When it comes to hooking up, society has established what is considered the key factors that contribute to what determines the success of a hookup. Although there is no definition that defines an “ideal hookup,” there are several criteria that adhere to what a true hookup entails. In a scene from “Crazy Stupid Love,” Ryan Gosling approaches an unfamiliar woman at a bar, Emma Stone, and suggests that she come home with him, eventually she accepts his invitation and they end up at Ryan’s condo, engaging in a night of romantic gestures and conversation.
Emma and Ryan were strangers that met at a bar, suggesting that this hookup had the potential to be successful, however, because they chose to spend the night connecting on an emotional level rather partaking in sexual intercourse, their hookup is deemed as unsuccessful. In a scene from the movie “Crazy, Stupid, Love” we see the progressive stages of a hookup between Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone. Ryan and Emma are both found at a bar one night, Ryan decides to approach Emma and starts to be flirtations, he eventually suggest that she go home with him for the night.
Emma at first rejects Ryan’s offer, however, after having issues with her boyfriend, she promptly seeks out Ryan and accepts his offer. They both leave the bar together and arrive at Ryan’s suave condo, the music is playing and Ryan immediately makes them both drinks. Emma proceeds to gulp down both drinks and then asks Ryan to disclose his methods of seduction. Ryan reveals that he reenacts the dancing scene from the film “Dirty Dancing,” and then says that it has never failed to get women to sleep with him. Emma then agrees to take part in the “move”, successively leading them into Ryan bedroom.
As they are kissing in bed, Emma continuously asks Ryan questions, this spark of conversation eventually leading to an intimate and long conversation about their personal lives. No sexual intercourse takes place between the two of them, and they eventually fall asleep after talking for hours. Gosling and Stone meet for the first time at a bar and have no pervious background knowledge about each other. They were merely brought together by Reynolds attraction to Stone and his willingness to approach her and share this attraction.
The atmosphere of the bar was seductive and luring, making for the perfect place for a man to pick up women. In the scene Emma is sitting at a table with her friend while Ryan is prowling around the bar to find a women to take home with him. Ryan eventually approaches Emma in the hopes that she will go home with him tonight. He says, “I’ll guarantee you this, you’re never going to regret going home with that guy from the bar that one time who’s a total tom cat in the sac” (Reynolds).
Here, Ryan is very blunt, stating that if she were to come home with him, it would solely be two strangers hooking up. At this point Ryan and Emma know little to nothing about each other, this lack of knowledge makes it easy to disregard their emotions and only focus on the physical aspect of the hookup. With this being the intentions of both of them the start of their successful hookup is heading in the right direction Emma and Ryan were both consuming alcohol at the bar where they met, and continued to drink upon arriving at Ryan’s condo.
Alcohol consumption is considered by many people to be an essential for a hookup to be successful, and because they were both consuming alcohol puts them on track for having a successful hookup. Kate Taylor, the author of Sex on Campus: She Can Play That Game, Too, wrote “Women said universally that hookups could not exist without alcohol, because they were for the most part too uncomfortable to pair off with men they did not know well without being drunk” (Taylor).
Alcohol is imperative when it comes to having a successful hookup because both man and woman are more willing to associate with someone they don’t know very well while under the influence of alcohol. When Emma and Ryan both arrived back at his condo, he immediately makes two alcoholic drinks that she gulps down instantly and then says, “that’s not my favorite, thank you”(Stone). Even though she didn’t prefer the drinks he made, she still drank both because in the hopes that it would calm her nerves.
Even though Emma and Ryan were not blackout drunk, they were both somewhat intoxicated, which helped further their path towards having a successful hookup. When Ryan brings Emma back to his place, he immediately makes her a drink, turns on music, and sets the tone for what he expects to be a successful hookup. Emma is acting as though she is ready to “get to the bed” and get things started. They talk about Gosling signature move, where he reenacts a scene from dirty dancing, he says, “So I tell girls I can do the move, I put on the song Time of Your Life, I do the big move, and they (girls) always want to have sex with me” (Reynolds).
Ryan then proceeds to make this big move to Emma and they consequently end up in his bedroom and start making out. As things seem to be going in the right direction between the two of them, they start to get off track and they begin talking on an emotional level, sharing personal past experiences with one another. At this point they are being more emotionally intimate than physically intimate, leading to the downfall of their successful hookup path.
When Ryan and Emma first enter the bedroom things seem like they are going in the right direction, however, it turns out that they do not engage in any type of sexual intercourse. In an ideal hookup, their should be more intimacy rather than talk about your personal life, which is why Ryan and Emma failed to meet the set criteria that make for a successful hookup. Ryan even asks Emma to “ask him something personal about himself”(Reynolds). At this point, it is obvious that they have embarked on a path that could mean more than just a hookup.
Kate Taylor defines a “hookup” as, “an ambiguous term that can signify anything from making out to oral sex to intercourse – without the emotional entanglement of a relationship”(Taylor). Ryan and Emma have dodged these two criteria by not engaging in sexual intercourse and by becoming personally and emotionally involved, leading to the demise of their successful hookup attempt. Eventually, Ryan and Emma fall asleep in bed after a night of talking, and not engaging in any type of sexual intercourse which is why their hookup is not seen as successful.
Even though Emma fell asleep at Ryan’s place, they had created a bond by the end of the night, an emotional bond, and one that would not be created through an ideal hookup. In Alex Williams article The End of Courtship he gives an example of what spending the night after a hookup would lead to, “She spent the night at the apartment, which kicked off a cycle of weekly hookups, invariably preceded by a Thursday night text message from him saying, ‘hey babe, what are you up to this weekend? ’”(Williams).
In this case, the two people are engaging in a series of casual hookups from one time being spent at the guy’s apartment. In Emma and Ryan’s case, they partook in the initial stages of a successful hookup but the end result was far from ideal and does not correlate with what is defined as a successful hookup. A hookup is something that is developed through certain criteria that have been set by society. Overall, Emma and Ryan did not meet all of the standards that result in a successful hookup.
Even though in the initial stages they were headed in the right direction, it was towards the end of the night that they began to fall of track and develop an emotional connection rather than engage in any kind of sexual activity that would have kept them on track for an ideal hookup. Their inability to connect in a sexual way, due to the distractions of their intimate conversations about family and past occurrences, was the reason that they were unsuccessful in having a successful hookup.
