Do nice guys always finish last? Not according to Hollywood…

“Nice guys always finish last? I don’t think so. I don’t trust the guy who calls himself a feminist, I trust the quiet grumpy guy who says “oh shit, sorry” when his cough interrupts a woman talking.”

With Season three of YOU on everyone’s lips, and the murderous Joe still a cult heart throb, (despite his stalkerish tendencies and, oh yeah, the whole serial killer thing,) we wanted to talk about the not-so-nice guys of pop culture. 

But first, what is a ‘nice guy’, according to the Hollywood powers that be? 

For starters, he retweets a feminist at least once a week – not dated meninist jokes about a woman’s place being in the kitchen. He loves and respects his mother – especially on International Women’s Day. His Spotify Wrapped includes not one but TWO female artists and he doesn’t like to brag, but he’s watched ten films this year that pass the Bechdel Test – some even directed by women. 

A Nice Guy – just like atheists and meat-lovers – will always make sure you know what they are. If having ‘Feminist’ in his Tinder bio doesn’t spell it out for you, he’ll just tell you directly that he’s not like the other guys. 

What he won’t make you aware of is the fact that sometimes, he’s even worse. 

‘Nice guys’ in pop culture

Millennial women had it rough growing up in the toxic 00s. Sure, flip phones were fun and the music was unrivalled, but you couldn’t move for movies and TV shows glorifying mediocre at best – emotionally abusive at worst – men as desirable, nice guys that we should desire off-screen.

But growing up is realising Rachel should have stayed on that damn plane and gone to Paris. 

It’s agreeing with Joseph Gordon-Levitt when he points out that his character in 500 Days of Summer was the “real villain” of the movie. 

It’s wondering why we ever thought Andy’s ‘Nice Guy’ boyfriend was deserving of such plaudits just because he made her cheese toasties, rather than emotionally support his partner as she pursued her dream career? 

The men of The O.C were the teen dreams of every woman currently hurtling towards their thirties. Re-watches may now have us drooling over bleeding-heart liberal Sandy and his fancy bagel slicer, but back in the 00s, you were either all about ‘Bad Boy’ Ryan Atwood or ‘Nice Guy’ Seth Cohen.

But like thinking low-rise jeans and tooth gems were a look, we got yet another thing wrong back in the era of dogs living in handbags. 

‘Bad Guys’ v ‘Nice Guys’

Sure, Ryan punched a couple of posh, spoiled brats, and yes he smoked a legal cigarette in approximately two scenes, but the real ‘Bad Boy’ of the iconic series was actually comic-book nerd Seth. 

While the supposed ‘Bad Boy’ of The O.C was respecting Marrissa Cooper’s needs and boundaries, albeit in a leather jacket, comic-book loving ‘Nice Guy’ Seth was busy fixating on a woman he believed owed him time and attention, merely because he’d decided he was in love with her. When he did finally win his girl, he turned out to be a pretty crappy boyfriend, but we didn’t notice as he wore converse and kept telling everyone what a nice guy he was. 

Nice Guys in real-life, often like their on-screen components, might not make sexist jokes (publicly), nor may they ever get in fights, but that doesn’t automatically make them any better than the men that may date multiple women and refuse to commit. 

Speaking to Glamour magazine about the topic of ‘Nice Guys’ in fiction, psychologist Dr Kalanit Ben Ari points out that films and TV shows creating such binary roles for men to fall into can be damaging off-screen.

“The problem with pop culture references like this filtering into real-life situations, is that they divide people into good vs bad, in an attempt to categorise them both on and off screen,” they told the publication.

“This in itself is damaging, as people are more complicated than that. We have many parts to us as individuals, and on the TV screen, we only see what the directors want us to see and understand, but it is not necessarily the whole story.”

In reality, the real Nice Guys in the world are more complex and don’t always appear to be feminist allies at times. 

Sometimes, the real Nice Guys are busy talking about football transfers rather than women’s rights. Some of them don’t have a clue about what it takes to achieve Equal Pay, but they’ll never be emasculated if their female partner brings home more money than them. Many may even listen to the red flag that is the Joe Rogan podcast now and again, but they also know that consent should be an enthusiastic yes, not an intoxicated mumble. 

And the self-proclaimed Nice Guys? Well, very often, they’re the very kind of men they warn us against on their feminist-friendly social media channels.