tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32523005683708155022024-03-14T10:19:10.388-07:00Girls' Literature and CultureGirls' books and culture from the past and present.
<a href="http://technorati.com/faves?sub=addfavbtn&add=http://michellejsmith.blogspot.com"><img src="http://static.technorati.com/pix/fave/btn-fave2.png" alt="Add to Technorati Favorites"></a>Michelle Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18350801340930174962noreply@blogger.comBlogger162125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3252300568370815502.post-7561235948121284342021-01-30T00:11:00.004-08:002021-01-30T00:15:28.860-08:00New book release: Young Adult Gothic Fiction<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_As-DwGNsdj6GPWfyCSYU_TiiY_U2mkBB0gGi7PN30my4uMwpdgA4OJwuQrktBRua98BjUV0XzQXM7BErKIU1mDa76eHJ73Ckxk75Uve35_i0qQFNlGh4OldmMdJA2oqUjrpCjCIvsto/s1280/143023788_10225152187661079_3396383135968985487_o.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="788" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_As-DwGNsdj6GPWfyCSYU_TiiY_U2mkBB0gGi7PN30my4uMwpdgA4OJwuQrktBRua98BjUV0XzQXM7BErKIU1mDa76eHJ73Ckxk75Uve35_i0qQFNlGh4OldmMdJA2oqUjrpCjCIvsto/w394-h640/143023788_10225152187661079_3396383135968985487_o.jpg" width="394" /></a><br /><br /></div>I have an co-edited collection entitled <i><a href="https://www.uwp.co.uk/book/young-adult-gothic-fiction/" target="_blank">Young Adult Gothic Fiction: Monstrous Selves, Monstrous Others</a> </i>about to be published in June by University of Wales Press. It's packed with wonderful essays from children's literature friends old and new. I've written a chapter with my co-editor Kristine Moruzi on the intersection of fairy tale with YA Gothic, which I think is one of the first takes on the intersection of these three areas.<div><br /></div><div><div>This collection is the first to focus exclusively on twenty-first-century young adult Gothic fiction. The essays demonstrate how the contemporary resurgence of the Gothic signals anxieties about (and hopes for) young people in the twenty-first century. Changing conceptions of young adults as liminal figures, operating between the modes of child and adult, can be mobilised when combined with Gothic spaces and concepts in texts for young people. In young adult Gothic literature, the crossing of boundaries typical of the Gothic is often motivated by a heterosexual romance plot, in which the human or monstrous female protagonist desires a boy who is not her ‘type’. Additionally, as the Gothic works to define what it means to be human – particularly in relation to gender, race, and identity – the volume also examines how contemporary shifts and flashpoints in identity politics are being negotiated under the metaphoric cloak of monstrosity.</div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>TABLE OF CONTENTS</b></div><p>1. Introduction: Kristine Moruzi and Michelle J. Smith</p><p><i>Section 1: Genre Trouble: Gothic Hybrids</i></p><p>2. Zombies Vs Unicorns: An Exploration of the Pleasures of the Gothic for Young Adults – Patricia Kennon</p><p>3. Genre Mutation and the Dialectic of YA Gothic Dystopia in Holly Black’s The Coldest Girl in Coldtown – Bill Hughes</p><p><i>Section 2: Rewriting the Historical Gothic</i></p><p>4. ‘Vanguard taste and fashion spirit’: Feminist Responses to Twenty-First Century, Western Zeitgeist in Vampire Romeo and Juliet texts – Sarah Olive</p><p>5. The Pre-Monstrous Mad Scientist and the Post-Nerd Smart Girl in Kenneth Oppel’s Frankenstein Series – Sean P. Connors and Lissette Lopez Szwydky</p><p>6. Rock Star Rochester and Heartthrob Heathcliff: The Problematic Redemption of the Byronic Hero in Recent Young Adult Retellings of Brontë Novels – Sara K. Day</p><p><i>Section 3: Gothic Places</i></p><p>7. Monstrous Islands: Spatiality and the Abjection of Motherhood in Gothic Young Adult Fiction – Cecilia Rogers</p><p>8. Adolescence Adrift: The Lost Child in Contemporary Australian Gothic YA Fiction – Adam Kealley</p><p><i>Section 4: The Human and the Non-Human</i></p><p>9. Accepting Monsters: The Visual Gothic in I Kill Giants and A Monster Calls – Debra Dudek</p><p>10. Unhuman Entanglement: Onto-Ethics and the Fiction of Frances Hardinge – Chloé Germaine Buckley</p><p>11. Black and White and Read All Over: Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children, Gothic Imagery and Posthuman Publishing – Jen Harrison</p><p><i>Section 5: Gothic Femininities</i></p><p>12. Testimony from Beyond the Grave: Comparing Girls’ Narratives of Sexual Violence and Death in Gothic Fiction – Lenise Prater</p><p>13. Young Adult Gothic Fairy Tales and Terrifying Romance – Michelle J. Smith and Kristine Moruzi</p><p></p><p><br /></p><p><br /> </p></div>Michelle Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18350801340930174962noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3252300568370815502.post-76657365657124068142019-06-28T15:01:00.000-07:002020-01-03T15:16:08.683-08:00How 19th century ideas influenced today's attitudes to women’s beautyIn the 19th century, a range of thinkers attempted to pinpoint exactly what it was that made a woman beautiful. Newly popular women’s magazines began to promote ideas about the right behaviours, attitudes, and daily routines required to produce and maintain beauty.<br />
<br />
The scientific classification of plants and animals - influenced by Charles Darwin - also shaped thinking about beauty. It was seen to be definable, like a plant type or animal species. Increasingly, sophisticated knowledge of medicine and anatomy and the association of beauty with health also saw physicians weigh into the debate. <br />
<br />
A look at three significant books that focused on beauty shows several influential ideas. These include the classification of distinct beauty types, the perception of “natural” beauty as superior to the “artificial”, and the eventual acceptance of beauty as something that each woman should try to cultivate through a daily regimen of self-care.<br />
<h2>
<br /> Classifying beauty types</h2>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266614/original/file-20190330-70993-qyv7h3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" height="227" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266614/original/file-20190330-70993-qyv7h3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266614/original/file-20190330-70993-qyv7h3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=343&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266614/original/file-20190330-70993-qyv7h3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=343&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266614/original/file-20190330-70993-qyv7h3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=343&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266614/original/file-20190330-70993-qyv7h3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266614/original/file-20190330-70993-qyv7h3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266614/original/file-20190330-70993-qyv7h3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">‘The three species of beauty as affecting the head and face’ in Alexander Walker’s Beauty; <br />
Illustrated Chiefly by an Analysis and Classification of Beauty in Woman (New York: William H. Colyer).</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Alexander Walker, a Scottish physiologist, wrote three books on the subject of “woman”. The first was <a href="https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/011616485"><i>Beauty; Illustrated Chiefly by an Analysis and Classification of Beauty in Women</i></a>. Here, Walker focuses on women’s beauty because he suggests it is “best calculated to ensure attention from men”. He assumes that men have the power to choose sexual partners in a way that women do not, therefore men have a crucial responsibility “to ameliorate the species”.<br />
<br />
Given that one of its key functions is to signal fertility, a woman’s appearance is therefore not a frivolous topic. It is linked to the development of humanity. <br />
<br />
Walker defines three types or “species” of female beauty: locomotive, nutritive, and thinking. These types derive from a knowledge of anatomy and each is related to one of the bodily “systems”.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" height="400" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266615/original/file-20190330-70999-1iqlubi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266615/original/file-20190330-70999-1iqlubi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=868&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266615/original/file-20190330-70999-1iqlubi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=868&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266615/original/file-20190330-70999-1iqlubi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=868&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266615/original/file-20190330-70999-1iqlubi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1091&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266615/original/file-20190330-70999-1iqlubi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1091&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266615/original/file-20190330-70999-1iqlubi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1091&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="276" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">‘Front view illustrating mental beauty’ in <br />
Alexander Walker’s <i>Beauty</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
The locomotive or mechanical system is highly developed in women with “precise, striking, and brilliant” bodies. The nutritive or vital system is evident in the “soft and voluptuous”. The thinking or mental system is conducive to a figure “characterised by intellectuality and grace”. <br />
<br />
Walker’s ideal is the mental or thinking beauty. She has less pronounced breasts and curves and admirable inner qualities that are evident in her “intensely expressive eye”. <br />
<br />
Not coincidentally, he understands intelligence to predominate in men. Walker’s ideal thinking beauty is effectively most like his idea of a man in contrast to the locomotive beauty (connected with the lower classes) and the nutritive beauty (primed to have children). <br />
<h2>
<br /> ‘Firm and elastic’ breasts</h2>
Daniel Garrison Brinton was an army surgeon in the American Civil War. He later became a professor of ethnology and archaeology and edited The Medical and Surgical Reporter. In 1870, he and medical editor George Henry Napheys published <a href="https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/011601289"><i>Personal Beauty: How to Cultivate and Preserve it in Accordance with the Laws of Health</i></a>. <br />
<br />
The book proposes ideal measurements for areas such as the forehead and the most distinctive features of the female body. Breasts are viewed as essential to beauty and the ideal they describe is youthful, with “firm and elastic” tissue that forms “true hemispheres in shape”.<br />
<br />
Very specific distances between nipples, the collar bone, and between the breasts themselves are specified, setting out perfect proportions.<br />
<br />
Brinton and Napheys claim that few European and American women meet these requirements, owing to the “artificial life” adopted in both locations. Controversially, they remark that such breasts do not exist in America, apart from in “some vigorous young country girl, who has grown up in ignorance of the arts which thwart nature”. The idea that beauty was more often destroyed by “artificial” beauty methods than improved by it was predominant.<br />
<br />
<i>Personal Beauty</i> promotes a device for improving the shape of the breast through suction because it meets the criteria for “natural” improvement. It is described similarly to <a href="https://www.amazon.ca/Lovely-Exercise-Muscle-Massager-nl-argement/dp/B07PQQSPWV">breast enlargement pumps</a> that are sold today as an alternative to breast augmentation. <br />
<br />
Brinton and Napheys’ reference to the potential of such a device to “restore the organs in great measure to their proper shape, size, and function” suggests they are referring to breasts that may have lost their fullness and symmetry after breastfeeding. <br />
<br />
It is unclear how such a device would not only improve the shapeliness of breasts, but also render them “better adapted to fulfil their functions”. However, the notion that function, which is reliant on health, is essential to beauty helps to support a medicalised understanding of the topic. <br />
<h2>
<br />Beauty destroyed</h2>
This emphasis on health contributes to a tendency to focus on the ways that women destroy their own beauty through clothing, cosmetics, or certain types of exercise. A specific target in this book is the wearing of garters below the knee, which the authors claim is the reason why a “handsome leg is a rarity, we had almost said an impossibility, among American women”. <br />
<br />
Tightly-laced corsets, sucked-upon lips, and white face powders are frowned upon for potential harms to health. Yet, as doctors, Brinton and Napheys embrace early manifestations of cosmetic surgery, such as the removal of skin that might hang over the eyes.<br />
<br />
A significant point in guiding the acceptability of cosmetic usage is whether such a practice appears natural and undetectable. Imitation itself is not described as distasteful, if it can be achieved convincingly, but “the failure in the attempt at imitation” does inspire revulsion. <br />
<br />
As such, a wig that meshes with a women’s age and appearance can be acceptable. In contrast, it is “contrary to all good taste” to “give to the top of the head an air of juvenility which is flatly contradicted by all other parts of the person”. <br />
<br />
<i>Personal Beauty </i>focuses on preventative measures for retaining beauty and delaying the visible onset of ageing, rather than remedying flaws once they have taken hold. The book ultimately concludes that if all the measures recommended are undertaken, “there will be little need for the purely venal cosmetic arts, such as paint, powder, patches, or rouge”.<br />
<h2>
<br />Embracing beauty culture</h2>
This understanding of cosmetics as pure reflections of vanity and as separate from beauty practices related to health was gradually challenged by women writers towards the end of the 19th century. <br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" height="400" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266616/original/file-20190330-71009-1ltefwd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266616/original/file-20190330-71009-1ltefwd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=929&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266616/original/file-20190330-71009-1ltefwd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=929&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266616/original/file-20190330-71009-1ltefwd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=929&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266616/original/file-20190330-71009-1ltefwd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1168&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266616/original/file-20190330-71009-1ltefwd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1168&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266616/original/file-20190330-71009-1ltefwd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1168&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="258" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Frontispiece, Mrs H.R. Haweis, [1878] 1883.<br />
<i> The Art of Beauty.</i> London: Chatto & Windus.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Eliza Haweis wrote about the decoration and stylistic adornment of the home and body in British magazines and a series of books, the first of which was <a href="https://archive.org/details/artofbeauty00hawe/page/n10"><i>The Art of Beauty</i> </a>(1878). Its premise is that personal beauty and adornment of the body is of “the first interest and importance” for women. <br />
Many beauty manuals warned against any significant attempts to alter the face or body beyond basic health and hygiene. Such practices, <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/663140/summary">as academic Sarah Lennox suggests</a>, were seen as “objectionable — as a hiding of inner truth”. Haweis, however, encourages young women to enhance their beauty and older women to continue to use methods that “conceal its fading away”. <br />
<br />
The methods that Haweis advocates reproduce prevalent ideas found in women’s magazines and beauty manuals that discouraged any visible sign of artifice and which championed the “natural”. Hygienic and cosmetic intervention are framed as exposing or fostering physical qualities as they ought to be seen, or providing a delicate “veil” for flaws, rather than attempting to entirely transform them.<br />
<br />
However, Haweis goes further than many beauty advisors at the time. Unlike many male writers, she is not opposed to cosmetics. She likens their use in “hiding defects of complexion, or touching the face with pink or white” to adding padding to a dress, piercing ears, or undergoing cosmetic dentistry.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/270391/original/file-20190423-175518-brairf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" height="400" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/270391/original/file-20190423-175518-brairf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/270391/original/file-20190423-175518-brairf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=758&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270391/original/file-20190423-175518-brairf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=758&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270391/original/file-20190423-175518-brairf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=758&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270391/original/file-20190423-175518-brairf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=952&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270391/original/file-20190423-175518-brairf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=952&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270391/original/file-20190423-175518-brairf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=952&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" width="317" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Eliza Haweis</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<figcaption>Part of the reason Haweis supports cosmetics and other methods of improving the appearance is because she observes that ugly people are treated differently.</figcaption></figure>Walker sees beauty as a sign of higher intelligence. Many publications at the time presented a similar line of reasoning in suggesting that mean-spirited and nasty individuals would age horribly. <br />
<br />
Haweis, however, is unique in her entertainment of the possibility of ugliness negatively influencing character. She proposes that “an immense number of ill-tempered ugly women are ill-tempered because they are ugly”. She acknowledges that ugliness is in fact an “impediment” and a “burden”, which thereby supports her call to all women to work to improve their appearance. <br />
<h2>
<br />Beauty today</h2>
Our understanding of what makes a woman beautiful is influenced by dominant cultural beliefs and hierarchies. Though Walker’s physiological beauty types were replaced by acceptance of the idea that women can retain beauty into older age or remedy unappealing features, many historic precepts about beauty continue to influence modern beauty culture. <br />
<br />
Ideas about “natural” beauty as superior to “artificial” beauty are reflected in cosmetic advertisements and plastic surgery procedures, with a “natural” or “undetectable” look to any product, facelift, or implant being the desired outcome for many women. <br />
<br />
Most of all, the idea that beauty is of prime importance to girls and women remains predominant, even as the cultural conditions surrounding marriage, employment, and family have substantially transformed since the 19th century. <br />
<br />
Haweis’ ideas about the significance of self-care resonate with contemporary feminists who point to women’s pleasure and empowered use of cosmetics.<br />
<br />
We have recently seen the emergence of male beauty bloggers and YouTubers. However, the continued sense that beauty is largely women’s preserve and a unique form of power that requires a continual fight to keep shows how an emphasis on women’s physical appearance is still entwined with gender inequality.<!-- Below is The Conversation's page counter tag. Please DO NOT REMOVE. --><img alt="The Conversation" height="1" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/111529/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important; text-shadow: none !important;" width="1" /><!-- End of code. If you don't see any code above, please get new code from the Advanced tab after you click the republish button. The page counter does not collect any personal data. More info: http://theconversation.com/republishing-guidelines --><br />
<br />
<i>This article is republished from <a href="http://theconversation.com/">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-how-19th-century-ideas-influenced-todays-attitudes-to-womens-beauty-111529">original article</a>.</i>Michelle Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18350801340930174962noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3252300568370815502.post-34448145846694699252019-01-28T16:08:00.002-08:002019-01-28T16:08:42.173-08:00From The Getting of Wisdom to Heartbreak High: Australian school stories on screen<br />
<figure class="align-right " style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;">
<figcaption></figcaption></figure><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td><img alt="File 20190123 135136 1fnm1pl.jpg?ixlib=rb 1.1" height="223" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/255094/original/file-20190123-135136-1fnm1pl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="400" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption">Bruce Beresford's 1977 film, The Getting of Wisdom</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Going to school is one of the few life experiences almost everyone shares. From the time children began to be educated in small groups in Britain, there were school stories in popular culture, beginning with what many consider the first novel for children, Sarah Fielding’s <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36402.The_Governess_or_The_Little_Female_Academy">The Governess; or, The Little Female Academy</a> (1749). <br />
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/255247/original/file-20190123-135133-a7z20z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="" border="0" height="320" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/255247/original/file-20190123-135133-a7z20z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/255247/original/file-20190123-135133-a7z20z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=953&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255247/original/file-20190123-135133-a7z20z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=953&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255247/original/file-20190123-135133-a7z20z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=953&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255247/original/file-20190123-135133-a7z20z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1198&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255247/original/file-20190123-135133-a7z20z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1198&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255247/original/file-20190123-135133-a7z20z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1198&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" width="200" /></a>The emphasis in early school stories was on moral and intellectual learning, which the reader was supposed to absorb. However, as school became a universal experience, stories about school elevated peer acceptance, sporting success, and friendships to the main sources of drama. This has remained true from the crucial cricket match of <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1480?msg=welcome_stranger">Tom Brown’s School Days</a> (1857) to the quidditch tournaments of the Harry Potter series.<br />
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School stories appeal to children and adolescents because they represent a world comprised largely of other young people, with adult teachers relegated to the periphery. However, they also mark changes in the kinds of ideals and goals we want young people to aspire towards.<br />
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Conformity and obedience were measures of a protagonist’s success in early school stories. However, as the genre has evolved in film and television, school stories have celebrated characters who transgress adult expectations, emphasising the importance of individuality. <br />
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Nerds, jocks and popular kids</h2>
North American film and television from the 1980s embraced stories about high school in particular, with earnest considerations of the dilemmas faced by teenagers forced into almost familial relationships with each other. <br />
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John Hughes’s <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088847/">The Breakfast Club</a> (1985) was among the first films to treat the experience of high school with seriousness and empathy. In what became a template for the genre, it explores the unique forms of social stratification found in schools between the popular kids, the nerds, the jocks, and outcasts who sprinkle dandruff on their artworks. <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Canadian series Degrassi Junior High</td></tr>
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Canadian series Degrassi Junior High (1987-89) and <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090417/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Degrassi High</a> (1989-1991) were pioneering in their focus on teenagers and willingness to confront mature topics including drug use, teen pregnancy, racism, and sexuality. The ultimate dark and vindictive side of school friendships were most memorably fictionalised in 1988’s <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097493/?ref_=nv_sr_1">Heathers</a>, which darkly satirised teen suicide. Reflecting a significant transformation in real-world schools, the recent television reboot of Heathers had its premiere delayed for almost a year because of the Parkland, Florida school shooting. <br />
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Some of the longest-running American TV series set in schools in the 1990s nevertheless idealised beautiful, popular, and often wealthy students. Both the Saturday-morning comedy <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096694/?ref_=nv_sr_1">Saved by the Bell</a> (1989-1993) and the prime-time drama <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098749/?ref_=nv_sr_1">Beverly Hills, 90210</a> (1990-2000) were largely told from the perspective of fashionably dressed and perfectly coiffed characters at the zenith of the social hierarchy. <br />
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<br />Outsiders and underdogs</h2>
Australian school stories have differed from their British and American counterparts from the outset. Henry Handel Richardson’s classic novel <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/673234.The_Getting_of_Wisdom">The Getting of Wisdom</a> (1910), which was adapted into a film in 1977, is the story of poor country girl, Laura Tweedle Rambotham, who is sent to an exclusive Melbourne boarding school. <br />
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While the usual arc of the school story was to teach the outsider appropriate lessons about how to conform and contribute to school spirit and sporting success, Laura lies in an ill-fated attempt to be liked, cheats to pass her final exams, and finishes school without having found peer acceptance. It is her very inability to change herself to fit stifling gender and class expectations that has made her an enduring and beloved character for the past century.<br />
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Read more:
<a href="http://theconversation.com/the-case-for-henry-handel-richardsons-the-getting-of-wisdom-23697">The case for Henry Handel Richardson’s The Getting of Wisdom</a>
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Such irreverence toward authority figures is a frequent attribute of Australian stories about school. In its early years, teen soap <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094481/?ref_=nv_sr_8">Home and Away</a> (1988-present) built many dramas around conflict with high-school principal Donald Fisher, who the students privately referred to as “Flathead”.<br />
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With conscious efforts to present a grittier and more realistic depiction of school life, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108800/?ref_=nv_sr_1">Heartbreak High</a> (1994-1999) not only included a cast that aimed to represent Australia’s increasingly multicultural society but depicted teachers as less authoritarian, and heavily invested in their student’s welfare.<br />
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In a reworking of the opposition between student and teacher, it has become common for Australian stories about school life to retain a focus on the underdog but to draw out its comedic potential. <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0402247/?ref_=nv_sr_1">Hating Alison Ashley</a> (2005), based on the novel by Robin Klein, cast pop darling Delta Goodrem as the beautiful, superficially perfect student, but presents the story from the perspective of friendless hypochondriac Erica Yurken. <br />
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Rather than a disciplinarian setting in which the teachers and principal have ultimate control, Barringa East high school exhibits a loss of adult order, with graffiti and rubbish covering the campus. <br />
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The film opens with the explanation that three teachers have retired due to the trauma of teaching at the school, with two institutionalised and one escaping to join the Hare Krishnas. While the overall culture of underachieving students allows Erica to shine academically, she does not feel comfortable in herself until she makes an unlikely friend in her imagined rival, Alison. A happy ending for Erica is found not in changing herself and achieving popularity, but in finding a supportive friend to join her outside the mainstream. <br />
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Chris Lilley’s <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0934320/?ref_=nv_sr_1">Summer Heights High</a> (2007) at once adopted the perspective of an underdog in the form of Jonah Takalua (a Tongan character controversially played by Lilley), and a queen bee in the form of Ja’mie King, a private school girl “slumming” at a state school. <br />
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Rather than glamorising the wealthy, image-obsessed Ja’mie, the series positions viewers to laugh at the shallowness of her manipulations to gain the approval of teachers and the few students she deems worthy of her attention. While many of the teachers at the school do care for student welfare, the infamous Mr G is the ultimate demonstration of the way teachers and authority figures are often depicted as flawed and ineffectual.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Chris Lilley as Ja'mie</td></tr>
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Across time, Australian stories about school have more in common with the narratives of outsiders like Napoleon Dynamite than those of inspirational teachers as in <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097165/?ref_=nv_sr_1">Dead Poets Society</a> or the beautiful students of <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5420376/?ref_=nv_sr_1">Riverdale</a>. <br />
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Attributes such as wealth, attractiveness, and family connections and status often distinguish the protagonists of American and British stories. Similarly, working hard and behaving correctly often brings success and popularity to these characters.<br />
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In contrast, Australian stories about school days are more likely to question structures of authority and social status. And anyone who wants to suck up to the popular kids or teachers can just, in the words of the students of Heartbreak High, “Rack off!”<!-- Below is The Conversation's page counter tag. Please DO NOT REMOVE. --><img alt="The Conversation" height="1" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/109941/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important; text-shadow: none !important;" width="1" /><br />
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<i>This article is republished from <a href="http://theconversation.com/">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/from-the-getting-of-wisdom-to-heartbreak-high-australian-school-stories-on-screen-109941">original article</a>.</i>Michelle Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18350801340930174962noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3252300568370815502.post-10215094874612612672018-10-12T23:48:00.002-07:002018-10-12T23:50:06.497-07:00Clementine Ford reveals the fragility behind 'toxic masculinity' in Boys Will Be Boys<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Shutterstock.com</td></tr>
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In Boys Will Be Boys, Australia’s most prominent contemporary feminist, Clementine Ford, works toward dismantling the idea that feminism is harming men. Instead, she proposes — as feminists have consistently maintained — that a patriarchal society can be as harmful and destructive for individual men as it can be for women.<br />
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Ford considers how “toxic masculinity” is shaped from the moment of a boy’s “gender reveal” to her closing chapter, which – simply and powerfully — lists the names of more than 50 famous men who have been publicly accused of sexual assault and their alleged criminal acts. <br />
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She traces how gendered inequalities in the way we socialise children at home and via pop culture directly shape harmful adult behaviours. These include “the embrace of online abuse, rape culture, men’s rights baloney and even the freezing out of women from government and leadership”. Ford sets out to demonstrate not only how “toxic male spaces and behaviours … codify male power and dominance” but also how they serve to protect men from any consequences.<br />
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In a chapter on domestic labour, A Woman’s Place, Ford shows how gendered division of housework and childcare informs assumptions about adult roles. In a claim that will no doubt be quoted by many “Angry Internet Men” (as Ford refers to them), she proposes that heterosexual women are better placed living alone and inviting men “into our houses as guests occasionally”. <br />
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Her point is not that there is no pleasure to be had for a woman cohabiting with a man. Instead she highlights that managing “the gendered conditions of domestic labour … takes a fuckton of work”. This work happens regardless of whether women are consistently fighting for help with washing the dishes or changing nappies, or have begrudgingly accepted that the unending cycle of housework is their burden to shoulder.<br />
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Read more:
<a href="http://theconversation.com/friday-essay-talking-writing-and-fighting-like-girls-66211">Friday essay: talking, writing and fighting like girls</a>
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Short of raising a child in the wilderness, far from an internet connection, television signal or cinema complex, children are inducted into gender norms by the popular culture they consume. In her chapter about Girls of Film, Ford reflects on the experience of a 1980s childhood in which the blockbuster films for young people all required girl viewers to imagine themselves in the place of active male heroes.<br />
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Unlike girls, boys are not conditioned to identify with girls and women on screen. This, Ford argues, results in the marginalisation of stories about girls, which “are considered niche and peripheral, in the same way stories about people of colour or stories about disability or queerness are”.<br />
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We only have to look to the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/ghostbusters-the-bros-who-hate-it-and-the-art-of-modern-misogyny/2016/07/14/1dfba61a-49bd-11e6-bdb9-701687974517_story.html?utm_term=.762753ab1023">dramatic online overreaction</a> to the news of a female-lead Ghostbusters reboot, which resulted in the stars of the film receiving sexist and racist abuse. This suggests that many men’s inability to see value in “stories about anything other than themselves” is entwined with the devaluation of women themselves.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238010/original/file-20180926-149961-e42m6a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" height="266" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238010/original/file-20180926-149961-e42m6a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Clementine Ford</td></tr>
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<br />Inevitably, Ford must consider the men who lead these online crusades against the imagined oppression of men. She devotes significant attention to Milo Yiannopoulos, who has become a figurehead of the men’s rights movement. When Leslie Jones, the African-American actress who starred in Ghostbusters, shared some of the abuse she received at the hands of <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/celebrity/leslie-jones-speaks-out-after-harasser-milo-yiannopoulos-lands-book-deal-20170104-gtliqa.html">Yiannopoulos and his followers</a>, he accused her of “playing the victim”. <br />
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And yet, as Ford identifies, Yiannopoulos resorted to framing himself as a victim when his Twitter account was removed in 2016. In a telling assessment, Ford argues that these men are not united in their “iron-clad fortitude but by extreme fragility, and this is what bonds them together beneath men like Yiannopoulous”.<br />
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Read more:
<a href="http://theconversation.com/metoo-is-not-enough-it-has-yet-to-shift-the-power-imbalances-that-would-bring-about-gender-equality-92108">#MeToo is not enough: it has yet to shift the power imbalances that would bring about gender equality</a>
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One of the most frustrating modern retorts to any attempt to discuss gendered violence, discrimination and outright sexism is that “#NotAllMen” are responsible for these acts and attitudes. However, as Ford cuttingly observes, women do not need a directive to “look for the goodness in men, because we try our damnedest to find it every day”.<br />
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Women already know that not all men are guilty of the brutal sexual assaults, for instance, that Ford details in her interrogation of rape culture. The difference for women is that “we know that any man could be [a threat]”. The magnitude of living with such a gendered power imbalance impacts every woman’s thoughts and movements.<br />
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While Ford writes with great humour about the abuse she has received and anti-feminist rhetoric more generally, the overwhelming gravity of a world overcome by toxic masculinity permeates this book. <br />
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Margaret Atwood’s famous comment that men are afraid that women will laugh at them, while women are afraid that men will kill them, is no more painfully examined than in discussion of the brutal rape and murder of Aboriginal woman Lynette Daley. One of the killers, in his explanation of events to police, stated: “These things happen … girls will be girls, boys will be boys.”<br />
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As Ford rallies us to understand, being a boy need not pose a danger to women nor encompass the harms that patriarchy enacts on men, such as increased risk of suicide or the impact of violence. <br />
With an epilogue comprised of a loving letter to her young son, Ford asks us to imagine a different definition of boyhood, in which being sensitive, soft, kind, gentle, respectful, accountable, expressive, loving and nurturing are no longer framed as incompatible with being a man.<!-- Below is The Conversation's page counter tag. Please DO NOT REMOVE. --><img alt="The Conversation" height="1" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/103760/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important; text-shadow: none !important;" width="1" /><!-- End of code. If you don't see any code above, please get new code from the Advanced tab after you click the republish button. The page counter does not collect any personal data. More info: http://theconversation.com/republishing-guidelines --><br />
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<b><i>This article is republished from <a href="http://theconversation.com/">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/clementine-ford-reveals-the-fragility-behind-toxic-masculinity-in-boys-will-be-boys-103760">original article</a>.</i></b>Michelle Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18350801340930174962noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3252300568370815502.post-43006082990958791132018-08-03T21:20:00.002-07:002018-08-03T21:20:53.454-07:00Why YA Gothic Fiction is Booming - and Girl Monsters are on the Rise<div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
An 18-year-old girl prepares to die to enable the birth of her half-vampire baby. Her spine is broken in the process, and the fanged baby begins to gnaw its way through her stomach before the girl’s husband performs a vampiric Cesarean section. This is a crucial moment in Stephenie Meyer’s <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3090465-the-twilight-saga?from_search=true">Twilight</a> novel series, published from 2005 to 2008.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyI9lermb7hDES3COXWxLlF2wmiJCr0k5gqzrJruRonjvqOjZHeDlNUBhyphenhyphenTyTNZLTJwNQVwq5_fYGAH47smityTc62sMUAjys0FV9cfcFw4b7Du7lBWjXZM-zoLe1Dhpk7sSqtQSy9QVI/s1600/file-20180716-44094-11ep7nw.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1132" data-original-width="754" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyI9lermb7hDES3COXWxLlF2wmiJCr0k5gqzrJruRonjvqOjZHeDlNUBhyphenhyphenTyTNZLTJwNQVwq5_fYGAH47smityTc62sMUAjys0FV9cfcFw4b7Du7lBWjXZM-zoLe1Dhpk7sSqtQSy9QVI/s320/file-20180716-44094-11ep7nw.jpg" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Zoey Deutch in the film Vampire<br />Academy (2014). Angry Films,<br />Kintop Pictures, Preger Entertainment.</td></tr>
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Meyer’s books heralded a new, and continuing, wave of Gothic fiction for Young Adult readers, which revisits familiar literary Gothic conventions: ancient, ruined buildings and monstrous supernatural figures like the vampire, werewolf, ghost and witch. <br />
<br />
The Gothic romances of the 18th century, such as the novels of Ann Radcliffe, and the enduringly popular Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897), sought to recreate feelings of terror and horror for an audience of adult readers. Today, however, most Gothic fiction is being published for, and read by, young people. Surprisingly, it has proved to be the ideal genre for exploring the grotesque and frightening aspects of coming of age, and metaphorically representing pressing social issues such as racism and gender inequality.<br />
<br />
The <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null">phenomenally popular</a> YA genre, targeted at readers between 12 and 18 years old, evolved from realist novels of the 1960s. These books were preoccupied with the struggles of adolescence set against a backdrop of social issues. Now, though, the genre often looks to the supernatural. Beyond Twilight, some of the most popular YA Gothic series also focus on the “lives” of vampires who are protagonists rather than foes.<br />
<br />
Richelle Mead’s six-book <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/series/42114-vampire-academy">Vampire Academy</a> (2007-2010), now adapted into a TV series, is about a teenage girl who is a Dhampir (half-human, half-vampire). She becomes entangled in a forbidden romance with her instructor as St Vladimir’s Academy, while learning how to defeat evil vampires named Strigoi.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/227757/original/file-20180716-44100-s9inmc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" height="225" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/227757/original/file-20180716-44100-s9inmc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ashley Lyn Blair in Vampire Academy: The Officially Unofficial Fan<br />Series (2016). idmb</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
</figure>
<br />
The YA Gothic revival has also embraced a wide range of supernatural entities. Cassandra Clare’s <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/37672947-2-books-set?from_search=true">Shadowhunter Chronicles</a>, a cross-media franchise that includes the Infernal Devices and Mortal Instruments novel series, charges angel-blooded humans with the task of protecting regular humans from a range of supernatural beings.<br />
<br />
The Nephilim, or Shadowhunters, are busy controlling demons, warlocks, werewolves, faeries and vampires, but critically, it is their part-supernatural status that enables them to serve as protectors.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/227754/original/file-20180716-44076-r6556j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" border="0" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/227754/original/file-20180716-44076-r6556j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" /></a>Clare has said that <a href="http://www.cassandraclare.com/about/">she did not write her series</a> for young adults (and indeed <a href="https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/childrens/childrens-industry-news/article/53937-new-study-55-of-ya-books-bought-by-adults.html">almost half of the readership</a> of YA fiction might be adults). Nevertheless, her teenage protagonists have resonated with readers of the same age. <br />
<br />
The Gothic, and its newer sub-genres like <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/genres/paranormal-romance">paranormal romance</a>, have a unique resonance with teenagers. They are poised in a transitional space between childhood and adulthood, neither quite embodying the stage they are leaving behind nor fully the thing that they are in the process of becoming. It is unsurprising, then, that they have eagerly embraced the Gothic’s themes of the liminal and the monstrous, as well as its fixation on romance and sex.<br />
<br />
Another significant element of the current YA Gothic revival is the emergence of the girl monster. In earlier manifestions of the <a href="http://knarf.english.upenn.edu/Articles/moers.html">“female Gothic”</a>, first published in the 18th century by women writers, female protagonists were often courageous, but simultaneously passive and victimised. The plots of the female Gothic reflected the comparative powerlessness of women at the time and their fears about their vulnerability and entrapment within domestic roles and patriarchal society. <br />
<br />
In contemporary YA Gothic, girl monsters, who can constitute a threat to others and themselves, disrupt the plotline of male monster and female victim. <br /><br />
<h2>
Why now?</h2>
The most obvious catalyst for the embrace of Gothic conventions in literature for young people is J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series. Its popularity signalled a warm embrace of fantasy fiction that confronted the eternal dilemma of the battle between good and evil, charging a child - and later teenage protagonist - with the ability to save the world. While Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry was not necessarily Gothic, the Potter phenomenon opened the way for the publication of numerous titles that embraced the possibilities of young protagonists with supernatural abilities.<br />
<hr />
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="http://theconversation.com/rethinking-harry-potter-twenty-years-on-86761">Rethinking Harry Potter twenty years on</a>
</strong>
</em>
<br />
<hr />
Most significantly, Meyer’s Twilight series about human Bella Swan and “sparkling” vampire Edward Cullen, combined this staple figure of Gothic fiction with the teen romance novel. The Twilight novels were <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/8457612.stm">bestsellers</a> internationally and the saga was voted into the number one position in Australian book chain Angus & Robertson’s <a href="https://www.giraffedays.com/?page_id=5138">Top 100 Books poll of 2010</a>. The Twilight universe expanded from books into a highly successful film series.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/227745/original/file-20180716-44100-wmnryl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" height="266" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/227745/original/file-20180716-44100-wmnryl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Robert Pattinson and Cam Gigandet in Twilight (2008). Summit<br />Entertainment, Temple Hill Entertainment, Maverick Films.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The Gothic has had several major periods of popularity since its first appearance in 18th-century England, with Horace Walpole’s novel <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12923.The_Castle_of_Otranto">The Castle of Otranto</a> (1764). In each subsequent revival of Gothic fiction, the genre has been reworked and reinvented to address current cultural concerns. <br />
In particular, the monsters that haunt the pages of Gothic novels are transformed with shifting fears and anxieties. In her influential book Our Vampires, Ourselves Nina Auerbach <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/Our_Vampires_Ourselves.html?id=ILOzzQFU8ooC&redir_esc=y">explains</a> that “every age embraces the vampire it needs”, and this comment can be extend to Gothic monsters more generally. <br />
<br />
Contemporary YA fiction blurs the line between good and evil. In Gothic novels of the 19th century, monsters were usually wholly “Othered”. A Victorian-era vampire such as Stoker’s Dracula, for instance was depicted as evil, foreign, and frighteningly different to the British human.<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/227755/original/file-20180716-44073-im7yl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" height="250" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/227755/original/file-20180716-44073-im7yl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Gary Oldman as Count Dracula in the 1992 film version of the Bram<br />
Stoker novel. American Zoetrope, Columbia Pictures Corporation.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
But contemporary monsters are no longer necessarily imagined as racially different or set in opposition to the human. Moreover, they are often represented sympathetically, especially in stories told from their perspective.<br />
<br />
These include the <a href="http://izombie.wikia.com/wiki/IZombie_(Comics)">iZombie</a> comic series, in which the protagonist must eat brains on a monthly basis to survive, and Claudia Gray’s <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2722413-evernight?from_search=true">Evernight</a> series, in which the reader is not even aware that the girl protagonist is a vampire for half of the first book. Indeed, as Anna Jackson explains in <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=oTeFDgAAQBAJ&pg=PT12&lpg=PT12&dq=%22the+monsters+have+become+the+heroes%22+jackson&source=bl&ots=u31LMOUtxk&sig=Rz44kD-qxc7f1v7oaRuL-9bC214&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiq-t-MzuPaAhUEf7wKHQsKC7IQ6AEIKTAA#v=onepage&q=%">New Directions in Children’s Gothic</a>, “the monsters have become the heroes” in contemporary children’s Gothic.<br /><br />
<h2>
The passive heroine</h2>
Most Gothic novels for young people contain a romance plot. This is often because the protagonists’ age places them in the transitional zone for entering adulthood, which is demarcated by sexual experience.<br />
<hr />
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="http://theconversation.com/how-long-have-we-believed-in-vampires-85639">How long have we believed in vampires?</a>
</strong>
</em>
<br />
<hr />
In a typical YA Gothic novel, such as Twilight, a plot in which a human or monstrous girl protagonist falls for a boy who is not her “type” can dissolve the boundaries between monster and human. These monstrous love interests range from traditional Gothic ones - vampires, werewolves, zombies, ghosts and witches - to newer figures such as fallen angels and faeries. The key challenge to be overcome in these novels is the barriers posed to love by supernatural monstrosity, including the physical dangers to humans, as well as social discrimination about “cross-species” love.<br />
<br />
In one of few major studies of teen romance fiction, published almost 30 years ago, <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/Becoming_a_woman_through_romance.html?id=yNkmAQAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y">Linda Christian-Smith described</a> these novels as a “site of ideological struggles for young women’s hearts and minds”. In particular, she refers to teen romance fiction’s emphasis on heteronormative coupling and motherhood. Little has changed with respect to depictions of sexuality since, despite the YA Gothic’s embrace of diverse human-monster relationships.<br />
<br />
Most romances in the genre are heterosexual. They do often emphasise the heroine’s agency through her supernatural abilities and ability to choose between men or move between relationships. However, the human heroines of the Twilight series and Lauren Kate’s Fallen series, in which the heroine becomes drawn to a boy who is a fallen angel, are comparatively indecisive and continue to need rescuing. <br />
<br />
Tellingly, Joss Whedon, the creator of the TV series Buffy, The Vampire Slayer (1997-2003), <a href="http://www.digitalspy.com/movies/twilight/news/a509522/joss-whedon-criticises-twilight-saga-bella-swan-is-too-passive/">has described Twilight’s Bella as</a> lacking empowerment, overly fixated on her romantic options, and “completely passive”.<br />
<br />
Novels with passive human heroines allow the reader to use the fantasy of romance as a temporary escape from real-world gender inequality. Yet they also reinforce its reality for female readers.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/227742/original/file-20180716-44070-njhjw0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" height="266" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/227742/original/file-20180716-44070-njhjw0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kristen Stewart (Bella) and Robert Pattinson (Edward) in Twilight (2008).<br />Summit Entertainment, Temple Hill Entertainment, Maverick Films</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<h2>
<br />
The girl monster</h2>
Supernatural heroines, however, are often able to breach the confines of traditional femininity and become extraordinary in ways that Twilight’s Bella and other human characters cannot. In a number of YA Gothic novels, such as Mead’s Vampire Academy, the protagonists disrupt expectations of feminine behaviour because of their unique, and often poorly understood, supernatural abilities. These special powers become the focus of anxieties about the girls’ coming of age, as they pursue romances that place their broader communities under threat.<br />
<br />
The Vampire Academy series was sufficiently popular in 2010 for three of its six titles to sell between 300,000 and half a million copies in hardcover in the US alone, according to <a href="https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/childrens/childrens-industry-news/article/46543-franchises-flying-high-children-s-books-facts-figures-2010.html">Publishers Weekly</a>. However, unlike the Twilight series, on which it likely attempted to capitalise, its protagonist, Rose, is half-vampire, half-human and a monster in her own right. Rose shares a close bond with vampire Lissa, and is driven to break the Academy’s rules in order to save her friend when she is kidnapped, highlighting that girls are also capable of protecting and rescuing people they love.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/227749/original/file-20180716-44088-1ls5wu0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" height="225" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/227749/original/file-20180716-44088-1ls5wu0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ashley Lyn Blair (Lissa) and Jennifer Studnicki (Rose) in Vampire Academy:<br />The Officially Unofficial Fan Series (2016). idmb</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
</figure>
<br />
Vampire Academy positions Rose as a sexual object, particularly in the eyes of a privileged type of vampire (Moroi), who find Dhampir women especially attractive because of racial differences. Rose enjoys her sexuality and dresses to take advantage of it, but this sexuality operates within her definition as a strong young woman:<br />
<blockquote>
First they saw my body and the dress. Testosterone took over as pure male lust shone out of their faces. Then they seemed to realize it was me and promptly turned terrified. Cool. </blockquote>
Rose is able to reject unwelcome advances and possesses the physical strength and skills to stand up for herself, suggesting a fantasy of empowerment and equality. <br />
<br />
Lissa, meanwhile, thwarts what amounts to an attempted gang rape of a drugged girl. A group of male Moroi students attempt to take advantage of a female feeder (person who permits their blood to be sucked) at a party, “doing a sort of group feeding, taking turns biting her and making gross suggestions. High and oblivious, she let them”.<br />
<br />
The supernatural female protagonists in YA gothic novels are responsible for their own safety and protection, yet they also have a responsibility to keep others safe.
These heroines have some romantic and sexual agency in a way that can be considered progressive. However, their desire is also framed as disruptive and dangerous and there is an obsessive fixation on the pursuit of romance above the girl’s own development, education and safety.<br />
<br />
In other words, the superficially radical potential of girl heroines with superhuman physical strength, mind-reading abilities, and the potential to kill can merely be a decorative smokescreen for the reinforcement of traditional feminine values.<br /><br />
<h2>
The good and monstrous within</h2>
The recent proliferation of Gothic YA novels is skewed toward a female readership with a focus on girl protagonists, and significant emphasis on their quest for romance. Nevertheless, there are a number of series with boy heroes. For example, Ransom Riggs’ Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children (the first book of which was recently filmed by director Tim Burton), focuses on a 16-year-old human boy, Jacob.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/227752/original/file-20180716-44100-14bqrbl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" height="266" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/227752/original/file-20180716-44100-14bqrbl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (2016).<br />Twentieth Century Fox, Chernin Entertainment, TSG Entertainment.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
</figure>
<br />
Jacob has inherited an ability that makes him uniquely able to help the supernatural peculiar children of the title, who are threatened by creatures named hollowgasts who are driven to murder peculiar children in order to feed upon their souls. For Jacob, his transition to adulthood is less about romance and more about self-discovery, connections with his ancestors, and finding a way to negotiate his new-found abilities and responsibilities.<br />
<br />
In <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18049260-the-gothic-child?from_search=true">The Gothic Child</a>, Maria Georgieva <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=AdjQAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA13&lpg=PA13&dq=the+growth+and+transformation+of+the+child,+the+crisis+of+adolescence+and+the+sometimes+painful+transition+into+adulthood&source=bl&ots=nYYj7PzA67&sig=B354L2FMpHR3SCtAU4V6hKaZR7">suggests that</a> the traditional Gothic novel is preoccupied with “the growth and transformation of the child, the crisis of adolescence and the sometimes painful transition into adulthood”. She is referring to the child’s potential to grow into the hero, heroine or villain.<br />
<br />
However, the recent surge in YA Gothic fiction takes this fascination with the darker aspects of childhood in a different direction. The girl heroine, in learning to manage the physical and emotional shifts of her development and more complex relationships in romance, can both be a threat and a saviour to others.<br />
<br />
The fuzziness of her nature reflects both the liminal status of the teenager and new cultural understandings of the monster, who now more often resembles the typical American teen than an undead Romanian count.<br />
<br />
Instead of contemplating a child’s potential to head towards either good or evil, recent Gothic YA acknowledges the possibility of both the good and the monstrous residing in one person.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>This article was originally published on <a href="http://theconversation.com/">The Conversation</a>. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-why-ya-gothic-fiction-is-booming-and-girl-monsters-are-on-the-rise-95921">original article</a>.</b>Michelle Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18350801340930174962noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3252300568370815502.post-377167175616471782018-07-03T16:29:00.001-07:002018-07-03T16:30:21.502-07:00ACMI Conversation about Alice on Screen: Electric GirlhoodsThe "Wonderland" exhibition, a celebration of Alice in Wonderland in visual culture from the Victorian period until today, has been running in Melbourne since May at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image. Shortly after the opening, I took part in a talk about Alice on screen with Alexandra Heller-Nicholas and Dr Dan Golding. The event was live streamed and you can watch the recording here. We work our way through Alices from the silent era through to Tim Burton, and there's plenty of focus on showing excerpts from less well-known films.
<br />
<br />
<iframe allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/4Gw1ZBUyf60" width="560"></iframe>Michelle Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18350801340930174962noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3252300568370815502.post-18513528108021407932018-05-19T19:53:00.000-07:002018-05-19T19:53:54.522-07:00Television interview: The Royal Wedding and the Princess Myth<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<iframe allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/aV2VV_rY5i8" width="560"></iframe>Michelle Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18350801340930174962noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3252300568370815502.post-46540318178658202052018-05-15T22:46:00.001-07:002018-05-15T22:46:15.438-07:00New Book Release: From Colonial to Modern<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguWyfyT1Zfl7I8RPS47a9tvLcTqiFzhPeU9rY35Z35ToKeZTTuooZhrV3JSrwGtqGDXuWKdmHa1SZcsMttWSuvJ9PlwjI5wXujcoAXdwTWRvaPiufb5UmFkZfIOmxK6M10lCR8YAsbAzo/s1600/SP004897.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1082" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguWyfyT1Zfl7I8RPS47a9tvLcTqiFzhPeU9rY35Z35ToKeZTTuooZhrV3JSrwGtqGDXuWKdmHa1SZcsMttWSuvJ9PlwjI5wXujcoAXdwTWRvaPiufb5UmFkZfIOmxK6M10lCR8YAsbAzo/s400/SP004897.jpg" width="270" /></a></div>
My new co-authored book <a href="https://utorontopress.com/us/from-colonial-to-modern-1">is now available from University of Toronto Press</a>. It's been many years in the making with two wonderful colleagues, Kristine Moruzi and Clare Bradford (Deakin University), and focuses on dozens of novels and magazines from colonial Australia, Canada and New Zealand that have been largely excluded from studies of children's and national literatures to date.<br /><br />Here's the book blurb:<br /><br />
Through a comparison of Canadian, Australian, and New Zealand texts published between 1840 and 1940, From Colonial to Modern develops a new history of colonial girlhoods revealing how girlhood in each of these emerging nations reflects a unique political, social, and cultural context.<br />
<br />
Print culture was central to the definition, and redefinition, of colonial girlhood during this period of rapid change. Models of girlhood are shared between settler colonies and contain many similar attitudes towards family, the natural world, education, employment, modernity, and race, yet, as the authors argue, these texts also reveal different attitudes that emerged out of distinct colonial experiences. Unlike the imperial model representing the British ideal, the transnational girl is an adaptation of British imperial femininity and holds, for example, a unique perception of Indigenous culture and imperialism. Drawing on fiction, girls’ magazines, and school magazine, the authors shine a light on neglected corners of the literary histories of these three nations and strengthen our knowledge of femininity in white settler colonies.Michelle Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18350801340930174962noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3252300568370815502.post-18754078843289688412018-05-13T01:52:00.000-07:002018-05-15T22:31:18.950-07:00Electric Girlhoods: ACMI Alice in Wonderland Event<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4OQF9ZhHarUWGKMiJ_Ico9ERMMDdUcNIgGuiJmh480dI-nFkejK7uRdOAtaRVjAxORPpP0LXoeSiPTOxS66Z13IQCUqUCQvEwkez0npUeqqdDbNee0RuXor_AZf1_3TpHyUbDiYOWyFU/s1600/Alice.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="597" data-original-width="960" height="248" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4OQF9ZhHarUWGKMiJ_Ico9ERMMDdUcNIgGuiJmh480dI-nFkejK7uRdOAtaRVjAxORPpP0LXoeSiPTOxS66Z13IQCUqUCQvEwkez0npUeqqdDbNee0RuXor_AZf1_3TpHyUbDiYOWyFU/s400/Alice.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
I'll be part of an event to coincide with ACMI's Winter Masterpieces <a href="https://www.acmi.net.au/events/wonderland/">Wonderland </a>exhibition on Tuesday 15th May at 6:30 pm. The event is titled: <a href="https://www.acmi.net.au/events/electric-girlhoods-and-alices-past-and-future/">Electric Girlhoods and Alices Past and Future</a><br />
<br />
Alice was first brought to life by Lewis Carroll, but she's sparked imaginations and been immortalised on screen many times since.<br />
<br />
Join film critic and author Alexandra Heller-Nicholas in conversation with Dr Michelle Smith (Monash University) and Dr Dan Golding (Swinburne University of Technology) as they discuss these 'electric' Alices and the unique representations of girlhood across time, space and media, exploring historical significance, contemporary potency and what Alice might mean in the future.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNPWtnvOQagqGbA5EPYPJui3oiftHp-eFq-TXC9jHLKhE3GcnViej79O-UspIT1R8I4vlwcNpHuh2AR4SW2hU34rzt49j9DiE20pTYKHSP3rSFvKtAS1Mi57Q-7piZy6mLkV1t-iRmX-U/s1600/ACMI.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="960" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNPWtnvOQagqGbA5EPYPJui3oiftHp-eFq-TXC9jHLKhE3GcnViej79O-UspIT1R8I4vlwcNpHuh2AR4SW2hU34rzt49j9DiE20pTYKHSP3rSFvKtAS1Mi57Q-7piZy6mLkV1t-iRmX-U/s400/ACMI.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A photo from the event</td></tr>
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<br />Michelle Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18350801340930174962noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3252300568370815502.post-15830018380559663882018-04-05T18:58:00.001-07:002018-04-05T19:00:31.081-07:00Alice on Screen: Who is Alice? Curious Interpretations of WonderlandTo coincide with ACMI's Winter Masterpieces exhibition "Wonderland", which focuses on Alice's representation in the moving image- from magic lantern slides to Tim Burton's film- I was invited to prepare a video essay on screen Alices. In the video, I talk about Alice from her first silent film appearance, her use in psychedelic counter-culture and anti-drug propaganda, and Dr Pepper ads, through to the fascination with Alice in Japanese popular culture and her darker incarnations in video games.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="308" mozallowfullscreen="" src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/262927091" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="548"></iframe>Michelle Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18350801340930174962noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3252300568370815502.post-61495139288602719202018-02-21T15:51:00.000-08:002018-02-21T15:51:57.109-08:00Ding, Dong for the last time! Goodbye to the Avon Lady <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifgKm5AFYRXkuKwvUHd3H2f12CU7XFymgB8bXSC439Yxme7YK7f1noEz9xhcPYEn5smq4gEcupRjSKFJS3mlgCo-pIGl9y8NE1kcQQjYkzgU7OJSiRlP6t0Z-pJklLXBgP96QhbRFrNic/s1600/avon_ad.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="690" data-original-width="520" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifgKm5AFYRXkuKwvUHd3H2f12CU7XFymgB8bXSC439Yxme7YK7f1noEz9xhcPYEn5smq4gEcupRjSKFJS3mlgCo-pIGl9y8NE1kcQQjYkzgU7OJSiRlP6t0Z-pJklLXBgP96QhbRFrNic/s320/avon_ad.jpg" width="241" /></a></div>
<span style="text-align: center;">With the most iconic beauty brands available via online shopping, exclusive Avon products delivered to your home by a woman who also lives in your neighbourhood are now a quaint relic. Coupled with the embrace of cosmetic emporiums like Sephora, the doorknock and friendly cry of “Avon calling” will <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/business/end-of-an-era-220-to-lose-jobs-as-avon-plans-to-quit-australia-and-nz-20180216-p4z0le.html">come to an end in Australia and New Zealand</a> later this year. </span><br />
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I haven’t used an Avon product since being hooked on the girls’ “Little Blossom” range of demurely “tinted” pink nail varnish and lip gloss in the 1980s. While younger women may not have continued to use their products in the Instagram era, the Avon lady was once a radical figure who played a pioneering part in women earning their own incomes.<br />
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Avon began with a man, David H. McConnell, selling books door-to-door to a captive market of housewives in the 1880s. When he began to offer women a free sample of a custom-made perfume in return for listening to his book spiel, they were more interested in the scent than the books. It was not as simple as ducking down to the shops for cosmetics for many women with no mode of transportation, particularly in small towns.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEo1RdwZ4E1ECs0L9j_-RYku6JeTzqQgzaupygH-X9uzj18K8lNzqaZMhXaxEkdWIdSMZ8lGdmEqNqBBDvd82uRc7HaMXYXnFa7flkVZU2TFNEAZf-vOmKs4tAS2RoKLcQ6u2tLF4eH8I/s1600/persis.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="300" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEo1RdwZ4E1ECs0L9j_-RYku6JeTzqQgzaupygH-X9uzj18K8lNzqaZMhXaxEkdWIdSMZ8lGdmEqNqBBDvd82uRc7HaMXYXnFa7flkVZU2TFNEAZf-vOmKs4tAS2RoKLcQ6u2tLF4eH8I/s320/persis.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Persis Foster Eames Albee, the first "Avon lady"</td></tr>
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Persis Foster Eames Albee from Westchester, New York joined his California Perfume Company and initiated the famous method of women selling directly to other women door-to-door. While travelling salesmen were common, Albee pioneered the model of a low-pressure “house call” that was as much a socialising opportunity as a sales pitch and opportunity to demonstrate products.<br />
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With very few opportunities for most women to work or access welfare, they were largely financially dependent on their husbands. In her twelve-year career, travelling by horse and buggy and train, Albee trained up 5,000 American women to sell cosmetics through the California Perfume Company. She granted them the rare opportunity to generate their own income without neglecting their family responsibilities or breaking expectations of how women should behave.<br />
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Inspired by Shakespeare, McConnell renamed his company Avon in 1928, as it expanded well beyond its original “Little Dot Perfume Set”. While the post-war emphasis on family life in suburbia stultified enough mothers to drive them to self-medicate with alcohol and prescription drugs, Avon provided an outlet for women to nurture or regain a professional identity.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQuUKPNheeieQKGmUkIka5_BCJKJsexg23dDtruOHekbDe0qFyJGvTgOf1iDfnsCcn2fT7JsNJ4Z_JdGsYIvKVlTCVyNqlf0WkBiZULF0YJSvCz_jHV0FNcFS0tDGHlHIQmhkSav7DMdc/s1600/Peg+Boggs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="288" data-original-width="512" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQuUKPNheeieQKGmUkIka5_BCJKJsexg23dDtruOHekbDe0qFyJGvTgOf1iDfnsCcn2fT7JsNJ4Z_JdGsYIvKVlTCVyNqlf0WkBiZULF0YJSvCz_jHV0FNcFS0tDGHlHIQmhkSav7DMdc/s320/Peg+Boggs.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dianne Wiest as Avon lady Peg Boggs</td></tr>
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The pastel-wearing Peg Boggs in the film Edward Scissorhands neatly embodies the void that Avon sales filled for housewives in suburbs where the men emptied out in sync every morning only to return in the evening. While most married women were locked out of the world of work that was a car-ride away, through Avon many turned the homes around them into places of business and joined a network of industrious women.<br />
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Like Tupperware parties, which were popularised in the 1950s, selling Avon did comply with a culture that wanted to keep women in the home, devoting their attentions to housework and maintaining their looks for their husband. However, the discriminatory workplace practices of the past meant many married or pregnant women could not continue to work outside the home. Regardless of whether women were selling food storage containers or lipsticks, they were still mobilising their business skills and earning money that might not be controlled by a man.<br />
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Today, as department stores lose their cultural cachet, more cosmetics are bought through browsing products on websites, in much the same way as women would browse the printed Avon catalogue. What is lost, however, in these transactions is the thousands of women who found a degree of financial independence and personal satisfaction through their own local sales business.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8_wvF5UGA00rZ7mg_bVnPluGqz1cFyiGdeZuXoxtmvReqt-kXc1yn5-9wQJgPo95vNZCPz41PBgoFkwepXXLk4aadVQaJSzpOGmqaQzFgvj20-h08MGm-e-vxevNpl1EMuA8oqhdAyq8/s1600/beauty-avon-calling-barbara-bel-geddes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1092" data-original-width="1600" height="272" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8_wvF5UGA00rZ7mg_bVnPluGqz1cFyiGdeZuXoxtmvReqt-kXc1yn5-9wQJgPo95vNZCPz41PBgoFkwepXXLk4aadVQaJSzpOGmqaQzFgvj20-h08MGm-e-vxevNpl1EMuA8oqhdAyq8/s400/beauty-avon-calling-barbara-bel-geddes.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
The women of 2017 have more employment opportunities and work rights than those of the 1880s or even the 1950s, many of whom had few options beyond toting cosmetic samples around their suburb on foot. Nevertheless, the perennial problems of household and child-rearing responsibilities continue to plague women and hamper their abilities to build careers and earn their own incomes.<br />
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Now some women are establishing their own businesses online that allow them to tread the same fine line between independence and maternal responsibility as Avon ladies of generations past. While the need for Avon’s kitsch ornaments and scented talc may have declined to the point where Australian operations are no longer viable, the need for flexible working options for women has not.<br />
<br />
On the surface, they might represent an era in which the ultimate homemaker was glorified, yet the ringing doorbells of Avon ladies also helped to dismantle a system that kept women financially dependent and excluded from the world of businessMichelle Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18350801340930174962noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3252300568370815502.post-54798535313345659872018-01-03T03:20:00.001-08:002018-01-03T03:28:04.262-08:00From sleeping beauty to the frog prince – why we shouldn't ban fairytales<figure class="align-left " style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="File 20171213 31706 1k3e5cs.jpg?ixlib=rb 1.1" height="331" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198913/original/file-20171213-31706-1k3e5cs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C167%2C452%2C377&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="400" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The famous kiss scene from Sleeping Beauty. Disney</td></tr>
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Recently, an English mother, Sarah Hall, prompted <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/item/348b95fd-81d6-46d4-827e-73c727b8ceb6">worldwide media coverage</a> in response to her suggestion that Sleeping Beauty should be removed from the school curriculum for young children because of the “inappropriate sexual message” it sends about consent.<br />
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It’s not the only time fairytales have come under scrutiny recently. They are increasingly being <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/fairy-tales-children-stop-reading-parents-body-image-gender-roles-women-girls-sexism-a8067641.html">targeted</a> for “banning” within schools or avoidance by parents because of their perceived sexism, passive princesses, and reinforcement of marriage as girls’ ultimate goal. But can fairy tales actually be harmful as their critics believe?<br />
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Fairy tales were once told – and then written – by adults for adult audiences. Early versions of many tales were often bawdy, salacious and replete with sexual innuendo. Since the Grimm Brothers removed these elements to reconfigure the fairy tale for children in the early 19th century, fairy tales have been seen as ideal, imaginative stories for young people. Almost all of us know the most popular stories from childhood reading or Disney films.<br />
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Tradition is not reason enough to continue a cultural practice that has become outmoded. Nevertheless, there are a range of reasons why these calls to restrict children from reading fairy tales such as Sleeping Beauty are misguided.<br />
<h2>
<br />Children’s literature needn’t model ‘ideal’ behaviour</h2>
Initially, most children’s literature was didactic and preoccupied with instructing children in correct morals and drilling them with information.<br />
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Adult readers today would struggle to find any pleasure in children’s literature prior to 1850, let alone today’s kids. In order to provide “delight” as well as “instruction”, children’s books represent a range of behaviour, including, in the case of fairy tales, the attempted murder of children, and punishments such as feet being severed and birds pecking out human eyes.<br />
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198920/original/file-20171213-31679-shw6dj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198920/original/file-20171213-31679-shw6dj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" /></a>Charles Perrault was the French author who added the famous motifs of the glass slipper and pumpkin coach to the Cinderella tale. In his version of Sleeping Beauty, after the Princess and the Prince marry in secret and have two children, the Prince’s mother is entirely unimpressed. Unsurprisingly within a fairy tale, the Prince’s mother is descended from ogres and she demands that the two children be killed and eaten for dinner by the whole family, with the macabre detail that the boy is to be served with Sauce Robert.<br />
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As in Snow White, in which the Huntsman refuses to kill the heroine and substitutes an animal heart for that of Snow White’s, no actual harm comes to the princess or her children but not before the ogress has prepared a tub full of vipers in a typical last-ditch attempt at villainy.<br />
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When we consider the norms of evil and violence in fairy tales – most of which are usually punished – it is bizarre to imagine every detail serving as a behavioural model for children. If we insisted that every character in children’s literature behaved precisely as we wish to teach children to behave then we would likely be presenting bland stories that no child would actually read.<br />
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<img alt="" height="238" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198928/original/file-20171213-31679-1q1vy5k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" width="400" />
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<span class="caption">Maleficent’s curse came to pass on the Princess’ 16th birthday…<br />but the good fairies changed the curse so the Princess would not <br />die, but sleep ‘til awakened by true love’s kiss.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Flickr CC</span></span>
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</figure>
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<h2>
Considering plot points in context</h2>
If we focus on one plot point, like the kiss in Sleeping Beauty, we can overlook the overall narrative context. <br />
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Within <a href="http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/type0410.html#perrault">the tale</a>, it becomes legend that the sleeping spell that has been cast on the Princess will only be broken after one-hundred years by the kiss of a king’s son. The narrative premise includes a premonition about how the magic will unfold and demands the resolution of the prince’s kiss to “save” the princess who must wait to be returned to consciousness. <br />
While we might critique the emphasis on romance and passivity from a feminist perspective, the idea that the tale is promoting the equivalent of a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steubenville_High_School_rape_case">Steubenville scenario</a> in which an unconscious young woman is sexually assaulted ignores the magical logic of the fantasy world.<br />
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By that measure, we might see Prince Charming as a maniacal stalker as he demands all women in the kingdom try on the glass slipper in order to track down the attractive girl who failed to slip him her address before running off from the ball.<br />
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In Sleeping Beauty, it is significant that the Prince is told about the Princess being doomed to sleep until she is awakened by a king’s son. The Prince recognises that he is one of few people who can end the curse and resolves to tackle the brambles and thorns that surround the castle in which she is trapped in slumber. <br />
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Significantly, in the Grimms’ version, <a href="http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm050.html">Little Brier-Rose</a>, numerous young men try to push themselves through the thorny hedge and die miserably in the attempt. However the hedge turns into flowers for the Prince and allows him through. Only the right man, with the right motivations, and the one who can release the Princess from the curse – is permitted through. <br />
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Rather than being a parallel to a kiss taken without consent, the Sleeping Beauty kiss is akin to a paramedic giving mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to an unconscious person who would most usually want to be revived.<br />
<h2>
<br />Many versions of every fairy tale</h2>
The version of Sleeping Beauty targeted in the UK is part of the <a href="https://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/for-home/find-a-book/read-with-biff-chip-and-kipper/">“Biff, Chip and Kipper”</a> series designed to teach children to read. These books aim to educate children in the mechanics of reading and, as such, some of the literary nuance, symbolism, and visual artistry present in many fairy tales and picture books based upon them are no doubt lacking.<br />
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198932/original/file-20171213-31725-1ykanle.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="" border="0" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198932/original/file-20171213-31725-1ykanle.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" /></a>It is important to recall that there is no definitive version of a fairy tale. Calls for “bans” of a particular tale ignore variations between, say, Perrault’s Sleeping Beauty complete with cannibalistic, viper-wielding ogress and the Grimms’ less violent adaptation.<br />
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Rather than eschewing fairy tales entirely, parents and educators would be better placed to look to quality adaptations and retellings by outstanding children’s authors, such as Neil Gaiman’s <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/the-sleeper-and-the-spindle-9781408859643/">The Sleeper and the Spindle</a>, which merges Snow White and Sleeping Beauty.<br />
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In this tale, the Queen sets out on a journey armed with a sword to save the Princess and is the one who rescues her through a kiss.<br />
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There is even a picture book version called <a href="http://www.simonandschuster.com.au/books/Sleeping-Bobby/Mary-Pope-Osborne/9780689876684">Sleeping Bobby</a> in which the gender roles are entirely reversed. Numerous parodies such as John Scieszka’s <a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/ladybird/books/39078/the-frog-prince-continued/">The Frog Prince Continued</a>, in which the Princess’s married life with the frog is far from “happily ever after”, can also be a way for older readers to begin to question and play with the conventional gender expectations of some fairy tales.<br />
<h2>
<br />Reweaving old stories into new</h2>
Fairy tales have been undergoing a continuous process of being rewoven into new stories for hundreds of years. <br />
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Just as many old tales have fallen out of favour and are no longer known, so too might some contemporary favourites eventually stop being told to children, potentially replaced by reworked versions or entirely new stories. <br />
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This storytelling method of old wine being poured into new bottles has a rich tradition and does not require our intervention. After all, the people who ban books in stories are always the villains, not the heroes.<br />
<b><br /></b><b>This article was originally published on <a href="http://theconversation.com/">The Conversation</a>. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/from-sleeping-beauty-to-the-frog-prince-why-we-shouldnt-ban-fairytales-88317">original article</a>.</b>Michelle Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18350801340930174962noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3252300568370815502.post-34900997315564859382017-11-05T17:10:00.000-08:002017-11-05T17:10:33.933-08:00Rethinking Harry Potter Twenty Years On<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="File 20171102 26426 xezk3g.jpg?ixlib=rb 1.1" height="266" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192953/original/file-20171102-26426-xezk3g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="400" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Harry Potter series on display in Windsor, England. Anton Invanov/<br />
Shutterstock.</td></tr>
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The twentieth anniversary celebrations of the highest-selling book series of all time are now coming to a close. 2017 has been a milestone year for Harry Potter fans in their twenties and thirties, who spent much of their youth in anticipation of the release of each new book or film.<br />
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Last week’s Wheeler Centre event <a href="https://www.wheelercentre.com/events/harry-who-the-true-heroes-of-hogwarts">Harry Who? The True Heroes of Hogwarts</a> brought together writers, comedians and musicians to celebrate the series. While Harry and his broken glasses predominate at most Potter tourist sites and film screenings, Harry Who? asked the audience to consider who really is the true hero of J.K. Rowling’s stories.<br />
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As readers contemplate the long-term legacy of the Potter universe and whether it will endure, it’s also important to consider the overarching messages of Rowling’s series as the most popular example of children’s literature to date.<br />
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Harry embodies the key characteristic of some of the most memorable protagonists of classic children’s literature. From centuries-old stories of Cinderella onwards, child and youth characters who are orphans not only foster the reader’s empathy, but are also freed from the expectations and restrictions that biological parents impose.<br />
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Melanie A. Kimball <a href="https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/bitstream/handle/2142/8216/librar?sequence=1">explains the twin effects</a> of child orphans in literature:<br />
<blockquote>
Orphans are at once pitiable and noble. They are a manifestation of loneliness, but they also represent the possibility for humans to reinvent themselves.</blockquote>
Without the tragedy of Harry’s parents being violently killed by the evil Lord Voldemort, Harry would have had no compulsion to go beyond the “typical” experience of a child with a witch and a wizard for parents.<br />
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At Harry Who?, writer Ben Pobjie pointed out that Harry is not exceptional, but that it is his nemesis, Voldemort, who propels Harry to importance. With reference to his dubious celebrity, Pobjie joked that if Voldemort was in Australia, he would “be on Sunrise every morning”. As with the importance of Harry’s lack of parental influence and constraint, the extreme adversity of being Voldemort’s inadvertent nemesis establishes a heroic scenario for Harry to inhabit.<br />
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One of the repeated claims throughout the event was that Harry is not much of a hero at all, particularly as he relies on other people to succeed. In the first book of the series especially, Hermione Granger possesses most of the personal attributes and knowledge required to defeat the ever-present threat posed by Voldemort. She is clearly the most intelligent of the Harry, Ron and Hermione trio, and works hard where her male counterparts often attempt to shirk the effort required.
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" height="208" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192951/original/file-20171102-26462-6r6l1k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hermione (Emma Watson) takes the lead in a scene in Harry Potter<br />
and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004). Warner Bros</td></tr>
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While Hermione’s heroism is important, she clearly plays a supporting role to Harry: the series is, after all, named after him. The emphasis on Harry is reflective of the deep gender bias in children’s literature throughout the past century.<br />
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<a href="https://www.fsu.edu/news/2011/05/06/gender.bias/">A 2011 study</a> of twentieth-century children’s books found that, on average, in each year, no more than a third of children’s books featured central characters who were adult women or female animals. In contrast, adult men and male animals usually featured in 100 per cent of children’s books.<br />
<br />
Though the Harry Potter series does depict some strong and beloved female characters including Professor Minerva McGonagall, it is reflective of an era in which protagonists in children’s literature are usually male unless a book is specifically marketed at a girl readership. In addition, the series is also lacking in the depiction of queer characters, regardless of <a href="http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Sexual_orientation">J.K. Rowling’s post-book declaration</a> that Hogwarts’ headmaster Professor Albus Dumbledore is gay.<br />
<br />
With the rapid changes in attitudes toward social and cultural issues including same-sex marriage and children with non-normative gender and sexual identities, the Harry Potter series — as a product of the 1990s and early 2000s – might not endure as well as some might imagine. <br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192945/original/file-20171102-26444-1vcv1wf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone<br />
(1997). Bloomsbury Publishing/Goodreads</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Indeed, the issue of changing social norms means that very few children’s “classics” continue to be read by children as decades and even centuries pass. It could be that the series is eventually understood as somewhat outdated and more about producing nostalgia for adults in the same way as the once ubiquitous books of Enid Blyton are viewed today.<br />
<br />
One crucial part of the Harry Potter legacy, however, is its effectiveness in encouraging readers, viewers, and now theatre goers with <a href="https://www.harrypottertheplay.com/">Harry Potter and the Cursed Child</a>, to embrace fantastic stories about young people once again. <br />
<br />
Adults in the late 19th and early 20th centuries delighted in children’s stories and made up a significant segment of the audience for plays such as <a href="http://www.gosh.org/about-us/peter-pan/history-peter-pan-and-gosh/play-and-novel">Peter Pan</a>. The dual audience of children’s literature, for both adults and children, was once the norm and one that did not bring any shame or embarrassment with it.<br />
<br />
<img alt="The Conversation" height="1" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/86761/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" width="1" />Twenty years on, today’s adults are still gathering to talk about and celebrate the Potter novels they enjoyed as children and have continued to re-read. In addition, other series such as <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41865.Twilight?from_search=true">Twilight</a>, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2767052-the-hunger-games?from_search=true">The Hunger Games</a> and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5420376/?ref_=nv_sr_1">Riverdale</a>, show the continuing popularity of stories about young people for adults. In 2037 we will be able to tell if the Potter-effect has lasted or if its magic only worked for a brief spell.<br />
<br />
<b>This article was originally published on <a href="http://theconversation.com/">The Conversation</a>. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/rethinking-harry-potter-twenty-years-on-86761">original article</a>.</b>Michelle Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18350801340930174962noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3252300568370815502.post-9301949077259614712017-10-27T15:30:00.003-07:002017-10-27T15:36:12.510-07:00Toxic Beauty, Then and Now<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="File 20171026 28041 1ust5n1.jpg?ixlib=rb 1.1" height="300" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191982/original/file-20171026-28041-1ust5n1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="400" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Beauty is still understood as a process of ongoing work and maintenance. <br />
Shutterstock.com</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Throughout history, humans have been willing to try almost any method or product to improve their physical appearance. In response, enterprising businesses and beauty moguls have conspired to sell us almost anything — from water to poison — in the guise of cosmetic treatments. While many cosmetic products have eventually proven to have little efficacy, a significant number have also caused physical harm and even death.<br />
<br />
Cosmetics and cosmetic surgery are now subject to more stringent regulation than in the 19th century, when lead-based powders and face creams containing poisons were not uncommon. However, even today there are significant serious side-effects and potential dangers from cosmetic procedures, in particular.<br />
<br />
For example, it was <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-09-17/my-face-became-infected-again-and-again/8946230">recently reported</a> that cosmetic injections, such as platelet-rich plasma injections and facial fillers, are leading to a significant number of patients suffering from chronic, and potentially disfiguring, bacterial infections. While these kinds of non-invasive procedures are common, with over $1 billion spent annually on cosmetic jabs in Australia alone, research suggests that <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-09-17/my-face-became-infected-again-and-again/8946230">almost one-fifth of patients</a> could suffer from such complications. <br />
<br />
Of course, even when the greatest medical care is taken, there are still potential questions about the health risks of utilising Botox (Botulinum Toxin Type A) to combat or stave off facial wrinkles. While a large number of people, primarily women, have embraced Botox and <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null">believe it to be safe</a>, in 2009 the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/aug/27/botox-safe-new-research-testing-toxins-fda">US Food and Drug Administration added a warning</a> noting that Botox “may spread from the area of injection to produce symptoms of botulism”, such as muscle weakness and breathing difficulty.<br />
<hr />
<em>Further reading: <a href="https://theconversation.com/safety-before-profits-why-cosmetic-surgery-is-ripe-for-regulation-39365">Safety before profits: why cosmetic surgery is ripe for regulation</a></em><br />
<hr />
Even the most common beauty products still have potential risks associated with them. Consider lipstick, which is placed directly on the thin skin of the lips, readily ingested throughout wear, and reapplied multiple times throughout the day. Manufacturers are not required to list lead as an ingredient in lipsticks as it is regarded as a contaminant, but most contain lead, and some colours in much higher concentrations. An <a href="https://www.fda.gov/Cosmetics/ProductsIngredients/Products/ucm137224.htm">FDA test of 400 lipsticks</a> conducted in 2011 found that every one contained lead. Nevertheless, <a href="https://www.fda.gov/Food/NewsEvents/ConstituentUpdates/ucm534120.htm">the FDA advises</a> that up to 10 parts per million of lead is an acceptable level.<br />
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<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/190724/original/file-20171018-30428-qh5bqh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/190724/original/file-20171018-30428-qh5bqh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" /></a>
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In her book <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/Fashion_Victims.html?id=uZdlCgAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y">Fashion Victims: The Dangers of Dress Past and Present</a>, Alison Matthews David explains that lead was a popular ingredient in cosmetics for centuries “because it made colours even and opaque and created a desirable ‘whiteness’ that bespoke both freedom from hard outdoor labour and racial purity”.<br />
<br />
In the 1860s, the American face lotion Laird’s “Bloom of Youth or liquid pearl” <a href="http://www.livingly.com/The+Most+Dangerous+Beauty+Trends+Through+the+Ages/articles/OIFbMgTFkyf/Laird+s+Bloom+of+Youth">promised to whiten skin</a>, helping “ladies afflicted with tan, freckles, Rough or Discolored Skin”. The skin lightener, however, contained such a significant amount of lead that it caused “wrist drop”, or radial nerve palsy, in a number of women. <br />
<br />
One woman’s hand had become “wasted to a skeleton”, while a St Louis housewife is <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=treG8BAnJcwC&pg=PA10&lpg=PA10&dq=laird%27s+bloom+of+youth&source=bl&ots=sYvmbDqbx2&sig=MjmNy-rs-tIzv2FNzaHt6W5GBu8&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwix5467gK7WAhWCUZQKHYdhCxk4ChDoAQg4MAM#v=onepage&q=laird's%20bloom%20of%20">recorded as dying of lead poisoning</a> after extensive long-term usage of Laird’s and a home-made preparation containing “white flake and glycerine”.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/190718/original/file-20171018-19058-1s3b2nl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" height="400" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/190718/original/file-20171018-19058-1s3b2nl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" width="307" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ad for Laird's Bloom of Youth, or liquid pearl, c. 1863. Wikimedia images. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
In her book, Matthews David tells how she bought a vintage container of the American face powder “Tetlow’s Swan Down” that dates from the 1870s. It had been marketed as harmless and claimed to use whitening zinc oxide powder to replace once common toxic products such as lead, arsenic and bismuth. She had the powder tested with modern methods and found that it contained “a significant amount of lead”, which could be inhaled as dust during application.<br />
<hr />
<em>Further reading: <a href="https://theconversation.com/high-amount-of-toxic-metals-in-some-cosmetics-14225">High amount of toxic metals in some cosmetics</a></em> <br />
<hr />
<h2>
A dark history</h2>
The serious regulation of patent medicines and cosmetics did not occur until the 20th century. This lack of government oversight meant that manufacturers could bottle and sell almost anything without having to verify their claims, subject their products to the rudimentary testing that was available, or clearly label the ingredients.<br />
<br />
The key way in which American and British consumers made their decisions about products was based on the claims made and reputations built in extensive magazine advertising, which became prolific in the late 19th century. The period also saw branded cosmetics rise to prominence, with long-established and well-advertised brands, such as Pears’ Soap, providing one of the few indicators of likely quality and safety. Most cosmetic advertising emphasised the purity and healthfulness of products to distance them from well-known examples of harmful creams, powders, and dyes.<br />
<br />
“Celebrated American skin specialist” Anna Ruppert (Shelton) provides a ready example of the spurious nature of some cosmetic advertising and the reality of dangerous tonics marketed as “natural” and therefore healthful in this era. Throughout 1891 and 1892, numerous advertisements appeared in British women’s magazines, including high-quality publications such as The Queen, for lectures to be held in London by a purported American beauty expert.<br />
<br />
The ads mentioned Ruppert’s book on “natural beauty”, as well as promoting various products including a skin tonic. Her signature tonic was originally marketed as “Face Bleach” in the United States, tapping into the demand for lighter skin not only from white women, but also African American women. The tonic is described in one Queen advertisement as harmless and invisible: “It is not a cosmetic as it does not show on the face after application”.<br />
<br />
However, the reality was that Ruppert’s product was dangerous. After a chemical analysis, the British Medical Journal revealed in 1893 that the skin tonic included the harmful ingredient “corrosive sublimate (bichloride of mercury)”, and it was implicated in the mercury poisoning of a “Mrs K”. As <a href="http://blog.wellcomelibrary.org/2016/02/madame-rupperts-beauty-secrets/">Caroline Rance discovered</a>, that same year, Ruppert was prosecuted for infringing the Irish Pharmacy Act and her reputation was badly tarnished as a result.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/190723/original/file-20171018-30410-16und69.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" height="400" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/190723/original/file-20171018-30410-16und69.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" width="379" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Promotional material for Anna Ruppert. Author supplied.</td></tr>
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Cosmetics originated in homemade preparations, with long traditions of women concocting their own skin remedies. However, the advice and recipes given in beauty manuals were no guarantee of safety. One British “Treatise of the Toilet and Cosmetic Arts” entitled <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/The_Practice_of_Perfumery_A_Treatise_on.html?id=yHgKMQAACAAJ&redir_esc=y">The Practice of Perfumery</a> from 1870 included a recipe for one of the first depilatory creams, <em>poudre subtile</em>. The ingredients call for half an ounce of “sulpheret of arsenic”, although the author does warn that the preparation is “dangerous” and that “utmost caution” should be used.<br />
<br />
Warnings such as this one indicate that the harmful effects of certain cosmetic products were well known. Another manual, Beauty: How to Get it and How to Keep It, from 1885 advised readers to avoid hair dyes because they “are sometimes injurious to the health; those that contain lead or mercury are especially so, and have been known to cause serious illness.” This fear of harmful dyes is reflected in the many magazine advertisements of the period for “hair restorers” that promise to return grey hair to its original shade without the use of “dyes”. <br />
<br />
Dangerous home-spun beautifying techniques were also the subject of warnings. For instance, Toilet Hints, or, How to Preserve Beauty, and How to Acquire It from 1883 strongly advised women not to toy with the use of Belladonna berries to dilate their pupils. The use of an extract from the berries could cause blurred vision or even permanent blindness with prolonged use. This beauty guide offered up another, less dangerous, method for adding a spark to the eyes: <br />
<blockquote>
If your eyes look dull, drink a glass of champagne rather than touch belladonna.</blockquote>
<h2>
A gendered culture</h2>
Disgraced skin specialist Anna Ruppert wrote in her A Book of Beauty in 1892 that a woman could never neglect her appearance, as even “[t]he most noble beauty, if unattended, will soon lose its charm”. Her comment has several important resonances with beauty culture today.<br />
<br />
First, it is still primarily women who seek out cosmetics and cosmetic procedures. Ruppert’s advice to the Victorian woman was that maintaining her looks was vital to maintain a happy marriage. Our modern, postfeminist view is that women now make the “choice” to follow beauty and fashion norms.<br />
<br />
Second, beauty is still understood as a process of ongoing work and maintenance. Procedures like Botox can be used pre-emptively to ward off wrinkles and sagging, but it requires continuous usage over time to maintain its effects.<br />
<br />
Third, and most importantly, the gendering of cosmetic use means that women are most affected by dangerous products and procedures. As Matthews David points out, cosmetics and dyes continue to be less stringently regulated than products like shampoo and deodorant, which fall under the category of “personal care”.<br />
<hr />
<em>Further reading: <a href="https://theconversation.com/health-risks-beneath-the-painted-beauty-in-americas-nail-salons-41660">Health risks beneath the painted beauty in America’s nail salons</a></em><br />
<hr />
Several centuries of lax attitudes toward the composition of cosmetics and now non-invasive cosmetic procedures add up to not only a collection of macabre or grotesque stories.<br />
From lead-filled Bloom of Youth to cosmetic fillers being delivered under questionable conditions, the history of dangerous cosmetics shows us the harms that women have suffered to meet expectations of what is beautiful.<br />
<br />
This article was originally published on <a href="http://theconversation.com/">The Conversation</a>. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-toxic-beauty-then-and-now-84267">original article</a>.Michelle Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18350801340930174962noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3252300568370815502.post-40147108269703565362017-10-12T14:41:00.003-07:002017-10-12T14:42:24.547-07:00Playboy, Brooke Shields and the fetishisation of young girls<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="File 20171011 2047 wblq9d.jpg?ixlib=rb 1.1" height="260" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189701/original/file-20171011-2047-wblq9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="400" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hugh Hefner in 2001with Playboy ‘bunnies’. EPA/Glenn Pinkerton/LVNB</td></tr>
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The passing of Playboy founder Hugh Hefner prompted both positive and negative eulogising. From one perspective, he was <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory/hugh-hefner-leader-sexual-revolution-dies-91-50145794">a revolutionary</a> who helped to dismantle the long-standing secrecy and shame surrounding sexuality. And <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41426299">from another</a>, he simply popularised the objectification of women for the gratification of men.<br />
<br />
The most surprising detail to emerge after Hefner’s death was that Brooke Shields had featured in a Playboy publication called Sugar and Spice when aged only 10 years old in 1975. Photographer Gary Grosse received $450 to take the photographs of the heavily made-up Shields posing naked in a bathtub. The <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Playboys-Sugar-Spice-Playboy-Press/dp/B0025PC0LK">Sugar and Spice</a> series of books in which the images appeared promised “surprising and sensuous images of women” from contemporary photographers, coding them as “artistic”. <br />
<br />
The ongoing controversy about the images, particularly once Shields was old enough to realise that she did not want them in the public domain, affected Grosse’s career as a fashion photographer and he eventually became a dog trainer. Yet the fallout from the exploitative images did not significantly tarnish the Playboy name or Hugh Hefner. Shields featured on the cover of Playboy in 1986 at age 21.<br />
<br />
Today in the United States it is a felony in most jurisdictions to <a href="https://www.justice.gov/criminal-ceos/citizens-guide-us-federal-law-child-pornography">publish a nude photograph</a> of a model aged under 18. However, laws about publishing images of minors were not as definitive historically and internationally, particularly if a model’s parent gave consent.<br />
<br />
As the internet has become ubiquitous, we have become much more aware of the existence of child pornography and of the paedophiles who seek it out. Viewing and trading sexual images of children is not only a criminal act, but one of the most widely reviled behaviours possible. But pornography and popular culture have often exploited the line between girls and woman with the fetishisation of girls or women who look young. <br />
<br />
Pornographic magazines and video have often used the trope of “barely legal” to present young women who are dressed and styled like schoolgirls, often in suburban bedrooms or school settings. As US historian <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/Virgin.html?id=V6IPvgFKGFUC&redir_esc=y">Hanne Blank wrote in 2008</a>, the depiction of “cheerleaders, students, babysitters and sorority girls” in this type of porn means that “the immaturity symbolism is insistent”.<br />
<br />
While clearly most people are at the peak of their physical attractiveness in their youth, the fetishisation of young boys for a heterosexual female audience is nowhere near as common as the obsession with young girls within culture aimed at older men.<br />
<br />
One obvious reason for this difference is the historic value that has been placed on female virginity in a way that it is not for men. This includes older ideas about the importance of a virginal bride for ensuring that all of her children were legitimate, to more recent notions of women with sexual experience being “sluts” or dirty. <br />
<br />
Today the <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1802108/">vast majority</a> of people in countries such as the United States and Australia have sex prior to marriage. This could be one reason why girls continue to be sexually fetishised, as they symbolise an innocence and purity that most young women are no longer seen to represent.<br />
<br />
While some <a href="http://www.collectiveshout.org/child_sexual_abuse_thrives_in_a_culture_that_eroticises_it">community groups</a> contend that sexualised images of girls might support the behaviours and actions of paedophiles, there is a more pervasive issue at stake here for all women. One of the legacies of Hefner’s Playboy empire and the sex culture it helped to propagate is that only very young women are sexually attractive. The oldest “Playmate” (the women who feature in the magazine’s centrefold) to have ever appeared in Playboy was 35. Few women aged in their 30s were ever featured.<br />
<br />
Conversely, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Playboy_Playmate">at least nine minors</a>, aged 16 and 17 at the time of photographing, have featured in American and international editions of Playboy. In 1958 Hefner was brought before a court after publishing <a href="http://www.playboy.com/galleries/playmates-1958-1-elizabeth-ann-roberts-0">images of 16-year-old Elizabeth Ann Roberts</a> in a feature entitled “Schoolmate Playmate”. Roberts was described as a “bouncy teenager” occupied by “reading and writing and ’rithmetic”, but she looks physically tiny and vulnerable in the images. The charges were ultimately dropped as Roberts’ mother had consented to the shoot. <br />
<br />
While they are not generally focused on depicting naked bodies, women’s magazines regularly name men aged in their 40s and 50s, such as Johnny Depp and George Clooney, as among the most sexually desirable men. One of the legacies of Playboy is its contribution to the fetishisation of young women and a porn culture that toys with the depiction of women who are styled to look as if they are school-aged or just over the most minimal line of cultural acceptability (barely legal).<br />
<br />
<img alt="The Conversation" height="1" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85255/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" width="1" />The images of Brooke Shields published in Playboy’s Sugar and Spice series have been widely circulated in the wake of Hefner’s death as an example of why he should not be celebrated. People are certainly right to be alarmed by images that figure a 10-year-old as an object of sexual desire. However, it is important to see the images of Shields as simply the most egregious example of the way that magazines such as Playboy have contributed to a culture that fetishises girls.<br />
<br />
<b>This article was originally published on <a href="http://theconversation.com/"><i>The Conversation</i></a>. </b>Michelle Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18350801340930174962noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3252300568370815502.post-8916871013798660832017-09-28T15:56:00.004-07:002017-09-28T15:59:27.144-07:00UK crackdown on gender stereotypes in advertising shows up Australia's low bar<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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From next year, TV advertisements that play on gender stereotypes, or that mock people who fail to conform to them, <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/business-40638343">will not be permitted</a> by the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority.<br />
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The kinds of ads that have been flagged as inappropriate include those that depict men as incompetent at doing basic household or parenting chores, or that show a whole family leaving a giant mess for mum to clean up.<br />
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The authority has said ads that belittle people for not living up to gender norms – such as a KFC advertisement that implied a man suffering from anxiety was not masculine – have “costs for individuals, the economy and society”.<br />
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<figure>
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/hViMz8jMeRo?wmode=transparent&start=0" width="440"></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">A UK KFC ad from 2014 suggests it’s not manly to listen to your <br />girlfriend.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<br />
Attempts to counter the prevalence of gender stereotyping in the popular media are popularly dismissed as “social engineering” designed to alter “natural” behaviours for each gender. However, the stereotypes we see represented in advertising are already ideologically motivated by centuries of gender inequality.<br />
<br />
Gender is a social construct and we have the power to shape and revise what is considered masculine and feminine. And the media we consume – particularly advertising, which we see continuously – are particularly powerful in shaping what we think is “normal” and acceptable for men and women to do.<br />
Think of the ubiquitous television ads in the 1980s for Tip Top bread, with their “good on ya Mum” slogan. The smiling mothers presenting sandwiches to their children conveyed that women are the default parents and that satisfaction for women should stem from caring for others.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/yLhGU-Boh3s?wmode=transparent&start=0" width="440"></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Tip Top ad from 1983.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<br />
Australia has laws that apply to discriminatory advertising, including the Racial Discrimination Act and state and territory anti-discrimination acts. Apart from this, the industry is largely self-regulated. The Australian Association of National Advertisers has its own <a href="http://aana.com.au/content/uploads/2014/05/AANA-Code-of-Ethics.pdf">code of ethics</a>.<br />
The code forbids any advertisement that:<br />
<blockquote>
… discriminates against or vilifies a person or section of the community on account of race, ethnicity, nationality, gender, age, sexual preference, religion, disability, mental illness or political belief. </blockquote>
It also marks out “exploitative and degrading” sexual representations as unacceptable.<br />
<br />
Australia has largely moved beyond acceptance of extremely objectifying advertisements for products with no inherent connection with sex. A prime example was the seductive “Chiko chick” who promoted the Chiko roll while posed on a motorbike from the 1950s. <br />
<br />
However, self-regulated advertising criteria that merely forbid outright illegal discrimination or “degrading” sexual content set the bar especially low.<br />
<br />
Other countries, such as Sweden and Spain, have made concerted efforts not only to avoid gender stereotyping in advertising but to counteract it. For instance, toy catalogues produced by <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/sweden/9703127/Swedish-toy-catalogue-goes-gender-neutral.html">Toys R Us</a> and <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/spain/11975407/Spanish-toy-chain-challenges-gender-stereotypes-with-non-sexist-Christmas-catalogue.html">Toy Planet</a> have drawn international attention for their depiction of both boys and girls playing with dolls, trucks and tools.<br />
<br />
This kind of gender neutrality is not intended to discourage girls or boys from playing with the toys traditionally associated with their gender. Instead, it aims to make it acceptable for them to choose from any of the available options.<br />
<br />
When you consider that debates about child-care costs are still <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-05-18/some-mothers-losing-money-by-turning-up-to-work-study/7426416">usually framed</a> in terms of whether it is financially worth women returning to work, it is clear the way we socialise children into seeing child care as women’s responsibility flows all the way through to major issues of employment and gender equality.<br />
<br />
Gender stereotyping in advertising is not just problematic because of limiting representations of girls and women and the reassertion of their role in the home. In addition, the ways boys and men are depicted as useless at basic domestic tasks makes them out to be simpletons. <br />
<br />
There are countless examples of <a href="http://www.adweek.com/creativity/look-back-advertisings-stupidest-dads-13878/">“dumb dads” in ads</a>. Think of the father in a Glade advertisement who is consistently befuddled by an automatic deodorising spray.<br />
<br />
<figure>
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZpgeACOMS9o?wmode=transparent&start=0" width="440"></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">A banned Verizon ad from the US portrays the dad as being ‘stupid’.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<br />
Part of the strategy of advertisers in their representation of “dumb dads” may be to flatter mothers who do <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-04-11/women-doing-lions-share-of-housework-2016-census-release/8434340">the majority of domestic work</a> and <a href="https://insidefmcg.com.au/2015/05/08/women-chief-grocery-buyers/">grocery shopping</a>. <br />
<br />
However, these ads – which usually have a heteronormative orientation – also reinforce the status quo and culturally absolve men from responsibility to contribute to unpaid household labour, privileging their employment and recreation.<br />
<br />
One way to consider advertising and other forms of popular culture is as a mirror that reflects our social norms, beliefs and values. If this is true, then advertising could be absolved of responsibility for reproducing gender stereotypes in that it is as progressive or regressive as the society in which it is produced.<br />
<br />
Crucially, advertising and other media are not only reflectors of our culture. They also have the power to produce and influence values and norms.<br />
<br />
<img alt="The Conversation" height="1" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/81569/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" width="1" />With this in mind, the sooner we regulate advertising to encourage the depiction of a world we’d like to inhabit, the sooner it is likely to eventuate.<br />
<br />
This article was originally published on <a href="http://theconversation.com/"><i>The Conversation</i></a>.Michelle Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18350801340930174962noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3252300568370815502.post-84451818831906081042017-07-20T04:41:00.000-07:002017-07-20T04:44:21.477-07:00Double Standards and Derision – tracing our attitudes to older women and beauty<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="File 20170630 8231 yjdqi5" height="282" src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/files/176384/width754/file-20170630-8231-yjdqi5.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="400" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Madonna and fashion designer Jeremy Scott<br />
Lucas Jackson/Reuters</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;">
</div>
Brigitte Macron, wife of French President Emmanuel Macron, is a rare example of an older woman in the public eye who has attracted <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-4483918/How-DOES-Macron-s-wife-defy-age.html">praise</a> for her appearance. At 64, Macron is 24 years older than her husband, but her healthy figure and youthful style of dress saw her <a href="http://www.vogue.co.uk/article/brigitte-macron-style-analysis">described in Vogue</a> as “rock ‘n’ roll”.<br />
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://cdn.theconversation.com/files/176382/area14mp/file-20170630-8176-l4c3ga.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/files/176382/width237/file-20170630-8176-l4c3ga.jpg" style="cursor: move;" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Brigitte Macron. Gonzalo Fuentes/Reuters</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</figure>
<br />
While Macron is admired for her penchant for leather pants, women regularly face policing of their clothing and cosmetic choices once they reach <a href="http://www.whowhatwear.com.au/turning-30-fashion">the age of 30</a>. Ageing only brings about further restrictions, with few older women who cultivate their appearance successfully negotiating the line between looking acceptably young or upsettingly unnatural. <br />
<br />
Madonna, who will turn 60 next year, is a case in point; her attempts to retain a sexy image are sometimes described with <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/whats-so-gross-about-madonna-getting-older-it-seems">revulsion</a>. Piers Morgan described her as <a href="https://twitter.com/piersmorgan/status/587554092467228672?lang=en">“50 Shades of Granny”</a> after her 2015 kiss with Drake. Her famous muscles, which keep her skin taut, were called “monstrously sculpted and bloodcurdling veiny corpse arms” <a href="http://www.tmz.com/2009/07/27/madonnas-gruesome-twosome/">by TMZ</a> as the publication had a dig at her “toyboy” Jesus Luz. <br />
<br />
In contrast, Cher, at 71, <a href="http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/music/billboard-music-awards-2017-red-carpet-best-and-worst-dressed-stars/news-story/1407925bc4fdaa00ae700ccbb843dd86">recently wore</a> a replica of a near-nude costume from 1989 at the Billboard Music Awards and was generally praised as “amazing” and “owning it”. <br />
<br />
What is Cher doing to invite praise that Madonna isn’t? And where did restrictive ideas about beauty and ageing come from? When did we decide that there was a particular age at which women might incite criticism or disgust for attempting to look beautiful or desirable?<br />
<br />
A closer look at women’s magazines from the 19th century — the era in which modern advertising and celebrity culture were born — reveal the origins of many of our hang-ups about older women and beauty.<br />
<br />
In the first half of that century, beauty was understood as God-given or natural. Beliefs in physiognomy also suggested that the inner character of a woman might be visible in her face. In 1849, in an article that commented on the process of women’s ageing, the English magazine <a href="https://archive.org/details/worldoffashionco15lond">World of Fashion and Continental Feuilletons</a> observed:<br />
<blockquote>
Neither rouge, artificial ringlets, nor all the resources of the toilet, can retard the relentless progress of that terrible foe to beauty, Time. But every one must have noticed how lightly his hand rests upon some, how heavily upon others … A good conscience is the greatest preservative of beauty. High and noble thoughts leave behind them noble and beautiful traces, meanness of thought and selfishness of feeling league with Time to unite age and ugliness together.</blockquote>
This dismissal of cosmetics is typical of attitudes that saw beauty as a quality that a woman was either born with or not and its loss inevitable.
In the final decades of the 19th century, however, women’s magazines transformed this belief. <br />
<br />
With the growth of advertising and beauty advice columns, there was gradual acceptance that fading looks should be combated by almost any means necessary. For older women, being visibly made up gradually became more tolerable, though the degree to which the cosmetics might be detectable was a point of contention. Women who foolishly attempted to recreate the charms of their youth were still harshly judged.<br />
<h2>
Cosmetics and ageing</h2>
The 30s were understood as a threshold for women entering middle age and no longer being considered at the peak of attractiveness. An advertisement for Madame Dupree’s Berlin Toilet Soap from 1890 promises “a return to youthful beauty” and specifies that the soap can “make […] a lady of 35 appear but 25”.<br />
<br />
A 1904 beauty manual by Lady Jean, Beauty as a Fine Art, is generous enough to suggest that a woman of 40 “is just entering upon a long summer of useful and enjoyable existence”. Yet it goes on to suggest that “anything that threatens to rob her of the outward sign of youth” could be “combated and defied by all reasonable means”.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://cdn.theconversation.com/files/176355/area14mp/file-20170630-14603-11otfz5.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/files/176355/width237/file-20170630-14603-11otfz5.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A Pears' ad showing a woman who is 50 but<br />
supposed to look 17, from June 1 1888,<br />
Myra's Journal of Dress and Fashion,<br />
p. 325</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
The rise of advertising and consumer culture in the Victorian period saw the birth of thousands of brand-name beauty products. Many promised readers that they could retain the markers of youth: a full head of luxurious hair with no bald spots or grey, a full set of teeth, a trim waist, and a clear and smooth complexion.<br />
Importantly, an overall distinction was made between products that might “preserve” youth, such as soaps, treatments and baths, and those that attempt to artificially conceal aged skin, such as obvious coloured cosmetics. <br />
<br />
There was greater acceptance of certain cosmetics such as powder and rouge in the late 19th century. However, lingering views about natural beauty and the unpleasantness of older woman attempting to present themselves as youthful ensured that cosmetic advertisements denied the artifice involved in their products. <br />
<br />
Advertisements for soaps, dyes and related beautifying aids emphasised their capacity to preserve what beauty women already possessed. Advertisements for hair restorers claimed (surely erroneously) they could renew grey hair to its original colour without the use of dye. An ad for Rossetter’s hair restorer from around 1880 also claims to give the hair “the lustre and health of youth”.<br />
<br />
In small print at the bottom of an undated advertisement for Blackham’s hair restorer, it is acknowledged that their Electric Hair Stain is a dye – but purchasers are reassured that this “cannot be detected”. In a similar vein to today’s attitudes to cosmetic surgery, this claim signals how women had to ensure improvements to their appearance were seen as natural and, ironically, unnoticeable.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://cdn.theconversation.com/files/176354/area14mp/file-20170630-2996-1sndrrq.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" height="207" src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/files/176354/width754/file-20170630-2996-1sndrrq.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Blackham's tonic ad, c. 1895</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
Soap was the most acceptable of commercial products for preserving youthful skin. Actresses and famous figures often provided written testimonials or directly featured in Victorian advertising. Sarah Bernhardt, a French actress, regularly appeared in beauty advertisements, including for Pears soap and her own rice-based face powder.<br />
<h2>
Ageing disgracefully</h2>
In contrast to frequent advocacy for soaps and home remedies in women’s magazines, the services and treatments of the infamous cosmetician <a href="http://www.victorianweb.org/science/health/rappaportch2.html">Madame Rachel, Sarah Rachel Levison</a>, provided well-publicised examples of older women who were imagined as foolish and vain for seeking to improve their appearances.<br />
<br />
Products provided at her London salon included Circassian Beauty Wash, Magnetic Rock Dew Water of Sahara for removing wrinkles, and Youth and Beauty Cream. In 1863, Rachel published a 24-page pamphlet, entitled “Beautiful For Ever!” It told how she now had the sole right to sell <br />
<blockquote>
the Magnetic Rock Dew Water of Sahara, which possesses the extraordinary property of increasing the vital energies – restores the colour of grey hair – gives the appearance of youth to persons far advanced in years, and removes wrinkle, defect, and blemishes, from whatever cause they may arise.</blockquote>
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://cdn.theconversation.com/files/176353/area14mp/file-20170630-5317-8ksje7.png" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/files/176353/width237/file-20170630-5317-8ksje7.png" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Madame Rachel. Wikimedia images.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
The treatment for which Madame Rachel was most famous was known as “enamelling”. This involved the removal of facial hair, cleansing of the skin with alkaline washes, then filling of any wrinkles or uneven facial features with a thick white paste, which sometimes contained lead. This was followed by the application of powder and rouge.<br />
The gullibility of older women in chasing the fountain of youth through cosmetics was amply illustrated in Madame Rachel’s trial for fraud in 1868. Her victim, 50-year-old Mary Tucker Borradaile, was described as an object of pity in the trial.<br />
One of the prosecutors, Montagu Williams, found it hard to believe that Borradaile could have believed she could be made beautiful forever. He later recalled her to be a pathetic figure in her attempts to look attractive despite her years: <br />
<blockquote>
She was a spare, thin, scraggy-looking woman, wholly devoid of figure; her hair was dyed a bright yellow; her face was ruddled with paint; and the darkness of her eyebrows was strongly suggestive of meretricious art.</blockquote>
It was recorded that Borradaile had been beautiful in her youth and was particularly noted for her long, golden hair. But, in court, her hair was observed to be unnaturally dyed or artificial. Fellow prosecutor William Ballantine described Borradaile as: <br />
<blockquote>
a skeleton encased apparently in plaster of Paris, painted pink and white, and surmounted with a juvenile wig. </blockquote>
According to <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Beautiful_For_Ever.html?id=9XNvgasBwgUC">Helen Rappaport</a>, when Borradaile entered the courtroom to give evidence, there were audible gasps at her made-up face.<br />
<h2>
‘The absolute loss of empire’</h2>
Horror at the cosmetically enhanced older woman continued to be expressed into the early 20th century. In <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Art_of_Being_Beautiful.html?id=JncBPAAACAAJ">The Art of Being Beautiful</a> from 1902, the supposedly 50-year-old interviewee, the Baroness, advises:<br />
<blockquote>
For a woman to try and knock more than ten years off her age is an arrogance for which she is punished by every glance of the passers-by. When she tries as a brunette to make herself into a blonde by the use of unlimited white chalk, she also makes herself grotesque – as unpleasing as a fly that had dropped into a honey-pot. When, as a blonde, she adorns herself with black eyebrows like croquet hoops, frankly she becomes alarming, if not detestable.</blockquote>
The Baroness also remarks that dyed hair does not complement “wrinkled cheeks”, especially when the dye chosen is of an “infantine yellow tint”. Apparently, there were certain signs of youth that older women should not attempt to recapture.<br />
<br />
While the Baroness critiqued the older woman who attempted to turn back the hands of time through excessive use of cosmetics, she did advocate for beauty regimens to slow the process of ageing. She described the loss of beauty as “the absolute loss of empire”. “Active preparations” for ageing were encouraged – in the same manner as the fire brigade, army and medical profession might ready for fires, war and disease.<br />
<br />
So as women aged, they were confronted with the choice of either accepting the gradual fading of their looks, or being criticised for trying to visibly ameliorate signs of age, attempting the impossible task of trying to stave off wrinkles and grey hair. <br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://cdn.theconversation.com/files/176385/area14mp/file-20170630-8203-1tp4n84.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" height="217" src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/files/176385/width237/file-20170630-8203-1tp4n84.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Meg Ryan. Mario Anzuoni/Reuters</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
These double standards are exceedingly familiar. Older women in the public eye are caught in a bind between being seen as excessive users of cosmetic surgery who have made themselves look unnatural, or of having aged or “let themselves go” to the point of no longer being seen as desirable and bankable. <br />
Actresses in their 50s, such as Meg Ryan and Daryl Hannah, regularly appear in photo galleries taking delight in “botched” plastic surgery or marvelling at “trout pouts”. <br />
<br />
Conversely, magazines and gossip sites pounced on unflattering photographs of Kirstie Ally, now 66, when she gained a significant amount of weight in 2008, and proclaimed her “washed up”. <br />
<br />
While a small number of women in the public eye, like Brigitte Macron, are seen to deftly negotiate these expectations of beauty and ageing, most are set up to fail.<br />
<br />
<em></em><br />
<b>This article was originally published on <a href="http://theconversation.com/">The Conversation</a>. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-double-standards-and-derision-tracing-our-attitudes-to-older-women-and-beauty-79575">original article</a>.</b>Michelle Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18350801340930174962noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3252300568370815502.post-29182240674229468402017-04-03T18:23:00.000-07:002017-04-03T18:23:03.918-07:00We’re Definitely Not in Kansas Anymore: Return to Oz (1985)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4FBlYBWv3mhNhFSe1pdmhTo2lX2_IADx90cHQUQAwY8nnU9_B0qA3V67TcDYvZa6En5c2Ldw3Pux8SivXP1hzMc5I0QrBKvh_1FWyn0tByHKpW1Wz4SS_XLHG7hKCHKwAu58_n2cNwlg/s1600/RTO_Smith_Page_02_Image_0001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4FBlYBWv3mhNhFSe1pdmhTo2lX2_IADx90cHQUQAwY8nnU9_B0qA3V67TcDYvZa6En5c2Ldw3Pux8SivXP1hzMc5I0QrBKvh_1FWyn0tByHKpW1Wz4SS_XLHG7hKCHKwAu58_n2cNwlg/s400/RTO_Smith_Page_02_Image_0001.jpg" width="265" /></a></div>
<b><span style="text-align: center;">Earlier this year I introduced a </span><a href="http://www.cinemaniacs.net/" style="text-align: center;">Cinemaniacs</a><span style="text-align: center;"> screening of </span><i style="text-align: center;">Return to Oz</i><span style="text-align: center;">. Here's a transcript of my talk.</span></b><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<i>Return to Oz i</i>s a strange film.
It’s a strange film given what would now be accepted as a children’s film. It’s
a strange film for a Disney film. And it’s a strange film to follow the
overwhelming cultural legacy of MGM’s 1939 <i>Wizard of Oz</i> film. <br />
<br />
Reviews that followed <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Return to Oz’s </i>1985 release could not
reconcile expectations of what a big-budget sequel to the cheery, sentimental
musical Oz should be with the dystopian film with no dancing munchkins and no
dance numbers but plenty of frightening new characters and a new framing story
that placed the beloved Dorothy in a mental institution poised to receive a
dose of electroshock therapy. <br />
<br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Roger Ebert: “Somebody should have
thought at the very first when they were starting out with <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Return to Oz</i>, somebody should have had this thought: 'It oughta be
fun, it oughta be upbeat, it oughta be sweet, it oughta be wondrous. It
shouldn’t be scary'.”<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br />
Gene Siskel: “Kids under six are gonna get nightmares from this picture. Kids
over six, they’ll just have a bad time at the movies.”<br /><o:p></o:p></b></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu9iQ08AWPWTIqWad8_QtFk24xgDgawFxx6dhXoN66vDmyUE75J4yABnjRK756fROiHY_YESEs5I9LczE8lEWMZBdwdv7tv23-4a6QcyMpOK7z7Mr-onSj_aHz2ncZxxe8I0_gZn6xk88/s1600/RTO_Smith_Page_03_Image_0001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu9iQ08AWPWTIqWad8_QtFk24xgDgawFxx6dhXoN66vDmyUE75J4yABnjRK756fROiHY_YESEs5I9LczE8lEWMZBdwdv7tv23-4a6QcyMpOK7z7Mr-onSj_aHz2ncZxxe8I0_gZn6xk88/s400/RTO_Smith_Page_03_Image_0001.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Labyrinth </i>(1986)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">The film is typical of
a different era of filmmaking for children in the early to mid-1980s, in which
darker themes, genuine terror, and traumatising deaths of innocent characters
were not seen as beyond the emotional comprehension of young viewers. </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Think of </span><i style="font-size: 12pt;">The Dark Crystal</i><span style="font-size: 12pt;">, </span><i style="font-size: 12pt;">Labyrinth </i><span style="font-size: 12pt;">and
the heart-rending demise of the horse Artax in </span><i style="font-size: 12pt;">The Never-Ending Story</i><span style="font-size: 12pt;">. But even in this context, the film is
unusual, and this contributed to Disney effectively disowning the film by
contributing minimal marketing and merchandising effort. You won’t find a trace
of some of the most iconic</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">characters of
all time –those from the world of Oz - in Disney parks or products, unlike its
treatment of its legacy from the animated </span><i style="font-size: 12pt;">Alice
in Wonderland</i><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> from 1951.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br />
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">So what is the story of <i>Return to Oz</i>? How did such an unusual children’s
film come to be made on such a big-budget and then be almost disowned by
Disney?</b></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiir_JTDhXQN1WUpOELMRTkyB5K_BNRlKBla810_TvGysKuV11KJrd_l7yG5e6fGtRmyEK_HjqLobsWsin1RBigO_pI9mW1NUFDkEzcx9gHLkJL575DmHclB40JuvZMJJOEwSz_aOCI3Z8/s1600/RTO_Smith_Page_04_Image_0002.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiir_JTDhXQN1WUpOELMRTkyB5K_BNRlKBla810_TvGysKuV11KJrd_l7yG5e6fGtRmyEK_HjqLobsWsin1RBigO_pI9mW1NUFDkEzcx9gHLkJL575DmHclB40JuvZMJJOEwSz_aOCI3Z8/s400/RTO_Smith_Page_04_Image_0002.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Walter Murch with Fairuza Balk (Dorothy) on set</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
The root of the weirdness of the film begins with <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Apocalypse Now</i>, the logical place to start when you want to make a
Disney children’s film. Walter Murch was the sound editor and designer on the film; he was
developing an impressive reputation and gaining deep respect within the
industry. At the same time, Disney was going through a creative lull with a
number of commercial failures and was scouting around for new directorial
talent. They approached Murch, asking him what kind of film he might be
interested in making and he mentioned that he had always loved L. Frank Baum’s
series of Oz books. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOWZc3HlGblrTys8BVemz_Ma7xtu-BhLV3lLbD-dkdVAfc11mzijWFCZq1PF1CFlcDrJVtQ40wV1LUm871YtFiHG4LwVQKqojiUV5VycKFqeRi6-o1PcCBQ3tmANtcszgPKs_DICk8_og/s1600/RTO_Smith_Page_05_Image_0001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="274" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOWZc3HlGblrTys8BVemz_Ma7xtu-BhLV3lLbD-dkdVAfc11mzijWFCZq1PF1CFlcDrJVtQ40wV1LUm871YtFiHG4LwVQKqojiUV5VycKFqeRi6-o1PcCBQ3tmANtcszgPKs_DICk8_og/s320/RTO_Smith_Page_05_Image_0001.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The original Oz book series by L. Frank Baum</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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In
an amazing coincidence, Disney happened to own the rights to 11 of the Oz books
and were receptive to the idea of capitalising on these rights before the
copyright period on the books would soon expire. Of course, these were the
rights to the story as it appeared in the books only, not the visual depictions
that MGM had derived for their film. So, for instance, in Baum’s original books
Dorothy wore silver shoes<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> </b>but these were changed to ruby for the MGM film to take
advantage of technicolour with red standing out in colour. Indeed, Disney had
to pay for the right to use the trademarked ruby slippers in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Return to Oz</i>. Dorothy’s braids are the
only other element borrowed from the MGM film.</div>
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<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgio_GjUU985eRSbO9SbFN1VZ_OslEdGGld01Uygl371MlJy7HcchgF27P41ICeQ9GQvcCLEOTRiifoObFsMTZv3huiDIcnUnSG2KBU_i3TJToGn2I99-hn4L1U0KfU86fpevCqi3EoH5I/s1600/RTO_Smith_Page_06_Image_0002.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgio_GjUU985eRSbO9SbFN1VZ_OslEdGGld01Uygl371MlJy7HcchgF27P41ICeQ9GQvcCLEOTRiifoObFsMTZv3huiDIcnUnSG2KBU_i3TJToGn2I99-hn4L1U0KfU86fpevCqi3EoH5I/s200/RTO_Smith_Page_06_Image_0002.jpg" width="150" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dorothy as she was originally<br />
illustrated with silver shoes</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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In total there were 14 Oz books,
and the series was continued by Ruth Plumley Thompson for a further 21 books,
so there was actually no shortage of material that could have been plundered
for sequels to the MGM film. Very early on, Baum and others recognised how adaptable the
stories were to the stage and screen. The first Oz book was published in 1900,
and by 1902 musicals began in Chicago and it was then translated to a Broadway
hit<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">.</i> Baum’s first infatuation had
been the theatre and he invested a great deal of money in the production of
elaborate musicals.<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> </b>He
financed the first attempt to film Oz with <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Fairylogue and Radio Plays </i>in 1908, which mixed live actors, magic lantern
slides and Baum himself appears on stage interacting with the characters on
stage and screen. Even though performances sold out throughout Michigan,
Chicago and New York, it cost more money to produce than could be recouped.<br /><br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7AbOV_6BihXYAgBvG0ow3D8cVXWpkiW2loQ-AwvirJ8w8goZDvibBIRJcONjrqcwhXj74WeD4BbKczq7QMm2T6_l8Hu6MzarfurO6FFgBHnjIlsXswqKul1cyKrOIGmu1-fMiWcYX2bU/s1600/RTO_Smith_Page_08_Image_0001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="332" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7AbOV_6BihXYAgBvG0ow3D8cVXWpkiW2loQ-AwvirJ8w8goZDvibBIRJcONjrqcwhXj74WeD4BbKczq7QMm2T6_l8Hu6MzarfurO6FFgBHnjIlsXswqKul1cyKrOIGmu1-fMiWcYX2bU/s400/RTO_Smith_Page_08_Image_0001.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Baum with the cast of <i>The Fairylogue and Radio Plays </i>(1908)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Baum
then<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>founded the <span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Oz Film Manufacturing
Company </span>to adapt his films and in 1914 released the first silent film version
of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Patchwork Girl of Oz. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i>It was not a financial success and after
it failed to live up to expectations when exhibited by Paramount Pictures in
New York they refused to accept any subsequent Oz films, or indeed any others
from Baum’s company. Baum’s company nevertheless went on to make <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Magic Cloak of Oz </i>(1917) and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">His Majesty, the Scarecrow of Oz/The New
Wizard of Oz </i>released after his death in 1925. Baum
lost the rights to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Wonderful Wizard
of Oz </i>as well as other books in the series when owing money to a creditor due
to his numerous failed ventures.<br /><br />
<br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/2z9AY741gGs" width="560"></iframe>
<br />This explains how Walt Disney was able to acquire the
rights to 11 Oz books in 1954. He wanted to create an adaptation of <i>The </i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Patchwork Girl of Oz </i>for the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Disneyland
</i>television show<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">. Disney </i>thought<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>the screenplay was good and wanted to
make a feature film using the Mouseketeers from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Mickey Mouse Club </i>with Annette Funicello as Ozma, but the film
did not eventuate and two of the intended songs were performed on the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Disneyland </i>television show.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" /><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/kJjhqBb3qGI" width="560"></iframe></span>
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br />Like the 1939 film, you can see the
influence of the vaudeville stage tradition on this musical number and how the
planned Disney Oz film would have developed in the same way. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Return to Oz </i>sidesteps that
tradition and returns to Baum’s books for source material. While the absence of
the settings and characters from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Wizard of Oz, </i>the film felt like it was departing from what Oz was supposed
to be for many reviewers and audiences. However, it actually combines two books
from the Oz series, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ozma of Oz </i>and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Marvellous Land of Oz</i>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghrm9o7RXk0BRCxloAJlZoevvNkw-y65Fv146Ilhg5nweRTDIi9Jkj7koLSoQGLvm84c9jWDDlqqFESKlgVF2n2ciziAHsvhfieEwcwwSmLErNMSrqoNM7J-PYsOJ9m1V2Rg5z-1uRd0A/s1600/RTO_Smith_Page_11_Image_0001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="263" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghrm9o7RXk0BRCxloAJlZoevvNkw-y65Fv146Ilhg5nweRTDIi9Jkj7koLSoQGLvm84c9jWDDlqqFESKlgVF2n2ciziAHsvhfieEwcwwSmLErNMSrqoNM7J-PYsOJ9m1V2Rg5z-1uRd0A/s320/RTO_Smith_Page_11_Image_0001.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ciudad Encantada: one of the locations scrapped from<br />the film.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN6tgbc_iGxwkelRdhz_aW-_le2Fio49Uj2dNvRjngRFgTQuB6eK3B0zjJFk4wCta3xCCkul43xJfgliIAR0_uOWHUkYBlb1600D9ARSeXWulAuGdG2Z3IOgdy6rUEeIkI1x4dwliaECA/s1600/RTO_Smith_Page_11_Image_0003.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="202" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN6tgbc_iGxwkelRdhz_aW-_le2Fio49Uj2dNvRjngRFgTQuB6eK3B0zjJFk4wCta3xCCkul43xJfgliIAR0_uOWHUkYBlb1600D9ARSeXWulAuGdG2Z3IOgdy6rUEeIkI1x4dwliaECA/s320/RTO_Smith_Page_11_Image_0003.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hadrian's Villa</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<i>Return to Oz </i>was going to be a very different film that took advantage of developing
special effects technology to reproduce all of the Oz characters- rather
than dressing people in costumes- and pre-production took a long time. By Autumn
of 1983, $6 million had already been spent. New Disney boss Richard Berger shut down
production in November 1983, six weeks before filming was due to start in
London as anxiety grew about the film’s $27 million budget and the potential for costs to blow out further. They were even contemplating canning the film despite having
poured a lot of money into its development. <br /><br />Producer Paul Maslansky was instructed
by Disney to give an assessment of whether it would be possible to cut at least
$5 million from the film’s budget. It is tantalising to consider how the film
might have looked if not for this substantial hack into the money available for
location shooting, mechanical effects, the creatures and Claymation. The Deadly
Desert sequence was going to be shot on location in Sardinia and Algeria. The
scene where Dorothy and Tik Tok are trapped by the Wheelers was to be filmed at
Ciudad Encantada (Enchanted City) north of Madrid. The Nome King’s throne room
going to be shot at Caserta near Naples while Hadrian’s villa outside Rome would double as Mombi's palace. There was also going to be two weeks of shooting
in Kansas. With the cuts, all of these locations shoots were cut and 80% of the
film was to be shot on soundstages at Elmstree Studios outside London (where <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Star Wars </i>and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Empire Strikes Back </i>were filmed). The Kansas scenes from the
beginning of the film were shot on the Salisbury Plains near Stonehenge. While
shots of the ruins of Oz were created using miniatures.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhd1QBmGb3Og6nj_yRivtFoRyGX-sDAazbSUeNY3q1cHttyhJ5_57thwQBEKgWtNC_py0KAof4B5HpPwLuj61kXdA-oJkik1XXYTvoYW9l0G7do2WuNM4BeK6Caa9c3-AiTzvpVwWUcaU0/s1600/RTO_Smith_Page_13_Image_0001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhd1QBmGb3Og6nj_yRivtFoRyGX-sDAazbSUeNY3q1cHttyhJ5_57thwQBEKgWtNC_py0KAof4B5HpPwLuj61kXdA-oJkik1XXYTvoYW9l0G7do2WuNM4BeK6Caa9c3-AiTzvpVwWUcaU0/s400/RTO_Smith_Page_13_Image_0001.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />For those of you have seen the film, it will make sense when I say that it was
the characters of the Cowardly Lion, Scarecrow and Lion who suffered from the
budget cuts. The Lion was one of
the first things to be cut. There were supposed to be three heads constructed for
close-up, medium shots (the one produced) and a light stunt head. The crew were not
allowed to make a duplicate costume, only spare legs and feet. Nevertheless,
he’s arguably a more successful look that the Scarecrow who had a minimally
articulated cable-operated head that looks unconvincing in close-up scenes. The Tin Man was supposed
to be created with a marionette-style puppet and opticals but this was going to
be too expensive so they were forced to create something in which a small
person could sit inside to perform some basic movements. Deep Roy- who rode
the racing snail in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Neverending Story </i>and
was the Oompa Loompa in Tim Burton’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Charlie
and the Chocolate Factory</i>— operated a rod inside the torso. It was such a
crude set-up that Roy’s legs hung down out of the Tin Man’s body and in plain
view, which is why he is always seen behind another character in the scenes in
which he appears!<br /><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIy7uSdxYrcw7EecN7KnM5hVH5TV_7KW9AmuYjvmvQ9TXK8zcwPTIgv1o0f4qyM6lsPNsGotRCi81nehWKzLrD6QTgu8wAWa1okv87wC_gKmriqYmUddGqXXNiVDnPcYYBJxcc-l90p58/s1600/RTO_Smith_Page_14_Image_0002.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIy7uSdxYrcw7EecN7KnM5hVH5TV_7KW9AmuYjvmvQ9TXK8zcwPTIgv1o0f4qyM6lsPNsGotRCi81nehWKzLrD6QTgu8wAWa1okv87wC_gKmriqYmUddGqXXNiVDnPcYYBJxcc-l90p58/s320/RTO_Smith_Page_14_Image_0002.jpg" width="277" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">How Tik-Tok walked revealed</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Nevertheless, regardless of these restrictions, some of the creatures and
effects are startling for the pre-CGI period.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>More finances and
effort were directed into creatures such as the chicken, Billina;
and the mechanical man, Tik Tok, who was operated by a full-sized man concealed
within the torso. However, they may appear to us now, the Wheelers scared the
bejesus out of a generation of 80s kids. Originally ice and roller skaters
were hired to assume these roles with the expectation that skating skills
would translate to rolling along on wheels taken from wheelchairs. It turned
out that no pre-existing ability prepared anyone to move as a Wheeler and so 17
people had to train specifically for the task including a man who had had his feet amputated.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr9ikJUUSs0YWNyqtnoAB3u-Guws7KJbhr3Xa6THPaqFIYTaYi5d-D3F305JMVKpmqSCaKIjHr-e80_ZINHKb_vmnPC0uHNw1HoILgxzPDZEsOr7wpYhOUDno1tITjvxF2_-9SiNGO8Vg/s1600/RTO_Smith_Page_14_Image_0004.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr9ikJUUSs0YWNyqtnoAB3u-Guws7KJbhr3Xa6THPaqFIYTaYi5d-D3F305JMVKpmqSCaKIjHr-e80_ZINHKb_vmnPC0uHNw1HoILgxzPDZEsOr7wpYhOUDno1tITjvxF2_-9SiNGO8Vg/s320/RTO_Smith_Page_14_Image_0004.jpg" width="249" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The inexplicable terror of a Wheeler</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Special effects designers from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Dark Crystal </i>and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Greystoke </i>worked
on the film, along with Zoran Perisic who invented the Zoptic method,
an in-camera front projection system that was used to make Superman
fly in the 1980s films. The Claymation work in the film is extremely innovative in its replication
of movement in stone, particularly given that the Nomes as imagined in Baum’s
work were traditional miniature men-shaped gnomes. The process of the Nome King
transforming into the form of a man was also made extremely difficult by the
fact that filming occurred in London but the Claymation studio was location in
Oregon.<br />
<br /></div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGFIjlydnmDsrotIhNCONGx69qbfBnmIjkCCxE7IGJ2FhwzQ58gmdz9Tkj3BQ_4YCnvjLLY-vAa9RGSpJ6cbvYlIXbQehUdcptxg9nJ-vAN3Gzzi_RBjvKYx7Dcy_KwPiL1hhDBCE891A/s1600/RTO_Smith_Page_15_Image_0001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="204" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGFIjlydnmDsrotIhNCONGx69qbfBnmIjkCCxE7IGJ2FhwzQ58gmdz9Tkj3BQ_4YCnvjLLY-vAa9RGSpJ6cbvYlIXbQehUdcptxg9nJ-vAN3Gzzi_RBjvKYx7Dcy_KwPiL1hhDBCE891A/s320/RTO_Smith_Page_15_Image_0001.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Return to Oz </i>bubblegum cards</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The financial limitations and their
effect on the look of the film were not the only major challenge faced during
film. After seven weeks of shooting, Murch had a breakdown during the shooting
of the scene in which Mombi changes her head. According to Maslansky, Murch was
extremely confused and said to him “I don’t know where we are in the picture”.
He was lost in terms of how the film pieced together and went to lie down in
his office. With 500 people on the payroll, thoughts immediately turned to a
list of other potential directors.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4c7DZOsb_i9bvrXtminKMAhL94RHIxMsmppAhyphenhyphen0sV1LBTHiucYl_RfnUTnDwLPYBUn26l7PR33wVKsoyst700axFFUyETSAIqKvWVbg8KpkhKwgwjEXzGtubuiAJkidL9nTC7rSHQd8o/s1600/RTO_Smith_Page_15_Image_0003.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="205" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4c7DZOsb_i9bvrXtminKMAhL94RHIxMsmppAhyphenhyphen0sV1LBTHiucYl_RfnUTnDwLPYBUn26l7PR33wVKsoyst700axFFUyETSAIqKvWVbg8KpkhKwgwjEXzGtubuiAJkidL9nTC7rSHQd8o/s320/RTO_Smith_Page_15_Image_0003.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Return to Oz </i>comic</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
However, because of Murch’s reputation and
previous work with other industry luminaries, there was an almost immediate
remarkable response from within the film-making community. Within an hour George Lucas called from Japan and agreed
to come immediately to England to help Murch get back on his feet. Murch had
worked on <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">THX1138 </i>and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">American Graffiti</i>. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i>According to Maslansky, 20
minutes later Stephen Spielberg called and said he would come to the studio the
next day. Shortly afterward, Francis Ford Coppola phoned to say that it was his
birthday the next day and that he would be in London. Lucas took over filming for the week, shooting the scenes with the flying Gump until Murch could recover.
Reportedly, he urged Disney to keep Murch on the film with the reassurance that
he would personally finish the film if it did not work out. While the film has
obviously become a cult classic, and was ahead of its time in embracing the
type of dystopian vision of Oz that has become more common in TV series such as
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Tin Man </i>and the novels <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Dorothy Must Die</i>, the experience of
directing was clearly not for Murch. He has not directed another film, although
he is one of the most respected sounds designers and editors in the industry. <br />
<br /></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_JaW8ljwihGIpZufQ2no-ooEXRSp0fhuQGfXYCrlhzdTI0YvUK64JVLut0bHVrDAf_Zf2qr2Ow1D-L0SIGi3ZJlzeNRugGV_iBZoItfkFOYu1KChu0BBgza5HE23DbRvLZFGP5i2M4W8/s1600/RTO_Smith_Page_16_Image_0002.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="177" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_JaW8ljwihGIpZufQ2no-ooEXRSp0fhuQGfXYCrlhzdTI0YvUK64JVLut0bHVrDAf_Zf2qr2Ow1D-L0SIGi3ZJlzeNRugGV_iBZoItfkFOYu1KChu0BBgza5HE23DbRvLZFGP5i2M4W8/s320/RTO_Smith_Page_16_Image_0002.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Japanese <i>Return to Oz </i>figures</td></tr>
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Disney had flip-flopped on the film
numerous times, studio heads had changed multiple times during pre-production,
the budget was slashed, and then on the film’s release very minimal support was
leant to its marketing. In an era in which product tie-ins and cross-promotions for
children’s films were becoming extremely important, the film has an unusually
tiny amount of merchandise associated with it comprising of books, a comic, and
a promotion for Smuckers jelly involving hand-puppets. The only figurines produced were made for the Japanese
market. In Disney’s terms it was something of a failure. And for those who came
to the film expecting a light-hearted musical, it was also a failure.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeWhyuCYYV7lSja2_pI9wBsr1pPun7jv4ng_ZRIKCtdTf_bGOoiQ32EV7zOKOIxpnV0JiDmeVrUcyliHohn8LP_B987KGMJlQHXq5q911L3jsTl3yA12gtyUY2RBc96Lsl9AzkLDO82m8/s1600/RTO_Smith_Page_17_Image_0001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeWhyuCYYV7lSja2_pI9wBsr1pPun7jv4ng_ZRIKCtdTf_bGOoiQ32EV7zOKOIxpnV0JiDmeVrUcyliHohn8LP_B987KGMJlQHXq5q911L3jsTl3yA12gtyUY2RBc96Lsl9AzkLDO82m8/s320/RTO_Smith_Page_17_Image_0001.jpg" width="255" /></a></div>
I saw the
film on its release when I was six years old with my grandfather. I can still
remember how odd it felt to have to manage his disappointment as he kept saying
“that’s now how the yellow brick road is supposed to be—all broken”. Of the
generation that would have seen the MGM film on its release, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Return to Oz </i>made no sense and was even
disturbing. But to me the darkness of the film seemed more magically real than
Judy Garland’s cheerful land of Oz and it has stayed with me in more ways than
one.<br />
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Michelle Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18350801340930174962noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3252300568370815502.post-10544643452346575722017-01-28T13:55:00.002-08:002017-01-28T13:56:52.982-08:00Goodbye Horses (and Transphobia): Transgenderism in Film and LiteratureIn Laurie Frankel’s new novel <a href="http://www.lauriefrankel.net/this-is-how-it-always-is.html">This is How it Always Is</a>, an American family grapples with prejudice about transgender children. Youngest child of five boys, Claude, in addition to wanting to be “ a chef, a cat, a vet, a dinosaur, a train, a farmer” when he is older, tells his parents that he wants to “be a girl”.<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://62e528761d0685343e1c-f3d1b99a743ffa4142d9d7f1978d9686.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com/files/154010/area14mp/image-20170124-8082-1byct5y.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" src="https://62e528761d0685343e1c-f3d1b99a743ffa4142d9d7f1978d9686.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com/files/154010/width237/image-20170124-8082-1byct5y.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This Is How It Always Is, Laurie Frankel (2017). <br />
Flatiron Books</td></tr>
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<br />
The Walsh-Adams family readily embrace his difference, but the world beyond is less capable of processing the gender non-conformity of a five-year-old child. At kindergarten, Claude is permitted to wear dresses, but is castigated for using the boys’ bathroom. After his decision to become Poppy, a school friend’s parent threatens violence in the face of Poppy’s imagined queer contaminating effect upon his son.<br />
<br />
Coupled with a transgender woman being shot on a local college campus after a sexual encounter, the family decides that Madison, Wisconsin is an inhospitable environment for Poppy and moves to more progressive Seattle. Nevertheless, they still find it easier to start again without explaining that Poppy is transgender.<br />
<br />
Frankel’s novel was inspired by <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/18/fashion/modern-love-transgender-child-identity-parenting.html?smid=tw-share&_r=1">her own experience</a> raising a transgender child. Western culture is currently facing the challenge of understanding transgenderism and the first generation of openly transgender children.<br />
<br />
John Phillips, author of <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/Transgender_On_Screen.html?id=uhZiQgAACAAJ&redir_esc=y">Transgender on Screen</a>, suggests that “the crossing of genders will prove to be the most significant single cultural challenge” of our era “because of the redefinition of sexes and sexualities that necessarily accompanies it”. Practical issues such as <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2016/05/17/you-can-be-fined-for-not-calling-people-ze-or-hir-if-thats-the-pronoun-they-demand-that-you-use/?utm_term=.ee9c1dee31d1">preferred pronouns</a>, <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2016/05/03/chicago-schools-say-transgender-kids-should-use-bathrooms-matching-identity/83880078/">bathroom usage</a>, eligibility to <a href="http://time.com/3961696/transgender-athletes-school-sports/">participate in sports</a>, and <a href="http://www.nature.com/news/largest-ever-study-of-transgender-teenagers-set-to-kick-off-1.19637">hormone treatment for young people</a> remain contentious.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://62e528761d0685343e1c-f3d1b99a743ffa4142d9d7f1978d9686.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com/files/154138/area14mp/image-20170125-16070-4m3055.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" height="266" src="https://62e528761d0685343e1c-f3d1b99a743ffa4142d9d7f1978d9686.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com/files/154138/width754/image-20170125-16070-4m3055.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A gender neutral bathroom sign. John Arehart/shutterstock</td></tr>
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In attempting to reshape our understanding of sex and gender, it is helpful to look back at how we have represented – or, most commonly, omitted – transgender people in popular culture. The historical lack of understanding of transgender people is evident in a cultural tendency to depict them as objects of comedy, or, most often, as freakish or monstrous.<br />
<br />
<h2>
Sensational freaks and psycho killers</h2>
Ed Wood’s cult film <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOPG_lCEvUM">Glen or Glenda</a> (1953) was designed to shock and is primarily about a man who cross dresses. The film’s final section “Alan or Ann”, comprised largely of stock footage, is more specifically about a transgender (and potentially <a href="http://www.isna.org/faq/what_is_intersex">intersex</a>) character. <br />
<br />
Alan was born a boy, but raised as a girl and then served as a man during World War II. While recovering from combat in hospital, Alan learns about gender reassignment surgery and becomes a “lovely young woman”. The “Alan or Ann” section of the film was reportedly added to meet distributor calls for a sensational “sex change” film, implicitly suggesting that transgender people were a freakish spectacle who would increase ticket sales.<br />
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</figure>
<br />
While Wood was sympathetic to the practice of cross-dressing, categorising himself as a <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=XrjzCGsiyWEC&printsec=frontcover&dq=ed+wood+cross+dress&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=transvestite&f=false">transvestite</a>, most horror films and thrillers that followed situated transgender characters as villains. The list of transgender murderers is extensive and persistent from the 1960s to the 1990s.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxbDcKNzbX0">Homicidal</a> (1961) features a murderous woman, Emily, who wears a wig and prosthetic teeth to conceal that she is, in fact, Warren. Nevertheless, Warren was actually born a girl, but raised as a boy by her mother because his father desired a male child and would have harmed a girl. In keeping with the sensational representation of transgender killers, the film was screened with a “fright break” at its climax, in which audience members could leave the theatre and seek a refund if they were too scared.<br />
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</figure>
<br />
Hammer Horror’s 1971 film <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6D7bzltR2U">Dr Jekyll and Sister Hyde</a> makes the famous splintered personality tale more disturbing by motivating Jekyll to concoct an elixir of life serum with female hormones from murdered corpses. The serum transforms Jekyll into an evil woman, who eventually kills girls in order to obtain more hormones to maintain the transformation.<br />
<br />
The 1983 slasher film <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaAcitYY4OU">Sleepaway Camp</a> has an infamous final scene in which the serial killer is revealed. The character of “Angela” stands naked, smeared with blood, with her penis clearly visible to onlookers who scream, “Oh my God! She’s a boy!” Angela was originally a boy named Peter, but was forced by his mother to assume the role of his twin sister after her death.<br />
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<br />
Being forced into a particular gender role is clearly traumatic, as in the well publicised case of David Reimer who was <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/horizon/dr_money_prog_summary.shtml">raised as a girl</a> after a failed circumcision. However, the implication of Sleepaway Camp and other films with serial killers who are arguably presented as transgender, such as <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102926/">Silence of the Lambs</a> (1991) (and even <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0054215/">Psycho</a> [1960]), is that gender non-conformity is frightening and unnatural. As Phillips suggests, revelations of transgender murderers not only make the killings bizarre and monstrous but also “trade on the otherness of transgender to engender fear and loathing”.<br />
<br />
<h2>
Life in pink: transgender children</h2>
It is only recently that transgender children have begun to be overtly represented in literature and film. This is indicative of shift from demonising transgender people to greater attempts to understand them and represent them positively, as in mainstream films such as the award-winning <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1F4Dckw274Q">Transamerica</a> (2005).<br />
<br />
One of the first representations of a transgender child was the Belgian film <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119590/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Ma Vie En Rose</a> in 1997. It playfully blurs the line between fantasy and reality in order to show the thoughts of a seven-year-old boy, Ludovic, who wants to be a girl.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://62e528761d0685343e1c-f3d1b99a743ffa4142d9d7f1978d9686.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com/files/154149/area14mp/image-20170125-16062-cooc2c.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" height="270" src="https://62e528761d0685343e1c-f3d1b99a743ffa4142d9d7f1978d9686.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com/files/154149/width754/image-20170125-16062-cooc2c.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Georges Du Fresne as Ludovic in Ma Vie En Rose. Canal+</td></tr>
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<br />
Despite its arthouse aesthetic and the fact that Ludovic, as reviewer <a href="http://www.thirdtablet.com/WhyIsMaVieEnRoseRatedR/reviews/RogerEbert.html">Roger Ebert suggests</a>, exhibited “no sexual awareness in his dressing up”, the film was given an “R” rating in the United States. The rating suggests that two decades ago there was still significant discomfort with the idea of a boy who might not “grow out of” his femininity. It also signals that young people should not be exposed to the reality of transgender children.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" src="https://62e528761d0685343e1c-f3d1b99a743ffa4142d9d7f1978d9686.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com/files/154148/width237/image-20170125-16062-1llp8o5.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">L. Frank Baum’s Ozma of Oz (1907)</td></tr>
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<br />
<br />
<figure class="align-left ">
<figcaption>This sensitivity explains why there were only a handful of stories intended for children — usually fantasies — that included characters who might be understood as transgender until very recently.</figcaption></figure>The most notable of these is Princess Ozma, who appears in every book in L. Frank Baum’s Oz book series (1900-1920) apart from the first. Princess Ozma is born a girl, but transformed into a boy named Tip by the witch Mombi, in order to prevent her becoming the ruler of Oz. Tip has no recollection of being a girl when Mombi is compelled to revert him to his original form as the girl Ozma.<br />
<br />
Children’s books have historically been willing to show boys and girls who “play” as the other gender (often categorised as “sissies” and “tomboys”), but the expectation is that these characters will mature into cisgender, heterosexual men and women.
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" src="https://62e528761d0685343e1c-f3d1b99a743ffa4142d9d7f1978d9686.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com/files/154136/width237/image-20170125-16089-16zbs4p.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Julie Anne Peters, <i>Luna </i>(2004)</td></tr>
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<br />
It was not until the new millennium that a young adult novel featured a transgender protagonist. Julie Anne Peter’s <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/Luna.html?id=0bteSJY-MZwC&redir_esc=y">Luna</a> (2004) depicts a teenage boy, Liam, who progresses from only assuming his true self, “Luna”, at night to eventually making the decision to publicly transition.<br />
<br />
Victoria Flanagan, in her <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/Into_the_Closet.html?id=gT6FAAAAIAAJ">study of cross-dressing in children’s literature</a> , explains that contemporary Young Adult fiction has begun to recognise that “cross-dressing has implications that relate to sexuality and sexual/gender identity”. These ideas were previously cordoned off into the realm of adults only, as culture was largely uncomfortable with children reading and viewing stories about queer or gender non-conforming characters.<br />
<br />
<h2>
The next wave of representation</h2>
This is How it Always Is is symbolic of the next wave of representations of transgender people. In novels and films for adults, psycho killers who were forced into the “wrong” gender by a parent, or tragic figures such as trans man Brandon Teena, whose real-life rape and murder is dramatised in <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0171804/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Boys Don’t Cry</a> (1999), are being replaced by more positive depictions of transgender people.<br />
<br />
We are beginning to see stories of young people who are being supported by friends or parents to live as the gender with which they identify – such as transgender boy Cole in <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2262532/">The Fosters</a> – and of teens learning to accept a parent’s transition, as in Australian film <a href="http://my52tuesdays.com/about-the-film/">52 Tuesdays</a>.<br />
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<figure>
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Y5WcMzEYRGU?wmode=transparent&start=0" width="440"></iframe>
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<br />
The newfound ability for transgender children to begin their transition or at least delay puberty means there could be a transgender boy or girl in almost any school classroom. Rightfully, novels for young people are also beginning to represent transgender children.<br />
<br />
Nevertheless, as with the continued challenges to depictions of gay and lesbian characters in fiction for young people, transgender characters are still rare and sometimes considered inappropriate. <br />
Now it is not the threat of the freakish transgender monster, but the threat of disrupting long-held ideas about gender binaries that has the most potential to send transphobic people to the fright room<br />
<img alt="The Conversation" height="1" src="https://counter.theconversation.edu.au/content/71809/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" width="1" />
<br />
<br />
<i>This article was originally published on <a href="http://theconversation.com/">The Conversation</a>. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-transgenderism-in-film-and-literature-71809">original article</a>.</i>Michelle Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18350801340930174962noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3252300568370815502.post-70160646463121102072016-09-19T17:25:00.001-07:002016-09-19T17:25:36.304-07:00Selections from an Interview on Modernising Children's Books for ABC Radio Melbourne<iframe allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="444" scrolling="no" src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2F774ABCMelbourne%2Fvideos%2F10154485568453926%2F&show_text=1&width=560" style="border: none; overflow: hidden;" width="560"></iframe>Michelle Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18350801340930174962noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3252300568370815502.post-13867474547056397552016-05-04T18:18:00.000-07:002016-05-04T18:18:30.656-07:00The Ugly History of Cosmetic Surgery<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEis1C5ZP75x4Yg6n4nycpN1-5Jzy-oK-q28eKu0FhNNUUlnllBHO9ox2QPv9f56vgbyri2ojAejuWkU6dCGHYrOLGlKAXmzyVgc_2f0NwjIZSkz20y_P8pcrHcTrGEGJCkRifbf1g-49VI/s1600/You_have_a_beautiful_face%25252c_but_your_nose%25C2%25BF+%25282%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="221" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEis1C5ZP75x4Yg6n4nycpN1-5Jzy-oK-q28eKu0FhNNUUlnllBHO9ox2QPv9f56vgbyri2ojAejuWkU6dCGHYrOLGlKAXmzyVgc_2f0NwjIZSkz20y_P8pcrHcTrGEGJCkRifbf1g-49VI/s400/You_have_a_beautiful_face%25252c_but_your_nose%25C2%25BF+%25282%2529.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">American advertisement for "non-surgical" nose correction</td></tr>
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Reality television shows based on surgical transformations, such as <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JIT0uZ3D9E">The Swan</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QrtBodQvDY">Extreme Makeover</a>, were not the first public spectacles to offer women the ability to compete for the chance to be beautiful.<br />
<br />
In 1924, a competition ad in the New York Daily Mirror asked the affronting question “Who is the homeliest girl in New York?” It promised the unfortunate winner that a plastic surgeon would “make a beauty of her”. Entrants were reassured that they would be spared embarrassment, as the paper’s art department would paint “masks” on their photographs when they were published.<br />
<br />
Cosmetic surgery instinctively seems like a modern phenomenon. Yet it has a much longer and more complicated history than most people likely imagine. Its origins lie in part in the correction of syphilitic deformities and racialised ideas about “healthy” and acceptable facial features as much as any purely aesthetic ideas about symmetry, for instance.<br />
<br />
In her study of how beauty is related to social discrimination and bias, sociologist <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=mvdLHlg4es8C&pg=PA158&lpg=PA158&dq=%22aesthetic+surgery%22+taschen&source=bl&ots=J5zqKU4kQS&sig=egPDr97h6p2uCz1-hcTLCXE85DQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiukofstYTMAhWF7xQKHdLSCuc4ChDoAQhYMAY#v=onepage&q&f=false">Bonnie Berry estimates</a> that 50% of Americans are “unhappy with their looks”. Berry links this prevalence to mass media images. However, people have long been driven to painful, surgical measures to “correct” their facial features and body parts, even prior to the use of anaesthesia and discovery of antiseptic principles.<br />
<br />
Some of the first recorded surgeries took place in 16th-century Britain and Europe. Tudor “barber-surgeons” treated facial injuries, which as medical historian <a href="http://www.history.ox.ac.uk/faculty/staff/profile/pelling/index.html">Margaret Pelling</a> explains, was crucial in a culture where damaged or ugly faces were seen to reflect a disfigured inner self.<br />
<br />
With the pain and risks to life inherent in any kind of surgery at this time, cosmetic procedures were usually confined to severe and stigmatised disfigurements, such as the loss of a nose through trauma or epidemic syphilis.<br />
<br />
The first pedicle flap grafts to fashion new noses were performed in 16th-century Europe. A section of skin would be cut from the forehead, folded down, and stitched, or would be harvested from the patient’s arm.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jean Baptiste Marc Bourgery and Nicholas Henri Jacob, <br />‘Iconografia d'anatomia chirurgica e di medicina operatoria,’ Florence, 1841.</td></tr>
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<br />
A later representation of this procedure in Iconografia d’anatomia
published in 1841, as reproduced in Richard Barnett’s <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Crucial_Interventions.html?id=2tH6rQEACAAJ&redir_esc=y">Crucial Interventions</a>, shows the patient with his raised arm still gruesomely attached to his face during the graft’s healing period.<br />
<br />
As socially crippling as facial disfigurements could be and as desperate as some individuals were to remedy them, purely cosmetic surgery did not become commonplace until operations were not excruciatingly painful and life threatening.<br />
<br />
In 1846, what is frequently described as the first “painless” operation was performed by American dentist <a href="http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/broughttolife/people/williammorton">William Morton</a>, who gave ether to a patient. The ether was administered via inhalation through either a handkerchief or bellows. Both of these were imprecise methods of delivery that could cause an overdose and kill the patient.<br />
<br />
The removal of the second major impediment to cosmetic surgery occurred in the 1860s. English doctor <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3468637/">Joseph Lister</a>’s model of aseptic, or sterile, surgery was taken up in France, Germany, Austria and Italy, reducing the chance of infection and death.<br />
<br />
By the 1880s, with the further refinement of anaesthesia, cosmetic surgery became a relatively safe and painless prospect for healthy people who felt unattractive.<br /><br />
The Derma-Featural Co advertised its “treatments” for “humped, depressed, or… ill-shaped noses”, protruding ears, and wrinkles (“the finger marks of Time”) in the English magazine World of Dress in 1901.<br /><br />
<a href="http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/31383099">A report from a 1908 court case</a> involving the company shows that they continued to use skin harvested from – and attached to – the arm for rhinoplasties.<br /><br />
The report also refers to the non-surgical “paraffin wax” rhinoplasty, in which hot, liquid wax was injected into the nose and then “moulded by the operator into the desired shape”. The wax could potentially migrate to other parts of the face and be disfiguring, or cause “<a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0002961042902344">paraffinomas</a>” or wax cancers.<br /><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXpCVPkbpijwAZoMjlN9eCWKStu9wQ1imOk7LwLfDPTjdYEKNVEYH080X5j9sK9hwbrMVI_g3XSh4ajFav3VlHs5QUBubfDnoZ8NeiL8fNXVNJSBheduHCHnfeeu5oWazHshNy2ZL_ZeQ/s1600/chin_strap.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXpCVPkbpijwAZoMjlN9eCWKStu9wQ1imOk7LwLfDPTjdYEKNVEYH080X5j9sK9hwbrMVI_g3XSh4ajFav3VlHs5QUBubfDnoZ8NeiL8fNXVNJSBheduHCHnfeeu5oWazHshNy2ZL_ZeQ/s320/chin_strap.jpg" width="224" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>World of Dress</i>, June 1905</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Advertisements for the likes of the the Derma-Featural Co were rare in women’s magazines around the turn of the 20th century. But there were frequently ads published for bogus devices promising to deliver dramatic face and body changes that might reasonably be expected only from surgical intervention.<br />
<br />Various models of chin and forehead straps, such as the patented “Ganesh” brand, were advertised as a means for removing double chins and wrinkles around the eyes.<br />
<br />Bust reducers and hip and stomach reducers, such as the JZ Hygienic Beauty Belt, also promised non-surgical ways to reshape the body.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhGben84_Xh46pk8dmu1dquFu5TowaCUPk4tUR5y_MXzpsAEUHY4Fv7JzN3OHHkTWmzG9OIyblQGTesB2SpqS7SLw8cN7sdHfL7zXL7nAexWaLk5nUZ7x3mfSbqz2v27md_DUHYZ82aeQ/s1600/wod_april_1905.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhGben84_Xh46pk8dmu1dquFu5TowaCUPk4tUR5y_MXzpsAEUHY4Fv7JzN3OHHkTWmzG9OIyblQGTesB2SpqS7SLw8cN7sdHfL7zXL7nAexWaLk5nUZ7x3mfSbqz2v27md_DUHYZ82aeQ/s320/wod_april_1905.jpg" width="207" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>World of Dress</i>, April 1905</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The frequency of these ads in popular magazines suggests that use of these devices was socially acceptable. In comparison, coloured cosmetics such as rouge and kohl eyeliner were rarely advertised. The ads for “powder and paint” that do exist often emphasised the product’s “natural look” to avoid any negative association between cosmetics and artifice.<br />
<h2>
<br />The racialised origins of cosmetic surgery</h2>
The most common cosmetic operations requested before the 20th century aimed to correct features such as ears, noses, and breasts classified as “ugly” because they weren’t typical for “white” people.<br />
At this time, racial science was concerned with “improving” the white race.
In the United States, with its growing populations of Jewish and Irish immigrants and African Americans, “pug” noses, large noses and flat noses were signs of racial difference and therefore ugliness.<br /><br />
<a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Vs09mB9QjTgC&printsec=frontcover&dq=history+%22cosmetic+surgery%22&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false">Sander L. Gilman</a> suggests that the “primitive” associations of non-white noses arose “because the too-flat nose came to be associated with the inherited syphilitic nose”.<br /><br />
American otolaryngologist <a href="http://archfaci.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=479927">John Orlando Roe’</a>s discovery of a method for performing rhinoplasties inside the nose, without leaving a tell-tale external scar, was a crucial development in the 1880s. As is the case today, patients wanted to be able to “pass” (in this case as “white”) and for their surgery to be undetectable.<br /><br />
In 2015, <a href="http://www.isaps.org/Media/Default/global-statistics/2015%20ISAPS%20Results.pdf">627,165 American women</a>, or an astonishing 1 in 250, received breast implants. In the early years of cosmetic surgery, breasts were never made larger.<br />
<figure class="align-left ">
</figure>
<br />
Breasts acted historically as a “<a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Vs09mB9QjTgC&pg=PA223&lpg=PA223&dq=%22breast+functions+as+a+racial+sign%22+gilman&source=bl&ots=m5RZvuCaSK&sig=oqDYnEZP1VfRfVP4rW4HcN7VLpE&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjT4fb4xojMAhXMlxoKHWgQBWQQ6AEIITAB">racial sign</a>”. Small, rounded breasts were viewed as youthful and sexually controlled. Larger, pendulous breasts were regarded as “primitive” and therefore as a deformity.<br /><br />
In the age of the flapper, in the early 20th century, breast reductions were common. It was not until the 1950s that small breasts were transformed into a medical problem and seen to make women unhappy.<br /><br />
Shifting views about desirable breasts illustrate how beauty standards change across time and place. Beauty was once considered as God-given, natural or a sign of health or a person’s good character.<br />
When beauty began to be understood as located outside of each person and as capable of being changed, more women, in particular, tried to improve their appearance through beauty products, as they now increasingly turn to surgery.<br /><br />
As Elizabeth Haiken points out in <a href="https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/content/venus-envy">Venus Envy</a>, 1921 not only marked the first meeting of an American association of plastic surgery specialists, but also the first Miss America pageant in Atlantic City. All of the finalists were white. The winner, sixteen-year-old Margaret Gorman, was short compared to today’s towering models at five-feet-one-inch tall, and her breast measurement was smaller than that of her hips.<br /><br />
<br />
There is a close link between cosmetic surgical trends and the qualities we value as a culture, as well as shifting ideas about race, health, femininity, and ageing.<br />
<br />
Last year was <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-health/11731223/100-years-of-plastic-surgery.html">celebrated</a> by some within the field as the 100th anniversary of modern cosmetic surgery. New Zealander <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/9396435/Pioneering-plastic-surgery-records-from-First-World-War-published.html">Dr Harold Gillies</a> has been championed for inventing the pedicle flap graft during World War I to reconstruct the faces of maimed soldiers. Yet as is well documented, primitive versions of this technique had been in use for centuries.<br />
<br />
Such an inspiring story obscures the fact that modern cosmetic surgery was really born in the late 19th century and that it owes as much to syphilis and racism as to rebuilding the noses and jaws of war heroes.<br />
<br />
The surgical fraternity – and it is a brotherhood, as <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1998/07/12/style/plastic-surgeons-why-so-few-women.html?pagewanted=all">more than 90% of cosmetic surgeons are male</a>— conveniently places itself in a history that begins with reconstructing the faces and work prospects of the war wounded.<br />
<br />
In reality, cosmetic surgeons are instruments of shifting whims about what is attractive. They have helped people to conceal or transform features that might make them stand out as once diseased, ethnically different, “primitive”, too feminine, or too masculine.<br />
<br />
The sheer risks that people have been willing to run in order to pass as “normal” or even to turn the “misfortune” of ugliness, as the homeliest girl contest put it, into beauty, shows how strongly people internalise ideas about what is beautiful.<br />
<br />
Looking back at the ugly history of cosmetic surgery should give us the impetus to more fully consider how our own beauty norms are shaped by prejudices including racism and sexism.<br />
<br />
<b>This article was originally published on<i> <a href="http://theconversation.com/">The Conversation</a></i>. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-the-ugly-history-of-cosmetic-surgery-56500">original article</a>.</b>Michelle Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18350801340930174962noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3252300568370815502.post-10643046587093496662015-12-03T17:24:00.002-08:002015-12-03T17:32:47.803-08:00There is no "War on Barbie": Toys, Gender Inequality and Domestic Violence<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvDM_Zmssqka-qkb9jWF48aIZnJqeeuxuelod_nIRsef4Bgink6ePdveVLcmOYVGogpDWrqkgcIdT8Zoi3lAyPT67MFe0hxRpCr0uH3OwAuZZUXZIGzbg-KLsVnIdaYB-DE-7Tvcyut0Q/s1600/dont-play-along-with-domestic-violence-123258-474-670.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvDM_Zmssqka-qkb9jWF48aIZnJqeeuxuelod_nIRsef4Bgink6ePdveVLcmOYVGogpDWrqkgcIdT8Zoi3lAyPT67MFe0hxRpCr0uH3OwAuZZUXZIGzbg-KLsVnIdaYB-DE-7Tvcyut0Q/s1600/dont-play-along-with-domestic-violence-123258-474-670.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Uncredited image</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Last week marked White Ribbon Day in Australia, a focal point for the
male led campaign to end violence against women. On the same day, a <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/greens-link-barbies-trucks-and-childhood-toys-to-domestic-violence-in-call-for-gender-inquiry-20151124-gl716h.html">Senate
inquiry</a> into the relationship between children’s toys and
entertainment and the gender stereotypes that contribute to domestic violence
was announced.</div>
<br />
Predictably, the inquiry was instantly deemed <a href="http://www.news.com.au/national/politics/greens-continue-war-on-barbie-by-establishing-inquiry-into-kids-toys/news-story/d8f35e6cc1a53e4c31e70474c0354829">“a
war on Barbie”.</a> It was also an opportunity to label the
Greens, who initiated the inquiry, as kooky for linking Tonka trucks with
Australia’s family violence crisis. <br />
<br />
Both the federal government and the opposition were eager to uncouple
themselves from any suggestion that they might begin policing toy boxes. A
spokesperson for Labor leader Bill Shorten remarked that any notion of </span><a href="http://www.news.com.au/national/politics/greens-continue-war-on-barbie-by-establishing-inquiry-into-kids-toys/news-story/d8f35e6cc1a53e4c31e70474c0354829">“a
clear link between toys and domestic violence is absurd”.</a>
<br />
<br />
Last year, the Greens supported the <a href="http://www.nogenderdecember.com/">No Gender December</a>
campaign, which encourages families to be open-minded when choosing toys to
place under the Christmas tree. The campaign highlights how toys are marketed
in ways that segregate play along gender lines. Most toy shops erect an invisible Berlin Wall
that largely keeps girls in the pink, sparkly zone and boys in the sector of
camouflage-toned action.<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTWrdirYTSOXnPvrIjwRq7ignzHaaZJZ_LWDE-H6vddd9xQTF9vsMBXV3BJcENFoR1845zvefqVZR_kHd8n6xn8MP2fVPi_FxGG2p5rlog8o7uqrCzduJ0pKju_IvF4CzgibDk8X_Z0yE/s1600/o-DOMESTIC-VIOLENCE-BARBIE-570.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTWrdirYTSOXnPvrIjwRq7ignzHaaZJZ_LWDE-H6vddd9xQTF9vsMBXV3BJcENFoR1845zvefqVZR_kHd8n6xn8MP2fVPi_FxGG2p5rlog8o7uqrCzduJ0pKju_IvF4CzgibDk8X_Z0yE/s320/o-DOMESTIC-VIOLENCE-BARBIE-570.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sam Humphreys: It's a Matter of Trust project</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
The suggestion that children’s toys, books, or films
might have any connection with the beliefs children internalise about gender and
the kinds of adults they become rankles many people. We commonly take exception
at the idea that anything that formed part of our beloved childhood could be anything
other than innocent and delightful.<br />
<br />
It is time that adults “grow up” and stop ridiculing the idea that the cultural
products we make for children are influential and can have both positive and
negative impacts. <br />
<br />
Parents tend to accept that young children might be swayed by advertising for
junk food, depictions of smoking, alcohol or drug use as desirable, or TV or
movies that are infused with swearing. Children are consistently absorbing
cultural cues about how to behave and act. As a result, parents might restrict
their children’s exposure to things they see as harmful, or at least help
children negotiate what is socially acceptable and healthy for their own
wellbeing. <br />
<br />
When it comes to the negative influences of gender stereotyping in moulding how
girls and boys feel that they can act as kids and as adults, we inexplicably
change tack. These are only innocent or trivial toys or cartoons. And children
won’t be thinking about adult concepts like the gender pay gap or domestic
violence in any case. <br />
<br />
The <a href="https://www.dss.gov.au/women/publications-articles/reducing-violence-against-women-and-their-childrenhttps:/www.dss.gov.au/women/publications-articles/reducing-violence-against-women-and-their-children">Reducing
Violence Against Women and Their Children</span></a> report,
released this month, demonstrates that
young people have already formed views about gender relations and violence. It
shows that when presented with hypothetical scenarios, boys as young as ten
years old think that female victims of domestic violence are at fault; girls
tend to blame themselves. Why would children already blame women for domestic
violence if they were not absorbing ideas from the cultural around them?</span></div>
<br />
Individual toys do not transmit troubling beliefs about violence directly, but the
gendering of toys is a reflector of, and a contributor to, the gender
inequality that produces domestic violence. <br />
<br />
Critics of the inquiry propose that Barbie and other traditional toys marketed
for boys or girls have been available for decades, as if to suggest that popular
practices cannot possibly be wrong. They also ignore the coexistence of gender
inequality with these and other superficially innocuous traditions throughout
this period.<br />
<br />
There is no social engineering in the suggestion that we should examine how the
marketing of toys and children’s entertainment might bolster gender inequality.
No one is proposing restricting the interests or freedom of children to choose.
Rather, we must remove the limitations on children that are deployed through
gendered marketing. <br />
<br />
Toys that are categorised for girls are often related to domestic chores,
fashion or babies, mirroring the ongoing expectation of women’s
disproportionate contribution to housework and childcare. While boys’ toys
involve construction, adventure, or warfare. Gender inequality is entrenched in
the way that toys that are marketed for girls are unacceptable for boys or else
they will be mocked because what is feminine is unimportant, frivolous and
incompatible with being a “real” boy or man.<br />
<br />
The gendered marketing of toys is not the direct reason why one in six
Australian women has experienced domestic violence. Yet we cannot expect that
“raising awareness” and simply telling men to respect women and monitor each
other will make any meaningful difference to the long history of violence
against women. It is time we looked seriously at where gendered inequality
originates and is cemented to understand how we might shift the power imbalance
at the core of violence against women. <o:p></o:p></span>
Michelle Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18350801340930174962noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3252300568370815502.post-52271507797600440832015-10-25T18:50:00.000-07:002015-10-25T18:51:43.565-07:00Alice in Wonderland at 150: Why fantasy stories about girls transcend time<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiejfwmi21pF1k4kTPFtYM6O22FmLezk72R1QbeEFInghkzoIOOzijJ6fizMyYyorv6_h2G9wqZpM25P0U0UMl7xot69z_glqhZE4D6wO_4oaGs42ZxGwYYyT4roHIeuC9G4b6I9fFhrM/s1600/Alice.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiejfwmi21pF1k4kTPFtYM6O22FmLezk72R1QbeEFInghkzoIOOzijJ6fizMyYyorv6_h2G9wqZpM25P0U0UMl7xot69z_glqhZE4D6wO_4oaGs42ZxGwYYyT4roHIeuC9G4b6I9fFhrM/s400/Alice.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">John Tenniel, <i>The Nursery Alice</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
It’s <a href="http://www.alice150.com/">150 years </a>since an Oxford mathematics don published the most important work of children’s literature and one of the most influential books of all time.<br />
<br />
The origins of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland in a story that Charles Dodgson told 10-year-old <a href="http://www.alice-in-wonderland.net/resources/background/alice-liddell/">Alice Liddell</a> and her two sisters while rowing along the Thames in 1862 are well known. What is less understood is why it has become such an enduring cultural touchstone across the globe.<br />
<br />
Many popular stories can be distilled to the basic structure of a male hero undertaking a quest. In 1949, Joseph Campbell described the common features of the <a href="http://theconversation.com/are-you-monomythic-joseph-campbell-and-the-heros-journey-27074">“monomyth” or hero’s journey</a> that are evident in stories from those of Buddha and Jesus to Luke Skywalker.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5mL8PVX3jJj9tj-0KvCGhUUf6DSLQHmnyxXMbTnobzJLyqXrqhED4dwjeBL_JoZNd7RayQlbbXXEikfZMou1HIHpv4-7W5qLWYavergqyB1fnQdaPNxQDYhHn5NwUiAFyhmG9JdGhsU8/s1600/Wicked_Witch2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="208" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5mL8PVX3jJj9tj-0KvCGhUUf6DSLQHmnyxXMbTnobzJLyqXrqhED4dwjeBL_JoZNd7RayQlbbXXEikfZMou1HIHpv4-7W5qLWYavergqyB1fnQdaPNxQDYhHn5NwUiAFyhmG9JdGhsU8/s320/Wicked_Witch2.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">In W.W. Denslow's illustrations and L. Frank Baum's <br />original <span style="font-size: 12.8px;">text, Dorothy is a much younger girl (with </span><br />
silver shoes instead <span style="font-size: 12.8px;">of ruby slippers).</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Contrary to the dominance of heroic tales of men, there are several iconic narratives of pre-pubescent girls journeying through dream-like fantastic realms that have become enduring phenomena.<br />
<br />
Like the ubiquitous Alice, Dorothy Gale from The Wizard of Oz has gained a life of her own beyond L. Frank Baum’s books. The Kansas orphan’s journey into Oz is, if anything, better known through the MGM film starring Judy Garland. The film transforms Dorothy’s journey into nothing but a dream— like Alice’s— inspired by a cyclone-induced blow to the head.<br />
<br />
The stories of Alice, Dorothy and more recent girl protagonists in popular fantasies, such as Sarah’s encounters with the Goblin King in the 1986 film Labyrinth, are strongly inflected by fairy-tale tradition. Campbell himself <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=xn5pY3z5Kf4C&pg=PA243&lpg=PA243&dq=%22had+to+go+to+the+fairy+tales%22+joseph+campbell&source=bl&ots=-8JWic4Mb1&sig=VclS6Tz3LaQG2-1XyMz3VcK2WLY&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAmoVChMIsamTtrDdyAIVhDKmCh2NQQh4#v=onepage&q=%22had%">later acknowledged</a> that he “had to go to the fairy tales” in order to bring any semblance of female heroism into The Hero with a Thousand Faces.<br />
<br />
As fairy tale scholar Rebecca-Anne Do Rozario explains throughout <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/07491409.2004.10162465">her work</a>, fairy tales are most often about girls on the cusp of maturation and marriage.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqdOLUgFZnfPIFnx7aNnnsddrONxCYapF_2Up4hyphenhyphenusBOn9o_Rf9vuZB8t-JmAiiin3ob8R7YZknJxgq3TNV6na3tR0ztYqFhTbh_7_14P1DaMWp1iwkF9upa_M8uNOizrU4eXfT1umpt8/s1600/Alice_Liddell_2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqdOLUgFZnfPIFnx7aNnnsddrONxCYapF_2Up4hyphenhyphenusBOn9o_Rf9vuZB8t-JmAiiin3ob8R7YZknJxgq3TNV6na3tR0ztYqFhTbh_7_14P1DaMWp1iwkF9upa_M8uNOizrU4eXfT1umpt8/s320/Alice_Liddell_2.jpg" width="221" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Alice Liddell photographed as a<br />
"beggar maid" by Carroll</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
In their original book incarnations, however, both Alice and Dorothy are very young girls: Alice is just seven and Dorothy is <a href="http://newwwoz.blogspot.com.au/2013/05/the-characters-of-oz-dorothy-gale.html">estimated to be eight</a>. Carroll was notoriously fascinated by pre-pubescent girls, whom he often <a href="http://www.photography-news.com/2015/01/lewis-carrolls-haunting-photographs-of.html">photographed</a> in staged poses.<br />
<br />
The young ages of Alice and Dorothy free them from involvement in a romance plot. In girls’ fiction from the early twentieth century, it was common for adventurous heroines become hastily engaged in the final pages of a novel.<br />
<br />
Even more importantly, as girls, Alice and Dorothy occupy a transitional borderland between childhood and adulthood. This also seems to make them more attuned to crossing the boundaries between fantasy and reality.<br />
<br />
Whether this capacity derives from the combination of negative assessments of children and females as less rational in comparison with adults and males, or marks girls out as more perceptive and empathetic, is debatable.<br />
<br />
What is clear is that these girl heroines take different paths to characters on the typical male hero’s journey. Even within fantastic literature, where anything is possible, there are clear gendered distinctions for protagonists.<br />
<br />
As my Deakin colleague <a href="https://deakin.academia.edu/LenisePrater">Lenise Prater</a> pointed out to me in an important scholarly dialogue on this topic (a Facebook chat thread), female hero quests in fantasy tend to encompass an internal quest that takes place in a dreamscape. In contrast, male heroes enter into literal fantasy worlds; their adventures are supposed to be “real” with the space of the story.<br />
<br />
The dreamy adventures of Alice work through or play with some of her waking interests and anxieties. As in Carroll’s text, Tim Burton’s film adaptation explicitly signals that Wonderland is a purely imaginary place. Alice suffers from nightmares about Wonderland as a child, and <a href="http://moviecultists.com/wp-content/uploads/screenplays/alice-in-wonderland.pdf">her father reminds her</a> that dreams cannot harm her and she can “always wake up”.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_hVs-wOAHu2R7aq3hVqSyYWSO0gpo3gbij0fzGlGt2hKMyduixiu6HxstpMw-TZM1P4DLgkUsLOF2F9tJgXGZJor3HQYN0Kt-B2_6MWNIJABK5wxVs3XQ48zbTUvaB7Qz9tyonb1T1So/s1600/The_Wizard_of_Oz_Lahr_Garland_Bolger_Haley_1939.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_hVs-wOAHu2R7aq3hVqSyYWSO0gpo3gbij0fzGlGt2hKMyduixiu6HxstpMw-TZM1P4DLgkUsLOF2F9tJgXGZJor3HQYN0Kt-B2_6MWNIJABK5wxVs3XQ48zbTUvaB7Qz9tyonb1T1So/s320/The_Wizard_of_Oz_Lahr_Garland_Bolger_Haley_1939.jpg" width="246" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Judy Garland in a publicity still from 1939</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The MGM Oz film changes Dorothy’s journey into a dream through its casting of the same actors in roles in both sepia-toned Kansas and Technicolor Oz. (Farmhands Hunk, Hickory and Zeke appear as the Scarecrow, Tin Man and Cowardly Lion, while neighbour Almira Gulch proves all dog-haters must surely be green-skinned witches.)<br />
<br />
As lone questers, girl characters are the most vulnerable and physically weak. Despite their powerlessness in conventional respects, heroines such as Alice and Dorothy are able to survive the dangers posed by people and supernatural beings who possess advantages that are not available to them (adult authority and magic chief among them).<br />
<br />
The lives of both Alice and Dorothy beyond their original books by Carroll and Baum suggest a cultural investment in stories about the most vulnerable of people. Alice and Dorothy experience the most amazing of journeys, in which they triumph over the highest forms of authority and power, from queens to witches.<br />
<br />
It is reassuring that these stories about girls, who are often overlooked because of their age and gender, are almost universally known. Nevertheless, imagine the possibilities if our most iconic girl characters did not always have to “wake up” at the end of their adventures.<br />
<strong><br /><i>Michelle Smith will be chairing the Making Public Histories seminar on <a href="http://www.slv.vic.gov.au/whats-on/making-public-histories-seminar-series-melbournes-alice">“Melbourne’s Alice”</a> at the State Library of Victoria on 26 November 2015. </i></strong><br />
<br />
<img alt="The Conversation" height="1" src="https://counter.theconversation.edu.au/content/49739/count.gif" width="1" /><br />
This article was originally published on <a href="http://theconversation.com/">The Conversation</a>. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/alice-in-wonderland-at-150-why-fantasy-stories-about-girls-transcend-time-49739">original article</a>.Michelle Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18350801340930174962noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3252300568370815502.post-7751362180425512792015-08-21T09:34:00.002-07:002015-08-21T09:34:41.415-07:00Feminism Today talk, 'We are the 50%' seminar seriesThis is more rightly a talk about anti-feminism, and the challenges faced by feminists in light of the insidious forms that anti-feminism now takes. It was delivered as part of Deakin University's 'We are the 50%' series on 17 August 2015.
<br /><br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="281" mozallowfullscreen="" src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/136915203" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="500"></iframe> <br />
<a href="https://vimeo.com/136915203">Feminism Today - 'We are the 50%' seminar series talk by Dr Michelle Smith, Deakin University</a> from <a href="https://vimeo.com/user43075027">Michelle Smith</a> on <a href="https://vimeo.com/">Vimeo</a>.Michelle Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18350801340930174962noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3252300568370815502.post-55204419191227680242015-06-22T04:27:00.003-07:002015-06-22T04:27:46.486-07:00The literary pilgrimage: from Brontëites to TwiHards<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://62e528761d0685343e1c-f3d1b99a743ffa4142d9d7f1978d9686.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com/files/85480/width668/image-20150618-23239-101413j.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://62e528761d0685343e1c-f3d1b99a743ffa4142d9d7f1978d9686.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com/files/85480/width668/image-20150618-23239-101413j.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fan tributes on Oscar Wilde's tomb. Chrissy Hunt/Flickr</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<b>In response to the post below, I spoke with Michael Mackenzie on RN Afternoons about <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/rnafternoons/literary-tourism/6563034">literary tourism</a>. You can access the recording <a href="http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/rn/podcast/2015/06/ras_20150622_1406.mp3">here</a>. </b><br />
<br />
When I first travelled overseas as a student, I visited Paris’s Pére Lachaise cemetery, resting place of Oscar Wilde, Marcel Proust, and Jim Morrison. Wilde’s tomb was covered in red lipstick kisses — now thwarted after the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2011/nov/27/oscar-wilde-grave-paris-cemetery">installation of a glass barrier</a> in 2011 — and a young goth man sat at its base reading a book of poetry.<br />
<br />
The desire to connect with literary places, from authors’ birthplaces, homes, and graves, to sites of fictional inspiration, supports a substantial tourist trade. The reasons why people embark on literary pilgrimages are as diverse as the kinds of fiction that inspire them.<br />
<br />
In a study of why tourists visited the ruins of Tintagel Castle in Cornwall — a site associated with Arthurian legend—<a href="http://ics.sagepub.com.ezproxy-f.deakin.edu.au/content/11/4/401.full.pdf+html">Benjamin Earl</a> found that many visitors sought to “maintain their cultural distinction and assert their <a href="http://theory.routledgesoc.com/category/profile-tags/cultural-capital">cultural capital</a>”.<br />
<br />
In other words, travel to the historical site made tourists feel unique in comparison with people who only consume stories and images relating to the myth through readily-accessible popular culture.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" src="https://62e528761d0685343e1c-f3d1b99a743ffa4142d9d7f1978d9686.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com/files/85482/width237/image-20150618-23243-1r1i3fq.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The former home of the Bronte family is <br />
now a museum<br />
Man Alive!/flickr</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Visiting Charles Dickens’ <a href="http://www.dickensmuseum.com/">London home</a> or <a href="https://www.bronte.org.uk/haworth-and-the-brontes/haworth">Haworth and the Brontë parsonage</a> similarly demonstrates the traveller’s literary knowledge and taste.<br />
<br />
The homes of celebrity authors also foster a degree of connection to them. The normally private realm of the venerated author is opened up in these literary museums, allowing the viewer to situate themselves in the exact position as Dickens, looking at the very same desk at which he wrote Oliver Twist.<br />
<br />
In the past week, annual <a href="http://jamesjoyce.ie/bloomsday/">Bloomsday</a> celebrations took place in Dublin and <a href="http://www.bloomsdayinmelbourne.org.au/">around the world</a>. June 16 has become an opportunity for the sturdy readers who appreciate James Joyce’s Ulysses to
recreate the day in the life of protagonist Leopold Bloom that the novel depicts.<br />
<br />
It might begin with a liver and kidney breakfast and continue with a walking tour that follows Bloom’s path from Middle Abbey Street to the National Library.<br />
<br />
For most of his life, Joyce lived outside Dublin. Yet, as with Bloomsday, much popular literary tourism is fixated on visiting the real inspirations for the settings inhabited by fictional characters.<br />
Detective Sherlock Holmes, for example, has inspired a plethora of tourist attractions in London. A number of these attempt to bring imagined places, such as the famous 221b Baker St, which operates as a <a href="http://www.sherlock-holmes.co.uk/">museum</a>, into being.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" height="230" src="https://62e528761d0685343e1c-f3d1b99a743ffa4142d9d7f1978d9686.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com/files/85483/width668/image-20150618-23223-bzbawb.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Sherlock Holmes pub in London capitalises on the popularity of the<br />
fictional character. Steve Lacy/flickr</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The difficulty of assembling a museum for a fictional character for which no historical artefacts exist is evident in the often scathing <a href="http://www.tripadvisor.com.au/ShowUserReviews-g186338-d211907-r279449179-Sherlock_Holmes_Museum-London_England.html#REVIEWS">TripAdvisor reviews</a>. While the <a href="http://www.visitlondon.com/things-to-do/place/48927-sherlock-holmes-pub">Sherlock Holmes pub</a> in Charing Cross, which some fans appreciate as at least having been referenced in one of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories, includes a “recreation of Holmes and Watson’s study and sitting room”.<br />
<br />
Tours of locations that inspired novels, including <a href="https://www.visitbritainshop.com/australia/sherlock-holmes-walking-tour-of-london/">Sherlock Holmes</a>, are increasingly becoming a way for readers to express their fandom for a particular book or series.<br />
<br />
There is a long history of fans of LM Montgomery visiting Prince Edward Island, Canada in order to see the homes and landscapes that inspired Anne of Green Gables. Anne is the most prominent feature on the island’s tourist <a href="http://www.tourismpei.com/anne-of-green-gables">website</a>, which notes that hundreds of thousands of tourists visit “her island” each year.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" height="244" src="https://62e528761d0685343e1c-f3d1b99a743ffa4142d9d7f1978d9686.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com/files/85481/width668/image-20150618-23243-1odu1cl.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Twilight tourism in Forks, Washington. drburtoni/flickr</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<figure class="align-center">
<figcaption>Twilight fans who descend on the small town of Forks, Washington, nevertheless, won’t find traces of author Stephenie Meyer, who resides in Arizona, or sparkly vampires during their visit.</figcaption></figure>The rainy former logging town nevertheless serves, as <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=MN3dtddbwf8C&pg=PA54&lpg=PA54&dq=%22maggie+parke%22+twilight&source=bl&ots=_CS_iw1MGL&sig=KNpzo_g219qAnP48Z19iaMrFHiw&hl=en&sa=X&ei=gySCVc-5GIK5mAW49JWABQ&ved=0CEkQ6AEwDA#v=snippet&q=%22collective%20fantasy%22&f=false">Tanya Erzen suggests</a>, as “a prism for fans’ collective fantasy that they might momentarily live in the marvellous world of the books”.<br />
<br />
Each September <a href="http://www.twihards.com/twihards.com/">“Twihards”</a> gather in Forks on the date of protagonist Bella’s birthday for a full weekend of activities as part of the <a href="http://forkswa.com/forevertwilightinforks/">Forever Twilight</a> celebration.<br />
<br />
Similarly, in the past decade, numerous Da Vinci Code tours of <a href="http://parismuse.com/tours/cracking-the-da-vinci-code-at-the-louvre/">the Louvre</a> and <a href="http://www.operationeurope.co.uk/special-interest-groups/29-the-da-vinci-code-trail.html">Europe and the UK</a> have mapped the fictional ideas and theories of Dan Brown on to important cultural and historical destinations.<br />
<br />
In the cases of these supernatural, or at least fanciful, novels, there is a desire to find an element of that fantasy in reality. Harry Potter tours, for instance, regularly visit the medieval village of <a href="http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/lacock/things-to-see-and-do/lacock-village/">Lacock</a>, which is <a href="http://lynotttours.com/b-potter.htm">described</a> as having inspired the town of Godric’s Hollow in J K Rowling’s series.<br />
<br />
Modern technology enables us to feel connected with an imagined group or community of people who read or view the same stories as we do . As Roger Craig Aden shows in <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=vxvm5oxF1aYC&pg=PA79&lpg=PA79&dq=%22popular+stories+and+promised+lands%22&source=bl&ots=Nv6LuY_Jjw&sig=ke3l2eGJTFrk-eaN2z_pbBFh3xw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CCMQ6AEwAWoVChMIj4fiz-SWxgIVCkm8Ch0BRgAC#v=onepage&q=%22popular%20storie">Popular Stories and Promised Lands: Fan Cultures and Symbolic Pilgrimages</a>, the journey to a sacred destination — whether a football game or the Green Gables house — sharpens that sense of a bond with like-minded individuals.<br />
<br />
This desire to seek out a heightened feeling of belonging to a literary community transcends age, class, and taste distinctions.<br />
<br />
This article was originally published on <a href="http://theconversation.com/">The Conversation</a>.
Read the <a href="http://theconversation.com/the-literary-pilgrimage-from-bronteites-to-twihards-43465">original article</a>.Michelle Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18350801340930174962noreply@blogger.com0