I'm sorry, but I object. That just isn't ok.

ATTENTION: PLOT SPOILERS. 
Because it is relevant to my argument, I do spoil the plot of SSTL.  Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

In many ways, the film M Butterfly mirrors the major themes of Gary Shteyngart’s Super Sad True Love Story.  One of the most obvious conflicts in both stories is the idea of love and how it ties into gender and is guided through ethnicity.  In both stories, the main character, a white male approaching middle age, falls in love with a younger, attractive Asian woman.  However, in M Butterfly, the audience and the main character both learn that looks are deceiving and that politics are the driving force between all relationships, whereas in Super Sad True Love Story, the audience is lead to believe that youth is the driving force between relationships, and that ethnicity is the deciding factor. 

In M. Butterfly, the main character falls in love with a Chinese opera singer, a mysterious young woman who veils herself in mystery.  As the main character becomes intimate with her, it is revealed to the audience that the woman is really working for the Chinese government.  She discloses information about United States troop movement to her corresponding spies.  She goes away for a while to ‘have a baby’, and returns a year later with the little boy.  She then disappears for a few more years to work in a concentration camp.  Meanwhile, the main character loses everything, basing his predictions of Asian culture on the ideas his mistress is disclosing gently to him.  When he gets back to the United States, he finds that the woman he loved is actually a man disguised as a woman who made everything about culture and tradition up to get information out of the main character.  Distressed, the main character commits suicide in a jail in front of the entire prison, giving a performance about his love.  The Asian man used the main character in order to get political information, faking everything about a woman in order to get close without flat asking for the information.  In the end, there is a hint that the man posing as a woman actually did have feelings for the main character, but it is not entirely clear that he did, suggesting that even though love may have been present during the relationship, loyalty to one’s country and political sacrifices were more important.

Super Sad True Love Story, however, suggests a slightly different message while holding on to the idea that love and life is cruel.  Lenny, the main character, falls in love with a Korean girl, Eunice, and finds out through a series of harsh ‘trials’ that her ethnicity dictates the amount of love she showers him.  In the end, it is revealed to the audience that Eunice feels that she needs to be punished for not being a ‘good daughter’ and for cheating on Lenny by being with Joshie, the man who gets younger as the years progress.  This same idea is seen in Eunice’s mother’s behavior, blaming herself when her husband hit her because the food wasn’t good enough, or the house wasn’t clean, or he didn’t think his daughters were good enough to uphold his family name.  This behavior not only suggests that it has been observed and practiced through the family, but that ethnicity has a strong say in guilt and the ability to love.  Eunice feels guilty about being wrong for Lenny, so she decides to ‘punish’ herself by being with Joshie, the man who treats her significantly worse than Lenny does, and demands quite a bit out of her.  She even writes herself an email apologizing to Lenny and herself for giving him up, saying that she does still love Lenny when she decides to leave him. 

Both stories suggest that love is cruel and is not always pure in both cases, and in both cases, it is the woman’s love that is put into question, unlike most literature where the man’s love is the one under scrutiny.  Neither ends happily, suggesting further that, realistically, love does not end well for those involved.  No matter the driving force, be it political, ethnical, or because the person attached actually loves his or her partner, love ends badly in the end.

On a personal, slightly unrelated note, I have found it incredibly depressing that love is seen in this light in the world of literature.  It is as if there are no ‘happily ever after’ outside of Disney and faerie tales.  It is as if literature is trying to capture the cruelty and unhappiness of the world and compacting it into a small, bite-size package the audience can ingest and carry with them for the rest of their lives.  The Oxford English Dictionary defines love as “a feeling or disposition of deep affection or fondness for someone, typically arising from a recognition of attractive qualities, from natural affinity, or from sympathy and manifesting itself in concern for the other's welfare and pleasure in his or her presence”.  Respectfully, Urban Dictionary defines love as “nature’s way of tricking people into reproducing”.  These two contradicting definitions pose many questions about love and which way culture perceives it, which is frightening.  If something as basic as love isn’t agreed upon, then is anything certain in the world?