It's been 10 years since "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World," a 2010 Sci-Fi comedy film directed by Edgar Wright starring Michael Cera based on a graphic novel by Bryan Lee O'Malley was released into theaters. Seeing as the film was coming up on a significant birthday, it seemed like a more appropriate time than any to watch it again and think about its merits and faults. Briefly for those who haven't watched it, the film follows Scott Pilgrim, a 22-year old living in Toronto as he transitions from a relationship with 17-year old Knives Chau to Ramona Flowers, a girl who's presumably his age and a Manic Pixie Dream Girl if there ever was. In order to make this transition, Scott has to mature in more ways than one, but more significantly he needs to literally fight Flowers' seven exes in combat to be able to date her (with the seventh and most recent ex forming a sort of league/coalition that challenges any of her potential suitors). It ends with him breaking off his relationship with Knives and getting an opportunity to date Ramona after briefly losing her interest in him during the second act (as her most recent ex was literally mind-controlling her). While all of the technical aspects of the film, such as editing, cinematography, and acting hold up rather well, and if anything are a bit ahead of their time and may have been better received in the manic and even more experimental state of film-making in 2020, this is not what this article is about.

Immediately after watching the film (and during it), several questions and ideas came up that were worth confronting. How is the audience supposed to understand Scott Pilgrim as a moral or immoral entity? Although a comedy, Scott does engage in actions which would make most characters irredeemable in a regular film: he is consistently rude and disengaged from both of his relationships, he fails to make commitments to his band members and friends because of his infatuations, and, perhaps most egregious of all, HE DATES A 17 YEAR OLD WHILE HE'S 22. The sheer absurdity of this last point can't be emphasized enough, and although Knives is not the subject of this article, his taking advantage of her could make up an entire essay of its own. The age difference, coupled with the fact that she's Chinese-Canadian and Scott is white, is nauseating at the least and irredeemable at the worst (as a side, the whole film has an issue with Asian racism, besides Knives the only two Asian characters are twins Kyle and Ken Katayanagi, both of whom have dated Ramona and neither of whom have any spoken lines, with their aesthetic being defined by dragons, the rising sun flag, and other western tokenisms to east Asian culture). He also cheats on her! But Scott's predatory actions and racial fetishization are not really punished by the end of the film, as he gets everything he wants, dating Ramona and breaking off amicably with Knives. The film is almost self-congratulatory on this last point, with his decision to leave Knives being framed as a moment of celebratory character growth, and not an understanding of basic ethics. In a way Knives is the true hero of the film, being able to move on from what is essentially an abusive relationship and finding peace within herself to move on from her abuser, not holding herself to his standards or demands for his partners.

But back to the main point of this––one way to read the film is as an unintentional microcosm for the male obsession with virginity, which does nothing but hurt Scott's character even more. Ramona's exes are not people she's dated or had relationships with in her adult life, but rather they stretch back as far as her childhood crushes, and as recent as presumably the year the film takes place in. And they vary in their degrees of intensity: one only kissed her, while another was a friends with benefits situation, while another was a serious relationship. Regardless, Scott must literally kill them all, as the male impulse in film, culture, and society at large is to often hope that they are the first ones to be with a woman, and if not, they often throw out the entire relationship or shame her for it. While there is obvious sexism in trying to nullify all of Ramona's previous relationships to make himself feel better, Scott engages with homophobia as well, as he hesitates to fight her one Sapphic lover and has to be physically compelled to do so by Ramona, perhaps because he views the relationship as less legitimate, and doesn't view queer sex as something that would "spoil" Ramona for him. There is also obviously sexism in the whole premise of the film, as Ramona's exes gatekeeping any potential suitors from dating her with the threat of violence is controlling, abusive, and aggressively patriarchal. As a final thing to note, while it maintains continuity to the source material and is thus absolved from guilt in that sense, it is interesting that Ramona's final ex, Gideon, is abusive and literally someone who mind-controls Ramona into getting back together with him briefly in Act 2. Scott's character wouldn't really have the moral imperative to break them up if he was a good person, and removing Ramona's agency entirely in her decision to get back together with Gideon also makes Scott look better––he is "saving her from the BAD men."

Ultimately, the film's ending only solidifies this reading, as although it is a comedy, there is no effort to condemn Scott for any of his actions, and the stereotypical ending of Scott getting the girl and walking off into the sunrise suggests that there is no irony here, and that this film is a product of the male imagination.