I didn't even get to the queer stuff yesterday, did I? I probably won't get to it today either.
I'm going to talk about food.
I am also going to cheat on my five-chapter limit, but it's for good reason.
Here is Martin's description of a feast:
"The Great Hall of Winterfell was hazy with smoke and heavy with the smell of roasted meat and fresh-baked bread. Its grey stone walls were draped with banners. White, gold, crimson: the direwolf of Stark, Baratheon's crowned stag, the lion of Lannister. A singer was playing the high harp and reciting a ballad, but down at this end of the hall his voice could scarcely be heard above the roar of the fire, the clangor of pewter plates and cups, and the low mutter of a hundred drunken conversations."
Here is Anthony's description of a feast:
"The great hall of Calavere had been decorated to resemble a winter forest. Boughs of evergreen and holly hung from soot-blackened beams high above, and more had been heaped along the base of the walls. Their icy scent mingled with the smoke of torches. Leafless saplings stood in the corners of the hall, to suggest the edges of a sylvan glade, and even the tapestries on the walls added to the illusion with their scenes of stag hunts and forest revels, woven in colors made dim and rich with time."
What I'm getting from this is: If you are going to write epic fantasy, and you have to describe a feast, you must always start with "The great hall of X..."
But seriously. Where would you rather be? Winterfell or Calavere? My take on Martin - and one of the reasons I don't like him - is that his fantasyland is very generic. Who is the singer and how did he get there? What is he singing about? Who cares? It's a medieval feast, and they have bards and shit there, don't they?
It looks like I am going to get to queer stuff today after all.
One of the reasons Anthony is much more detailed in his description of castle life is because he has quite a few female characters. The king's ward practically runs the castle - including preparations for feasts. Who put together the Winterfell feast? The wife, whatsername, Catelyn? She doesn't seem to have much imagination. Or maybe it was planned out by a man. That would explain a lot.
Martin's female characters are annoying me five chapters (and one episode of the show) in. We have the supportive wife, the victimized child-bride, and the tomboy princess (though I have heard that the child-bride takes a level in badass later, so I promise I'll read a few more chapters after this rant). So - we have one woman whose strength is being married to a strong man and making him stronger, we have one woman who is completely dominated by the heteropatriarchy, and we have one who takes on a male role in order to gain power.
Anthony's world is also quite male-dominated, but he uses the patriarchy to ask questions about power and gender relations. He has not one but two queens, neither of which rule over a matriarchy. He has no crossdressers. And yes, the Witches are a big equalizing factor in his world, but it is not so much a matter of giving women power as giving women space. Martin has yet to pass the Bechdel test. Okay, so Anthony takes until chapter 9, and then it's a cryptic warning and not really a conversation, but once you get more than one female character, he really takes off.
So the reason I like Anthony and not Martin is that Anthony's writing is queer. I'm not talking about his order of gay knights, or his gay protagonist, or his representation of every letter in the LGBTQetc. acronym. Anthony is queer because he gives attention to issues of power and privilege, so that his almost stereotypical quest arc becomes fresh and exciting because it is seen through a different lens.
Now it's time for five more chapters of Martin. Maybe I'll have another rant by then.
Showing posts with label Criticism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Criticism. Show all posts
Saturday, August 11, 2012
Friday, August 10, 2012
Queering Epic Fantasy: A critical comparison between "Game of Thrones" and "Beyond the Pale." Part One.
If you're read any of my other posts on this blog, you know that I am obsessed with this obscure fantasy series by a guy named Mark Anthony (not the singer) called "The Last Rune." I am not unbiased.
But I can't stand Game of Thrones.
I don't know why. Sure, he has a massive cast, and I can't seem to care about any of them, and everyone in the prologue dies, and it's very hetero-European-centric. And it doesn't have a Dark Lord, while Anthony does, and there are certain storytelling conventions that make me think that Anthony was in some ways influenced by Martin (it's plausible - Thrones came out in 1996 and Pale was published in 1998). And we certainly cannot disregard the effect of nostalgia goggles.
So what is so different about the two books?
I have only read the first five chapters of Thrones, so I will limit my text citations of Anthony to the first five chapters of Beyond the Pale.
Let's start with the first line of the prologue.
Thrones: "We should start back," Gared urged as the woods began to grow dark around them. "The wildlings are dead."
Pale: The derelict school bus blew into town with the last midnight gale of October.
What can we deduce from this? Well, Thrones tells us immediately that there are going to be weird names of pseudo-European fantasyland tradition. Seriously, have you noticed that nearly every fantasy novel has a character named "Gareth"? "Gared" tells me that he is going to do a lot of re-spelling, which is possibly even more annoying than scrabble-bag names.
What else? Starting the story at dusk gives a sense of darkness and foreboding and spooky things; like the start of a horror movie. But WTF is a wildling? That's not explained until the next chapter; instead, the author spends a great deal of time describing the characters' clothes.
Now in Pale, we see we are in the real world with school buses and Octobers. We can see the scene, instead of trying to imagine some dude named Gared in some kind of wood with some other people. The question that keeps you reading, then, is not "What is going on?" but "Why is the school bus blowing into town at midnight?" Obviously, Martin does not have that luxury, but half the time I feel like he does not explain things enough, and the other half I am frustrated by him giving too much detail and name-dropping.
The rest of the prologues are as follows: In Thrones, the viewpoint is actually held by Will, but they all get killed by spooky zombie-things so it doesn't really matter; you never really get a sense of the characters, so you don't really care that they're dead. In Pale, a creepy preacher-like figure oversees a troupe of faerie-like beings raise a tent (for some reason my mental image always looks like that one scene in Dumbo) to host "Brother Cy's Travelling Salvation Show." You can tell no one here is a real viewpoint character; they are kept distant, mysterious, not someone you connect to but someone you wonder at. The prologue is quite different from the rest of the chapters; which is why it is a prologue and not a first chapter where everyone dies. Also, the preacher reappears in chapter two, so he isn't completely forgotten. He's relevant, just not a viewpoint character.
Now for the first line of Chapter One.
Thrones: The morning had dawned clear and cold, with a crispness that hinted at the end of summer.
Pale: Sometimes the wind blowing down from the mountains made Travis Wilder feel like anything could happen.
There's no contest here - a description of the weather, or an introduction into the main character's soul. Ugh, okay, I'll try for less bias. Autumn signifies dying things, and adds to the foreboding of the prologue. The chapter also details a seven year old boy witnessing his first execution, and so it can also signify and end to childhood innocence. But that's a cheap metaphor. Wind as a vehicle for infinite possibilities is not something you see every day.
Now, in the first five chapters of Thrones, there are five different viewpoint characters; I believe there are a total of seven in the book. In the first five of Pale, there is one, with a total of two main ones and a few glimpses of others in the climax toward the end.
On page one of Thrones, we are introduced to six characters: Bran, Robb, Mance Rayder, Old Nan, Jon, the man that gets killed. On page two we get Eddard Stark, Theon Greyjoy, Jory Cassel, and Robert. Also, I can't find anywhere that explicitly says that Robb is Bran's brother. Yes, there is a character list in the back, but I'm trying to get into the story, and I'm trying to focus on Bran, and there are all these names distracting me.
Pale does not introduce anyone besides Travis until three pages in, for a total of three: Travis, Moira Larsen, who is not important, and Max, who is. Moira Larsen is introduced as Travis, a saloonkeeper, is worried about being late for work and having to face irate patrons. Max is his one employee. I'm still fuzzy on who half the names in Thrones are.
I think the fundamental difference in the structure of the two books is that Martin takes a broad sweep of his story, introducing the setting and the people, and telling the story after the stage has been set. Anthony introduces Travis, and pulls him into the story once we know him.
Anthony is also quicker on the action. By the end of chapter five, we have already had our first incident, complete with fire and danger and strange beings. Prologue of Thrones does not count as an incident because it doesn't connect to a recurring character. Five chapters in, it looks like some kind of fantasyland family drama. It's a soap opera. The characters are shallow enough.
I have so much more to say on these books. So much that I think I'm going to break it up into multiple posts. Tomorrow: Feasts and castles! After that, I might actually get to the queer theory component.
But I can't stand Game of Thrones.
I don't know why. Sure, he has a massive cast, and I can't seem to care about any of them, and everyone in the prologue dies, and it's very hetero-European-centric. And it doesn't have a Dark Lord, while Anthony does, and there are certain storytelling conventions that make me think that Anthony was in some ways influenced by Martin (it's plausible - Thrones came out in 1996 and Pale was published in 1998). And we certainly cannot disregard the effect of nostalgia goggles.
So what is so different about the two books?
I have only read the first five chapters of Thrones, so I will limit my text citations of Anthony to the first five chapters of Beyond the Pale.
Let's start with the first line of the prologue.
Thrones: "We should start back," Gared urged as the woods began to grow dark around them. "The wildlings are dead."
Pale: The derelict school bus blew into town with the last midnight gale of October.
What can we deduce from this? Well, Thrones tells us immediately that there are going to be weird names of pseudo-European fantasyland tradition. Seriously, have you noticed that nearly every fantasy novel has a character named "Gareth"? "Gared" tells me that he is going to do a lot of re-spelling, which is possibly even more annoying than scrabble-bag names.
What else? Starting the story at dusk gives a sense of darkness and foreboding and spooky things; like the start of a horror movie. But WTF is a wildling? That's not explained until the next chapter; instead, the author spends a great deal of time describing the characters' clothes.
Now in Pale, we see we are in the real world with school buses and Octobers. We can see the scene, instead of trying to imagine some dude named Gared in some kind of wood with some other people. The question that keeps you reading, then, is not "What is going on?" but "Why is the school bus blowing into town at midnight?" Obviously, Martin does not have that luxury, but half the time I feel like he does not explain things enough, and the other half I am frustrated by him giving too much detail and name-dropping.
The rest of the prologues are as follows: In Thrones, the viewpoint is actually held by Will, but they all get killed by spooky zombie-things so it doesn't really matter; you never really get a sense of the characters, so you don't really care that they're dead. In Pale, a creepy preacher-like figure oversees a troupe of faerie-like beings raise a tent (for some reason my mental image always looks like that one scene in Dumbo) to host "Brother Cy's Travelling Salvation Show." You can tell no one here is a real viewpoint character; they are kept distant, mysterious, not someone you connect to but someone you wonder at. The prologue is quite different from the rest of the chapters; which is why it is a prologue and not a first chapter where everyone dies. Also, the preacher reappears in chapter two, so he isn't completely forgotten. He's relevant, just not a viewpoint character.
Now for the first line of Chapter One.
Thrones: The morning had dawned clear and cold, with a crispness that hinted at the end of summer.
Pale: Sometimes the wind blowing down from the mountains made Travis Wilder feel like anything could happen.
There's no contest here - a description of the weather, or an introduction into the main character's soul. Ugh, okay, I'll try for less bias. Autumn signifies dying things, and adds to the foreboding of the prologue. The chapter also details a seven year old boy witnessing his first execution, and so it can also signify and end to childhood innocence. But that's a cheap metaphor. Wind as a vehicle for infinite possibilities is not something you see every day.
Now, in the first five chapters of Thrones, there are five different viewpoint characters; I believe there are a total of seven in the book. In the first five of Pale, there is one, with a total of two main ones and a few glimpses of others in the climax toward the end.
On page one of Thrones, we are introduced to six characters: Bran, Robb, Mance Rayder, Old Nan, Jon, the man that gets killed. On page two we get Eddard Stark, Theon Greyjoy, Jory Cassel, and Robert. Also, I can't find anywhere that explicitly says that Robb is Bran's brother. Yes, there is a character list in the back, but I'm trying to get into the story, and I'm trying to focus on Bran, and there are all these names distracting me.
Pale does not introduce anyone besides Travis until three pages in, for a total of three: Travis, Moira Larsen, who is not important, and Max, who is. Moira Larsen is introduced as Travis, a saloonkeeper, is worried about being late for work and having to face irate patrons. Max is his one employee. I'm still fuzzy on who half the names in Thrones are.
I think the fundamental difference in the structure of the two books is that Martin takes a broad sweep of his story, introducing the setting and the people, and telling the story after the stage has been set. Anthony introduces Travis, and pulls him into the story once we know him.
Anthony is also quicker on the action. By the end of chapter five, we have already had our first incident, complete with fire and danger and strange beings. Prologue of Thrones does not count as an incident because it doesn't connect to a recurring character. Five chapters in, it looks like some kind of fantasyland family drama. It's a soap opera. The characters are shallow enough.
I have so much more to say on these books. So much that I think I'm going to break it up into multiple posts. Tomorrow: Feasts and castles! After that, I might actually get to the queer theory component.
Thursday, August 2, 2012
Feminist Fantasy: Alanna vs. Indigo
The other day I was in a used bookstore and I ran into Nocturne: Book Four of Indigo, by Louise Cooper (1990). Now, I've been spending the past several years off and on perusing secondhand bookstores for the Indigo series - I've only been able to get book 3 at a library. I picked the first one up on a whim at a used book store, and took about a year to get around to reading it. It was kind of like what happened a couple weeks ago when I woke up in the middle of the night needing to read some trashy B-fantasy. And I had Indigo on hand. And about a chapter in, I realized my mistake. This was not trashy at all.
The story starts with a princess who pulls a Pandora ("What's in this box that no one's ever, ever supposed to open?") and releases seven demons into the world, and condemns her boyfriend to eternal torment (or until the demons are destroyed) in the process. She is given one chance to redeem herself - the goddess grants her immortality, so she has all the time in the world to destroy the demons.
What I really love about the series is that it flips the traditional fairy-tale narrative on its head - the princess goes out and has adventures while the prince just sits in his tower. It's one of the few books I know of that has a strong female protagonist who is not involved in a love triangle. And the mutant wolf. Gotta love the mutant wolf.
There is more than one kind of feminist literature, however. When most people think of feminist fantasy, they think of Tamora Pierce (Actually, they probably think Katniss or Hermione, but for now we're going to pretend I'm right, 'kay?). Pierce's characters are always defying the patriarchy and breaking gender roles and confusing misogynists and saving the world blah blah blah.
I was big into Tamora Pierce back in middle school/high school, having started with the Circle of Magic quartet in elementary school from the book orders, moving on to The Immortals because the first book had ponies on the cover (Yeah. So?) and deciding to round out my repertoire with the author's first work, the Alanna books (Song of the Lioness, whatever).
Alanna is a princess (well, the daughter of a duke or a lord or something) who decides to switch places with her twin brother, disguising herself as a boy to go to knight school while he goes to magic school and becomes evil and gay.
Contrasting approaches to feminism in the abovementioned works:
1. The Strong Female Protagonist
Crossdressing. Girl dressing as boy still gives power to masculinity. Granted, she "comes out" as a woman in later books, and Pierce has a later series of an openly female knight, but crossdressing princesses still sends the message of "How does a woman get power in society? Become a man!"
Second point on the crossdressing note...it's just too damn convenient that she has a twin brother that she can switch places with. Too-convenient things in novels just bug me. And attributing it to divine intervention is cheating.
Indigo is a woman and it's not a big deal. It's fantasy, after all, so the pseudo-medieval world does not have to be a rabid patriarchy if you don't want it to be. Her gender is very rarely brought up. She becomes a strong female character by being strong and female, rather than strong despite being female. And yes, this route completely ignore relevant questions of gender roles, but it is still refreshing to have a woman character who is not defined by her woman-ness.
2. Relationship with men
Tamora Pierce may have invented magical birth control. The purpose of this was so that her characters could experience the sexual liberation that America was having by the 80's. The books make a big fuss over Alanna's sex life and the double standard regarding women and sexuality. And there's the love triangle with the prince and the rogue and blah blah blah.
Indigo has a boyfriend in hell. And she's a bit gloomy over missing him, and the fact that he's suffering - who wouldn't be? - but she spends remarkably little time brooding on it. And she doesn't get tempted into a love triangle with another man (and the fact that she's immortal would make temptation awkward, I imagine). There's a guy in book 3 who has a thing for her, but she's like "Uhh...no. It's complicated." Her love life is so much less important than slaying the demons.
3. Relationship with gods.
Okay, done with the hard-core feministy stuff. Moving on to the fantasy stuff.
Pierce's pantheon are all just so meddlesome. With Indigo, the god's function is to say "You fucked up. Go be immortal and fix it." And that's it. She's done her part, and stays out of it. With Alanna, the gods are constantly "Oh hey, go do this." "Why?" "I'm a god, don't argue. Here's a thing to help you." "What's this do?" "This gets you out of a situation later that the writer can't think of a proper resolution for."
4. Animal companions
Alanna has a stupid cat that does what now? It's basically just a mouthpiece for the gods; it's like that owl in the Legend of Zelda games, that shows up and tells you "Don't go to Kakariko village yet. You have to go to the castle first," even if you know perfectly well you can't move on in the game until you go the castle and get the ocarina, but maybe you just feel like completing the cucco quest to get a bottle first and you don't need a stupid owl telling you not to. Indigo has a freaking mutant telepathic wolf who has her own tragic backstory, and even though she falls a little flat as a character because she's just the supportive sidekick, she still has more motivation and personality than the stupid kitten who bullies the protagonist with plot advice.
So which do you prefer? Female protagonists that actively subvert the patriarchy? Or strong protagonists that just happen to be female?
I apologize if any of the information I gave on any of the books here is inaccurate. I haven't read Alanna or the early Indigo books in a few years.
I will say I honestly like the later Pierce books a lot more than the early ones. Maybe I'll do a post on that so you don't think I hate her. I really don't.
The story starts with a princess who pulls a Pandora ("What's in this box that no one's ever, ever supposed to open?") and releases seven demons into the world, and condemns her boyfriend to eternal torment (or until the demons are destroyed) in the process. She is given one chance to redeem herself - the goddess grants her immortality, so she has all the time in the world to destroy the demons.
What I really love about the series is that it flips the traditional fairy-tale narrative on its head - the princess goes out and has adventures while the prince just sits in his tower. It's one of the few books I know of that has a strong female protagonist who is not involved in a love triangle. And the mutant wolf. Gotta love the mutant wolf.
There is more than one kind of feminist literature, however. When most people think of feminist fantasy, they think of Tamora Pierce (Actually, they probably think Katniss or Hermione, but for now we're going to pretend I'm right, 'kay?). Pierce's characters are always defying the patriarchy and breaking gender roles and confusing misogynists and saving the world blah blah blah.
I was big into Tamora Pierce back in middle school/high school, having started with the Circle of Magic quartet in elementary school from the book orders, moving on to The Immortals because the first book had ponies on the cover (Yeah. So?) and deciding to round out my repertoire with the author's first work, the Alanna books (Song of the Lioness, whatever).
Alanna is a princess (well, the daughter of a duke or a lord or something) who decides to switch places with her twin brother, disguising herself as a boy to go to knight school while he goes to magic school and becomes evil and gay.
Contrasting approaches to feminism in the abovementioned works:
1. The Strong Female Protagonist
Crossdressing. Girl dressing as boy still gives power to masculinity. Granted, she "comes out" as a woman in later books, and Pierce has a later series of an openly female knight, but crossdressing princesses still sends the message of "How does a woman get power in society? Become a man!"
Second point on the crossdressing note...it's just too damn convenient that she has a twin brother that she can switch places with. Too-convenient things in novels just bug me. And attributing it to divine intervention is cheating.
Indigo is a woman and it's not a big deal. It's fantasy, after all, so the pseudo-medieval world does not have to be a rabid patriarchy if you don't want it to be. Her gender is very rarely brought up. She becomes a strong female character by being strong and female, rather than strong despite being female. And yes, this route completely ignore relevant questions of gender roles, but it is still refreshing to have a woman character who is not defined by her woman-ness.
2. Relationship with men
Tamora Pierce may have invented magical birth control. The purpose of this was so that her characters could experience the sexual liberation that America was having by the 80's. The books make a big fuss over Alanna's sex life and the double standard regarding women and sexuality. And there's the love triangle with the prince and the rogue and blah blah blah.
Indigo has a boyfriend in hell. And she's a bit gloomy over missing him, and the fact that he's suffering - who wouldn't be? - but she spends remarkably little time brooding on it. And she doesn't get tempted into a love triangle with another man (and the fact that she's immortal would make temptation awkward, I imagine). There's a guy in book 3 who has a thing for her, but she's like "Uhh...no. It's complicated." Her love life is so much less important than slaying the demons.
3. Relationship with gods.
Okay, done with the hard-core feministy stuff. Moving on to the fantasy stuff.
Pierce's pantheon are all just so meddlesome. With Indigo, the god's function is to say "You fucked up. Go be immortal and fix it." And that's it. She's done her part, and stays out of it. With Alanna, the gods are constantly "Oh hey, go do this." "Why?" "I'm a god, don't argue. Here's a thing to help you." "What's this do?" "This gets you out of a situation later that the writer can't think of a proper resolution for."
4. Animal companions
Alanna has a stupid cat that does what now? It's basically just a mouthpiece for the gods; it's like that owl in the Legend of Zelda games, that shows up and tells you "Don't go to Kakariko village yet. You have to go to the castle first," even if you know perfectly well you can't move on in the game until you go the castle and get the ocarina, but maybe you just feel like completing the cucco quest to get a bottle first and you don't need a stupid owl telling you not to. Indigo has a freaking mutant telepathic wolf who has her own tragic backstory, and even though she falls a little flat as a character because she's just the supportive sidekick, she still has more motivation and personality than the stupid kitten who bullies the protagonist with plot advice.
So which do you prefer? Female protagonists that actively subvert the patriarchy? Or strong protagonists that just happen to be female?
I apologize if any of the information I gave on any of the books here is inaccurate. I haven't read Alanna or the early Indigo books in a few years.
I will say I honestly like the later Pierce books a lot more than the early ones. Maybe I'll do a post on that so you don't think I hate her. I really don't.
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
Compulsory Heterosexulity in Fiddler on the Roof
It shows how much queer theory has been stuffed into my brain when I can’t even watch a musical without analyzing it. That being said, the Rosetown cast did a fantastic job, as always.
The first thing to do with any feminist critique is to measure female presence using the Bechdel test. “Fiddler,” despite having many important female characters, only barely passes. At the very end, during the exodus from Anatevka, the Matchmaker stops by Tevye’s house to tell Golde that she is moving to Jerusalem. Other than that, every single conversation is either with a man or about a man. Heck, there’s even a musical number about men.
Now let’s go through the daughters, because I’m not quite hard-core enough to go through the entire cast.
At first glance, the play seems pretty feminist-friendly. After all, the women are defying their father’s wishes in order to do what they want with their lives…regarding the man they marry. In other words, the women defy a male object by seeking another.
Tzeitel
Tzeitel’s act of defiance is to choose her own lover, the poor tailor, rather than marry the rich butcher her father picked out for her. How does she go about this? First she pressures Motel into telling her father. She can’t do it herself, obviously. Then, when her father announces her engagement to the butcher, she begs him not to force her, and he, being the benevolent patriarch, gives in. One has to wonder, though, what would have happened if he had not been so benevolent. Obviously, it is Tevye’s story of transformation, but if you change the perspective, it becomes a lot darker.
Tzeitel finally convinces her father to let her marry Motel, when Motel finally stands up to Tevye. His winning line is “Even a poor tailor deserves some happiness,” a line that was fed to him by Tzeitel. Does she get any credit for it? Of course not. A woman’s job is to stand behind her man, to support him in everything he does and do nothing for herself. But Motel’s so adorkable, we can forgive him.
Hodel
Hodel has a love at first fight kind of relationship with Perchik. She is certainly witty and clever enough to keep up with him. No one ever wonders if she could be a student, however. She can only marry one. She follows Perchik to Siberia to help him in his work with the Communist party, and this perhaps is a matter that is progressive for the times; she can only leave her hometown with/for a man, but she is leaving town, and of her own free will.
Perchik proposes in the most awkward manner possible, posing an abstract question about the economics of marriage, listing the benefits and bases thereof, to which Hodel keeps adding “And affection.” Because women are emotional and men are logical.
When it comes time to break the news to Tevye, who is initially against it, Hodel’s argument is “Papa, please!” Perchik’s argument is “We’re not asking for your permission. But we would like your blessing.” Hodel just goes with it. If her husband-to-be wants to ditch tradition completely, then so does she.
Chavaleh
Chavaleh commits the greatest transgression of all, running off with a gentile bookworm. I do like their courtship the best: “You like books. I like books. Here’s a book. You should read it, and then we can talk about it.” I feel like that’s going to be me someday. Anyway.
Chavaleh leaves behind her family, her culture, everything she has ever known, for a man. Granted, she’s supposed to be like, fifteen. So I’m sure it all makes perfect sense in her mind. Also, for having maybe five minutes of dialogue, Fyedka has more personality than Edward Cullen.
I should clarify that “compulsory heterosexuality” in Adrienne Rich’s sense is not just a lack of gay characters. Compulsory heterosexuality is the fairy tale ending, where the men and women are all paired off neatly and no one is supposed to want anything different. There are no widows, or spinsters, or lesbians. A woman’s primary relationship is with a man and not a woman - not her best girl friend or group of friends, not her sister or her mother or what have you.
In “Fiddler,” the one character who escapes compulsory heterosexuality is the matchmaker, ironically, whose function in society is to uphold compulsory heterosexuality. But I was going to focus on the daughters.
Tevye has five daughters (seven in Rosetown). Two have fates that are left unknown. All that we do know is that they move to America, and if Tevye thought he had a hard time holding onto tradition in Anatevka…
Now, following the logical progression of his daughters’ lives, I have predictions for the last two. One will remain single. She’ll go to college and become a lawyer or a business professional. Or she'll be a crazy artist hippie bum (or whatever the 1905 equivalent is); she’ll do something fulfilling with her life. And she might go on dates, or have sexual encounters with men, but she won’t settle down and marry one.
The other daughter is going to be a lesbian.
[I checked all the spellings of names on Wikipedia; if I got any wrong I apologize.]
The first thing to do with any feminist critique is to measure female presence using the Bechdel test. “Fiddler,” despite having many important female characters, only barely passes. At the very end, during the exodus from Anatevka, the Matchmaker stops by Tevye’s house to tell Golde that she is moving to Jerusalem. Other than that, every single conversation is either with a man or about a man. Heck, there’s even a musical number about men.
Now let’s go through the daughters, because I’m not quite hard-core enough to go through the entire cast.
At first glance, the play seems pretty feminist-friendly. After all, the women are defying their father’s wishes in order to do what they want with their lives…regarding the man they marry. In other words, the women defy a male object by seeking another.
Tzeitel
Tzeitel’s act of defiance is to choose her own lover, the poor tailor, rather than marry the rich butcher her father picked out for her. How does she go about this? First she pressures Motel into telling her father. She can’t do it herself, obviously. Then, when her father announces her engagement to the butcher, she begs him not to force her, and he, being the benevolent patriarch, gives in. One has to wonder, though, what would have happened if he had not been so benevolent. Obviously, it is Tevye’s story of transformation, but if you change the perspective, it becomes a lot darker.
Tzeitel finally convinces her father to let her marry Motel, when Motel finally stands up to Tevye. His winning line is “Even a poor tailor deserves some happiness,” a line that was fed to him by Tzeitel. Does she get any credit for it? Of course not. A woman’s job is to stand behind her man, to support him in everything he does and do nothing for herself. But Motel’s so adorkable, we can forgive him.
Hodel
Hodel has a love at first fight kind of relationship with Perchik. She is certainly witty and clever enough to keep up with him. No one ever wonders if she could be a student, however. She can only marry one. She follows Perchik to Siberia to help him in his work with the Communist party, and this perhaps is a matter that is progressive for the times; she can only leave her hometown with/for a man, but she is leaving town, and of her own free will.
Perchik proposes in the most awkward manner possible, posing an abstract question about the economics of marriage, listing the benefits and bases thereof, to which Hodel keeps adding “And affection.” Because women are emotional and men are logical.
When it comes time to break the news to Tevye, who is initially against it, Hodel’s argument is “Papa, please!” Perchik’s argument is “We’re not asking for your permission. But we would like your blessing.” Hodel just goes with it. If her husband-to-be wants to ditch tradition completely, then so does she.
Chavaleh
Chavaleh commits the greatest transgression of all, running off with a gentile bookworm. I do like their courtship the best: “You like books. I like books. Here’s a book. You should read it, and then we can talk about it.” I feel like that’s going to be me someday. Anyway.
Chavaleh leaves behind her family, her culture, everything she has ever known, for a man. Granted, she’s supposed to be like, fifteen. So I’m sure it all makes perfect sense in her mind. Also, for having maybe five minutes of dialogue, Fyedka has more personality than Edward Cullen.
I should clarify that “compulsory heterosexuality” in Adrienne Rich’s sense is not just a lack of gay characters. Compulsory heterosexuality is the fairy tale ending, where the men and women are all paired off neatly and no one is supposed to want anything different. There are no widows, or spinsters, or lesbians. A woman’s primary relationship is with a man and not a woman - not her best girl friend or group of friends, not her sister or her mother or what have you.
In “Fiddler,” the one character who escapes compulsory heterosexuality is the matchmaker, ironically, whose function in society is to uphold compulsory heterosexuality. But I was going to focus on the daughters.
Tevye has five daughters (seven in Rosetown). Two have fates that are left unknown. All that we do know is that they move to America, and if Tevye thought he had a hard time holding onto tradition in Anatevka…
Now, following the logical progression of his daughters’ lives, I have predictions for the last two. One will remain single. She’ll go to college and become a lawyer or a business professional. Or she'll be a crazy artist hippie bum (or whatever the 1905 equivalent is); she’ll do something fulfilling with her life. And she might go on dates, or have sexual encounters with men, but she won’t settle down and marry one.
The other daughter is going to be a lesbian.
[I checked all the spellings of names on Wikipedia; if I got any wrong I apologize.]
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