This video is brought
to you by Mubi, a curated streaming service that
premiers a new film every day. “The verdict’s in,
I am officially, medically, certifiably quote
unquote crazy.” The Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is
every guy’s greatest fear: she comes out of nowhere,
hell-bent on stirring up drama and ruining her ex’s chances
at new happiness without her. The pop culture version
of the crazy ex can be terrifying, irritating,
or genuinely in crisis-- but countless movies and shows present
this emotionally distressed woman without context as to the
circumstances that got her there, framing her merely as an
unpredictable liability and a problem that
has to be eliminated. The Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is a spectre
(sometimes even a literal ghost) that also haunts women
(perhaps even more intimately), as they strive not to
be compared to her. “I wonder what she’s
thinking about you. Taking her husband
and using her name.” The age-old myth of the
distraught ex-girlfriend who desperately pines for
(or violently rampages against) her lost partner reflects the belief
that women are more codependent than men in romantic relationships--
even though research shows no link between gender
and codependency. And in reality, men are
far more likely to resort to aggressive behavior
after a break-up. So why is it that women
are painted as universally responding to uncoupling
with quote-unquote “insanity”? “You won’t answer my calls,
you changed your number, I mean, I’m not going
to be ignored Dan.” Here’s our take on what the
Crazy Ex-Girlfriend represents-- and why she doesn’t
really exist at all. If you’re new here,
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always top-notch. In the Ancient Greek myth of
Jason and the Argonauts, Medea, sorceress and scorned ex wife,
seeks revenge when Jason marries another woman by murdering
the children they had together. The name Medea--derived from the
Greek word for 'plans' or 'cunning'-- establishes the longstanding
idea that divorced wives plot to seek revenge at all costs. In the 19th century, the crazy ex
again made frequent appearances as an unhinged villain with
almost supernatural overtones. “My wife… my own demon” In Jane Eyre, Mr. Rochester keeps
his unpredictable wife Bertha locked away in a secret room--
a harsh measure the audience is led to believe is necessary
because she is in fact crazy. Before Jane meets Bertha, she
thinks a ghost lives in the house, and there’s likewise a spectral
nature to the “crazy ex” who’s the title character of Daphne Du
Maurier’s 1938 novel Rebecca. The deceased wife of the
narrator’s husband-- Rebecca de Winter--
at first seems like a beautiful ideal the new
Mrs. de Winter can’t live up to. “You’ll never replace her.
You can’t replace her… no he can’t love you,
because you’re not her.” But it turns out that she was a
demonic, heartless, unfaithful woman who still haunts and
torments her ex-husband and his new wife—even
from beyond the grave. There’s something universal
about the image of a past lover as a ghost that a new
couple wishes would go away-- but another source of the trope
of the “crazy ex” girlfriend or wife you can’t be free
of lies in that pesky “until death do us part''
marriage vow. Throughout most of
American history, married couples who sought divorce
faced long, arduous processes. Given that obtaining a divorce
often meant proving adultery, “You want a divorce? New York state,
you need to prove adultery. I mean prove it in a court
of law. That's hard to do.” to simply be an ex-wife
could mean you were widely assumed to be
unfaithful or “immoral.” Moreover, women have not
tended to be granted equality on the
grounds for divorce. The 1857 Matrimonial Causes Act
passed in the UK parliament allowed men to divorce their wives
for one act of adultery, while women could only divorce
husbands who were physically abusive, incestuous, or bestial
as well as unfaithful. Being at risk of losing
everything in a divorce, as ex-wives often did,
could of course make anyone a little crazy. “And I’m not rich--everything I had
belongs to him, that’s English law.” The through-line between women
who were branded as crazy exes in the past and the women who
are branded them now is power. In the feminist prequel to Jane Eyre,
1966’s Wide Sargasso Sea, author Jean Rhys imagines
Bertha Mason’s perspective, and shows us a woman who’s been
horribly mistreated and cheated on. “Traitor! Fornicator!” To a contemporary audience,
it’s the unchecked total control Mr. Rochester has over his
wife that seems threatening. Helen Small, a professor of
English Language and Literature writes that, during
the 19th century, “tales of women
driven to insanity… by the death or treachery
of their lovers… were deeply ingrained in the
culture’s conception of femininity.” Looking back on all this,
we can see how the myth of the vengeful Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
was a self-perpetuating one: draconian laws that favored
the husband’s rights and governed women’s bodies,
and deep-seated, inescapable, untrue stereotypes,
caused intense moments and expressions of
female frustration, which in turn have been used
to “prove” that females are u nstable and justify
laws restricting them. So what forms does the
Crazy Ex-Girlfriend take in more recent and
contemporary pop culture? The show Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
is a nuanced and hilarious takedown of the way we so quickly
jump to calling women crazy. “She’s the crazy ex-girlfriend.”
“That’s a sexist term.” The first season shows Rebecca
performing an extreme of stereotypical Crazy
Ex-Girlfriend behaviors-- moving across the country to
be near an ex she briefly dated in summer camp as a teen
and trying to “steal” him from his new girlfriend,
all while pretending she just wants casual friendship. But the show unpacks all the
Crazy Ex-Girlfriend tropes (like the lies, the instability,
and the proverbial daddy issues), humanizing them through a vulnerable,
likeable central character and digging deeper into why an
ultra-smart, highly educated woman feels compelled
to act this way. “So you're saying that I
moved here from New York and I left behind a job
that would have paid me $545,000 a year for a guy
who still skateboards? That would be crazy
and I am not crazy.” Rebecca’s deceptiveness comes
from the expectation that-- to win over a guy--
she must constantly project a likeable, relaxed “cool girl”
persona that’s inherently inauthentic. It’s not just in Rebecca’s
imagination that guys expect this-- after she finally gets the
magical night she’s been dreaming of with Josh,
she momentarily slips up and reveals just how badly
she wanted to be with him, “I moved here for you.”
“What?” “The second I saw you on the
street in New York, I knew.” --and her full-on expression of
passion for him immediately puts him off and causes
him to distance himself. In the next season,
Rebecca realizes that her relentless drive to seek the
approval of an emotionally unavailable guy like Josh stems
from feeling abandoned by her father. So when Rebecca embraces
being the vengeful “crazy,” “scorned woman” at
the end of Season Two, “Josh Chan must be destroyed.” the transformation has an
empowering aspect--at least, she’s no longer internalizing the
blame for why men have mistreated her. “All these men, they are
all the ones to blame.” Still, Rebecca can’t fully
heal until she looks honestly at the deeper issues
she needs to address. The word ‘crazy’ in the
title is a reference to the way we casually demean our
exes by flippantly turning mental health issues
into an insult-- but this assumed stigma
and rigid expectations for acceptable behavior from
female partners exacerbate very real mental
health issues. Rebecca battles severe
depression and anxiety, is delusional and erratic,
hallucinates when stressed, and is eventually diagnosed with
borderline personality disorder. This iteration of the
ex-girlfriend undergoing a mental health crisis
is nuanced and moving, highlighting that women we
label as “crazy” may be acting out because they
are hurting or traumatized. In the end, Rebecca resolves her
issues by working on herself, turning her musical
“hallucinations” into expressions of creativity in the world,
and not centering a man in her life. “When I'm telling my own story…
for the first time in my life, I am truly happy.
It's like I just met myself.” However, this happy ending
isn’t always attainable for ex-girlfriends who
are genuinely unwell. For Orange is the New Black’s
Lorna Morello, a guy she’s only been on one date with comes to
represent all of her hopes, dreams, and delusions about
romantic relationships. “She left notes on my car,
she threw trash on my lawn, she left voicemails yelling
about how I wasn't helping enough with the dog.
I don't even have a dog.” Without Rebecca’s income
and status privileges, including access to good
mental health treatment, Lorna’s obsession lands her in jail
where her delusions just intensify. “Clearly your time in prison
has done nothing to bring you back into reality, you psycho.” Morello is driven by
loving an idea of love, “I deserve to be with
somebody who loves love.” and the more that her life
diverges (sometimes tragically) from her perfect dreams, the
less she’s able to accept reality. The mental health crisis ex-girlfriend
shows how feeding women a traditional, restrictive idea of the “successful”
relationship can be traumatizing, since life inevitably
doesn’t fit into that box. Her ex has moved on,
but she’s not even close to ready to see him
with someone else. The jealous ex-girlfriend
just wants to make her old boyfriend feel as
terrible as she does (if only for a short time),
and takes action in the form of (mostly) harmless pranks. But when stories align us with
this character’s perspective, her behaviors (however petty
or childish) become almost universally relatable. Throughout Friends,
Rachel seeks to destroy any relationship her ex
Ross becomes involved in, in one episode manipulating Ross’s
new girlfriend Bonnie into shaving her head because she knows
Ross won’t find it attractive. “She said you gave her the razor.” But of course, the narrative
situaties us on Rachel’s side, and ultimately uses this
as a catalyst for Rachel to admit she still has
feelings for her ex. “You’re the one who
ended it, remember?” “Yeah, because I was mad at you,
not because I stopped loving you.” Ultimately, the wild
behavior of the insanely jealous ex reveals a
person who is hurting. Unlike the relatively
tame jealous ex who a narrative more often
aligns us with, women like Alex Forrest,
Amy Dunne, Madison Bell, and Holly Viola are
genuine psycho exes-- devious, deceptive,
reckless and bloodthirsty. This cold, calculating
(but deeply delusional) Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is
determined to either have the guy all to herself or
ruin his life if she can’t. “To fake a convincing murder,
you have to have discipline.” She often lures the unwitting man
with the promise of strings-free sex-- a cartoonishly heightened version
of that faux “cool girl” whose casual act gives way to
a deadly obsession with possessing the central guy,
thus fueling the cliché that all women are secretly
desperate for male commitment, no matter what they say. In Fatal Attraction, after
Dan Gallagher ends his affair with Alex Forrest,
she calls him at work, stalks him, threatens him, boils his
daughter’s pet rabbit, abducts his daughter, and
tries to murder Dan’s wife. Gone Girl’s Amy Dunne
goes on an equally brutal, but much more elaborate rampage after
to punish her husband Nick’s affair and his plan to divorce her
by framing him for her murder (taking on a “crazy-ex wife” from
beyond the grave vibe when he initially thinks she’s dead). Amy’s thorough dedication to
details plays into the idea that crazy exes are
master manipulators who play on their ex-lover’s weaknesses
to hurt them post-break up. “Meticulously stage your crime scene…
with just enough mistakes to raise the specter of doubt.” In stories like Fatal Attraction
and Gone Girl, an affair, emotional callousness, and
terrible behavior by the guy spark the woman’s fury--in light
of which, Fatal Attraction’s depiction of Alex as an
unstoppable psychotic force was met with criticisms
from feminist writers. But this character’s just causes
for rage are overshadowed by her extreme violent overreactions--
making her the gold standard archetype of the irrational,
jealous, dangerous ex that both men and women are
conditioned to condemn and avoid. “I just want to be
a part of your life.” “Oh and this is the way you do it,
huh? Showing up at my apartment?!” Gone Girl examines this situation
through Amy’s perspective, and actually originated the modern
discussion of the “cool girl” act specifically to explain why Amy
goes off the deep end after her years of trying to embody
her husband’s fantasies just led to him trading
her for a younger woman. “…and found himself a newer,
younger, bouncier Cool Girl.” It’s in large part because of
the persistence of stereotypes like the Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
that many women try to present themselves as her opposite,
“the cool girl”-- an exhausting performance
that can lead them to tolerate mistreatment or repress
legitimate anger during the relationship
or as it’s ending. And ironically, this may
make it harder to process the usual breakup feelings
in a healthy way and lead to more dramatic “crazy”
outbursts of pent-up emotion The crazy-in-a-fun way ex,
frequently seen in comedies, is super bad for her ex-man
but he can’t stay away-- toxic, yet intoxicating. “I just need a second. It's Jane.”
“How's all that going?” “Uh, we broke up. (phone vibrates)
Oh. We're back on. Phew.” In Parks and Recreation,
the only threat to Ron Swanson’s stiff upper lip is his smart,
sexy, and seductive ex-wife Tammy. And though she’s not a crazy ex,
Claire from 30 Rock only needs one hook-up and a few hours to
set the fiercely independent business mastermind Jack Donaghy
on a rollercoaster she’s driving. “Maybe Claire’s right. Maybe if we have
a baby together things will calm down. I can’t help it. I’m under a lot
of pressure and Claire is my escape. She is like a drug, I crave her all
the time even though she’s bad for me!” The fun-crazy ex may appear like
just a wacky stock character, but the way she strips males
of their power goes back to the idea that women gain
power and prestige through snapping up high-status men and
blinding them with sex and mind games. Ted Lasso offers an update
to this type in Jane, Coach Beard’s constantly
on-again-off-again girlfriend who sounds like that demanding,
erratic toxic presence, "Oh shit, two missed calls
from her… be right back!!" but--once we actually get
to see her with Coach Beard-- is clearly the love of his life
in a relationship that may be unconventional but works for them. All of the Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
examples who are framed as one-dimensional tropes are actually
being misunderstood by the audience. This intentional misrepresentation
also extends to real life. Journalist Vicky Spratt wrote
in Refinery 29 that even Princess Diana was, in
media treatment of her time, “a particularly notable example
of the ‘crazy ex’ trope… she was regularly dismissed
as ‘bonkers’ for doing things like calling out the royal family
or her ex-husband on national TV because he had an affair.” “Well, there were three of us in this
marriage so it was a bit crowded.” To this day, this type of
portrait can be used to discredit women in political
and professional spheres-- Intelligencer wrote that,
Stephanie Grisham’s publishing a tell-all about the Trump White House
led to “Statements by Donald and Melania Trump and a whisper
campaign from their allies” that “make Grisham out to be like a
crazy ex-girlfriend who never had any power to begin with.” In fiction, this type of male
power play is explored in works like The Girl on the Train,
where the (spoiler alert) plot twist of the movie is that
the female protagonist had been gaslit by her husband into thinking
she was a hopeless, violent alcoholic. “You told me I got you fired.
But I didn't. You were fired because you were
f[BLEEP]ing everyone in the office!” And all these examples illustrate
how impressions are completely shaped by how writers
(or real people) frame women in a certain light to make their
responses to situations seem crazy. In Friends, Janice Litman is
Chandler’s annoying, overbearing, and crazy ex, reviled
by all of his friends. But in the early seasons,
he uses her, toys with her, dumps her repeatedly, and
generally just treats her horribly. “One of these times, it's just
gonna be your last chance with me!” Even if they women a break-up
really well, sexist ideas about female emotion still haunt how
their behavior is interpreted. “Barney, I just want you to know,
I have no hard feelings. It wasn’t the best idea
for us to get involved, I hope we can still be friends.” “She’s gonna try to kill me.” So, can ex-girlfriends ever really win?
And how are the emotions of male boyfriends and exes dealt
with in film and TV? As much space as the
Crazy Ex-Girlfriend takes up in Hollywood scripts and
in the public consciousness, realistically, women are at far
greater risk of being assaulted or harmed by a Crazy Ex-Boyfriend. From Henry VIII’s murdering
two of his six wives, to countless headlines and
true crime shows detailing the horrible deeds of vengeful men,
the aggressive, unhinged ex-boyfriend is a very real phenomenon. For women in abusive relationships,
deciding to become an ex is perhaps the greatest
risk to their safety. “Why doesn’t she just leave?
It’s incredibly dangerous to leave an abuser,
because the final step in the domestic violence
pattern is kill her.” Both the Crazy Ex-Girlfriend’s
and Boyfriend’s actions are guided by misplaced ideas about love and
relationships that don’t match reality. But the ex-boyfriend or husband’s
aggression represents a grave actual danger to the woman. The Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is a
manufactured or imagined threat; a trope based on sexist ideas
of the female mental state, patriarchal marriage practices,
and written into popular movies for the sake of drama by men
who can’t see past their own self-centered point of view. This may explain why feminist
re-imaginings of classic texts and the music of Taylor Swift and
Olivia Rodrigo resonate with so many women: their songs don’t
shy away from the intense emotions women feel during breakups,
but flip the familiar script by not giving the guy the last word,
instead lending the emotional, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend a
real voice with nuance and without any shame
about what she’s felt. “I like writing songs about
douchebags who cheat on me…” In past eras, a character like
Morello would have been framed as just another Fatal Attraction copy--
just as Christopher paints her-- but today’s stories are
increasingly reflecting our interest in better understanding
the complex mental health problems that underlie her
destructive behavior. And recent female characters like
Rebecca and Alexis from Schitt's Creek, have shown us how a struggle with
jealousy and negative thought patterns can be a catalyst for
self-improvement. These more realistic depictions
offer respect and understanding to the people on both sides of
difficult relationship trials, and make it abundantly clear
that the Crazy Ex-Girlfriend has just been in our
heads this whole time. “Those terrible things,
I didn’t do any of them. You made me think that
everything was my fault.” This is The Take on your favorite
movies, shows, and pop culture. Thanks for watching and
don’t forget to subscribe.
