I

n 
2009, 
Marc 
Webb’s 
directorial debut “(500) Days 
of Summer” was released to 
high acclaim. The film, told in a 
non-linear arc, guides us through 
the eyes of Tom Hansen, played 
by 
Joseph 
Gordon-Levitt, 
a 
hopeless romantic who becomes 
infatuated with Summer Finn, 
portrayed by Zooey Deschanel. 
When the film was released, it 
received high praise from both 
critics 
and 
audiences, 
with 
famed critic Roger Ebert giving it 
a flawless review and applauding 
it as “a delightful comedy, alive 
with invention.”
In the intervening years, the 
movie has undergone several 
autopsies. The current zeitgeist 
has made great strides toward 
creating 
films 
that 
depict 
characters, specifically those in 
marginalized roles, with more 
attentiveness to fleshing out their 
identity and not succumbing to 
pernicious stereotypes. With 
such motions toward fairness 
in representation, we can easily 
reexamine films that may have 
put women, people of color 
and members of the LGBTQ 
community squarely in roles 
that denigrate their identities. 
Triangulating 
off 
of 
these 
specific groups, “(500) Days of 
Summer” is a deeply negligent 
and grossly misogynistic take 
on modern romance, one that 
obfuscates such a fact with its 
quirky and hipster aesthetic.
From the onset, we barely 
know anything about the titular 
character except what Hansen 
leads 
us 
to 
believe. 
We’re 
made aware of her parent’s 
divorce, which is used as a 
proxy to spurn her antipathy 
toward relationships. Yet that 
background 
information 
is 
essentially harnessed as a plot 
device for Hansen to grow from 
rather than as actual insight 
into her as a person. Finn fits 
perfectly into the mold of 
manic pixie dream girl, except 
that her disposition is so static 
(no thanks to the way Hansen 
myopically conveys her) that 
it would be more appropriate 
to just call her a “chill pixie 
dream girl.” In essence, she is a 
smattering of tropes that neatly 
plays into the fantasy of an 
emotionally immature, Smith-
loving 
involuntary 
celibate, 
which is virtually Hansen’s 
character.
Finn 
rejects 
Hansen 
as 
more than a hookup multiple 
times from the beginning of the 
movie, explaining, “this is fun” 
more than once. Each time this 
happens, he goes into violent 
tirades to his equally sexist 
friends, who homophobically 

conjecture 
the 
reason 
she 
doesn’t want a relationship is 
because she is a lesbian. Yet, we 
are expected to sympathize with 
his sensitive nature (I mean, 
he works at a greeting card 
company, right?), even though 
he uses his sensitivity as a guise 
for the toxic way he tries to 
gaslight Finn.
It would be easier to make 
a less critical reevaluation of 
such a movie if, while watching 
it, we viewed Finn as the 
protagonist and Hansen as the 
antagonist. Even Gordon-Levitt, 
an outspoken feminist, has made 
attempts to do so. Still, co-writer 
Scott 
Neustadter 
admitted 
the film was based off a prior 
relationship, 
rendering 
the 
plot even more masturbatory. 
And regrettably, the director 
peddled the idea that Finn was a 
stock character by categorizing 
her as “the one” at the time of its 
release.

Yet to disregard this film as 
an abysmal piece of anti-feminist 
garbage (which it arguably still 
is), would be remiss in taking 
the inadvertent lessons it has 
presented.
From a representational point 
of view, the film’s characters 
are all white, with people of 
color being very much at its 
margins (and, at certain points, 
mocked). 
Its 
overwhelming 
whiteness is a potent reminder 
of the work filmmakers must 
put into creating a diverse 
cast. Furthermore, the lack 
of sensitivity toward Finn’s 
character may have been fixed 
with a female director at the 
helm of the movie. Yet in 2009, 
women only accounted for 7 
percent of directors for the 
top 250 grossing films of that 
year. In 2017, they still only 
comprise 11 percent of directors, 
exhibiting the meager attempts 
made by Hollywood to put 
women in the director’s chair. 
However, when there is at least 
one female director or writer, 
almost half of all major roles in 
a film are women, an important 
insight 
into 
how 
women 
directors improve the overall 
representation of a film.

On a thematic level, “(500) 
Days of Summer” also allows 
the viewer to consider how our 
own expectations can cloud 
judgement much like it does 
for Hansen. We’re all guilty of 
falling for people, and equally so 
for those who don’t love us back. 
But this film demonstrates the 
way expectation can seep into 
reality and ultimately damage 
ourselves. Hansen is constantly 
projecting his ideal girlfriend 
onto Finn, preventing us from 
seeing her as a human being. 
Though pushed to extremes, 
loving someone as an abstraction 
rather than a person is a common 
consequence of infatuation and 
crushes.
In the penultimate moments 
of the film, Hansen goes to a 
rooftop party that Finn invites 
him to as a gesture of friendship. 
The scene parses the screen 
into 
two 
halves, 
with 
one 
presenting “Expectation” and 
the other presenting “Reality.” 
In “Expectation,” the party 
ends with Hansen and Finn 
hooking up again. In “Reality,” 
Finn reveals to her friends at 
the party that she is engaged, 
incensing Hansen and yielding a 
bout of depression.
We all have expectations 
about love and people. Whether 
it’s because we’ve been taught 
to view people as objects of 
affection by movies like “(500) 
Days of Summer” and the litany 
of other problematic romantic 
comedies, or because we get 
trapped in our own thoughts, 
it isn’t a crime to sometimes 
allow expectation to supersede 
reality. But we must learn to 
distill the two, especially when 
it comes to people we like. 
Viewing someone as a whole 
and not an idea grants them 
more humanity and us more 
understanding 
when 
things 
don’t end up working out. We 
can go onto future relationships 
with more healthy attitudes 
and hopefully attempt to better 
understand the other person 
involved. In this sense, “(500) 
Days of Summer” is its most 
successful when we see Hansen 
as the one who brought about 
his own tumbling spiral, and not 
Finn.
As 
romantic 
comedies 
become increasingly self-aware, 
we can use the ones we now see 
as antiquated to understand 
how to make better films, 
have more representation and 
work on cultivating healthy 
relationships.

Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
4A — Monday, September 24, 2018

Emma Chang
Ben Charlson
Joel Danilewitz
Samantha Goldstein
Emily Huhman

Tara Jayaram
Jeremy Kaplan
Lucas Maiman
Magdalena Mihaylova
Ellery Rosenzweig
Jason Rowland

Anu Roy-Chaudhury
Alex Satola
Ali Safawi
Ashley Zhang
Sam Weinberger

DAYTON HARE
Managing Editor

420 Maynard St. 
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
 tothedaily@michigandaily.com

Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890.

ALEXA ST. JOHN
Editor in Chief
 ANU ROY-CHAUDHURY AND 
ASHLEY ZHANG
Editorial Page Editors

Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily’s Editorial Board. 
All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors.

EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS

MARGOT LIBERTINI | COLUMN

1991 v 2018
T

he 
Senate 
Judiciary 
Committee 
has 
decided 
to delay the vote on Brett 
Kavanaugh’s 
Supreme 
Court 
nomination in order to receive 
testimony from his accuser, Christine 
Blasey Ford, and Kavanaugh himself, 
in regard to recent sexual assault 
allegations against the Supreme Court 
nominee. This decision comes after 
Ford requested an FBI investigation 
occur before she testified, though 
it appears that will not be the case. 
Further, she and her lawyers have 
complained about the fact that 
the hearing will only involve two 
witnesses: Kavanaugh and Ford 
herself, as they fear it may turn into a 
“he said, she said” scenario.
Ford accused Kavanaugh of 
attempted rape when he was 17 and 
she was 15. Ford originally revealed 
this information in July in a letter to 
her Rep. Anna G. Eshoo, D-Calif., and 
later to Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the 
ranking Democrat of the Judiciary 
Committee. Ford requested the story 
stay confidential. Thus, Feinstein 
refused to share the contents of the 
letter with the rest of the Senate 
Judiciary Committee until last week, 
when the story went public.
It is not clear this was the best 
decision, though — there are many 
paths Feinstein could have taken 
to treat the allegations with proper 
urgency 
and 
seriousness 
while 
simultaneously 
keeping 
Ford’s 
identity confidential. Allowing a letter 
consisting of such heinous accusations 
against a potential Supreme Court 
nominee to sit on her desk for six 
weeks was irresponsible on her behalf. 
It merely delayed the firestorm that 
was bound to come, and ironically, 
it left both Feinstein and Ford with 
less agency over the situation than if 
the senator had taken control of the 

situation from the beginning.
Whether 
she 
would 
have 
confidentially shared the story with 
the Judiciary Committee, gone to 
the FBI sooner or even shared the 
essence of the story publicly, there 
could have been precautions taken 
to protect Ford’s identity. Rather, 
the media obtained the story and 
everything else had to fall into place 
within a few days.
This is not the first time the 
highest-ranking Democrat on the 
Senate Judiciary Committee hasn’t 
been responsible about handling 
sexual 
misconduct 
allegations 
against a Supreme Court nominee — 
history is eerily cyclical. I’m referring, 
of course, to the 1991 Clarence 
Thomas 
confirmation, 
during 
which Anita Hill testified Thomas 
had sexually harassed her. Former 
Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., infamously 
blocked three other women from 
testifying in order to quickly move 
the 
proceedings 
forward. 
The 
Democrats, the majority party in the 
Senate at the time, were accused of 
rushing the process along and not 
treating the allegations with proper 
reverence. Thomas now sits on the 
Supreme Court.
The Democrats cannot be the 
political party of 1991 in 2018. They 
should be as vigilant as possible in 
opposing Kavanaugh’s nomination 
in light of these allegations. It was 
suggested in The New Yorker that 
Feinstein did not come forward with 
Ford’s allegations sooner because she 
“acted out of a sense that Democrats 
would be better off focussing on legal, 
rather than personal, issues in their 
questioning of Kavanaugh.” However, 
that 
sentiment 
is 
misguided. 
Attempted rape is a criminal act, and 
placing a criminal on the Supreme 
Court 
has 
implications 
beyond 

“personal issues.” Though separating 
personal and political may have 
once been the norm, the #MeToo 
era managed to break through that 
barrier. Additionally, Democrats risk 
succumbing to Republican pressure 
to rush the process: a parallel to 1991.
Less than a year ago, Democrats 
pushed Al Franken out of Congress 
after 
various 
credible 
sexual 
misconduct 
allegations 
against 
him surfaced. This modern record 
of holding abusers accountable 
for their actions buffers them 
from appearing disingenuous in 
fighting Kavanaugh’s nomination. 
Rather than appearing politically 
motivated, Democrats only face the 
risk of backing down and once again 
coming off as spineless and without 
any clear conviction.
Dianne 
Feinstein 
won 
her 
Senate seat in 1992, which was 
deemed the “Year of the Woman” 
because a record number of women 
were elected to Congress after 
outrage over the treatment of Hill. 
There were no women on the Senate 
Judiciary Committee to stand in 
solidarity with Hill in 1991.
27 years later and there are four 
women serving on the committee 
(all of whom are Democrats) — I 
hope this means Ford will have 
voices of solidarity, and not that four 
women sit there to maintain the 
status quo of an institutionalized 
boy’s club. I hope she will not be 
deprecated as Hill was, and I hope a 
sexual predator will not be making 
decisions with massive implications 
for sexual assault on campus, birth 
control and abortion access and the 
right to women’s bodily autonomy.

What we can learn from “(500) Days of Summer”

In 
response 
to 
these 
zoning 
changes 
and 
the 
introduction 
of 
winter 
rush, a few fraternities have 
decided to disaffiliate from 
the Interfraternity Council 
and form the Ann Arbor 
Interfraternity 
Council. 
With disaffiliation, these 
fraternities 
lose 
the 
oversight, 
regulations 
and processes provided to 
IFC 
member 
fraternities 
associated 
with 
the 
University. In light of this 
new, independent fraternity 
organization, The Michigan 
Daily Editorial Board is 
concerned and curious as to 
how it affects the campus. 
We have rarely thought that 
IFC has gone far enough 
to protect student safety, 
but we are concerned about 
how these fraternities will 
act without any University 
oversight.
IFC 
protections 
include 
an 
alcohol-free 
rush 
environment, 
no 
hard 
liquor 
at 
parties, 
significant hazing oversight 
and a connection to the 
University’s 
investigative 
and 
disciplinary 
system. 
While 
students 
in 
disaffiliated 
fraternities 
will 
still 
be 
subject 
to 
University 
discipline 
should misconduct occur, 
the 
educational 
and 
reporting 
mechanisms 
that IFC provides to Greek 

life will not be available 
without affirmative action 
from the A AIFC. We worry 
without 
these 
University 
connections 
disaffiliated 
fraternities will not educate 
their members and provide 
reporting 
mechanisms 
to 
prevent hazing and other 
offenses. 
In 
addition, 
there has been little to no 
information on what the 

newly formed organization 
plans to do. The decision 
to 
disaffiliate 
seems 
to 
hinge on the need to avoid 
the effects of new zoning 
laws 
and 
in 
particular 
on 
the 
threat 
of 
losing 
the fraternity or sorority 
house. 
But 
that 
brings 
into 
question 
why 
these 
fraternities predicted they 
would lose affiliation in the 
first place.
Students should demand 
the 
A AIFC 
provide 

transparent standards at or 
exceeding the protection 
levels of the Universit y’s 
IFC 
before 
engag ing 
in 
any 
social 
events 
with 
these fraternities. While 
we have been critics in 
the 
past 
of 
the 
IFC’s 
lack 
of 
transparency 
in 
light 
of 
their 
self-
suspension 
last 
year, 
we worr y an institution 
with 
no 
obligation 
to 
provide transparency will 
not provide insight into 
how they seek to protect 
students until it is too 
late. We hope the A AIFC 
will alleviate these fears 
by being forthright with 
both current rushes and 
the public about how it 
plans 
to 
prevent 
sexual 
misconduct, 
hazing 
and 
other 
misconduct 
in 
an 
environment known for its 
desire for secrecy and self-
preser vation.

Joel Danilewitz is an LSA sophomore 

and a Senior Opinion Editor.

Do you love to debate today’s 

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FROM THE DAILY

We need transparency from the AAIFC
W

hile University of Michigan students were enjoying their summer, 
the Ann Arbor City Council approved changes to the zoning code for 
fraternities and sororities in the hopes they would improve relations 
between Greek life houses and neighboring Ann Arbor residents. One of the changes 
requires new fraternities and sororities to maintain affiliation with the University 
or another college to be allowed expansion in the city; if affiliation is lost, a fraternity 
or sorority can apply for a two-year exemption to prevent loss of residence.

JOEL DANILEWITZ | OP-ED

We are concerned 
about how these 
fraterinities will 
act without any 
oversight

Viewing someone 
as a whole and 
not an idea grants 
them more 
humanity

Margot Libertini can be reached at 

mliberti@umich.edu

MACEY LIGHTHALL | CONTACT MACEY AT MAECYL@UMICH.EDU

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