Edward Is My Doppelganger
(I brood almost as well as Edward. It's like he's my doppelganger.)
In Which We Continue To Discuss My Weekend With Edward And Bella From The Previous Post.
In Which We Continue To Discuss My Weekend With Edward And Bella From The Previous Post.
Is It So Wrong To Be In Distress?
I have heard some suggestion that Bella is a poor role model for young girls because she is playing the damsel in distress card and Edward is always having to save her which is something we're trying (as a society) to teach young girls is bad and wrong because we want them to be independent and strong. We want them all to want to grow up to be ninja queens or Presidents.
Vampires Don't Make Good Boyfriends?
I have also heard some suggestion that Edward is a little on the creepy side what with all the stalking and bossing of Bella. I don't see that. He's a vampire for god's sake! Already the creep factor is through the roof and I hardly think you can accept that this is a story about a human and her vampire boyfriend and then expect them to adhere to more traditional relationships. Normal boys can't easily get through bedroom windows and they also sleep and don't eat people (all to their credit, I'm sure) but Edward cannot court like a regular boy because he's not human. Believe me, if all boys could practically fly, they'd be crawling in teen girls' windows a lot more often and don't tease yourself thinking that the teen girls would really mind.
I am, unsurprisingly, a little conflicted over the role model issue. First of all, I think we expect too much of our entertainment by expecting all heroes and heroines in fiction to be model citizens, to be ideals of some kind. I think it's unfair to expect musicians to be good role models too. Or artists. Or writers for that matter. Artists, musicians, and writers perform an important function for civilization by recording what is going on, what we are feeling right now, what issues we're collectively facing, what fashions we're wearing, what questions we're asking, what images we're fascinated with, and often it reflects more complicated issues and explorations of the human existence as well. What art (in all it's various forms) does not do is tell us how we should be living.
It is not Madonna's job to tell girls what kind of life to strive for.
For that matter, it isn't yours either.
It's all well and good to pepper
teens with images of young girls kicking everyone's asses and needing
no one, especially no one of a male persuasion, to help fulfill their best potential. I think it's great for girls to
grow up with confidence in themselves; with a sense that they are
strong and capable. I wouldn't want any teen to think they had to grow
up and find a man in order to have a good life.On the other hand- we all need relationships to be fulfilled. Relationships with other people. Perhaps we don't require a permanent partnership with another person to lead a happy and fulfilling life. All humans most emphatically need to feel connected with other humans and most of them (at some point) do feel a deep desire to be paired up with someone intimately. It is the most natural desire that anyone can have. I would like to see people find balance in their ideals.
Fictional Characters Have All The Luck
Being a woman who never needs anyone's help is all well and good if you're a fictional character, but being that person in real life is as improbable and unhealthy as it is to be the woman who can never fend for herself and relies on others to pull her out of every ditch.
I have been a very independent person my whole life. Though I could never defeat an army all by myself with a set of super sassy martial arts moves, I have lived alone, learned to wield power tools with confidence, avoided death in the slightly tough neighborhood I lived in* with no man and no chivalrous strangers to shoo away the pimps whose eyeballs frequently glued themselves to my legs. I went it alone.
It's Alright Not To Be A Hero
I really enjoyed something my friend Gordon said about Bella being a normal girl as opposed to some powerhouse chick that goes around kicking ass all day. She's a fairly normal, (though slightly clumsy) girl who falls for a broody vampire. She isn't meant to be a role model for girls to emulate. She's what most girls are actually like in real life.
I have to admit that I could really have used an Edward in my life many times when I was really young and no one was protecting me because by 15 years old I was (for all intents and purposes) having to be my own parent. I've gotta tell you that while it's all noble and shit to be a practical, no nonsense, strong, independent, bad-ass chick, it is also: exhausting, frightening, lonely, full of bruises, nightmares, and it's pretty damn heavy on the shoulders.
I Need A Sleep Bodyguard Too!
Sometimes, just once in a while, it would be awesome if someone else came to fight my battles. You won't believe this, perhaps, but as creepy as it may seem to have a vampire watching you sleep, I really wouldn't mind. I have been plagued by horrible bouts of insomnia for most of my life and the worst nightmares. Sleep is an uneasy engagement in which I never feel quite safe. However, I think I would sleep like the dead if I had my own personal vampire on my side sitting in my room. The known evil that is already in your room is less scary than the ones that haven't yet arrived.
Note: this film and the discussions it brought to light have made me aware that it's time to talk about the difference between chivalry and chauvinism as well as the value in understanding that some women, like me, don't actually want to be treated or looked at as though we were exactly like men. I like to know that men know that I don't have a penis and I think it's really gross when women develop "six packs". So get your own opinions on these issues polished up good in the next day or two so you can share them.
*An 18 year old girl was stabbed to death by a stranger in her own apartment there the week I moved in, a block and a half from my apartment.
Comments (7)
While I understand that is unnatural to expect a character to be strong all the time, for the most part in movies girl characters have been weak and on the sidelines with no story of their own. As most movies were written, directed, and produced by men, women characters were simply objects of desire or conquest of the men characters or victims or the support group.
Some of us want more than a story where the female character stands around singing "Some day my prince will come." This doesn't mean that we all want to be Buffy-style kick-ass tough. It means we want to be the focus of our own story. We want to have our own adventure.
Relationships have two people but no one ever expects that every story about a guy should be his search for a soul mate. Guys have adventures, stories about becoming "men", stories about exploration and inventions, stories about mystery, conflict and mayhem, abou work an war and fitting in to the social/workplace.
Can't women have stories about becoming "women" (and I don't mean about losing their virginity--I mean about maturing into adulthood), focus on their own education, adventure, and development? When did being self-assured and independent mean that you didn't need anyone...that you had to be a tough loner, a bitch?
As a small child my first role model was Nancy Drew. As vapid as those books can be the great thing about Nancy is she was calm and self-confident. She didn't have to be tough or bully anyone to be in control. She had a boyfriend but she didn't spend her days thinking about how to get a man or waiting for him to rescue her. She was self-reliant but she always had friends, family, and boyfriend in partnership with her--she didn't have to be a tough loner. And she never kicked-ass. She was the model of polite courtesy.
I just wish I had grown up more like her.
Posted by mss @ Words Into Bytes | May 11, 2009 6:12 AM
Posted on May 11, 2009 06:12
Ohh, so many comments racing through my head but I guess the main one is I am with you on the romance thing 100%. Gotta get to work. ugh!
Posted by Tonia | May 11, 2009 6:55 AM
Posted on May 11, 2009 06:55
MSS- Nancy Drew was my first role model too. I think it's possible that she didn't spend much time concerning herself with boys because she already had a steady. However, I always imagined myself being just like her.
I actually think there are a lot of films that tell adventurous female stories, they don't necessarily happen to be ones I would watch, but movies are now littered with the female ass kicker and I don't think they're being portrayed as bitches either. Lara Croft, Charlie's Angels, Firefly (the series) was full of strong female characters with great stories of their own.
I like watching the romance stories so much (the non tragic kind) because it isn't really real life. Women often don't spend their lives in pursuit of men, they work their asses off, they really kind of hold the world up. I think romance is a great break from the quotidienne. But then, I don't like too much real life in my entertainment. I imagine if I actually met a real couple like Edward and Bella I would think them foolish and obnoxious, but as fiction it is such a sweet break from the every day.
If there hadn't been a wonderful romance in "North and South" I don't think I would have been able to take the otherwise bleak story of Margaret's life. Margaret is another great figure of fiction who is strong, but not an ass kicker. She is elegant but also firm in who she is and evolving.
Posted by angelina | May 11, 2009 9:54 AM
Posted on May 11, 2009 09:54
My take on the Edward thing... while reading the books, I die a thousand deaths thinking about having my own personal vampire. The possessiveness, the obsession, the intense adoration, the utter devotion, watching me while I sleep, ooooh. Like you, I could have totally used an Edward in my real life, especially when I was younger. Maybe that's what is so enticing to me as a fantasy...
That said, Edward in real life would bug the hell out of me. I'd give us a week tops!
Posted by Jen | May 11, 2009 3:51 PM
Posted on May 11, 2009 15:51
You turned me on to 'North and South'. I just love it but mostly for Richard Armitage. I find Margaret's character to be somewhat too dainty and coy. She's even more so in the book. It's interesting that Mrs. Gaskell was a close friend of Charlotte Bronte. Jane Eyre is so much more straightforward and spirited than Margaret.
True. Nancy Drew might not have needed to be boy crazy since she had a steady. However, she didn't meet Ned until book 7. Even after that, the narrative focuses on Nancy's adventures not her relationship with Ned. It's clear she isn't waiting around for him to call. Her radar is honed in on the next mystery. More often she hangs out with the girls, Bess and George, than seeks Ned out. Sometimes Ned tries to push her into more of a commitment and Nancy always gracefully side-steps the issue. And if there is ever a conflict, the mystery always comes first.
I don't consider Lara Croft and Charlie's Angels strong female role models. Those are just male fantasy women.
Firefly, however, is a great example because the women came in all sorts of types just like the men characters. There were even women "bad guys" to show a true balance.
Since you like romance and strong women, I'm going to recommend one of my favorite movies to you, "My Brilliant Career". It may be a little hard to find and I know you famously don't like movies recommended to you. I think you'll like this one. No violence or any ugliness at all. And it's about a writer.
Posted by mss @ Words Into Bytes | May 12, 2009 10:45 AM
Posted on May 12, 2009 10:45
You bring up some excellent points MSS and have kind of made me stop in my tracks a bit. Suddenly new thoughts are occurring to me like the fact that while men are portrayed in all kinds of ways, many of them are either a women's fantasy version of them (like in romances) or mens' fantasy version of themselves (heroic/adventursome/important). I'd say that most entertainment doesn't portray men any more realistically than it does women, in general.
A lot of women aren't independent and interesting and strong the way Nancy Drew was so I don't think having more women portrayed this way in movies is necessarily going to reflect the reality of women any more than it ever has the men.
I'd say the Nancy Drew model of woman or the Firefly women are the fantasy women that people like you and I might be more likely to have.
But you want to see more variation there. I can see that. Man, there is so much interesting fodder here and I want to say more but I have to go for now.
I feel that in my haste I've made a hash out of my thoughts. Oh well, you will probably forgive me.
Posted by Angelina | May 12, 2009 8:01 PM
Posted on May 12, 2009 20:01
Angelina, when you make hash it's always yummy.
You've got me thinking, too...which is the great thing about our correspondence. I think there are two things going on here--characters who are ideal rather than real (like Nancy Drew) and characters who we identify with because there is something in them that we connect to. Is it not interesting that you feel that Edward is you doppelganger, not Bella? I haven't seen the movie, so my thoughts were more theoretical and general. I don't know if I would have reacted to Bella's character the way you say some people have.
Recently I watched a Japanese movie, called "Whispers of the Heart" about middle school kids. The movie focuses on the girl character, and there is a romance. But the thing I thought was really refreshing was that meeting the boy, who had a passionate artistic drive, made the girl decide that she needed to see if she could be a writer. She's more focused on that than worrying about getting the boy. And in one of my favorite scenes, she is researching in the library and he comes and sits at her table. Instead of dropping her work because the guy showed up, they both put her work first. Without speaking he indicates she should continue and he sits there reading a book while she does. It's such a subtle, respectful scene but it impressed me so much.
Whether a character is real or ideal they can influence us. If you see only white men doing something everywhere you look, eventually you think of that as the world they inhabit--something outside the possibility of your life (unless you're a white man). I grew up in a transition phase where there was often a female character but there was always the doubting Tom character who she had to overcome, the guy who said, "I'm not taking orders from no woman." I remember feeling giddy when Captain Janeway first helmed a star ship; the coolest thing wasn't that she was captain but that there was nothing out of the ordinary about her being captain. It just was.
I'm glad my son grew up in a time when he didn't wonder "What's a woman doing in charge?" Nope. When he was 5 and read a billboard that said "Peace on Earth, good will to men." he asked surprised "What about the women?"
PS. Another favorite woman character...the mother in National Velvet.
Posted by mss @ Words Into Bytes | May 13, 2009 1:36 PM
Posted on May 13, 2009 13:36