I Watched Don’t Worry Darling, So You Don’t Have To, But I Couldn’t Find The Jordan Peterson Angle

I don’t review movies, it’s not my thing. In fact, even going to movies wasn’t my thing for quite a while (you know, because Hollywood sucks), but my new BFF Army wife and I are surviving this deployment with frequent trips to the oyster bar and the movie theatre that shares its parking lot. Honestly once you say oysters and cocktails, you can convince me to go to any movie, so I tend to let her pick. And yesterday she wanted to see “Don’t Worry Darling”.

I probably wouldn’t have picked it myself, only because I heard director Olivia Wilde based the “villain” on Jordan Peterson and I didn’t want to support such insanity. But we went, we watched. I’m sad to say I thought it was actually a decent movie. I was secretly hoping it would be legit terrible.

I don’t have anything against Olivia Wilde, I’m fairly indifferent. Hearing that she’s in a movie will not make me want to see it or avoid it, it’s a big ole shoulder shrug. I didn’t even know she was IN the movie until it started. As I said, not really paying much attention to the entertainment industry these days. The movie had an interesting script, it was well acted by some, and I don’t know anything about directing but it seemed well directed. The only thing I didn’t like was how quickly the ending wrapped up; I could have used a few more minutes there. And to be direct, I could have done without Olivia Wilde and a few other characters. Okay, really Florence Pugh carried the entire film.

The real issue I had throughout movie was trying to reconcile Chris Pine’s character with Jordan Peterson, and wondering what kind of meth laced crack Olivia Wilde was smoking when she made that comparison.

Pine plays Frank, the beloved cult leader of a commune of happily married couples who choose to live traditional lives separated from the rest of society. First of all, sign me up. I spent the whole first half of the movie thinking that if they threw in some farmland and animals if would be awesome. Naturally there were dark secrets and things eventually went wrong with their community. I had zero problems with the movie itself, the entire hiccup in my brain came from watching Chris Pine and waiting to see some Peterson-isms. I kept waiting for it, and was at times distracted by the anticipation. Like, did she even watch any Jordan Peterson interviews or did she hear about him from a friend of a friend??

So I had to look it up; what the hell did she mean? I found that Wilde said, “We based that character on this insane man, Jordan Peterson, who is this pseudo-intellectual hero to the incel community. You know the incels?…They’re basically disenfranchised, mostly white men, who believe they are entitled to sex from women. And they believe that society has now robbed them—that the idea of feminism is working against nature, and that we must be put back into the correct place.”

I was drinking hot tea at the time I read that and I nearly choked to death because I was laughing so hard. Unhappy feminist says what?? I mean, hero? Sure. A pseudo-intellectual, who’s spent decades as a top rated clinical psychologist with three degrees, an established author, and a professor at Harvard and the University of Alberta, Canda…A pseudo-intellectual? Um. Okay.

I’ve listened to a lot of Jordan Peterson lectures, debates, and interviews. Like, a lot. I listen to him, my husband listens to him, we’ve bought our son Peterson’s latest books, and we send him short videos whenever we can. I have never, in all these hours of listening, heard anything like Wilde mentioned, but maybe my black a$$ is a white, male, intel too. You never know these days.

Most notable is that I hardly ever hear Jordan Peterson talking about sex unless he talking about the dangers of casual sex and the downsides of hookup culture. To think that equates to saying that men are entitled to sex from women takes some crayon-eating Tom foolery. Then to say men are supposed to put women back in their place when Peterson’s entire philosophy is based on improving the individual and only being able to control yourself? Olivia Wilde got her information from a Reddit page dedicated to trashing Peterson, that’s the only logical conclusion. Either that or she completely turns off her brain when she’s not directing.

I’m not sure which it is, but she truly did her movie a disservice. And he probably won’t do it because he seems like a nice guy, but I really hope Jordan Peterson sues her for slander. And stupidity. It was a decently made film, and I know for a fact there are people who refused to go see it because of comments she made. Between her inaccurate Jordan Peterson comparisons and her constant referrals in interviews to the steamy sex scenes (which were few, short, and not worth drawing unique attention to) instead of the storyline, Wilde came across as ignorant, sex crazed or sex deprived, and petty. Petty, petty, petty. I may have once been completely indifferent towards Olivia Wilde, but now it’s nothing but eyerolls. Stick to directing and let someone else handle press love.

You can watch the movie for Florence Pugh, who was lovely, and ignore Olivia Wilde’s brief cameos when they come. Or you can catch Pugh in another movie altogether, she’s in plenty.

What a weird world we live in where Jordan Peterson who inspires women and men alike to be the best versions of themselves, who encourages people and shows them profound levels of empathy, can be called a villain by someone who receives their divorce papers while onstage in front of a crowd, standing next to the person she’s already moved on to. At this point I think celebrities are a net loss for society. Can we agree to finally stop listening to their opinions? They hardly ever have anything worthwhile to say.

Megan Kelly’s response made my day. Screw you, Wilde.