buying a dog, making a scrapbook
of photoshopped family pictures
“I used Photoshop at work today to composite our faces together
to see what our kids would look like.”
But the reason she chooses these actions to put him off
is to affirm her underlying assumption
that any demand for commitment is an immediate turnoff for men.
In fact, it’s an untrue stereotype that women are always the ones
pushing for a serious relationship. Professor Elizabeth Aura McClintock
notes in Psychology Today,
“In stark contradiction to the stereotype of men
as commitment-phobic ‘players,’ Pew Research reports that
young adult women and men are equally likely
to want to marry.”
Toxic Takeaway #3: Still, unattainable men
WILL fall for you -- if you’re the “cool” girl.
Ben is cast into another cliche: the man who thinks he
doesn’t want to settle down and has to be tricked
into realizing he does.
“It took the prince coming around for me to realize,
I did not want Miss Bridgerton to only be my friend,
I wanted her to be my wife.”
Andie tames Ben’s womanizing ways, proving he just needed
the right girl to see that he was actually interested
in a serious relationship.
“Where’s the sexy, cool, fun, smart, beautiful
Andie that I knew?”
This sets up the false expectation that all men think
they want to stay bachelors, but are actually just
waiting for the perfect woman. In reality, if someone
repeatedly says they don’t want a relationship,
it’s probably best to take them at their word.
In showing why and how Ben does a 180 and
suddenly wants to settle down with Andie,
“I thought you said after the Knicks game
that she was a goddess.”
the film sets up a very specific idea of what version of femininity
is “attractive” to guys.
“That was the good Andie, guys. This amazing, fun,
cool, sexy woman. I'm talking about
the evil Andie now.”
Early on, Andie’s friend Michelle is distraught after being dumped
by a guy she barely knew.
“You only dated the guy a week.”
“It was the best week of my life.”
Andie then pretends to act like Michelle does for her article
“I'm gonna to limit myself to doing everything
girls do wrong in relationships.
Basically, everything we know guys hate.”
This whole premise sets Andie up as someone whose real personality
isn’t like those desperate, emotional, traditional women
but is actually the cool exception.
The film makes a point of contrasting
the stereotypically feminine persona
that Andie uses to drive Ben away, with her real (cool) self.
“The NBA Finals are in town and I got tickets!”
For every time she drags Ben to a rom-com or
a Celine Dion concert, the film has to show her
cheering at a Knicks game or chowing down on a burrito.
Even the way she dresses changes to be more feminine
when she’s trying to lose Ben. Andie rejects the female-oriented
content that her magazine Composure produces and
the ditzy women who work there, complaining that she wants to
write about politics and “real issues.”
“I want to write about things that matter,
like politics and the environment, and foreign affairs...
things I'm interested in.”
There’s nothing wrong with these preferences, of course,
but in this framework they reinforce Andie’s distance
from “normal women” and their interests or actions.
God, I busted my butt in grad school to be
Andie Anderson, the ‘How To’ girl, and write articles like...
‘How to Use the Best Pick-Up Lines.’
All of these traits play into the Cool Girl trope:
that what a guy really wants is a girl with the personality
of a guy -- someone who loves sports games, beer, and burgers
while still looking hot.
“Why do they always forget my bacon?”
This portrait can also be limiting to men,
by dismissing the idea that men could possibly
want to engage in any of these supposedly “girly”
activities or behaviors.
“Glad to not have to sit through a Celine Dion concert.”
Still, a big part of why Andie gets away with her behavior
is because she has the cool girl’s fundamental quality:
she’s phenomenally attractive.
This plays into the cliche of...
Toxic Takeaway #4: The hot person rule --
If you’re gorgeous enough, anyone will want you,
no matter what you do.
“No guy would go running from you, Andie.
You could barf all over him, and he would say,
‘Do it again.’”
Despite Andie’s admittedly insane behavior
and her shady motives, it’s taken as a given
that Ben still wants to be with her.
As soon as she reveals that she regrets losing him
in her published article, he runs off to beg for her back.
“Are you trying to get yourself killed?”
“If that's what it takes, yeah.”
Likewise, it’s a given that she’ll fall for
the equally hot Ben.
This sends the message to viewers that they
shouldn’t work on their personality or worry about
starting relationships off in the right way --
they just need to focus on looking great,
and everything will work out.
Speaking of which:
Toxic Takeaway #5: Lying can lead to true love
Andie and Ben’s entire relationship is built
on dishonesty.
Ben is lying to Andie to advance his career,
as part of a professional bet in order to land a big account.
After I win this bet, this pitch is mine.
Agreed.
And Andie is lying to Ben as part of an article she pitched,
which just so happens to be completely unethical
and hardly provides a very flattering portrait of
female journalists.
“This poor schmuck she’s been pretending to date --
well, not even pretending to date,
she’s actually dating the guy.
She's doing the most atrocious things to him.”
As Alex Zaragoza writes for Vice, “Depicting women journalists
as morally ditzy or fully unaware of real ethical lines
in their profession… proliferates the idea
that we're unprofessional, flighty, easily distracted,
and willing to engage in questionable behavior
because we like someone.”
“So that’s all I was, huh? I was a guinea pig.
Somebody who you could test your theories on?”
But while each gets mad the other was so bold
as to humiliate them,
“You used me to get ahead in your work!”
“I used you?"
"...You drove me half insane for a goddamn magazine article!”
"Oh, yeah -- "
in the end the film implies that because Andie and Ben
are both engaging in mirror-image toxic behavior,
this must mean they’re perfect for one another.
“You have met your match.”
Which leads us to: Toxic Takeaway #6:
Find your equally toxic partner.
“True or false: All's fair in love and war.”
“True.”
“Great answer.”
The couple comes off as empowered by their mutual willingness
to go to extreme lengths of lying and manipulation,
as if this somehow sets them above “normal people.”
“You left the tickets in the purse?”
“Yeah.”
“You are just on a whole different playing field.”
The film seems to argue that a person’s ideal partner
is someone whose toxic traits match up to theirs.
“Are you as nice as you seem, Ben?”
“No.”
“Good, neither am I.”
It’s fitting that Andie and Ben’s big confrontation
is set to a passive-aggressive duet of the song You’re So Vain
-- because it’s true.
“[Singing angrily] Ben Barry, you're so vain!
You probably think this song is about you.”
They’re both so sure of their desirability and wiles
that they believe they can have any partner wrapped
around their little finger.
“And that's why I can sell myself to any woman,
anywhere, anytime.”
Toxic Takeaway #7: Happy Ending = A Man
Ultimately, the film implies a happy ending for a woman
is settling down with a guy, even if she claims
that’s not her priority. The solution presented
for Michelle’s relationship problems isn’t for her
to take some time for herself or learn to be happy alone,
but to change her behavior for the next guy that comes along.
“If the most beautiful woman in the world
acted the way you did, any normal guy would still
go running in the other direction.”
Depictions of Andie’s boss and Ben’s female competitors
reinforce the stereotypes that high-powered, successful
women are cold and unfriendly.
“Do you see any patches or insignia anywhere
on my clothing?”
“No.”
“It's because I'm not your Girl Scout leader,
I'm your boss.”
And just as we saw that bachelor Ben just needed
to meet the right girl, Andie is the classic “career woman”
who realizes love is really what she wants and needs
for a fulfilling life.
I wanted to commit the certain silly dating faux pas.
“What I didn't realize was that I was making
the biggest mistake...
of all.”
She’s just been in denial of this universal need.
Her happy ending is giving up the big job interview in DC
to be with Ben, even though she’s realized she can’t
achieve her dreams of being a political journalist
at Composure.
“Feel free to write about anything.”
“Anything?”
“Wherever the wind blows you.”
“Even politics?”
“No, the wind's not going to blow you there.”
Despite all those toxic takeaways, this movie also leaves us
with one Meaningful Message that just might make
How to Lose a Guy In 10 Days worth it:
if you do find the right person, they’ll overlook your mistakes
and “crazier” behaviors to love the real person underneath.
“That perfume you sprayed on my pillow...that smell
is gone now, and Michelle, I-I want it back.”
The film starts out framed as a “how to,”
addressing people's insecurities that they need
to follow the rules and do everything correctly
to find love.
“It will be sort of a dating “How To” in reverse.
What not to do.”
But in the end, Andie and Ben develop real feelings
for each other when they stop acting.
“When your mom hugged me today, she really hugged me.”
“Sweetie, that's a good thing.”
They like each other most when they’re not proving
some gendered stereotype or pushing some secret agenda,
but just being their true, authentic selves.
“Smile. Now come on. Give me a smile.
Okay, that's good, that's it. Yes, you're scaring me.”
Ultimately, real love means you can throw out the rulebook
and do everything wrong. It’s just about accepting
each other for who you are and feeling good
when you’re together.
“Look who made the trip with me.”
“It's our love fern.”
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