Rolling Stone writer James Rocci asks bestselling "Gone Girl" author Gillian Flynn:
HOW MUCH OF THE CABLE-NEWS PHENOMENON OF "MISSING WHITE WOMEN!" DID YOU WANT TO CRACK OPEN WITH THIS STORY?
Well, I think when we turn on the TV or watching a movie — whether it's true-crime reporting or maybe a [fictional] crime show, the only women that we want to watch die are the beautiful ones. Even in death, there seems to be this demand that women need packaging in a certain way, and certainly those are the ones that get the most attention from these true-crime shows. The characters in Gone Girl, I think, are certainly aware of that trope, too, from the start: Here's this attractive couple that has the added pathos that she's gone missing on her anniversary. From there, it almost seems inevitable that they're going to be in the media cross-hairs.
I think, more and more, the media has become very facile; we get the coverage we deserve. I tune into these shows too, and I think that idea of packaging ourselves as a personality is something that Gone Girl plays with throughout. Nick and Amy play these sort of persona roles for each other in the early days, and the media then comes in and immediately wants to cast one person as America's Sweetheart and her husband as the villain. We put that lens on them because that's what we do, and that's what's expected. You can only cover so much truth in that 15 second sound-bite. You can only project so much information when all you have is footage of a guy walking from his car to his house.
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