Mood:
suaveBack in June, the air was chilly, the furnace was running full time and everyone was wearing sweaters. Now it's October, there's thunder and lightning outside, and the a/c just kicked on.
Checking to see if I live in the Southern hemisphere. (Update: no)
****
Well. It never occurred to me until just recently - maybe it was seeing the Pope Joan movie trailer that triggered this - but Pope Joan and Eowyn have quite a lot in common. For example:
1) Both live in feudal societies subject to periodic disruption and invasion, where strength and bravery are valued more than literacy.
2) Both long to play active roles in traditionally male arenas (battle, for Eowyn; and knowledge, for Joan).
3) Both are frustrated by the constraints of their expected roles, and the barriers placed around them simply because of their gender.
4) Both disguise themselves as men to overcome this barrier.
5) Both find true love flowering tenderly amidst all the darkness, pain, and chaos.
6) Both fall for a gentle, sensitive, understanding, shining-armor type nobleman, played by David Wenham.
Now, before you go cutting off your hair and donning a fake beard and football pads in the hopes of attracting a chivalrous, auburn-haired swain...
...which reminds me, did you know there's a breed of chicken called Gingernut Ranger?
It's a variety of Rhode Island Red noted for its valor in battle.
Where was I? Oh yes, I was about to pound my shoe on the table and reiterate how wondrous points 5 and 6 above are: the clever girl gets the guy. And not just any old pocket-protector-wearing, squeaky-voiced Melvin, either. The real deal: the ripped, courtly, sensitive warrior who can hack a Burgudian garrison to pieces while keeping a baby chick warm in his helmet.
Why is this so awesome? Because for eons, the first lesson taught to writers at Cliche University has been: Men don't make passes at girls who wear glasses. In the vast majority of movies and books, the blue-ribbon romantic pair is Ken and Barbie, not Poindexter and Edna. Ken and Barbie embrace in the sunset, and we're supposed to admire them, sigh over them, fantasize about their beautiful white wedding. Scrawny Poindexter and brainy Edna lock lips, and we're meant to say "Oh, isn't that cute? They think they're people". The storyline convinces us these rigid pairings are just the natural order of things. (Occasionally they'll mix up the rules, just to be daring: Poindexter gets jiggy with Barbie, or Poindexter and Ken shack up together. But Ken rarely finds romantic sparks with Edna. Girl geeks on screen must always be portrayed as strange, isolated, and sexually unappealing.)
In stories, especially fairy tales and comic books, smart or boyish-looking girls nearly always get relegated to the romantic sidelines: think Velma from Scooby Doo or George from the Nancy Drew series. Or they get paired up with odd specimens, like Big Ethel and Jughead from Archie. The prom king and queen slow-dance in the spotlight and live happily ever after, but the nerd romance gets accorded lesser, comic status. Even in LOTR, I'm afraid, it seemed to me on first read that Tolkien sort of "married off" Faramir and Eowyn to each other because they were both damaged goods, and we were really meant to be wistfully envious of the perfect Arwen-Aragorn relationship. And yet I was far more interested in what went on between Faramir and Eowyn. Their love came across as more real, more vibrant. You could imagine them actually keeping house together. Arwen and Aragorn, with their grand, remote, fairy-tale love, seemed more like statues (of course, it didn't help that most of their courtship was buried in Appendix A).
In Pope Joan, Joan gets the primary, not the secondary romance, all to herself, which makes it even more of a daring celebration of female intelligence than Lord of the Rings. Gerold loves her because of, not in spite of, her spunkiness, her quick mind, her passion for learning. I like Better Than Sex for the same reason: the entire film is devoted to the passionate love affair between two quirky, average urban hipster-geeks with lumps and warts and freckles and love handles. Cyn is allowed to be sassy and smart and strong. Josh is allowed to have moments of insecurity. I remember reading a complaint about BTS from one unsatisfied (male) viewer who objected to the premise, saying "Why would anyone want to watch ugly people having sex?" He misses the point: the real sexual heat gets kindled by Josh and Cyn's minds, not their bodies.
Luckily, real life and love are messy and don't follow the Hollywood cliche playbook. Men and women aren't so neatly categorizable into Ken/Poindexter/Barbie/Edna boxes, and nearly everyone finds confidence and smarts and independence to be attractive in both sexes. Still, it is interesting to reflect on why Hollywood clings to this trope. Why does it feel so refreshingly upside-down when the independent-minded tomboy, the anti-princess, snags herself a medieval honey?
Perhaps the film will bring us more answers.
And so, having pondered this, I must mosey off now....Poindexter Ken is in the kitchen, preparing a lavish dinner. Besides, my fake beard is itching.
