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noWizardme
Half-elven
Dec 31 2013, 1:09pm
Post #1 of 29
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Cory Doctorow: "Genderswitched Bilbo makes The Hobbit a better read"
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Here's an interesting and debatable idea: going along with a small girl's insistence that Bilbo is a girl, an adult reads her the story switching all Bilbo -referring pronouns to the female, and enjoys the result. Mr Doctorow's thoughts about female characters in fiction (especially in childrens fiction) follow:
http://boingboing.net/...bilbo-makes-the.html
Doctorow is commenting in turn on this article, by Michelle Nijhuis (whose daughter's instance on a girl Bilbo started this off...)http://www.lastwordonnothing.com/...one-weird-old-trick/
I can think of at least 2 things which would be fun to discuss here. Firstly, the whole idea of making such a personal editorial change - is that something you might do yourself; or would never do?
Secondly, I was struck by the assertion that a female Bilbo makes the story "better". Naturally, I wonder: does he like the story better that way or mean that the story is better whether anyone likes it or not, or that he feels better for changing the story; or that the changed story; or that the changed story is one which will make its readers better? It's not entirely clear which he means, or indeed whether he means all of them at once.
Personally, I can imagine Bilbo as a female - there isn't, it seems to me, anything essentially male (or essentially female) which Bilbo must do. I find it easier to imagine a female Bilbo than, say a female Beowulf. Part of Doctorow's pleasure at the genderswitch is that "perhaps most importantly, she never makes an issue of her gender -- and neither does anyone else." A sort of Lt Uhura character then? Lt Uhura (a character in the original Star Trek series) is, within the plot of the series, the Communications Officer and fourth in command of a starship. She was cast as a not only a woman, but a black one also (she was played by Nichelle Nichols). Mostly - from memory - nobody within the fictional universe thinks this at all remarkable. Uhura is simply a highly competent starfleet officer, and consequently promoted to Chief Communications Officer. It's worth remembering that she first appeared in a show aired in 1966, at which time a woman in a position of such authority - let alone a black woman - was far into the future in real life America, as it was elsewhere. Perhaps that making-it-unremarkable was a better way of handling things than making a big deal of her gender and race within the show.
This does make me think of what has been niggling me about the character Tauriel in the Hobbit Desolation of Smaug film. Personally I don't object to an inserted character, not a female Captain of the Guard, nor again to Evangaline Lilly's portrayal. What I disliked was yet another female character put into a position of power who then throws it all up when the possibility of a romance comes along. In films, you can have the ambition, ability, character and loyalty to make Captain of the Guard, Queen of Naboo ,or Princess of Alderaan and a member of the Imperial Senate. You shoot a few people on screen or get in there with your elfsword to establish that you are "kick-ass" then lose all that & revert to a more traditional female role when the romantic lead turns up. Yes, "give it all up to be with Mr/Ms Right" does sometimes happen (to women and to men) in real life - but I'm a bit bored with it happening so often to the female characters. Grrr.
It's interesting to read on to that Michelle Nijhuis article which Doctorow quotes (http://www.lastwordonnothing.com/...one-weird-old-trick/ ). Ms Nijhuis proposes applying a "Finkbeiner test" to stories. I had to look that up:
The Finkbeiner test is a checklist proposed by journalist Christie Aschwanden to help journalists avoid gender bias in articles about women in science. To pass the test, an article about a female scientist must not mention:
The fact that shes a woman
Her husbands job
Her child care arrangements
How she nurtures her underlings
How she was taken aback by the competitiveness in her field
How shes such a role model for other women
How shes the "first woman to..."
Aschwanden formulated the test in an article in Double X Science, an online science magazine for women, on March 5, 2013.[2] She did so in response to what she considered was a type of media coverage of women scientists that:
"treats its subjects sex as her most defining detail. Shes not just a great scientist, shes a woman! And if shes also a wife and a mother, those roles get emphasized too."
Aschwanden created the test in the spirit of the Bechdel test, which is used to indicate gender bias in fiction. She named the test after fellow journalist Ann Finkbeiner, who had written a story[3] about her decision not to write about the subject of her latest article, an astronomer, "as a woman."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finkbeiner_test
(I was confusing it with the The Bechdel test, silly me):
The Bechdel test asks whether a work of fiction features at least two women who talk to each other about something other than a man. Many contemporary works fail this test of gender bias.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bechdel_test
Though that is quite interesting - Hobbit and LOTR fail the Bechdel test, but don't lack for strong female characters such as Galadriel & Eowyn who do well in the Finkbeiner....
(Probably I should make clear that I'm not personally proposing that all stories must pass such tests, or that only stories which do are good. )
BTW - both the Doctorow and Nijhuis articles feature a lovely picture of Bilbo-as-a-girl by artist "Lanimalu". Worth a look just for that.
Disclaimers: The words of noWizardme may stand on their heads! I'm often wrong about things, and its fun to be taught more....
"nowimė I am in the West, Furincurunir to the Dwarves (or at least, to their best friend) and by other names in other lands. Mostly they just say 'Oh no it's him - look busy!' "
Or "Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!"
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squire
Half-elven
Dec 31 2013, 3:49pm
Post #2 of 29
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Nijhuis' experiment has meaningless results, as far as determining whether a female Bilbo makes the story 'better'. After all, take his revelation and turn it back again. In Doctorow's quoted passage below, I've resubstituted the male pronouns and assumptions for his seemingly-heretical female ones:
Bilbo, it turns out, makes a terrific hero. Hes tough, resourceful, humble, funny, and uses his wits to make off with a spectacular piece of jewelry. Perhaps most importantly, he never makes an issue of his genderand neither does anyone else.
Yawn. Bilbo - whether male or female - is simply a great character. More to the point, he has the essentially androgynous nature of any hero of a children's story, where adult sex and gender issues have no importance to the child who is listening to or reading the story. This same non-remarkable substitution could be applied to Dorothy of The Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland, Pippi Longstocking, Nancy Drew, or Harriet the Spy, to name a few of the nominally "girls'" adventure stories that I as a young boy consumed without caring about the girliness of the protagonist.
And the idea of Bilbo being functionally androgynous - which is what Nijhuis and Doctorow are apparently surprised to have discovered - is hardly new to those who have studied and written about The Hobbit. One of my favorite books of Tolkien criticism is William H. Green's The Hobbit: A Journey Into Maturity (Twane, 1995). Before he begins his own analysis, Green carefully recapitulates the earlier critical work on the book; note the following comments:
Lois R. Kuznet's 1981 "Tolkien and the Rhetoric of Childhood" analyzes The Hobbit as a contribution to "The great tradition of the British children's classic." ... Kuznets praises Bilbo as an androgynous childlike hero who appeals to both boys and girls in elementary school, the period of sexual latency.
Katharyn Crabbe's reading of The Hobbit in her 1981 [biography] J. R. R. Tolkien is at first condescending, then generous. ... She interprets the ring and sword as gender symbols, the hero as androgynous.
Note that both of the above authors were writing in the same year, minimizing the possibility that one got her perceptions from the other; also that the two writers are female. Now in Green's own writing he brings this subject up in a way I've never forgotten. In his section subtitled "A Storm and the Absence of Women" (pp. 66-68), he points out that Tolkien's adventure in the Alps with rolling boulders and rockslides - the model for the dwarves' crossing of the Misty Mountains - was led by "his botanist aunt". He comments:
...this suggests one obvious way of dealing with the absence of women in The Hobbit. Perhaps figures who would ordinarily have been women have been fictionally costumed and recast as men, without wholly losing their original character. ... The submerged feminine is particularly implicit in Gandalf, who doubles as a surrogate mother and father to Bilbo and performs the transforming function that Jung attributes to a man's inner feminine image, or "anima." ... Mythologically speaking, we find Erich Neumann emphasizing the gender ambiguity of wizard figures. After noting their originally feminine character, Neumann says, "Even in a later period the male shaman or seer is in high degree 'feminine,' since he is dependent on his anima aspect. And for this reason he often appears in woman's dress."
...
It is possible to make too much of this, for even as characters act out the absent feminine, they remain literally male. Nevertheless, beyond being called he, Bilbo is scarcely more masculine than Dorothy. Though marginal female figures do appear in The Lord of the Rings, Bilbo's starkly womanless adventures can be explained by an unconscious or half-conscious pattern of alternation, pronoun shifts, and minor costume changes to "masculate" characters whose roles might suit actresses better than actors. Female readers may identify with characters who transcend masculine pronouns and act out "feminine" traits.
Indeed, what is macho in The Hobbit is bad. Androgyny, a blend of masculine and feminine traits, is the hobbit-hero's character. ... Courage is essential, and Bilbo is not lacking it, but the androgynous hero's courage (like Dorothy's when she defends her dog from the Cowardly Lion, who has defeated her companions) is a response to human necessity, not an act of gratuitous masculine will. Bilbo cooperates and shares; he does not compete to establish personal dominance. His most powerful stance is invisibility, not the claiming of territory. Like Bilbo, Tolkien's true military heroes fight reluctantly and only to the extent needed to protect themselves and the good. Violence is justified by the ideal of peace. Bilbo, with courage and wisdom "blended in measure", is concerned at the end not with treasure but with "going home soon."
Now, I don't want to put Doctorow or Nijhuis down for not having read enough Hobbit scholarship! What does depress me about their writing are two things that show a fairly superficial take on this issue. One, they define the female Bilbo's heroism in male terms, as I showed when I double-reversed their definition of how a female Bilbo "works brilliantly". Two, they apparently feel compelled to assert that one gender is "better" than another -- that a character must be either female or male and that a story or a body of literature doesn't succeed unless there is a politically correct ratio between the genders.
squire online:
RR Discussions: The Valaquenta, A Shortcut to Mushrooms, and Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit
Lights! Action! Discuss on the Movie board!: 'A Journey in the Dark'. and 'Designing The Two Towers'.
Footeramas: The 3rd (and NOW the 4th too!) TORn Reading Room LotR Discussion; and "Tolkien would have LOVED it!"
squiretalk introduces the J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia: A Reader's Diary
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noWizardme
Half-elven
Dec 31 2013, 5:31pm
Post #3 of 29
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Why, it's "better" because it's the same! ?? :) - I think?
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Thanks for that wonderful reply, Squire!
I do agree with your points that :
1) a lot of heroic virtues are genderless (perhaps all)
2) the audience can identify with a well-written hero, without needing to share a gender (or species!) with that hero.
I'm not sure about that "better". But I my reading of those articles goes:
1) Discover that making Bilbo "a girl" does no violence to the story - interesting (re)discovery.
2) {implicit deduction} The one that you point out Squire - a lot of heroic virtues (and probably also villainous vices) are not gender-specific.
3) {thinks} - what a shame then that, statistically a lot of heroes are male-with-female-virtues and not the other way around {because of assumption} audiences will see certain kinds of heroism as gender-specific and {point of view} this would be a bad thing for society.
I might be missing the authors' point here, but this is how I read it.
Disclaimers: The words of noWizardme may stand on their heads! I'm often wrong about things, and its fun to be taught more....
"nowimė I am in the West, Furincurunir to the Dwarves (or at least, to their best friend) and by other names in other lands. Mostly they just say 'Oh no it's him - look busy!' "
Or "Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!"
(This post was edited by Altaira on Dec 31 2013, 7:20pm)
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Rembrethil
Tol Eressea
Dec 31 2013, 5:48pm
Post #4 of 29
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Just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should.
I think that they have failed to prove any improvement, and have merely elaborated upon a child's error, giving it false grounding. If she, or anyone, were to read the 'improved version' and take it as the 'real' story, she/they would be worse off in any intellectual discussion of the material. If she/they were to try to discourse at any length upon it, her/their ignorance and misconception would become apparent, and she/they would be ridiculed.
In the larger conception of the Legendarium, they would also be frustrated. Perhaos too, some of the authorial intent would be lost. JRR was concerned with much of the literary impact of works, not as much thier historical validity. We might lose the intended message!! To me, it seems a bit like censorship and revision of an artistic work, I won't go too far into that debatable quagmire, but I will statw a brief opinion:
Where accuracy is the goal, revision is fine, needed even. If you have to censor something maybe you should look for an alternative, that will work better as whole. In an artistic work, why are we trying to change the message? It seems a bit disrespectful to the artist. We can have our own opinions and interpretations, but let's use our own voices to air them, and not borrow the artist's.
Call me Rem, and remember, not all who ramble are lost...Uh...where was I?
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Darkstone
Immortal
Dec 31 2013, 6:01pm
Post #5 of 29
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For me, at least, I've always taken Bilbo's adventure as a midlife crisis.
Of course females have midlife crises too, but Bilbo's seems to be particularly male, which is why I tend to more and more identify with his adventure, and with Frodo's, as I get older.
As for changing him to a little girl, it would be just as jarring as changing him to a little boy.
******************************************
May 1910: The Nine Kings assembled at Buckingham Palace for the funeral of Edward VII.
(From left to right, back row: Haakon VII of Norway, Ferdinand I of Bulgaria, Manuel II of Portugal, Wilhelm II of Germany, George I of Greece, and Albert I of Belgium. Front row: Alphonso XIII of Spain, George V of England, and Frederick VIII of Denmark.)
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noWizardme
Half-elven
Dec 31 2013, 6:08pm
Post #6 of 29
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That's interesting! I'd assumed that "girl" meant that a female Bilbo had been substituted, not that the character had gone pre-pubescent too!
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For small females of my acquaintance, any woman is a "girl": finer age distinctions come later than the 5 years old of the reader ("readee"?) at the start of this
Disclaimers: The words of noWizardme may stand on their heads! I'm often wrong about things, and its fun to be taught more....
"nowimė I am in the West, Furincurunir to the Dwarves (or at least, to their best friend) and by other names in other lands. Mostly they just say 'Oh no it's him - look busy!' "
Or "Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!"
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noWizardme
Half-elven
Dec 31 2013, 6:29pm
Post #7 of 29
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"Mid life crisis"? That's right, I think. Why do I understand this more as time goes by?//
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Disclaimers: The words of noWizardme may stand on their heads! I'm often wrong about things, and its fun to be taught more....
"nowimė I am in the West, Furincurunir to the Dwarves (or at least, to their best friend) and by other names in other lands. Mostly they just say 'Oh no it's him - look busy!' "
Or "Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!"
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Darkstone
Immortal
Dec 31 2013, 6:49pm
Post #8 of 29
(1397 views)
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...Gandalf choosing Lobelia to go on the adventure, and later on Bilbo is thrown into the Lockholes for beating the Ruffian leader with his umbrella.
Ah, the road not taken!
******************************************
May 1910: The Nine Kings assembled at Buckingham Palace for the funeral of Edward VII.
(From left to right, back row: Haakon VII of Norway, Ferdinand I of Bulgaria, Manuel II of Portugal, Wilhelm II of Germany, George I of Greece, and Albert I of Belgium. Front row: Alphonso XIII of Spain, George V of England, and Frederick VIII of Denmark.)
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Lily Fairbairn
Half-elven
Dec 31 2013, 7:58pm
Post #9 of 29
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I realize this is tangential to the point of your post---I've enjoyed reading it and the responses to it. I well remember how when I first read LotR at the age of 16, back when there was no such thing as a kick-you-know-what heroine, I was thrilled beyond measure when Eowyn pulled off her helmet at the Pelennor Fields. Wow! Molds shattered!
Nowadays the inclusion of Tauriel in DoS seems less like breaking a mold than adhering to it. Gotta have the woman warrior. Check.
One reason I'm not thrilled with the Tauriel-Kili romance angle (or triangle) is because it's unnecessary and devolves into cliche. Her motive for heading out on her own was to chase down the orcs. She (mildly) upbraids Thranduil for just standing by and letting squads of orcs roam around Mirkwood. She threatens the captured orc but Thranduil sends her away, leaving her resentful.
She may have sent a glance or two after Kili when he was wounded at the water-gate, but I never got the feeling it was to follow him that she left home. She was about to leave him to his fate there in Laketown until Bofur turned up with the athelas. Then she saw a way of proving her strength and her worth---with the happy side-effect helping the appealing little dwarf.
This is just my interpretation, of course, but I believe it's internally consistent with Jackson's movie-verse.
BTW, I agree that if Bilbo were female, he'd still be a fifty-year-old woman. Just switching his gender doesn't mean demoting him from his maturity. But don't get me started on the tendency even today to call any woman of any age a "girl". Calling an adult man a boy has to do with issues of status and dominance, not age.
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noWizardme
Half-elven
Dec 31 2013, 9:23pm
Post #10 of 29
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Fair enough - it's certainly established that Tauriel is also in opposition to the King's isolationist policy. A tricky position- His Majesty does not seem all that democratically inclined. Not sure that deserting her post right after her prisoners have escaped is a good way of running on that platform.
Still, good mentors in the form of Galadriel and Gandalf are nearby- maybe I'll like what happens in film 3!
Disclaimers: The words of noWizardme may stand on their heads! I'm often wrong about things, and its fun to be taught more....
"nowimė I am in the West, Furincurunir to the Dwarves (or at least, to their best friend) and by other names in other lands. Mostly they just say 'Oh no it's him - look busy!' "
Or "Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!"
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Lily Fairbairn
Half-elven
Dec 31 2013, 9:49pm
Post #11 of 29
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...will like what happens in film 3, given Jackson's tendency to over-do! We shall see how he handles Tauriel's desertion of her post, whether it's a cheap plot-twist or a moral issue, then.
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demnation
Rohan
Dec 31 2013, 11:21pm
Post #12 of 29
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Is usually my response to these types of things. It's still the same here. Making such an editorial change is not something I would do, since I would much rather push forward and support the new things that are trying to make a difference ( ie The Hunger Games) rather than going back and trying to rectify supposed flaws in older work. I personally don't find TH to be more inherently interesting or "better " ( I thought gender equality was about equality, not one winning over the other) because Bilbo is male, nor would I if he was female. Of course, I don't find TH to be interesting or good in general, but that's another issue.
Without the high and noble the simple and vulgar is utterly mean; and without the simple and ordinary the noble and heroic is meaningless
As far as any character is 'like me' it is Faramirexcept that I lack what all my characters possess: Courage.
A small knowledge of history depresses one with the sense of the everlasting mass and weight of human iniquity
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noWizardme
Half-elven
Jan 1 2014, 1:27pm
Post #13 of 29
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Characters and agendas - from Tauriel tangents back to the OP subject
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This Tauriel tangent has given me a helpful perspective from which to see my original post.
I suppose that, fundamentally, all characters have the secret agenda of helping the storyteller tell the story - but a good storyteller keeps this hidden from view, because we the audience want compelling characters whose concerns we can identify with. If we start seeing them as agents of the storyteller and his/her agenda, the story can lose its appeal.
Of course, the point at which any particular member of the audience cries foul is thoroughly subjective. Faramir is a good example - I believe that Tolkien was very happy that Faramir turned up out of the Professorial imagination, as it got him out of a difficult piece of plot stuckness. Once we have Faramir, he turns out to be useful in several ways, not least in allowing Eowyn, of whom we've grown rather fond, to have a happy but natural-seeming romantic ending. Contributors to this site differ markedly on how much of a problem it is to swallow Faramir's complete lack of temptation by the Ring.
Other characters have to bear a further burden - they stand for something, if the story is allegorical, or perhaps the storyteller sees them as fulfilling a particular purpose in the story, whether the character likes it or not, and whether the story can bear it or not.
I think that is the risk for characters such as Tauriel (where thestory has to make her believable despite much of the audience starting with the assumption that she's in as the love interest/warrior girl/possible redshirt whether she likes it or not). It's also a problem for stories which introduce "strong female characters" (or other perceived much-needed role models or allegories) in a way which is +disturbingly+ detectable as an authorial or editorial hobby-horse.
The character I have in mind as a hobby-horse victim now is Susan Pevensie. CS Lewis seems to include her largely so she can score an F in all the tests of faith he so loves throwing at his characters, to contrast with her sister Lucy's habitual A+. Personally that quickly started to grate. But as I say, it's a very subjective thing...
Disclaimers: The words of noWizardme may stand on their heads! I'm often wrong about things, and its fun to be taught more....
"nowimė I am in the West, Furincurunir to the Dwarves (or at least, to their best friend) and by other names in other lands. Mostly they just say 'Oh no it's him - look busy!' "
Or "Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!"
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Maciliel
Valinor
Jan 1 2014, 3:43pm
Post #14 of 29
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"better" in the eye of the betholder
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whether anything is "better" is certainly the right of an individual to assess.
this girl's assessment that it is so (if we can take her insistence that bilbo's gender be changed as such) is just as valid. and it brings to mind a point of discussion i persistently make when issues of gender, character, and story come up.
true, there are some stories and even some whole series (nancy drew) which have a lead (and even admirable) character who is female. but looking at the bulk of literature (and film), the protagonist is usually male. and in action stories and adventure stories this is even more true.
girl-children have been tested as more empathetic towards others. perhaps it's because they've had a lot more practice. being female and reading stories (some required by school) in which the lead is a male (and some which are cast entirely by males) means that a female child needs to get better at empathizing quickly, or risk being alienated, left behind, or getting a bad grade.
because of the sheer number of male character-dominated stories, male children (and this goes for adults as well) are not put into the position of needing of empathizing with an opposite-gender character as often as females are.
perhaps the girl in the article was thinking outside the box, and decided to just make bilbo female -- because his gender didn't matter. i think that's essentially true. there's nothing about bilbo's gender that is essential to the story. i accept that bilbo is male because tolkien wrote him that way, but -- that being said -- i'll add a little something.... i would enjoy tolkien's works more if they were more gender-balanced.
cheers --
.
aka. fili orc-enshield
+++++++++++++++++++
the scene, as i understand it, is exceptionally well-written. fili (in sort of a callback to the scene with the eagles), calls out "thorRIIIIIIN!!!" just as he sees the pale orc veer in for the kill. he picks up the severed arm of an orc which is lying on the ground, swings it up in desperation, effectively blocking the pale orc's blow. and thus, forever after, fili is known as "fili orc-enshield."
this earns him deep respect from his hard-to-please uncle. as well as a hug. kili wipes his boots on the pale orc's glory box. -- maciliel telpemairo
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Maciliel
Valinor
Jan 1 2014, 3:45pm
Post #15 of 29
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while i love the character of lucy, i so did hate how susan's character was treated, sometimes, by lewis. even in the lion, the witch, and the wardrobe and prince caspian, lewis has susan complaining a bit (or being perceived as complaining by others).
cheers --
.
aka. fili orc-enshield
+++++++++++++++++++
the scene, as i understand it, is exceptionally well-written. fili (in sort of a callback to the scene with the eagles), calls out "thorRIIIIIIN!!!" just as he sees the pale orc veer in for the kill. he picks up the severed arm of an orc which is lying on the ground, swings it up in desperation, effectively blocking the pale orc's blow. and thus, forever after, fili is known as "fili orc-enshield."
this earns him deep respect from his hard-to-please uncle. as well as a hug. kili wipes his boots on the pale orc's glory box. -- maciliel telpemairo
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noWizardme
Half-elven
Jan 1 2014, 6:42pm
Post #16 of 29
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I suppose that, for readers (or watchers, listeners, players) who have learned the trick, it's possible to empathise with a well written/performed character who is not superficially much like you.
I guess part if the problem is how you start readers off, getting them over the obstacle that the story is "for boys" or "for girls". And that obstacle could be small but easily removed- eg it's "JK Rowling" because the publisher was concerned about putting boys off a story because it was written by "Joanne Rowling".
Then there's the question of what life lessons, if any, readers pick up from their fiction.
Disclaimers: The words of noWizardme may stand on their heads! I'm often wrong about things, and its fun to be taught more....
"nowimė I am in the West, Furincurunir to the Dwarves (or at least, to their best friend) and by other names in other lands. Mostly they just say 'Oh no it's him - look busy!' "
Or "Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!"
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Maciliel
Valinor
Jan 1 2014, 6:51pm
Post #17 of 29
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i think it's harder for boys to empathize (generally) with female characters.
forget about whatever "natural" abilities boys might have to empathize. whatever they are there are distinct cultural obstacles to them exercising whatever natural inclinations they have.
because female-ness is often used to symbolize disempowerment and ridicule of men (think of male frat hazing that requires males to dress up in female clothing), calling a man a "p***y" (slang for a female body part), there are cultural barriers to males empathizing with female characters. females are associated with weakness, frivolity, lesser intelligence, etc. (culturally / historically). who wants to identify / internalize all that?
and it's ingrained in our children so early.
i do think things are changing (slowly), but these issues are most definitely still there.
and it's not just gender. take any group that's thought of / treated as "less" and you've got an empathy obstacle.
cheers --
.
aka. fili orc-enshield
+++++++++++++++++++
the scene, as i understand it, is exceptionally well-written. fili (in sort of a callback to the scene with the eagles), calls out "thorRIIIIIIN!!!" just as he sees the pale orc veer in for the kill. he picks up the severed arm of an orc which is lying on the ground, swings it up in desperation, effectively blocking the pale orc's blow. and thus, forever after, fili is known as "fili orc-enshield."
this earns him deep respect from his hard-to-please uncle. as well as a hug. kili wipes his boots on the pale orc's glory box. -- maciliel telpemairo
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Maciliel
Valinor
Jan 1 2014, 6:54pm
Post #18 of 29
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rowling does a lot of stereotyping of genders in her books, and it's so unfortunate, given how many young minds read them.
i've read the series many, many times (to many to count). if i had to read about a female student screaming in fright or in startlement one more time, +i+ was going to scream.
cheers --
.
aka. fili orc-enshield
+++++++++++++++++++
the scene, as i understand it, is exceptionally well-written. fili (in sort of a callback to the scene with the eagles), calls out "thorRIIIIIIN!!!" just as he sees the pale orc veer in for the kill. he picks up the severed arm of an orc which is lying on the ground, swings it up in desperation, effectively blocking the pale orc's blow. and thus, forever after, fili is known as "fili orc-enshield."
this earns him deep respect from his hard-to-please uncle. as well as a hug. kili wipes his boots on the pale orc's glory box. -- maciliel telpemairo
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Elizabeth
Half-elven
Jan 1 2014, 7:09pm
Post #19 of 29
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What, exactly, is the problem here?
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This isn't the place to discuss Tauriel, but I can't resist pointing out that while many people are getting fussed at the "kick-ass Captain of the Guard" going sentimental over a cute Dwarf, nobody is offended by Kili's getting positively mushy over a gorgeous Elf.
Male characters in fiction have risked their lives, abandoned posts, and done other extraordinary feats to save female characters over hundreds of years without anyone claiming that is unsuitable or demeaning. What exactly is the problem here?
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noWizardme
Half-elven
Jan 1 2014, 10:45pm
Post #20 of 29
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A lady is also entitled to go on an adventure without a handkerchief?
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Male characters in fiction have risked their lives, abandoned posts, and done other extraordinary feats to save female characters over hundreds of years without anyone claiming that is unsuitable or demeaning. What exactly is the problem here?
My thought was that the pattern was this: male characters have exciting and important things to do, into which romance is fitted. Doesn't the brave knight classically kill the monster as well as "getting the girl"? By contrast, Female characters are pulled around by romantic plots, as if nothing else they had to do was of value.
But I think you have me here: if Bilbo can suddenly decide to run off on an adventure without his handkerchief, why not Tauriel?
Disclaimers: The words of noWizardme may stand on their heads! I'm often wrong about things, and its fun to be taught more....
"nowimė I am in the West, Furincurunir to the Dwarves (or at least, to their best friend) and by other names in other lands. Mostly they just say 'Oh no it's him - look busy!' "
Or "Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!"
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noWizardme
Half-elven
Jan 2 2014, 10:30am
Post #22 of 29
(1276 views)
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Well, not all boys, completely
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i think it's harder for boys to empathize (generally) with female characters.
forget about whatever "natural" abilities boys might have to empathize. whatever they are there are distinct cultural obstacles to them exercising whatever natural inclinations they have.
I suppose "harder" like "better" is in the eye of the "hardee ". 
I recall being very comfortable as a boy reading stories where the "'me' character" was female: Princess Irene in Princess and the Goblin; Lucy Pevensie In the early Narnia books (to the point if feeling Father Christmas' ban on girls fighting, so that Lucy gets a dagger and potion cf Peters sword , was ridiculous and unfair) Alice, in Wonderland; Meg in A Wrinkle in Time. I think it's about the point Squire raised: heroism is universal, so one can see (or wish or pretend to see) points of identification, without needing to imagine oneself in pinafore dress and Alice band.
Whether I'm atypical of boys, or whether my enjoyment of these stories required more of me than of a female control subject is impractical to say. (Burst of the science part of my personality here , obviously ). I certainly also enjoyed other stories with more cheesy gender divides in the roles.
Another thing I note from that list is that I don't think the authors created those female characters from a starting point of wanting improving role models: the characters are strong and active because that's what they're like. I think I might have rebelled against having dynamic females and weak males thrust upon me, just as I disliked CS Lewis' thumping allegories when I became old and wary enough to detect them. I think it's a risky business for the storyteller to force meaning upon the audience. Some of them won't get it, others will take on an entirely Unintended interpretation, others will see the hobby-horse and resent it trampling the story.
I think it's also risky to guess what a reader (for which also read listener, watcher) is getting from a story, among the many layers and meanings a story might offer. That might be particularly so for children, but applies to adults too. For example, I'm learning from this thread that I was too busy rolling my eyes at my interpretation of the Tauriel subplot in film Hobbit II to consider other valid interpretations
Ah well, I'm sure there are many Extended Editions viewings to come
Disclaimers: The words of noWizardme may stand on their heads! I'm often wrong about things, and its fun to be taught more....
"nowimė I am in the West, Furincurunir to the Dwarves (or at least, to their best friend) and by other names in other lands. Mostly they just say 'Oh no it's him - look busy!' "
Or "Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!"
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noWizardme
Half-elven
Jan 2 2014, 10:37am
Post #23 of 29
(1276 views)
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Luthien gives up everything to be with her Man.
No wait
Beren gives up everything to be with Luthien - I mean, isn't he supposed to have a people to rule and fallen comrades to avenge?
Disclaimers: The words of noWizardme may stand on their heads! I'm often wrong about things, and its fun to be taught more....
"nowimė I am in the West, Furincurunir to the Dwarves (or at least, to their best friend) and by other names in other lands. Mostly they just say 'Oh no it's him - look busy!' "
Or "Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!"
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noWizardme
Half-elven
Jan 2 2014, 10:53am
Post #24 of 29
(1272 views)
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Neil Gaiman has a good but disturbing short story "The Problem Of Susan"
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It appears in the collection "Fragile Things".
Gaiman imagines a retired Professor who we infer is Susan in later life. The writing blazes with indignation on her behalf. (the Problem of the title is Susan's fate at the end of the Narnia stories: all other human characters are gathered into Narnia/Heaven, the other Pevensies by means of a fatal train crash on Earth. Susan, deemed unworthy, is the only survivor. )
Gaiman's heat on the subject is interesting, and goes with his other theme; the influence of our childhood stories on our later lives.
Disclaimers: The words of noWizardme may stand on their heads! I'm often wrong about things, and its fun to be taught more....
"nowimė I am in the West, Furincurunir to the Dwarves (or at least, to their best friend) and by other names in other lands. Mostly they just say 'Oh no it's him - look busy!' "
Or "Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!"
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noWizardme
Half-elven
Jan 2 2014, 11:17am
Post #25 of 29
(1274 views)
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Most excellent post- lots to think about//
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Disclaimers: The words of noWizardme may stand on their heads! I'm often wrong about things, and its fun to be taught more....
"nowimė I am in the West, Furincurunir to the Dwarves (or at least, to their best friend) and by other names in other lands. Mostly they just say 'Oh no it's him - look busy!' "
Or "Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!"
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