How Booksmart Successfully Subverts Just-World Theory
warning: spoilers abound
Life isn’t fair.
And it’s not unfair in a fair way either.
Which is to say, it’s not just that bad people don’t get the justice they deserve, it’s often the case that awesome things happen to the most terrible of people.
And while art may replicate life in many ways, most movies are guilty of some type of reinforcement of just-world theory.
Just-world theory (or just-world hypothesis, just-world fallacy) states:
“That a person’s actions are inherently inclined to bring morally fair and fitting consequences to that person…”
Hans Gruber falls out of a helicopter.
“…all noble actions being eventually rewarded and all evil actions eventually punished…”
How do you like them apples?
“…the just-world hypothesis is the tendency to attribute consequences to — or expect consequences as the result of — a universal force that restores moral balance…”
95% of Disney villains, because of prejudiced, historically Western based values of beauty, have dark skin and a pronounced bone structure.
This belief generally implies the existence of cosmic justice, destiny, divine providence, desert, stability, or order
The Force.
The danger of this type of thinking, studies have found, is not just that it sets up an inaccurate view of the world, from which the inaccurate belief holder may then incorrectly assess situations in their lives and do damage to themselves and those around them; it’s also that a believer in just-world theory (consciously or not) assumes that people who get punished, deserve their punishment, simply because they are being punished.
Amy & Molly & Not Hans Gruber
That is probably why so much of Booksmart felt refreshing.
It defies just-world theory at several key plot points, along with your High School Coming of Age/Friendship Building genre expectations.
It’s not that Booksmart doesn’t follow a screenwriting playbook for peaks and valleys, it’s what happens in those peaks to turn them into valleys.
Quick premise check:
Two girls, Amy and Molly, best friends, last day of high school. Their whole lives have been about succeeding at school.
After a brief introduction to the somewhat loosely-defined cliques as our main characters walk into school, Booksmart quickly subverts our first just-world expectation.
THE FIRST SUBVERSION
(sung to the tune of “Final Countdown”)
Within the first 20 minutes we follow Molly into a Bathroom Stall of Overheard Insults scene that doesn’t turn out the way most Bathroom Stall of Overheard Insults scenes turn out.
Within the first 20 minutes we follow Molly into a Bathroom Stall of Overheard Insults scene that doesn’t turn out the way most Bathroom Stall of Overheard Insults scenes turn out.
As Molly flushes and walks out of the stall, we’re ready for a revenge scene where the misunderstood, less popular girl eviscerates the “bullies” she overheard insulting her.
However, Booksmart is too smart to let Molly, and us, off the hook that easy.
While she gets off a few stinging quips, as soon as Molly starts to insult their work ethic and boast about her own, post-high school successes, the popular shit-talkers all clap back with the ivy league school or tech internship they will be heading to next year.
The popular kids also got into good schools.
The at-first-glance-antagonists “have it all” while, it turns out, our pro-tags have been doing their entire life wrong up until this point.
“The irresponsible people who partied also got into those colleges…We didn’t have to chose. They did both. We’re the only assholes who did one” — Molly
This news, satisfyingly, sets 1) Molly over the cliff and 2) the main premise of the film into action: one night of epic partying to make up for an entire high school career spent studying and missing out.
While The Breakfast Club started this conversation by taking an entire film to peel back each (white) high school stereotype, revealing the multi-layered, complex white onion underneath, Booksmart stands on its shoulders and does it in 20 minutes, allowing the film to go in even further on our just-world and genre expectations.
SUBVERSIONS 2–5
2. The Jock Douche Turns Out to Be Pretty Cool
