My garden of musings

Negging is manipulation. Negging is when a man insults a woman or gives her backhanded compliments to break down her self-esteem. The point is to make her grateful that he likes her despite all "flaws," to stop her from thinking she's too good for him, and/or to make her think no one else would want her.

Darcy isn't negging Elizabeth when he insults her looks at the beginning: he's genuinely not interested in her and genuinely doesn't find her pretty at first. The omniscient narrator tells us that he only gradually becomes attracted to her as he gets to know her better.

Nor is he negging during his first proposal when he makes such a big, insulting deal of Elizabeth's lower social status. He's not trying to manipulate her into accepting him: he thinks she's already been flirting with him and has no doubt that she'll accept. He's just being excessively, brutally honest.

The cast of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs at the Muny (St. Louis Municipal Opera), 1969.

The stage adaptation of Disney's Snow White that was performed at Radio City Music Hall in 1979, with its book by Joe Cook and its new songs with lyrics by Cook and music by Jay Blackton, didn't originate at Radio City. It was first performed in 1969 at St. Louis's famous outdoor musical theatre, the Muny.

Here we see operatic soprano Patricia Wise as Snow White and operatic tenor Frank Porretta (father of actor Matthew Porretta) as her Prince. And among these actors with dwarfism who play the seven dwarfs, there are two very notable names: Billy Barty as Dopey (his credits are too many to list), and Jerry Maren, the green-clad middle member of the Lollipop Guild in The Wizard of Oz, as Sleepy.

(This wasn't Billy Barty's only experience with the tale of Snow White, as eighteen years later he played the dwarf leader Iddy in the 1987 Canon Movie Tales adaptation. Nor was Jerry Maren the only former Munchkin to appear in a Snow White adaptation, as Billy Curtis, the "And oh, what happened then was rich!" Munchkin, played the eldest dwarf Barnaby in the 1984 Faerie Tale Theatre version.)

Also in this production were another operatic soprano, Marthe Errolle, as the Evil Queen, and Australian actor Laurie Main, whom some of us remember best as the kindly narrator of Welcome to Pooh Corner on the Disney Channel, as Snow White's father the King.

Every now and then, I've heard people claim that Elizabeth and Darcy aren't relatable characters. Repeatedly I've read the claim that Elizabeth is a heroine you aspire to be like, not a heroine you relate to. (To me that claim seems odd, though. She's far from a perfect role model: she spends the first half of the book getting things wrong, and the second half realizing she was wrong and changing her opinions!) And as for Darcy, I know what people who honestly do relate to him have to deal with: other people scoffing at the very idea, insisting that he's just a fantasy of a snob who transforms into a romantic ideal.

But I don't buy that. Both characters seem very human and believable to me. There must be more people who see themselves in them than some fans think there are!

Yes, even much later in the 19th century, Victor Hugo framed Mme. Thenardier’s red hair in Les Miserables as a part of her ugliness. For that matter, since that was how he felt about it, he probably made Quasimodo a redhead in The Hunchback of Notre Dame to further emphasize his ugliness too. And of course later still, in Anne of Green Gables, we see Anne Shirley's loathing of her own red hair.

Even today it's a sore point. Not from my perspective, of course: from the outside as a brunette, I've always thought or red, auburn, or strawberry blonde hair as beautiful, and until I read Anne of Green Gables for the first time I never heard anyone say otherwise. But when Halle Bailey was cast as Ariel in the live-action remake of The Little Mermaid, I remember the uproar. Not just from the blatant racists (although they could be heard too), but from redheads accusing Disney of prejudice against their hair color, claiming that all their lives they had been taught that red hair was ugly and garish, but that Ariel made them feel like they could be beautiful for a change, and now Disney was taking that away from them. Though as it turned out, that big fuss was fur nothing, because Bailey's Ariel had red hair after all: black people sometimes have red hair too.

Hmm... I may change my mind later, but for now these are my choices:

Cinderella

Snow White

Beauty and the Beast

The Snow Queen

All three of their viewpoints turn out to be right, but all three are "right for the wrong reasons." Jane wants to think well of Darcy because she wants to think well of everyone, and she doesn't suspect that Wickham is lying, but thinks he must be mistaken about Darcy's actions, because she wants to think well of Wickham too. Charlotte is only being pragmatic and thinking of Darcy's status and wealth, not his character. And Caroline ends her speech about Wickham's villainy with blatant classism, by adding that of course it's to be expected from a man of such low birth.

In the post I recently reblogged defending Elizabeth from Austen fans who accuse her of so many wrongdoings, one of the arguments was against the idea that she should have listened to Jane and Caroline, because between Jane's naïve idealism and Caroline's snobbery, their opinions at that point really do ring hollow.

Except now, having reread those chapters, I'm not sure if I fully agree. Amid Jane's simple idealism, she does make one sound argument: that Bingley, a man whom they know is genuinely kind and decent, is Darcy's close friend. Maybe Elizabeth should have more strongly considered that fact instead of deciding so easily that Bingley must be deceived by Darcy. Indeed, after Darcy's letter, she does realize that his friendship with Bingley would make no sense if he were really the monster Wickham painted him as. And everything Caroline says about Wickham and Darcy's history turns out to be true: she just puts her own classist spin on the story at the very end.

Lying about his identity isn't even the worst thing Aladdin ever does. The worst thing he does in the movie is going back on his promise to the Genie and refusing to set him free. Yet I've never seen online fans cite that incident when they call Aladdin "toxic" and say he "doesn't deserve a happy ending." Oh no, it's just that "He lies to Jasmine."

Now of course I don't really think they fit together. In the world of Wicked, Oz is real, and the RSC Wizard of Oz is a separate entity. But if you wanted to imagine that Wicked was also Dorothy's dream, then Kansas scenes a little more like the RSC script would be fitting.

In the RSC Wizard of Oz, the roles of Auntie Em and Glinda are written to be played by the same actress. This is foreshadowed when Auntie Em tells Dorothy that they couldn't go against the sheriff's order to let Miss Gulch take Toto: "What did you expect me to do? Wave a wand and make it disappear?" Also, unlike in the movie, the three farmhands (counterparts to the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Cowardly Lion) are also present during the scene with Miss Gulch, and in fact Hickory (the Tin Man's counterpart) stops Toto from escaping. Then after Miss Gulch leaves, there's an added scene where Dorothy angrily lashes out, first at Auntie Em, then at each of the farmhands, telling Hickory in particular that he's the worst of all and that she hates him. (To which he responds that she's breaking his heart – foreshadowing.)

So wouldn't it make sense for this version of Dorothy to dream Wicked? Glinda corresponds to Auntie Em, which explains why she chooses popularity, conformity, and following the Wizard over doing what's right – yet at the same time she sincerely loves Elphaba and redeems herself in the end, because even though Dorothy is mad at her aunt, she still loves her. Since she's also mad at the farmhands, this explains why Fiyero, Boq, and Brrr are all decidedly more flawed than the original Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Cowardly Lion, and because she's especially mad at Hickory, Boq comes across as the worst of the three. As for Miss Gulch, I think in this version she corresponds more to Nessarose than to Elphaba. The RSC version of Miss Gulch does more victim-playing when she comes for Toto than in the movie, and exaggerates the pain of the bite on her leg to milk for sympathy – hence Nessarose's wheelchair and the excessive pity she gets for it. Then who is Elphaba? Well, I think in this dream, Elphaba would represent Dorothy herself. The Dorothy who appears in Wicked is one aspect of her – the sweet, innocent little girl who just wants to go home – but Elphaba represents her deeper layers. Her feelings of being a misunderstood, unappreciated misfit, her longing for a better life (hence Elphaba's "Unlimited" motif that sounds like "Over the Rainbow"), her desperation to protect Toto (hence Elphaba's fight to save the Animals), and all her anger and longing to rebel.

Then again, I'm old enough remember the '90s national tour of the RSC Wizard of Oz, with Mickey Rooney as the Wizard and with a succession of different female celebrities (Roseanne Barr, Eartha Kitt, Liliane Montevecchi, and Jo Anne Worley) as the Witch of the West. As I mentioned in another post recently, this production had Miss Gulch wear an early 1900s bicycle suit with knickerbocker pants, which made her look more like a bold and brash "modern woman" (by 1900 standards) and less like a fussy old church lady than in the movie. Of course when Eartha Kitt played the role, she was also black, which would have made her stand out even more in a Kansas farm town of that era. So while she's still mean, maybe this version of Miss Gulch has a reason for her bitterness: i.e. that she's been shunned by the conservative farm community for being too different and too progressive.

And maybe Dorothy realizes this on some level, so in her dream, she combines her with her own pain and anger to create Elphaba.

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.