One thing I don’t like about today’s entertainment literature is how invested it is in the idea that a woman can be an utterly immoral, infantile and irresponsible princess but, no matter how middle-aged, washed out, barren, and hysterical she gets, there is always going to be an extremely positive, very single, high-earning and attractive man willing to baby her for all eternity. No matter how badly she mistreats that good man, he will sit there, patiently waiting for her to come back after crowds of other boyfriends and will be eager to produce wads of bank notes the second she needs them to disentangle herself from some other dude.
It is fashionable to mock the Cinderella fantasy, but the fantasy I describe is a lot worse. At least Cinderella was hard-working, modest, and kind. What we have instead is the Cinderella fantasy for the evil stepsisters. It’s the idea that you can be an absolute load of crap and still have a happy ending with the magical prince.
I am reading a novel titled I Become Her by Joe Hart. Unlike many books in the psychological thriller genre, this one is not badly written. Whoever Joe Hart is, he knows how to write. And I understand why he has to organize his novel in keeping with Evil Stepsister Fantasy. This is what sells. Joe Hart’s readers are female, and they like the idea that consequences or responsibility do not exist.
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