The Trouble with Tomboys

Eleven chapters into Game of Thrones now.  It's actually turning out to be quite tolerable.  I've only cursed at it twice since my last rant.

I did get to Arya, though.  The tomboy princess.  Which has sparked another rant.

Arya, you see, is terrible at embroidery, and all girly things. She is not conventionally pretty.  She is good at riding and math, and wants to learn to use a sword. 

Arya is a strongfemalecharacter written by a straightwhiteman.

I am not saying that straight white men cannot write strong female characters - case in point Joss Whedon.  But there are a few things to keep in mind when writing them.

1.  Don't define them solely by their femininity

Arya's main defining characteristic is that she is a girl who likes boy things.  This is the same problem I have with crossdressing - the strongfemalecharacter is strong because she takes on a masculine role.  That is not feminism.  All that does is reinforce gender binaries and male supremacy.

2.  Don't ignore her femininity

The fact that Arya has to be bad at embroidery to be good with a sword (presumeably) bothers me.  I crochet.  I also fence.  You can have both!  This goes back to the binary - because Arya likes boy things, she can't like girl things.  I am also irked by the fact that no writer has ever had the balls to go ahead and make the princess a transman.  Or at least a dyke.  Something other than falling prey to compulsory heterosexuality.

Okay, yes, Arya lives in a patriarchal medieval society, and I think she ends up in an arranged marriage later, so I'm going to set her aside for a moment and look at other tomboy princesses.

1.  Eilonwy, from the Prydain Chronicles, by Lloyd Alexander

Eilonwy is also better at swordplay than embroidery - at least, she has more fun with it.  She is not played off as a master swordswoman, though; she just likes adventuring.  And she's fun.  She's the sharp-tongued, practical wit, who comes up with weird analogies for everything.  Arya is a girl who likes boy things.  See the difference? 

In the end, though, Eilonwy marries Taran out of literary convention. 

2.  Suzy Turquoise Blue, from The Keys to the Kingdom, by Garth Nix

Suzy's also kind of an Eilonwy.  Not a princess, though.  More practical than witty, and wonderfully irreverent.  She is not girly, but not because she is masculine.  She just is.

And actually, she doesn't hook up with anyone.  Then again, she's like ten, and it's a kids book.

3.  Elayne, from The Wheel of Time, by Robert Jordan

I could also have gone with Egwene, but I'm trying to stick with the princess theme.  She becomes a badass mother (no, literally), queen, and mage.  All perfectly within her reach as a princess, without crossdressing or being "masculine."  Though she does start swearing like a soldier to get man-cred.

Sort averts CH?  There's some polyamory going on.

4.  Isodel, from Year of the Griffin, by Diana Wynne Jones

I'm reaching a little with this one.  Isodel is conventionally pretty and unconventionally badass.  I mean, she rides a dragon.  Not as part of a scheme to save the world, he just kind of fell platonically in love with her.  Everyone kind of falls in love with her.

She falls in love at first sight with Emperor Titus.  It's Jones, so it's sort of a parody. All of her romantic subplots go like, pretty much.  No fuss, no bother.

5.  Millie, from The Lives of Christopher Chant, by Diana Wynne Jones

Technically a priestess/goddess rather than a princess.  Very powerful enchantress.  Decides to escape oppressive temple life to become a British schoolgirl. Can you get much girlier than that?

Marries Christopher when they are much older.

6.  Everyone with a vagina (and then some!) in The Last Rune, by Mark Anthony

Seriously.  There are two queens in book one, neither of which rule over a matriarchy (I think it's insulting to say that the only way a woman can rule is if the ruler has to be a woman).  Plus, the main female lead gets mistaken for a duchess, and is bad at embroidery because she is from the modern world where people don't do that anymore, not because she rejects feminine things; and her best friend is a baroness who practically runs a castle as part of her gender role, helps the heros save the world a million times, and eventually becomes a queen in her own right.  Not to mention that there are female VILLAINS.  I mean, how awesome is it that you have so many strong female characters that you don't worry that having female villains is going to put a negative portrayal of women in your book?

Aryn, the baroness, has to marry a prince to become queen, but it is also clear that he had to marry her for the populace to accept him as king, and the Final Battle is coming so they need a strong leader NOW.  They don't love each other, but it's implied they learn to like each other.

7.  Rapunzel from Tangled

Yeah, it's a movie.  It's also past midnight and I did not start out intending to make a top ten list.  I think I'll cut it at eight.  But she's a flippin' Disney princess - girly girl icon.  But she has personality beyond her gender, and she is interesting and fun.  Also, remember what I said about female villains?

So she marries a prince in the end.  It's a Disney movie.  And they actually had good chemistry, as opposed to, say, Arial, who never actually talked to her prince. 

8.  Tek, from the Firebringer Trilogy, by Meredith Ann Pierce

Yeah, I'm really tired now.  Tek's a unicorn princess.  Actually, she's not actually a princess, but she marries a prince.  And then she finds out she's actually the king's daughter, and they have an incest scare, but then it turns out the prince isn't the king's son (sorry, spoiler).  She's a badass warrior, kind of Nala-like in that she can kick the prince's ass (hmm, Nala's another good one), but unicorn society doesn't exactly have gender roles, so in-universe, her warrior skills have nothing to do with her female-ness.  Out of 'verse, however, they give her traditionally masculine characteristics, while the prince is the more "feminine" sensitive peacemaker type.  But it's not over-the-top, and I like her.

Like I said, marries the prince.  CompHet.  It's not a married-ever-after, though; it happens at the beginning of book 2.  So they have an actual relationship as a married couple.

I need to stop now before I stop making sense.  Basically, Arya bugs me because she is flat, and Martin doesn't know how to write women.  The End.

Queering Epic Fantasy - Anthony vs. Martin, Part 2

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.

Why America is Number One

Disclaimer:  The title is sarcastic.

I've been watching a lot of Olympics lately - that's the only sort of sports this hipster will watch.  And yeah, the idea that if we all get together and play sports every four/two years, we'll get rid of war and all live together in peace is stupid and naive.  But I like that (for the most part), the Olympics are a time when the world can gather together and celebrate our common humanity by kicking each other's asses at sports.

Watching the Olympics, it's hard not to notice that America always gets the most medals (unless China beats us).  It's great for our national pride and convincing us that we are simply better than other countries.  Obviously, that's not true, but it still begs the question, why does America win at everything (except table tennis and handball)?

1.  Size

First of all, America is a big country.  Note that our main rival in the medal count is China.  If, say, 1% of the world's population is a potential Olympic athlete, then there are going to be a lot more in the USA than say, Grenada (who just won their first Olympic medal thanks to runner Kirani James).

So then why is India not up there in the medal count, while countries like Germany, Japan, and of course Great Britain, are?  The answer, with my new background in queer theory and attention to marginalization issues, is simple.

2.  Economics

Now, hold on a second, my patriotic fellow citizens object.  Money can't buy talent!  Well, no...but it takes money to foster talent.  It takes money to be able to have the leisure time to practice a sport, rather than try to eke out a living.  It takes money to buy equipment, and it takes money to hire a coach.  It takes more money to hire a better coach.  The American runner with no legs?  A wonderful success story, but what do those prosthetics cost in a country that until recently had no federal healthcare?

[Edit:  I'm stupid.  He's from South Africa.  A white man from South Africa.  So concepts of racial and economic privilege still apply; just ignore what I said about healthcare.]
3.  The Land of Opportunity?

American also attracts athletes and coaches from other countries.  Did you hear about the Cameroonians who went missing?  Cameroon has an estimated 30% unemployment rate.  Can you blame them for wanting to get the hell out?  Also, there is a recurring story of "This athlete trains in the US, but competes with her/his home country for the Olympics."  I believe that is the case with Kirani James.  I wonder, though, how many athletes don't go back to their home country?  How many coaches take jobs in America because that is where they can get the best facilities and the most economic support?

I started out with a very pessimistic intent to claim that America was buying Olympic gold, and that the world has been corrupted by unchecked capitalism (don't get me wrong, I love capitalism, but no system is perfect).  But it occurred to me that yes, we have better economic opportunities for athletes than other countries - and is that really so terrible?  I'm fully cynical when it comes to the American dream, but we have created a country where it is relatively easy to become an Olympic athlete, as long as you have the talent and the drive.  And certainly we have people held back by economic circumstances even within this country (again, cynical of American dream), but the fact that we have as much space as we do to create Olympic athletes...it really doesn't seem so terrible, from that angle.

So what am I to do?  I suppose that if warring countries can compete side-by-side peacefully, I can let my cynicism and idealism coexist peacefully.

Now it's time to go back to watching the Games.  And the Croatian water polo team.  (Yes, I'm a lesbian, but those speedos...LOL.)

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.]