The Omega Male and his Lack of Female Counterpart

Terrific insight into the Omega Male trope pervading Hollywood is hitting the blogosphere this week. Biologists use the term Omega to "refer to the lowest caste of the hierarchical society. An omega is subordinated to all others in the community. The omega is commonly the last allowed to eat." Jessica Grose humanizes the term when she writes:

In human terms, if an executive or a warrior is an alpha male and a nice-guy middle manager like The Office's Jim Halpert is a beta male, then Greenberg and his brethren are omega males. While the alpha male wants to dominate and the beta male just wants to get by, the omega male has either opted out or, if he used to try, given up. Greenberg says of his somewhat stunted best friend, "We call each other 'man,' but it's a joke. It's like imitating other people." The omega male is not experiencing the tired trope of the midlife crisis. A midlife crisis implies agency, a man who has the job and the family and chooses to reject it. The omega male doesn't have the power to reject anything—he's the one who has been brushed off. He's generally unemployed, and his romantic relationships are in shambles—he's either single or, if he's married, not happy about it.

Grose offers a pretty amusing taxonomy of the Omega Male species. I've yet to meet her Mimbo in real life, but I've already discussed in my terms the Game Boy (the delusional nice guy) and the Beer Guy (the Apatow-ian Man-Boy). Nevertheless, I'm in love with what this movie trope conveys about society: misery experienced by adult men is evidently comical. Most of these men, as Grose observes, grow up with hegemonic conceptions of what it means to be a successful adult male and become miserable during the painful process of realizing they failed to hit the mark. Now, some of the plots of these movies climax as the man turns his life around and wins the game/changes his career/finds a ladyfriend/tells off his boss, whatever. But the trope is nevertheless pervasive, hitting both mainstream and indie films alike (seriously, I can't even name an indie film that did not have a male character depressed in some way for not living up to alpha or even beta standards of masculinity).

Now, Anna N. of Jezebel asks, can you name a movie where any mediocre female was allowed so much introspective camera time to wax on the ennui that has taken over her life? Nope. Not really, because the only flaw women in Apatowesque movies are allowed to have is being high-strung and ambitious (Katherine Heigl in Knocked Up). Or, even better, seemingly average women don't get to have or even develop dimension because they are only flat, lifeless accessories to male protagonists (Rashida Jones in I Love You, Man).

Anna thinks the reason for such a lack of Omega Female presence in movies is because Omega Females have absolutely no chance of resolving themselves the way men do:

In movies, when women's dreams are deferred — or downright destroyed — they tend to display either adorable pluck or quiet dignity (Adams, who doesn't do quiet, has a lock on the former). Part of this may be that audiences have more sympathy for directionlessness in men. A deadbeat dad can still redeem himself in the movies — but can you imagine if Adams's character didn't provide for her kid? But I think there's something else at work here, and I think it's about time. An omega male, no matter how low he's sunk, still has time to pull it out — for instance, 41-year-old Greenberg can date a 25-year-old. But everyone from Hollywood execs to Lori Gottlieb is always telling us how little leeway women have, how we'd better get it right pretty soon or we'll be screwed forever. If women were afforded a little more time to fuck up, more omega female movies would probably be the least of the benefits.

I found this interesting, because as perhaps best conveyed in Knocked Up or 40-Year-Old Virgin, the Omega Male redeems himself almost always by entering into a romantic relationship. In other words, he redeems himself through a female. I assume that Anna N. thinks that females would be redeemed in much the same way, but can't because they would be too old to find a redeeming man who would still find them attractive.

But interestingly, neither of these two articles asks how a woman becomes an Omega Female in the first place. For one, to fit the trope, she'd need to fail at achieving a hegemonic conception of what being a woman means. Generally, this means she'd have to be conventionally unnattractive and unmarried (or divorced, gasp!). I think this might best be embodied by, ironically enough, high-power business ladies who never end up getting married (I'm thinking Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada). These women don't tend to be "losers" by life standards, only "losers" in not achieving the hegemonic female ideal (much like the Omega Male). But, unfortunately, they tend to be Alpha females.

But the authors are interested in finding an equitable "Loser female" trope to match the Omega male. The problem is women are rarely failing at being women through spineless inaction--in fact, failing to be a woman--as Streep shows--takes a whole lot of effort, what, becoming a gigantic fashion mogul or what have you. Instead, the loser female is usually a loser because of her dealings with a man--most frequently resulting in the birth of a child who, after the man inevitably leaves her, she will be left with on her own. Ergo, most "loser females" in films are portrayed as single-parent (Waitress, As Good as it Gets, Where the Heart Is) and most frequently are either teenagers or waitresses. In fact, in Waitress, "loser female" Keri Russel, a sad waitress stuck in a dead-end marriage, finds redemption when she meets a Nathan Fillion, a frikkin' doctor. These women aren't portrayed as pathetic--they're portrayed as victims abused at the hands of men who find redemption by meeting other men.

So, interesting commentary, but it's lacking that final point that the omega female (or whatever trope name we want to use) is saddled with consequences whereas the omega male rarely is forced to take responsibility for himself. I think that's the key difference and why the female omega is so much less comical.