*This essay won for the expository category for the 2010 Ithaca College writing contest. It was published with the other winners and I was given the opportunity to read it aloud at the Handwerker Gallery.
The Feminine and the
Feminist in Wonderland
“And they lived happily ever after.” The word “they” refers to the union of
princess and prince, damsel in distress and the shining knight who saved her;
an assumption that both parties find fulfillment and self-actualization from
simply being together. It is the standard ending to the fairy tales we were
told as children. The specific purpose of these tales was to inspire our
imaginations, but also to give us subliminal messages about real life: “don’t
talk to strangers” (Little Red Riding
Hood), “all children must grow up” (Peter
Pan), and “don’t be greedy” (The
Fisherman and His Wife). For girls
in particular, an even greater and far more intrinsic message resounded from tale
to tale. It’s the story - the script - the guidelines for “femininity”, a mold
which has been victoriously broken and progressively reassembled by the new Tim
Burton/Disney film, Alice in Wonderland.
As defined by the fairy tales we
love and reinforced in the media surrounding us, femininity is the fair, kind, beautiful maiden.
It is the sweet, pure, humble, and quiet young girl said to be inside every
woman no matter her age or maturity. Being feminine means being associated with
all things pretty, natural, and flighty: song, baby animals, mother earth,
spirits, and love. Most of all, the feminine is always juxtaposed to the
masculine – and femininity alone is never enough to save the feminine character
from peril or trickery. While femininity is perfection, it is so in the eyes of
the masculine character. He is the one who will save her and with who she will ultimately
wed and bear children -- ideally sons, young princes who will go out and save
their own damsels. The only other women presented in tales are the harsh witches
and crones; the ugly and old and vengeful ones: villains to be hated by all and
defeated by the triumphant man.
Conversely, the ideals of femininity
clash harshly with the ideals of feminism. From the feminist point of view,
traditional feminine traits only serve to keep women under the control of men
and society. To be meek means giving up your voice; to be sweet and kind means
to permit and easily forgive harm that befalls you. To concentrate attention on
enhancing your beauty to attract men means being distracted from feeding your
intellectual curiosity. Most basically, feminism is the belief that men and
women are equal; of equal ability, equal characteristics, and deserving of
equal rights to happiness and freedom; to be able to stand alone, individually
powerful and able to take control of one’s own destiny. Women are, however,
under the omnipresent control of, not their own instinctual desires, but the cultural
guidelines of “femininity” established within them from a very early age and
stemming from sources such as common fairy tales. Women are on constant watch
over themselves and over other women to fit the mold of the princess, the one
who gets the happy ending. Those who rebel against this ideology must reject
femininity in order to be “one of the boys”; to be taken seriously in a “man’s
world” as an equal. To have power,
translates into not being feminine.
Modern films visually illustrate
this social construct, and help perpetuate it, in the vehicle of a
multi-billion dollar entertainment industry with access to a worldwide audience.
Further, traditional fairy tale endings and characters are deeply entwined
within every genre of film: romance, comedy, drama, action, and horror alike.
New technology has not bred new stories, just new ways of telling old ones. As
such, women in modern cinema and television remain one of two classic types:
the Madonna or the whore, the good girl or the bad girl, the villain or the
love interest, never just the heroine.
One
could argue that this insultingly basic dichotomy is the result of our current
fascination with sex and shock value in films. An audience pays to be
entertained, not educated. This thinking
passes blame onto the fictional characters portrayed by actors instead of the
writers, directors, producers, and consumers who really control the stories we
are exposed to. Even when there is a strong female protagonist she will
ultimately end up having sex and her identity will inevitably coincide with a
male character at some point in the film.
Further,
since we live in a heterosexual society where gays are not universally
recognized as part of mainstream culture, the man who is being associated with
a woman must be the masculine to her feminine, her complete opposite. These
hard defined terms for masculinity are just as destructive as definitions of
femininity, except that they grant permission for men to embrace their agency
and domination. Women, homosexuals, and children have historically been placed
lower on in the hierarchy of our patriarchal society. Nevertheless, I am
arguing that this does not have to be the case: there is now a film where
standards of what is feminine by behavior and what is feminist by school of
thought can now more closely align than ever before in a blockbuster.
Released
by Disney, Tim Burton’s take on the classic Lewis Carroll story of Alice in Wonderland is the first
blockbuster to feature a new definition of what is feminine. It is the first to
embrace a modern feminist storyline. It by no means evens the score after
thousands of films (particularly Disney films) that tell the traditional
feminine tale, but it is a step in the right direction. Furthermore, by having
various female characters, the film does not pigeonhole women as either good or
bad, but provides a realistic vision of differences between personalities. The
film is able to accomplish this blending of the feminine and the feminist
symbolically through costume, lack of romance, and through its untraditional
ending.
The
costumes in this film are of the Victorian era, which was notorious for its
confining corsets, layers of fabric, and pious buttons and fastenings. From the
very beginning of the film, however, Alice rejects these customs by not wearing
a corset or stockings, to her soft-spoken mother’s dismay. Throughout the film,
Alice will change costumes many times with a consistent color tone of sky blue.
She wears pretty dresses and avant-garde dresses, but also an Indian-style pant
and overcoat piece and a full suit of armor. Her constant size changes force
her to try on a variety of outfits. This is symbolically important because, as
Alice is physically changing size and costumes, she’s mentally changing as
well.
At
first Alice does not believe she is the one who the creatures of Wonderland are
looking for. Having forgotten that she visited Wonderland as a small girl,
Alice believed it was all a dream. Throughout the film, through trials and
adventures, she comes into her own and believes in herself – finding her identity
to be the Alice they need after all. This is also important because back in the
real world, before she falls down the rabbit hole, she has been proposed to in
front a large number of family and friends. Her growth in Wonderland allows her
to return to the surface and turn down the proposal for marriage. Through emotional
growth and trying different options, she finds herself. Furthermore, the “self”
she finds does not depend on the men either above or below, but on who she wants to be. It is through this lesson
that young girls can learn the realistic principle of trial-and-error in life,
and how that discovery is much more fulfilling than conforming to the rules of
being a princess.
The
subject of romance in the film is handled by surprising the audience with no
romance at all. Over the course of the plot, a very special bond is evident
between Alice and the Mad Hatter. At one point, the two characters are alone on
a starlit balcony. It is the night before Alice battles the Jabberwockey, and
emotions are running high. This is the perfect moment, a typical moment, when
romance blooms on the screen and inhibitions are released in the face of
certain death. The audience doesn’t just expect a kiss, they want it,
when….nothing happens. Having been conditioned by repetitious fairy tales, it
would have been completely acceptable if such a romance had developed – but it
didn’t, a single choice which kept the feminist undertones intact.
By
giving girls (and boys) a story line where it is possible for the hero to be a
girl, and showing that love does not have to become a major aspect of the plot,
the true character of the heroine is able to shine through. Love is emotional
and complicated and clouds the judgment. A woman who is not distracted by
temptations is the opposite of the biblical and notorious “Eve” while not being
Adam, either. If Eve was simply just as curious as Alice, one could say she
lacked the strength to defend her own life and its adventure. Eve was unable to
fight for and claim her deserved birth-right to desire. Alice is able to keep her character focused on
the battle before her, intact, and away from the traditional stereotypes that
plague women protagonists in other stories.
Finally,
the blending of feminine and feminist is cemented by the ending of Alice in Wonderland. Throughout, the
film has been a luscious display of intense beauty and color. The world of
Wonderland is as magical as it is mysterious, beautiful as it is dangerous, and
the inhabitants reflect that. The traditional feminine ideal is embodied in the
White Queen. She is literally flowing with brilliance, elegance, and pretense.
Her wrists bend and weave with each calm word. Her hair and dress are white
symbols of purity. Her own sister, the Red Queen, scornfully says, “Men love
her, women love her, even the furniture loves her.” The Red Queen herself, on
the other hand, is the villain of the story. Her head is computer modified to
be the size of her body; the huge globe is a running joke in the film. She
wears red, and a constant expression of anger and obsessive power. She fawns
over a character named Stain who acts as her huntsman and does her bidding (but
who does not love her). Stain even convinces her that “to be feared is better
than to be loved.”
These
two women archetypes represent the sides of the traditional feminine script:
the good vs. the bad. Alice breaks though with her own definition of self. She
is masculine because she battles and defeats the vicious Jabberwockey, swinging
a sword and wearing a suit of armor. Besides the White Queen, her best friends
in Wonderland are the Mad Hatter, the White Rabbit, the Cheshire Cat (all men).
Yet, Alice also wears dresses and has long beautiful golden hair. These
superficial labels of gender are made secondary by her strength and her
enterprising, adventurous nature. Alice, effectively, redefines what it means
to be feminine, combining the delicately beautiful with the powerfully strong,
therefore giving girls a role model who seeks adventure, not boyfriends.
Alice’s
happily-ever-after is her sailing out, alone, toward adventure. Having returned
from Wonderland, Alice mercifully declines the proposal for marriage and makes
a proposal of her own, to expand her deceased father’s business to Asia. Alice
does not fall in love for the sake of love and society’s acceptance, and she
does not fall to pieces when difficulties come her way. She understands the
differences between her needs and her wants, and she’s able to resist
simplicity to follow the more risky path of self-actualization. By establishing
her own identity, one that redefines the feminine, Alice is the 21st
century catalyst for breaking down the invisible social constructs of the real
world. She’s an example to follow for a progressive and feminist future.
Remakes
and biopics may be where feminism thrives for now. Currently, the next big film
to look out for may be The Runaways,
a film based on the lives of rock heroines Joan Jett and Cherie Currie. The
question remains if these characters, both real and fictional, will be leaders of
the fourth wave of feminism, or merely an anomaly? During these economic times,
film studios are focusing on projects that they are already sure will bring in
money: sequels, remakes, and other stories built from preexisting material. Alice in Wonderland, a preexisting tale
turned on its head, made $116.3
million on its opening weekend alone. The future of feminism may very well be
intertwined with the future of capitalism and entertainment; wherever they go, ideals
about women are sure to follow. When the concepts of femininity are
reconstructed, so then can be masculinity, sexuality, and what it means to be
human as whole. If an industry like that can perpetuate myths with so much
success, surely it will be just as effective a tool for change and truth.
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