Infidelity and Exploitation in Gone Girl - Movie Review Example

Infidelity and Exploitation in Gone Girl Gone Girl is a movie that has been adapted from the novel of the same name which revolves around the character of Amy and Nick Dunne. The movie starts with the disappearance of Amy, and it seems like Nick Dunne is involved in her disappearance. Later on it is found that Nick and Amy are having some problems with their marriage and Amy decides to leave out on Nick. She tries to frame Nick through different manoeuvres and is partially successful in carrying out her plans. Later on it is found that Amy is just acting in revenge after knowing that Nick was cheating on her during their marriage. The story moves on when Nick gives an interview that touches Amy and she decides to go back to him. Amy frames her ex boyfriend and murders him to return to Nick Dunne and claim that she was kidnapped by him. Although Nick knows that Amy had planned everything to frame him, he still does not do anything after he gets to know that Amy is pregnant. The movie carries with it several concepts of philosophy as the story moves ahead. The act of defence carried out by Amy is an attempt to run away from reality and do everything she has to in order to claim her reward. She uses the techniques of Robert Nozick to defend herself for the actions that she commits in the movie. Similarly Kant and Smith put forward that an action is immoral if it poses a problem to someone else regardless of the circumstances that have been put on. This essay would further revolve around the philosophical viewpoints of different authors keeping in view the character of Amy in the movie. According Robert Nozick distributive justice is a concept that can be applied on the sharing or entitlement of goods. But this concept of distributive justice can also be applied on other things such as human nature. Nozick puts it in these words "the term distributive justice is not a neutral one. Hearing the word "distribution" most people presume that something or mechanism uses some principle or criterion to give out a supply of things" (Nozick 591). This clearly shows that distributive justice can rather be applied to different things and not just the holding of goods. Nozick believes that justice can only be served while dividing holdings if the concerned parties are entitled to that holding. This entitlement can be applied to "Gone Girl" in terms of the character of Amy. Amy has beautifully portrayed a woman who has gone through a lot in life, but she has the courage to stand up against the bad that she may go through in life. Amy stands up for herself and goes to a great extent to prove that she is not wrong in her plea. She uses the concept of Nozick in a different scenario by considering an entitlement for her husbands honesty. In other words, her husband was supposed to be honest with her and when she finds out that he is not honest with her, she goes the other way around and brings on distributive justice as put by Nozick. She believes that her actions are justified only because she was entitled to all the good things by her husband and her husband was not able to provide her with those things. Here honesty replaces the word of "holdings" as put by Nozick in the viewpoint of Amy and thus she resorts to take action against her husband. Her actions are justified only because Nick does not act by the Proviso as put down by Locke. The actions of Nick Dunne lead to a disaster in the life of Amy and her baseline situation is aggravated. The Proviso in general applies to lands and property but Amy implemented it in her life and came to the conclusion that her baseline situation was worsened and thus she set into motion the plans to get her husband convicted for a murder that he did not commit. All these principles can be applied to the thinking of Amy while she tried to get her husband convicted (Nozick 591-599). On the contrary, Kant provides a viewpoint that can also be applied to the movie altogether. According to Kant, goodwill is a feat that every human being may possess but very less of them actually know what it is really to do an action that has good will. Good will is something that is done out of duty rather than out of self-interest. Kant puts it in these words "I will also set aside actions which in fact accord with duty, yet for which men have no immediate inclination, but perform them because impelled to do so by some other inclination. For there it is easy to decide whether the action which accords with duty has been done from duty or from some purpose of self-interest". This clearly shows that good will is a trait that one should only practice out of duty and not out of self interest. The concept of good will can be applied to the character of Amy in the movie and it can be said that she believed that she was fulfilling her actions by undergoing good will. In other words she was trying to satisfy herself as she believed her husband was a cheater and he was destroying lives. She believed that her husband had to be stopped and she then resorted to different means so that she could have him convicted. If the theory of Kant is applied on the character of Amy, it can be said that she was wrong in judging her actions as being good. She was not following the concept of goodwill by performing her actions out of self-interest rather than duty. She was trying to get happy after getting her husband convicted and was thus moving away from the concept of duty as laid down by Kant. Kant puts this in these words "To assure ones own happiness is a duty (at least indirectly); for discontent with ones state in a press of cares and amidst unsatisfied wants, might easily become a great temptation to the transgression of duty" (Kant, 506). This clearly shows that Amy only tried to achieve happiness by wrong actions and thus she was not right in doing so. The concept of categorical imperatives can also be applied to the movie which is laid down by Kant. Categorical imperatives refers to the actions that are done only because they are necessary in themselves. These imperatives relate to a duty that has a universal validity or is universally accepted because of its nature. Kant provides an example of suicide which cannot have a universal validity because if it was, the nature itself would have died. Similarly Amy framed her husband to get her convicted and this does not conform to categorical imperative as laid down by Kant. It is not moral for Amy to carry out the murder of her ex-boyfriend only so that she could achieve her ulterior motives. Kant puts this imperative in these words "This imperative is categorical. It is concerned, not with the matter of the action and its presumed results, but with its form and with the principle from which it follows; and what is essentially good in the action consists in the mental disposition" (Kant, 508). Amy believes that her actions prove otherwise and she uses her own philosophy of good will while committing the murder but she is surely wrong when kept under the light of Kants philosophy. Similarly Rand goes through the concept of happiness and reasoning through a different viewpoint. According to Rand, reasoning with oneself is based on the concept of altruism and it is not necessary that one sacrifices his values for the life of anyone else. She believes that sacrifice is an action that is selfless and is not considered to be imperative for every individual to possess. It is this sacrifice that would make one value the feelings of the other over his own feelings. Rand believes that you can choose your own values over the values of others and not sacrifice necessarily. She believes that this does not make you morally or ethically bad. As put by Rand "Sacrifice is the surrender of a greater value for the sake of a lesser one or of a nonvalue" (Rand 86). This can be applied onto the character of Amy in the movie as she does not believe in sacrifice for the greater good of her husband. She believes that she should not sacrifice her values and she rather opts to get her husband convicted. A deeper concept of Altruism can also be applied on to her character which she does follow in one way or the other. It can be deduced that Amy is in love with her husband but she is willing to sacrifice her husband and then killing herself after that. She believes that her husband was a cause of happiness in her life but she should rather let him go now and get him convicted. It can be viewed as if she is letting go off her happiness for altruistic methods of philosophy (Rand 84-90). Adam Smith is another philosopher who wrote on the pillars of moral philosophy. According to Adam Smith, morals lie in the circumstances in which a person is put in rather than the judgment of the person in neutral circumstances. He believes that some actions may be considered moral in certain circumstances while some may be considered immoral in totality. He believes that different people have different motives and different ways of thinking when approaching the subject of morality. Moral judgments of people may vary in accordance to their motives and gratification. His theory can be applied on the character of Amy as she believed that it was moral to take revenge from her husband by framing her for a rather vicious event. Smith believes that in order to understand the moral judgments of people, it becomes necessary to stand in their situation and feel the pain that they are feeling so that one can truly understand the reaction that would be taken in that particular event. While analyzing the situation of Amy, it can be said that she was feeling devastated after knowing that her husband cheated on her. It is now for the people to decide if what she did was moral enough or not. But similarly if we apply this theory on Nick Dunne, it can be seen that he was immoral in committing adultery outside of marriage. All in all, the actions of both Nick Dunne and Amy can be said to be immoral because they harmed each other in one way or the other. The term sacrifice cannot be applied to both the characters as they did not value the feelings of the other over their own when it came to understanding each other (Smith 8-11). In conclusion it can be said that Gone Girl is a movie that revolves around the aspects of morality and ethics. The thoughts of Amy while pursuing her ulterior motives revolved around distributive justice. But if her actions are analyzed from the perspective of Kant and Smith, it can be seen that it was immoral for her to go through all the events. Similarly when Nick Dunne cheated on her wife, he was also not following the principles of Kant and Smith and he committed an immoral act. If the perspective of Rand comes into play then the actions of both Nick Dunne and Amy can be said to be moral. Both the characters did not believe in sacrificing for each other and hence they went to great extents that eventually hurt them both in the end. It can be concluded however that the actions of both the characters were immoral and unethical, considering all the philosophies given by Kant and Smith. Works Cited Top of Form Top of Form Top of Form Kant, Immanual. "Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals." Trans. H.J.Paton. Introduction to Philosophy: Classical and Contemporary Readings. Eds. John Perry, Michael Bratman, and John Martin Fischer. 5th ed. New York: Oxford, 2010. 504-20. Print Nozick, Robert. "Justice and Entitlement." 1974. Introduction to Philosophy: Classical and Contemporary Readings. Eds. John Perry, Michael Bratman, and John Martin Fischer. 5th ed. New York: Oxford, 2010. 591-99. Print. Rand, Ayn. "The Ethics of Emergencies." 1964. The Ethical life: Fundamental Readings in Ethics and Moral Problems. Ed. Russ Shafer Landau. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford 2010. 84-91. Print. Smith, Adam. The Theory of Moral Sentiments. S.l: s.n, 2012. Print. Bottom of Form Bottom of Form Bottom of Form Read More