Scott Pilgrim and the Power of Self Respect

Krystyna Plebanski
6 min readDec 8, 2019

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Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is a dorky movie that any video game nerd knows every line to. Scott (played by Michael Cera) is portrayed as your average, weird, gamer nerd and throughout the film the movie plays on Scott’s sense of self worth and how it affects his relationships. The movie has us focus on Scott and his relationships with Ramona and the drama with her evil exes, which distracts us from the true message, as RuPaul would say, “If you can’t love yourself, how in the hell you gonna love anybody else?”. This means that Scott’s portrayal of self worth throughout the movie will affect the outcome of his relationships, romantic and platonic.

Scott and His Friends

“Oh, yeah you’re totally my bitch forever”. Universal.

Scott has a token group of friends which consists of his band (Sex Bob Ombs), Wallace (played by Kieran Culkin), and a few other acquaintance friends.

Wallace is Scott’s roommate, who pretty much owns everything in their apartment and Scott just mooches off of Wallace for housing. Which makes sense because the movie doesn’t mention Scott having any other job other than his band gig, which isn’t kicking off. Wallace is very aware of Scott’s financial situation, and is quite dominant about his items around the house. Scott’s living situation is a factor that can affect his self respect. He has barely any items of his own (as seen in the ownership diagram) and that can have a big affect on mood and self esteem.

Sex Bob Ombs is made of Scott’s main group of friends that have been together since high school. The band mates include Scott on bass, Kim on drums (played by Allison Pill), and Stephen(played by Mark Webber) who plays the main guitar (also young Neil who is understudy Bassist). Throughout the beginning, Scott’s demeanor about his new relationship with Knives (played by Ellen Wong) is quite strange. He brags about how he is in a relationship with Knives but they had barely made any progress in the relationship. His mental grip on the relationship is off putting to his friends as they try to give her a chance, but in retaliation to Scott’s attitude toward them, they are a little hard on her. After Knives leaves, the group talks about her. Kim tries to tell Scott what he is doing is wrong and how he has acted toward women hurt her in the past, which Scott replies with “So what were you saying about how she seems awesome?” which makes me believe that Scott’s sense of self respect has been low since the very start of the movie but he is too narcissistic to notice how it is affecting those around him. He is deflecting his problems on other people and treating them poorly in response to his own problems (his bad break up with Envy, housing issues, leaving the band later in the film). We see that often in the film as Scott gets more problems, the more he mistreats his friends.

Toward the end when Ramona breaks up with Scott, Wallace also tells Scott he needs to move out and the band makes a contract with Gideon (Ramona’s boyfriend) which brings Scott to the lowest point in his life where all his friends, Ramona, and his housing situation are gone. This low point is the reason that Scott re-evaluates his life and then is when Scott finally gains self respect.

Scott and Women

Knives, Scott and Ramona. Universal.

I find it interesting how the movie incorporates Scotts sense of self worth in relation to women. From the beginning we get the narrator saying “..Scott Pilgrim was dating a high schooler” emphasizing the shame and creepiness of the whole situation of Scott (a 23 year old) and Knives (a 17 year old) dating. Here is when we see the first portrayal of self worth in Scott. He is going through a breakup and is using Knives as an outlet and his self respect is low because of it. He is aware it is uncomfortable as seen in the scene where Scott talks to his sister (played by Anna Kendrick) and he explains who she is in a embarrassed demeanor and is even dismissive about the whole relationship saying “we held hands…I think she hugged me once” and even blows her off on a couple of dates. Scott’s use of Knives to get over his past relationships show how his self respect is low and ways for him to feel better about it is to use her emotionally. Knives isn’t the first girl that Scott has used emotionally in this way. It is obvious that Kim and Scott have some past too, and that she is clearly not over it. The movie doesn’t elaborate on what exactly happened to Kim and Scott but I believe it is because the movie gives her a “one of the guys” demeanor, and doesn’t focus too much on Kim in general because Kim isn’t a main love interest.

Once Scott meets Ramona, his mood definitely changes but his self respect doesn’t. He cheats on Knives with Ramona, feels guilty and gives her kind of a half minded breakup leaving her totally destroyed, which is a big factor in how the ending fight scene is adapted. Ramona is going through her own breakup from an abusive ex boyfriend, and from that the two kind of click. Ramona is not as needy as some of the other women in Scott’s lives like Knives and it makes Scott nervous, which is the first time you see Scott with true and genuine emotion. Scott knows that Ramona is way cooler than her and treats her better because of it.

Scott and Gideon

“You want to fight me for her?” “No, I want to fight you for me”. Universal.

As Scott fights all of Ramona’s exes throughout the movie none of those battles matter unless he can respect himself first, as seen in his fights with Gideon (played by Jason Schwartzman). Gideon constantly harasses and antagonizes Scott. Scott is unable to defeat Gideon until he owns up to his mistakes and fixes his messed up relationships with his friends and Knives and Ramona. Scott then realizes that he needs to fight Gideon for himself (power of self respect) and the fact that Gideon is just a messed up guy, instead of for Ramona (power of love) which is how he failed the first fight. The power of love emerged from his chest the same way that the power of self respect did but the power of self respect allows Scott to attack faster and he finally defeats Gideon with it.

Nega Scott

Universal.

One of my favorite parts about this film is the concept of Nega Scott. Earlier in the film, Knives and Scott are playing a ninja game and at the end it shows nega ninja and as Scott doesn’t try to defeat it Knives says “Don’t beat yourself up about it”, foreshadowing this ending scene. It is ironic because nega ninja in the video game earlier was the evil, opposite version of the main character. Scott, our main character, is a jerk throughout the movie so Nega Scott is actually a good guy. Instead of fighting his nega self, Scott “shot the shit” with him and they are going to get brunch. The fact that the movie doesn’t have Scott fight his nega self portrays how his good side and self respect are being accepted within him.

The movie, overall, does a good job hiding the fact that it is about self respect. It makes us focus on Knives, Ramona, and Scott’s love triangle. It also has us focus on the drama of the deadly exes and the action fighting that goes along with that. While all of these things are important, they lead us up to the true message of that love does not conquer all, but self respect does.

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