Not Your Stereotypical Genders

From the toys we buy to the clothes we wear, there has always been a clear distinction between “girly” and “boyish” items, actions, and personalities in everything. But do we all still fit into either category? Do girls only like feminine things and boys masculine? No, that is not the case at all. In today’s society, girls like a lot of “boyish” things such as cars while still maintaining their femininity. Likewise, boys like “girly” things such as romantic comedies while maintaining their masculinity. These days it’s socially acceptable for a girl to be a mechanic or an engineer and it’s perfectly alright for a guy to go see a chick flick or care about the way he looks. Not everyone fits into the mold of the stereotypical boy or girl. We see this in Bret Easton Ellis’s novel, The Rules of Attraction. Many of the characters in this book do not fit into the stereotypical gender roles. This becomes even more defined to us when we look at the movie Sweet Home Alabama in which the characters do fit into their stereotypical gender roles.
So what are the stereotypical boys and girls of today? According to Chris Barker, “Men are commonly held to be more ‘naturally’ domineering, heirarchally oriented and power-hungry, while women are seen as nurturing, child rearing and domestically inclined.” (285) Barker goes on to say that men take more risks, are more likely to have multiple partners, have more anger than empathy, and are less likely to talk about their emotions. (286) Based on this, we can say that the stereotypical guy doesn’t show or act on his emotions much, he is more likely to sleep with multiple people, he isn’t romantic, and he’ll act “macho” while the stereotypical girl is ruled by her emotions, prefers monogamy, and is more nurturing. So characters in Rules of Attraction are not stereotypical and how so?
I believe that the girls in this book are not stereotypical, with the exception of the unnamed girl that was in love with Sean Bateman, and the guys, with the exception of Paul, are mostly stereotypical. Looking at Lauren, the leading lady so to speak, I think it is clear that she is not stereotypical at all. She sleeps around with a different guy practically every week, she isn’t very open and talkative about her true feelings, and she definitely is not completely ruled by her emotions. Time and time again throughout the book, Lauren describes her night out partying and how she ended up with a different guy and slept with them even if she didn’t particularly like them. Sometimes she didn’t even know their names, as was the case when she lost her virginity at the beginning of the book. According to what Barker said, this is something expected of the stereotypical male, not female. Also, she tells us about her feelings for, or lack thereof, certain characters, but she doesn’t really go into them. She never talks to her friends about them either. She isn’t as open as the stereotypical girl. She just goes with the flow and doesn’t really act on her emotions very much. To see just how different from a stereotypical girl she is, let’s look at a completely stereotypical girl, Melanie Smooter played by Reese Witherspoon in Sweet Home Alabama.
Melanie is a girl from a small town in Alabama who wanted to get out so much that she left her husband and moved to New York where she changed her name and started a fashion line. Her character is the stereotypical girl because she doesn’t sleep around with multiple people, she never forgot the first boy she ever kissed and the first boy she fell in love with. She is ruled by her emotions whether it’s anger, sadness, or joy. At one point, Melanie is so frustrated and angry with her estranged husband for not signing the divorce papers, that she goes and gets drunk at the bar that the same bar that her husband Jake and his date are at. In her anger she wants to get revenge on Jake and while she’s drunk she says some really hurtful things about Jake and their friends. All through the film we see how Melanie is a stereotypical girl, even if you have to look a little deeper than surface from time to time.
On the other hand, the males in Ellis’s novel are mostly all stereotypical guys. The perfect example of this is in Sean Bateman. Sean sleeps around with tons of girls, even while he is dating Lauren who he claimed to be in love with, he doesn’t acknowledge or talk about his feelings, and he doesn’t empathize or care about anyone else really. These are typical guy characteristics according to Barker. Unlike Sean, however, we have Paul, the only non-stereotypical guy I saw in Rules of Attraction. Paul, to me, is the ultimate romantic. Sure, he falls for someone new quite often, yet when he falls for someone in the slightest bit, he lets himself fall and puts all of himself into the relationship. He falls for someone and then everything around him becomes about that person. When he goes to visit his mom for a weekend, everywhere he went someone or something reminded him of Sean, who he was currently in some sort of relationship with. Also, Paul opened up some and every so often discussed his feelings and he clearly told us when he had feelings for someone. We saw his emotions, unlike the other guys in the book. In order to really see how Sean and Paul fit into the stereotypical gender roles, we can look at Jake Perry from Sweet Home Alabama, played by Josh Lucas.
Jake is your stereotypical guy, and by looking at him, we can see the similarities between him and Sean that underlie Sean’s actions and the differences between him and Paul. In the movie, Jake is the typical manly, southern man. He doesn’t talk about his feelings for Melanie or how her leaving him affected him. Melanie found out about what he did and how hurt he was by her leaving from other people. He doesn’t act on his emotions, he suppresses them some. He goes out and does “guy” things, like shooting pool and having beer with the guys and going fishing. A major difference between him and the Camden kids in Ellis’s novel is that he doesn’t sleep around with various women. He is married, even if they are estranged, to Melanie and he still loves her. It is clear that he is a stereotypical guy that happens to be in love.
While reading The Rules of Attraction, it may not be clear exactly how stereotypical or not the characters are. But in comparing them to the characters in Sweet Home Alabama and reading what Barker had to say, I think it becomes clear that the girls in the novel are not stereotypical while the guys are, with the exception of Paul. The Camden kids are very interchangeable. They all do the same things and act the same way and sleep with the same people. None of them fit exactly into their specific gender roles completely, but the girls fall more into the stereotypical guy category. Ellis wrote a great novel showing how gender is very malleable and not everyone fits into a stereotype.

For clips from Sweet Home Alabama, follow these links:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5HGtGhn6-M&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ih_u71wMgBQ&feature=related

Barker, Chris. Cultural Studies: Theory and Practice. London: Sage Publications. 2008. Print.
Ellis, Bret Easton. The Rules of Attraction. New York: Vintage Books. 1987. Print.