Thoughts: fictional friendships for men and women

I enjoy romance. When told well, the intense investment in the relationship between two fictional characters is one of the best thing about stories. One of the things I generally don't like about action films, is not so much the excess of action, but the lack of relationships. I used to think it was the lack of romance, but considering how irritating I find the token sexy love interest in many of these films I've decided it is more about relationships: romance, friendship, family, all of it.

Friendship is an incredible complex beautiful and diverse thing. My favourite stories are often about friendship. Thinking about my favourite stories, such as Harry Potter, a key aspect of my love for the books is the relationships between the characters. Especially Harry, Ron and Hermione. Something that frustrated me about the film versions, was that in the middle ones there was a strong hint that Hermione and Harry's relationship could be more than friendship.

It seems to me that friendships have been lost a bit in media representations of men and women. Whatever you watch, unless there is a blood relationship or significant age difference the chances of seeing two main characters of the opposite sex relate to each other entirely unromantically are near impossible. It's not that they necessarily have to actually have a relationship, but often the only way women relate to men is as a potential or past non-platonic relationship.

It is so pervasive that when there are platonic relationships such as Buffy and Giles' completely paternal relationship in BtVS or Donna and the Tenth Doctor, other characters are constantly implying their relationship is something more.

If the woman is "off-limits" because they are in a different relationship, there will still often be a implied (or explicit) relationship with the male character. Often this happens in the best guy friend who is actually in love with the girl kind of stories (one of my least favourite tropes).

Considering the lack of complex female characters in the media, I feel like this is something that maybe should be challenged. It reduces female characters to their relation to men, they become the romantic interest, the ex, the girl-next-door. Often, the relationship that is constructed is not even necessary to the narrative.

We watched The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (for me the second time) the other night, and I was struck by the complete redundancy of Caspian and Susan's romance plot line. It does not add anything to the film. In fact, as a fan of the books, it significantly retracted from the film.

Review: The Princess and the Frog (Disney)

I was excited to finally watch this film a few weeks ago. Having spent a lot of time studying Disney at various stages of my degree, the lack of racial diversity and positive representations of people of colour is one of many aspects of Disney ideology that seriously bothered me. I am ever increasingly aware of my excess in privilege. As a white, middle class Australian, I do not have a strong understanding of the experiences of minorities in America except what I see through media. I do not feel adequately equipped to discuss at length the representations of race in this film, but will attempt to outline some of my concerns.

The final credits state the film was "inspired in part" by the novel by E. D Baker The Frog Princess. Pretty much the only thing taken from the novel is the idea of the girl become a frog instead of the frog returning to his Prince form when they kiss.

Highlights:

• The decision to have an African American princess is good. It is a good thing, but I do have some reservations about it (see Problems).
• Tiana is an interesting character, she has personality, aspirations not solely focused on marrying a Prince, and something she is passionate about.
• Tiana's future happiness is not entirely based on finding a husband.
• The relationship is not love at first sight, there is some kind of relationship development.
• The film shows that working hard for what you want is rewarding in and of itself.
• The idea of the princess turning into a frog is cool, and removes some of the more problematic aspects of the original fairy tale (creepy frog sleeping in the girl's bed, her father making her etc.)

Problems:

This is a pretty good post that shares many of my concerns about the film, but is also somewhat positive.

Race:

• For some time now Disney has been "diversifying" their Disney Princesses. I use inverted commas because I do not believe that this is much more than a token gesture by the corporation, and Tiana does not seem like an exception.
• The fact it took Disney until 2009 to create an African American princess is ridiculous. 
• Disney ideology is a pervasive and incredibly powerful cultural force and has been for some time. It has significantly contributed to racists discourses. The fact there was no attempt in this film to address any kind of discussion on the racist history of America (despite being set in the 20's) undermines the attempt to represent non-white experiences.
• A particularly good critical analysis of the way race is depicted in this film can be found here.

Gender:

• The plot primarily revolves around Tiana and Prince Naveen's developing romance, and while it's not love at first sight it still happens pretty quickly, and despite Naveen's clearly depicted character flaws.
• It perpetuates the myth of "fixing" someone through a relationship, which is never healthy.
• While Tiana's character is much more rounded than some of the other Disney Princesses, the other female characters are pretty stereotypical and one dimensional.
• There were significantly more male characters than female. 
• Ray's weird "relationship" with Evangeline, like a woman doesn't even need to be real for you to have a relationship, all you have to do is talk at her. (This is mostly an irritation in the context of broader cultural representations of women than the specifics of the film).

Class:

• One of the strongest aspects of Disney Ideology is the Americanism of hard work = success. Therefore is you are unsuccessful you didn't work hard enough, and it's your own fault. This movie fully embraces this ideology.
• Poverty is not that simple, the world is complex and it is set up to help certain kinds of privileged people succeed. 
• Class has really strong correlations to both race and gender and the film really glossed over all the kinds of obstacles and difficulties a character like Tiana would actually have faced in this period (and quite possibly still today)
• The representations of the fireflies made me very uncomfortable. They were extreme and unkind stereotypes.

Overall:

While I can be very critical of Disney, and particularly their films, I do actually really enjoy most of their content (perhaps nostalgia has something to do with it). However, I did not enjoy most of this film. Through out the film I had a growing sense of unease, as it became clear the film lacked of any meaningful engagement with racial, gender or class issues. I didn't really connect with the story, in part this may be because of how much I liked E.D Baker's novel. The novel is a really great adaptation of the original fairy tale and her protagonist Emma is fabulous, flawed, strong, compassionate and relational. Most of what made the adaptation so great was lost in the film.

I think what I disliked most, and why I wouldn't bother watching it again, is that there was a real opportunity for positive representations and it fails significantly to live up to the expectations I had.

Choosing Books for Children

Disclaimer: I do not have children, and I do not have a teaching degree. My observations are based of personal experiences: memories of my own childhood, and time spent with families I am friends with. I am an English Honours student, and my thesis is focused on fairy tales and adaptations of fairytales, subsequently, I have been thinking a lot about the purpose of stories for children. I love books, I have always loved books. I love children, I have a lot of friends with children. I love recommending books. This is something I think about a lot.

I read a lot. During semester my piles of books tend to be more academic or fiction I will spend weeks closely analysing. While this is in many ways fun, it's not 'reading for fun'. When I have time to read for fun the variety of books is considerable. Despite being almost twenty-three, I still enjoy reading children's books.

In addition to this, I read a lot of blogs, some by authors, others by readers and something that is frequently discussed is the idea of ‘girl’ vs ‘boy’ books. This affects books in every area from children’s stories to popular fiction to the literary canon[i]. It is an issue of what men/boys read, rather than what women read.

This is something I believe can be rectified by the way we approach children’s books. In general it is acceptable for girls to read and enjoy books with male characters or that fit a traditionally male genre, such as adventure books. However, it seems to me that the idea that a boy cannot read and enjoy a book with a female protagonist or by a female author is pervasive[ii].

Most people seem to accept that girls read and enjoy books with adventure, a male protagonist, and/or author. But the idea that a boy cannont read and enjoy a book with a female protagonist, or even female author is pervasive, and I think problematic for several reasons.

Through out my pre-tertiary education we rarely studied texts as a class that had female protagonists[iii]. What does this say to children? That books about boys are the ones worth studying. That boy books are serious and legitimate, and girl books are trivial[iv].

If children are told that girl books are only for girls, this contributes to a cultural understanding that is already in place[v] that devalues the feminine. Children can learn that boys who like so called girl things are girly and that is a bad thing.

How can we possibly think it is okay to allow young boys to see anything associated with femininity as negative, as 'other' and as inferior? 

Books have immense power, they are a fantastic way to experience lives outside of ourselves, to learn to empathise and respect people who are different from us. If it is perfectly acceptable for girls to learn to empathise with and respect boys, why is it not the same for boys?

I do not think gender is an appropriate way to categorise books. Sure, maybe a lot boys prefer adventure fiction, and maybe a lot of girls prefer domestic stories focused on relationships[vi], but the idea that the gender of either a main character or the author should influence the decision to read a story is absurd. 

When deciding what books are appropriate for a child I think the biggest things to consider are:

•                Have you read the book yourself? Obviously this is ideal and really not possible all the time. If you can't read the book yourself, you should still talk to your child about what they are discovering as they read.

•                Is it an appropriate level for your child's reading/listening and concentration skills?

•                Are the themes appropriate to your child's maturity? (don't underestimate them!) 

•                Is it the kind of genre (also an imperfect way of categorising stories) your child enjoys?

•                Is it a good book? Children, unexplainably, often love books that are poorly written, or completely boring to adults. This is okay.  However, I think it is good to encourage reading books that are beautiful[vii] and develop an appreciation of the different ways books can be good (good writing, good characterisation or good plot etc).

Most importantly, talking about books and reading with your children is a fantastic way to develop their critical thinking skills.

I plan to write some reviews of children’s books I love to help parents in making these decisions, but it depends on my university work load. Would people be interested?

N.B Shannon Hale wrote a post a while ago with recommendations of books boys will love with female characters.

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[i] How many men are encouraged to read Jane Austen?

[ii] J.K Rowling’s initials were used in printing Harry Potter so as to not be off putting to potential male readers.

[iii] My memory is not perfect, but I am reasonably sure that men wrote the majority of texts I studied in English, or the texts had male protagonists.

[iv] An interesting point on this playing out in adulthood is current discussion about Wikipedia categories.

[v] But thankfully, now often challenged

[vi] I’m not convinced this is actually true, I always liked both kinds.

[vii] This is an inadequate way of describing how I feel about a good book, but I am struggling to find a better one.