AGAIN the ladies congregate. This time the subject was how, sometimes, on warm days, young college ladies wear sundresses. And carry backpacks.
And sometimes the backpacks, unbeknownst to the young ladies, the backpack makes their skirt ride up.
My older coworker says, “I’ll have to watch for that.”
Me, from my office down the hall, “[Name], man, I am trying to save your butt here. SIT DOWN AND SHUT UP.”
Ladies: [uproarious laughter]
Older Coworker: What?!?
Me: [gets up, walks out into the hall, puts both hands on older coworker's shoulders] I am ONLY DOING THIS for the sake of your career! [pushes him backward into his office]
I’ve been just cruising along, minding my own business, watching TV when I come across the trailer for the new movie Robin Hood. And while I don’t think it’s going to exactly be groundbreaking cinema, it could be a decent movie. I almost never go to theaters anymore, but I’m thinking I’ll catch it on cable or Netflix or something.
But then, BANG. Pissed off. Why? Well, there are a couple of points, but the most egregious one comes at 2:16.
For those who won’t bother to watch the (fairly awesome) trailer, I’ll tell you straight-up: it’s Cate Blanchett as Maid Marian, on horseback, in armor.
The hell?!?
The trailer also depicts many instances of Marian being assortedly badass, fomenting dissent against King John, threatening to emasculate Robin with her favorite dagger, etc. No problem there. But sticking her in armor? Having many shots of her awesomely shooting her awesome bow? Wrong.
Every bit as wrong as whatever nutjob decided to make Guinevere a badass warrior-chick in the 2004 King Arthur film.
Photo from IGN Media
(I will say that I had reservations about the badassing-up of Arwen in Peter Jackson’s LOTR films, but after watching the movie I had no criticism. Essentially it was combining the Arwen character with the relatively throwaway character of Glorfindel, and God knows they had tough choices to make about what of Tolkien’s work to cut out, and generally made good ones.)
Ladies, I get it. History, fiction, and cinema haven’t been all that kind for the last, oh, let me check my watch, few thousand years. There were thousands of badass women who never got their due, were swept aside and their stories buried because they didn’t fit the greater narrative that the established order wanted told. It sucks, and that sort of thing should be repaired.
So, when someone wants to make a major motion picture about Boudicca, sign me up. (And don’t even tell me it couldn’t make one hell of a badass movie.) And if you want to revise history to include the women who were typically left out of the story (a Deborah Samson biopic, maybe?), I will stand up and applaud. But really and truly, must we mess around with cherished fiction? Or legend so ancient and unsubstantiated that it might as well be fiction?
I know Marian and Guinevere mostly show up in the old legends as objects to be fought over or admired (or both), but the legends have existed for time out of mind. They’re part of our cultural fabric, and just about every schoolkid knows how the elements play out. God knows I spent many an hour in the late 70s and early 80s pouring over the old Howard Pyle volumes. Rewriting them just to badass-up the heroines to pass feminist muster just seems forced and excessive. It certainly serves as a “Oh no they di’n't!” from my childhood memories.
So, with apologies to my feminist friends, I’m drawing my own personal line, and asking the probably-impossible favor that Hollywood screenwriters a) tell a new story, b) keep political correctness out of the old stories without a damned good reason.
What do you think? Am I way off base, or not? Argue away!
I had a very brief discussion about this with Heather after we had dinner together in Chicago, and now that Crisitunity posted about it just yesterday, I wanted to talk a little bit about our boundaries when it comes to our blogs. I would love to hear what others have to say on the subject.
At first, Dys and I kept our blogs quite separate, and distinctly so, so we could feel free (or more free) to discuss our “damn that wo/man pisses me off” sorts of issues. In the end, the temptation to link to or comment on each other, particularly when we each felt the other had posted something funny or powerful, was too great.
But we freely acknowledge to each other that we sometimes regret that decision and/or contemplate starting another anonymous blog to give voice to those feelings. It’s partially out of respect for each other since we’ve not exactly gone public but nevertheless have presented not only ourselves but our spouse as “real” people who can easily be found and learned-about via reading the comments or a click in the sidebar rather than a nebulous and semi-abstract “other.” I think between the two of us we could acknowledge the right to (and often the necessity of) voicing those feelings. But beyond that, we’ve made a series of shared friends who now know us to a greater or lesser extent beyond the confines of our blogs, and out of respect for them, we hold back rather than put them in the middle of any little marital spats we may be having.
Sometimes it’s still damned tempting, and as I told Heather, I think sometimes those who know us well can sense that there’s something going on that we’re not saying but are too polite to pry. Well-mannered, our friends are.
It’s a difficult line to walk, and I wish I had a good answer – not just for Crisitunity, but for myself. I tend to err on the side that I believe is least likely to hurt anyone’s feelings, but as someone who’s significantly struggled with being open with his own feelings, I sometimes wonder if I’m making the correct decision.
Thoughts, opinions, valuable lessons learned from harsh experience?
Dys last night, venting about work after I got home from the gym:
“Mary got a cortisone shot in her injured arm and now she’s so nauseated she can barely move. Oh, and Susan is on the road back from vacation, so I had to cover for her, too. I had to be three people today.”
Sunday I was washing dishes and had the radio on in the kitchen, like I normally do. Usually I keep flipping the ten presets and whichever one is actually playing music, wins – until such time as they’re not playing music. (This usually results in a whole lot of preset-flipping. Have I mentioned how much I love my mp3 mix cds in my car?)
For whatever reason, maybe I was in the middle of washing a big pot or something, I actually caught a commercial this time. Once I heard the first few seconds, I actually had to listen to the end. I’m sure I’m not getting it all exactly right, but seriously folks, something VERY similar to this went out on the air.
Female voice: Size matters, size matters, size matters! Guys, you know that it’s really true – for us girls, size really does matter. And it’s not so much length – us ladies really like that full feeling that only comes with width and thickness. That’s why you should try [product]! [Product] is the only medication proven to increase width and thickness. We’re so convinced that you’ll love it that we’ll send you a free sample in the mail. Try [product] today, and find the self-confidence you’ve always wanted!
As I stood there, open-mouthed that such a thing would actually go out on the air…it was followed by a diamond commercial.
