The To Do List follows Brandy Klark (played by Aubrey Plaza) as she attempts to prepare for college in an unconventional way - by completing all of the sexual tasks she can think of. Brandy is your typical over-achiever, having been named valedictorian of her high school and noting that the last time she kissed a boy was in the 9th grade. When she's told that college will be much more intense sexually than high school was, she decides that she needs to prepare for the situation by becoming more sexually experienced. From there, we get to watch her on her hilarious journey into womanhood. Along the way, the movie had a lot of good points to make about the way we view sex and gender stereotypes in society.
We're introduced very early on in the film to Brandy's friend, Cameron (played by Johnny Simmons), who clearly has a crush on her and wants to ask her out on a date if only he could get the nerve up. Being a fairly regular moviegoer, I anticipated that Cameron would end up with Brandy once she realized that he's the one she really wants to be with. Thankfully, this wasn't the case, and we get a very deep look into Cameron, "the nice guy".
The story of the nice guy is one we all know pretty well, the guy who pines after the girl who's out of his league, who cares for her while she sees other guys, who waits until the right moment to let his true feelings be known. This is a guy we've sympathized with plenty of times, watching him get his heart broken again and again, unable to admit how he feels. For the first time, we see how this looks from the point of view of the girl he's so in love with, and it's quite a different story.
Cameron and Brandy go on one date in the movie, after which Cameron becomes extremely territorial and assumes they're together when there's been no conversation of the sort. After he finds out she went on a date with another guy, he cries and screams at her about how she betrayed their relationship (which, again, didn't exist). She explains calmly that she just doesn't feel that way about him and the date hadn't meant much to her. In response to this, he yells at her, "I hope you get AIDS!" and promptly leaves, refusing to talk to her for essentially the rest of the movie.
This is a portrayal of the nice guy that we haven't seen much before, but one that probably hits a lot closer to home for the female viewers. Here, Brandy had thought she had a good friend in Cameron, but instead, he had no real want to be her friend, and upon discovering she didn't want to be with him romantically, he became nasty and vicious toward her. She decides she's not interested in him and he sees this treatment of her as an acceptable response on his part.
The movie doesn't use this moment in a preachy way but instead it's just a part of life. We're not meant to hate Cameron (though I didn't feel very warm toward him after his temper tantrum). We're just meant to acknowledge that perhaps the plight of these nice guys isn't always so innocent and selfless as they'd like us to think. Cameron was a jackass about his feelings for Brandy and he didn't deserve to be in any part of her life, though he would certainly tell you otherwise.
Most of the men in this movie were portrayed very simply, driven completely either by their over-emotions or their sex drive. It's not meant as an insult to men, but there's a clear undertone that Brandy is too smart for any of the men in her life (her father included).
Take Scott Porter's Rusty Waters. He's the driving force behind Brandy's want to become more sexually experienced. She wants to have sex with him and she wants to know what she's doing when she does it. He's who we would typically think of as the bad guy, who hangs out with girls too young for him and uses them for his own sexual desires. The movie never tries to make this so, letting us judge him for ourselves. By the end of the movie, we realize this isn't actually the case, and in fact, he's a much better guy than Cameron.
You see, girls have just always thrown themselves at Rusty. He is the hotness they fantasize about, the guy they always imagine losing it to, and the one they ultimately regret having sex with. Rusty believes he has more to offer, but he says girls are only interested in having sex with him and never more. He's never been given a real chance to be that guy they would want to be with. He's the one who keeps being used. He's the one who keeps getting hurt by these girls.
The rest of the guys in the movie (played by Donald Glover, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, and Bill Hader) aren't necessarily dumb, but everything they do is because of sex. Once they discover what Brandy's plan is, they do everything they can to hook up with her (though Bill Hader's Willy hooks up with her sister instead). It became clear quickly that the women in this movie were the only ones thinking intelligently and responsibly about sex.
Brandy's mother (played by Mrs. Coach herself, Connie Britton) realizes what is going on in her daughter's life and sits her down to have the sex talk. They're able to have a rational, reasonable conversation about sex, and her mother even gives her lube to use ("It doesn't have to hurt," she says). She knows that Brandy is going to have sex no matter what she does, so instead of trying to prevent it, she decides to be a help to her.
It's not often you see parents act like this in film. Typically, you see them portrayed more like Brandy's father (played by SHIELD Agent Coulson, Clark Gregg). He's stubborn and bullheaded about sex, refusing to acknowledge the fact that his daughters might be doing anything like that. He doesn't want to hear about it and he certainly doesn't want to sit down and have a conversation about it. When it comes down to it, we see that he's just scared, and he wants to protect Brandy from anything that might hurt her. She's his little girl, and he just wants to keep her safe. His intentions are good, despite the erratic way he's acting.
It's rare to see a movie this positive about sex. It said that it's okay to have sex as long as you're being safe about it. It's okay to have sex if you're not in love, though it's a much, much better experience if you are. It's okay to be a woman and have as much sex as men say they're having. And as Brandy says many times during the film, it's also okay to be a woman and not define yourself by the man you're with. "A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle."
Brandy has many conversations with her friends throughout the film about how men and women are viewed differently by society when it comes to sex. Brandy says the old saying is true, "Either you're the virgin or you're the whore," and one of her friends remarks, "It's way more fun to be the whore." There is a stigma the movie acknowledges when it comes to women and sex - that either they're a prude or they're a slut. They don't seem to have the freedom that men have when it comes to sex. Men can go out and have sex with many different women and high five their friends about it, but for women to do the same, it's considered slutty by most.
On the flip side of this, the movie says it's also okay for a man to want more than just sex. When we're first introduced to Rusty and Cameron, you'd assume very quickly whose side you'd like to be on. What turns out to be true about these two is more realistic than most movies that portray these love triangles. Cameron's outwardly more sympathetic and relatable but when it came down to it, he was a pretty big scumbag. If you have to keep insisting to people that "nice guys finish last", my guess is you're probably not all that nice. Meanwhile, Rusty wants a girl to care about him, but he consistently has to deal with girls who only want sex from him. It's not often that it's suggested a character like this might want more than sex.
Brandy comes to realize that though all of these things might be the rationale that society has decided is truth, it's not her truth. She's gonna do what she damn well wants, and she's not going to let anyone tell her she shouldn't. She does end up having sex with Rusty, and she's disappointed by it (and he comments that most of the virgins he deflowers are). She holds her head high and she says confidently that she doesn't regret it though, because as Cameron puts eloquently, "Sometimes sex is just sex."
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