My garden of musings

I just watched Dr. Octavia Cox's video about the "contradiction" between the feminist themes of Jane Eyre, with Jane's journey of personal empowerment, and the theme of Jane-as-governess taming Adèle's excessive liveliness and teaching her to be docile and obedient. Now, some would argue that there's no contradiction at all: Jane doesn't teach Adèle to let the world trample on her, she just teaches her not to be flighty and spoiled. Still, I understand Cox's argument. But the fact is that the very role of a governess, besides teaching academic subjects, was to teach her students to be proper, respectable, well-mannered young girls, according to the standards of their time, place, and status. To an extent, enforcing conformity is what Jane was hired to do. A governess who encouraged a little girl to be wild and outspoken would have been fired.

Then there's the common complaint about the ending of Little Women and Jo's choice to start a school for boys. "Why boys?" modern feminist fans demand; they insist that it should have been a school for girls, whom Jo would teach to be strong and independent like herself. But unless I'm mistaken, in the 19th century, that never would have worked. If Jo had opened a school for girls, she would have been expected to teach them to be proper young ladies. If she failed to do this – which of course she would have – then the school would have closed. Running a boys' school is what lets Jo be herself and take part in the "boy's games and work and manners" she enjoys, while still fulfilling the nurturing domestic role that society expects of her as a woman.

Hugh Thomson, 1894

Light haired Elizabeth, dark haired Jane.

Henry Brock, 1899

Strawberry blonde Elizabeth, brown haired Jane.

Of course he's also the illustrator who gave us the remarkable sight of a strawberry blond Darcy.

Charles Brock (Henry's brother), 1895

Light haired Elizabeth, dark haired Jane

Though to be fair, in 1907, he did a new set of watercolor illustrations which were completely different from his earlier drawings, and which give Elizabeth black hair and Jane light golden brown hair.

Arthur Wallis Mills, 1908

Both brunette, but Elizabeth's hair is a lightish golden brown, while Jane's is a rich auburn.

This rule also seems to apply to the adaptations that came before the 1995 miniseries.

The 1940 film has redhead Greer Garson as Elizabeth and dark haired Maureen O'Sullivan as Jane, for example (of course the film is in black and white, but I found a color production still of Garson)...

...and the 1980 miniseries has golden brown haired Elizabeth Garvie as her namesake and dark haired Sabina Franklyn as Jane.

Yet nowadays, if Elizabeth isn't a brunette and Jane a blonde, there are fans who cry blasphemy!

When the 1995 film of Sense and Sensibility was released, were there any people ranting (in whatever capacity they could, obviously not online) about the fact that Emma Thompson’s Elinor had strawberry blonde hair?

I can just imagine some people being outraged. A reserved and stoic character can’t have any trace of red in her hair! Red, auburn, strawberry blonde, chestnut, et al, are for fiery characters only!

She argues that in the Bennet sisters, we see a spectrum of conservative behavior vs. liberal behavior. Now obviously, in modern times, we tend to favor liberal behavior, but in the Regency era, a total disregard for convention and decorum would mean disgrace. Yet Austen wasn’t on the side of total conservativism either.

So on the far liberal side, we have Lydia and Kitty, who disregard any sense of propriety, politeness, and conventional morality, and just do what they feel like doing… especially Lydia, which nearly brings her family to ruin. Mary, by contrast, is the other extreme: a rigidly conservative girl, who tries to compensate for her plain looks by being the perfect refined young lady in every other way (studiousness, accomplishments, a lack of any “frivolity”) and who preaches conservative morals to anyone who will listen. Our heroines Elizabeth and Jane are the happy medium, not liberal enough to be shameful, yet not conservative enough to be priggish, but just right.

In the same video, Ellie Dashwood claims that maybe this is why Fanny Price of Mansfield Park is such a divisive heroine and so widely labeled “priggish” and “prudish.” All the other young female characters in that book are more liberal than she is, so with her as the heroine, that book seems to present a more conservative worldview than Pride and Prejudice or Austen’s other popular novels do. Maybe if there had been another female character more conservative than Fanny, then Fanny would be more widely liked by readers, because she would come across as more of a happy medium. Since I haven’t read that book, I don’t know if I agree or not, though.

Someone looked at the plot point Toy Story 5 of Bonnie being cyberbullied for still playing with toys and called it “not like other girls” propaganda!

They actually said this about a gender-neutral storyline, where the characters involved just happen to be female!

It’s just amazing how much conformity is being promoted now and being called progressive! A little girl character can’t even be a misfit and deal with realistic bullying and peer pressure from other little girls anymore, or they accuse the movie of being “sexist”! It seems that nowadays we’re not allowed to sympathize with any female character who doesn’t fit in – or if we are allowed to sympathize with her, at the same time we have to view her as in need of learning to conform – because that means we think she’s better than everyone else just for being different!

When there's a heroine of a well-known story whom everyone loves and considers a role model, but she's completely different from you and you know you'll never be like her, it makes sense to want to tear her down a little bit. Especially if she has flaws that her fans tend to ignore, or if there are supporting characters or other stories' heroines whom you like just as well if not better, but whom the fandoms either ignore or bash for not being like her. So it makes sense to want to write either (a) original fiction with a heroine who's more like you, with a character similar the popular heroine portrayed as more flawed, or (b) a perspective flip of the popular story that makes a different character the protagonist and frames the original heroine in a less positive light.

But sometimes, the popular heroine's flaws are already acknowledged in the original text, maybe even to excess; just because the fandom forgets them doesn't mean we should judge her more harshly than the already judgmental original author did. And maybe more importantly, sometimes in her original story, that heroine was a misfit or an underdog; maybe she was written to deconstruct an earlier concept of who "deserves" to be a heroine.

In one of the fantasy stories I write just for fun (which I might try to publish someday), I originally had a supporting character who was modeled after Jo March in Little Women. I didn't portray her very positively, because I wanted to highlight Jo's flaws that pop culture tends to overlook and to point out that other girls like her sisters are just as worthy to be heroines. But then I had second thoughts. Pop culture may sometimes overlook Jo's flaws, but Jo's creator and real-life counterpart Louisa May Alcott certainly didn't! Alcott is sometimes very self-deprecating in her portrayal of Jo! Maybe too much so. And among the Little Women fans whose favorite March sister is Amy and who passionately defend her online (a cause I support), I see them take bad faith interpretations of Jo’s character that aren’t the way I read her at all, and basically shame her for being a tomboy. I finally decided that Jo has been deconstructed enough.

So I made some changes to that character in my story and decided to model her after Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice instead. Goodness knows, the Austen fandom has always idealized Elizabeth too much, and sometimes been nasty about other Austen heroines (e.g. Fanny Price) because they're not feisty or witty like she is. And since Elizabeth is much more ladylike then she's often remembered as being, deconstructing her a little wouldn't feel like tomboy-shaming. But now I’m having second thoughts about this choice too. In certain parts of the Austen fandom, it seems to be popular nowadays to accuse Elizabeth of being "mean" – to Darcy, to her sisters, to Charlotte, or to anyone she ever has a negative opinion about – which most of the time just isn't true. I've also been concerned about what I’ve read of Elizabeth’s portrayal in The Other Bennet Sister, and how it frames her as something of a privileged foil to her underdog sister Mary. Because I realized that the original Elizabeth is an underdog in her own right: not compared to Mary, but compared to Jane. Unlike her older sister, who is more traditional heroine material, she’s not a model of beauty, gentleness, sweetness, or good manners: she’s outspoken, sassy, and cynical, rich people talk behind her back about her unfashionable manners, she has actual flaws and character development, and even her own love interest finds her looks only “tolerable” at first. Part of Austen’s whole point in creating her might have been to make a heroine out of a girl who wouldn’t normally be one.

For a similar reason, I have misgivings about people who want to deconstruct Emma because of how “unlikable” Emma is: for example, Andrew Davies’ planned sequel with Jane Fairfax as the heroine, which he wants to do because, in his opinion, “Jane Fairfax is the real heroine of Emma.” Some Austen fans argue that this is missing the whole point, because Jane Fairfax is the girl who traditionally would be the heroine. What makes the novel unique is that a character like Emma would typically be the "mean girl," foil to the heroine, à la Caroline Bingley or Mary Crawford, but instead she is the heroine, and is made likable despite her flaws and allowed to grow and change.

In Toy Story 3, early on, Andy is said to be seventeen years old. But he's about to go away to college, which normally happens at age eighteen. Explanation?

Well, Andy is a smart boy, so in theory, he could have skipped a grade. Or he might be just about to turn eighteen.

But how likely is the latter? Andy has a summer birthday. The original Toy Story takes place in the summer: we know this because (a) the toys are surprised to see Sid home early from summer camp, and (b) Andy, Sid, and Hannah are all out of school. And the plot's inciting incident is Andy's birthday party, where he receives Buzz Lightyear as a present.

Here's my theory:

Some college semesters start in August instead of September. Maybe Andy's college is one of them.

I'll imagine that Andy's birthday is also in August, which is when the original Toy Story takes place. So Andy's eighteenth birthday will take place during his first or second week of college.

"It's okay to cry. It’s important to show your feelings and let them out. Real weakness is being too afraid of looking weak to let other people see you cry.”

The way adults actually deal with tears:

*try to hold them back as much as possible and only shed them in private

*apologize when they can’t help but cry in front of other people

*look away when someone is crying in public, because that's the "polite" thing to do, to "save them from embarrassment"

*wear dark glasses to funerals to hide their tears

*praise other people to the skies for their "strength" and "dignity" when they face a horrible loss or trauma without crying

*"Crying doesn't solve anything!"

*"You're upsetting me and making everything worse!"

*"You need to learn self-control!"

*"Be a man!" (to males)/"Be a grownup!" or "Show some dignity!" (to females)