Kantian Ethics and the ‘Nice Guy’ in Promising Young Woman (2020) by Ffion Davies

​Promising Young Woman (2020) is a brutal, uncomfortable, and profoundly upsetting narrative which masterfully displays the ubiquity of rape culture in contemporary Western society. A rape-revenge without a single rape scene (which is quite a feat in itself), the film reflects some of the ugliest aspects of internalised misogyny—so horrifying precisely for their insidious nature and often causing the most significant damage while masquerading as allyship. Frankly, I could write a book on the nuances of gender politics in this film, but for this brief blog post, I will focus on Fennell’s portrayal and subsequent critique of the well-worn concept of the nice guy.

The phrase ‘nice guy’ echoes throughout the film from start to finish, drawing on scenes from celebrated eighties romcoms like Sixteen Candles (1984)— yes, that shudder-inducing scene with drastically outdated perceptions on alcohol and consent. The message of Promising Young Woman is clear: rape is not black and white, consent has been misunderstood for far too long, and rapists do not always appear as creepy, disfigured, social pariahs who plague dark alleyways and can be spotted a mile off. Instead, these men can be handsome, successful, even popular—Fennell took inspiration from the case of Brock Turner, who was sentenced to a brief six months for the brutal rape of an unconscious woman on account of being a ‘promising young man.’ While protagonist Cassie’s love interest, Ryan, is not the rapist in this narrative, his character serves to question the ethics around this archetypal role we have seen pollute in every rom-com ever made: the nice guy.

Portrayed by the loveable Bo Burnham, through Ryan the film draws its focus onto men who masquerade as female-friendly, even feminists, who infiltrate safe spaces under the guise of the would-be-amourist. Throughout Promising Young Woman, we are led to believe that Ryan will save Cassie from the isolated life she has chosen for herself while dealing with the trauma of losing her best friend to suicide after being sexually assaulted at a college party. He is her knight-in-shining armour– and by armour, I mean the suit and sneaker combo. Obscurely attractive, somewhat awkward, unassuming, both idolising and idolised, cheesy jokes are his weapon of choice with a large helping of semi-stalker behaviour to make you swoon—even after you’ve given him the wrong number. He’s not like other men. He respects women. He can SAVE you. Although from what exactly, we’re not entirely sure.

Many have criticised this criticism of the nice guy, arguing that it is indeed impossible to be a genuinely nice guy in the age of #MeToo. However, if we apply Kant’s second formulation of the categorical imperative-- namely that ‘all rational beings stand under the law that each of them is to treat himself and all others never merely as means but always at the same time as ends in themselves’— ​a distinction can be made between genuine ethical interactions and the flawed moral façade of the nice guy. He is unethical precisely because he sees the female as purely an object of desire. She is not an end in and of herself, but a means to an end—in this case, the end being his sexual and social gratification. This relationship is fundamentally wrapped up in egotism—becoming a means by which to bolster the self. This is not about her, as an autonomous individual with her own desires, but a projection of desire and ultimately a reflection of himself.

It is entirely possible to be a nice guy, but many narratives show nothing but a projection onto the female subject, which is precisely what Fennell criticises. Take 500 Days of Summer (2009) as an example. Often cited as the most egregious example of the nice guy, Tom becomes infatuated with Summer, projecting his ideas of the ‘perfect girl’ onto her with little to no consideration of her desires or autonomy. In much the same vein, Ryan relentlessly pursues Cassie, despite her assertion that ‘[She’s] not really looking to date anyone at the moment.’ She goes as far as to give him the wrong number, and he returns to her workplace to ask her out once again, proving himself a worthy candidate for reconsideration by drinking a cup of coffee she has spat in. Romantic, right?
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Eventually, Cassie and Ryan’s relationship falls apart when it is revealed that Ryan was not only there the night Nina was assaulted but was complicit in filming the entire event. Evidently not the nice guy he claims to be, Ryan, by being dishonest with Cassie from the outset, has not respected her autonomy, leading her to base their entire relationship on false premises. Pretty unethical stuff. At the end of the narrative, when Cassie is found to be missing, a detective approaches Ryan for information. Knowing full well where she is, and if anything had happened to her, who would be responsible, he agrees with the detective that she was both ‘unstable’ and ‘not in a good place.’ Ryan chooses to save his own reputation, as her removal from his life reinstates him as the nice guy within his narrative. Cassie’s narrative, now that it is not bound to his own, is tossed aside in preservation of himself. At its root, Ryan lacks the fundamental respect for Cassie as an autonomous, dignified individual or, in Kantian terminology, an end-in-herself. Despite being a moral agent capable of distinguishing right from wrong, he chooses the course of action based on desire and not moral obligation. Not so nice, huh?

Rape-revenge narratives are often structured around a clear dichotomy—the rapist and the raped. Promising Young Woman is unique in that it focusses on the people surrounding the crime— Ryan, who filmed the rape, Joe, who helped cover it up, Madison, who blames Nina for being drunk, and Dean Walker, who finds herself compelled to give the rapist ‘the benefit of the doubt.’ Fennell creates a narrative where everyone is a villain in their own right—with, of course, the exception of Nina. Everyone does something wrong, which boils down to the power of language and discourse in perpetuating these systems of oppression, and ultimately forces us to question our own complacency within this ubiquitous culture. ​

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Author Biography
Ffion Davies is a PhD student at City University of Hong Kong researching deviant masculinities and the figure of the homme fatal in early twentieth-century American crime fiction. She was awarded the Hong Kong PhD Fellowship Scheme in 2020 and assists as part of the admin team for the International Crime Fiction Association. Her research interests centre on gender discourses of crime and horror genres of the twentieth century.