Goblet of Fire: After
Nov. 19th, 2005 09:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bironicI cared about The Prisoner of Azkaban a lot (to state the obvious), and got angry with the movie for screwing it up. I didn't care much about The Goblet of Fire,
and find myself, after two viewings in as many days, despite a few
things that don't sit right, actually quite fond of the movie.
The opening was promising -- I expected them to skip to the Quidditch World Cup or at least to the Dursley Floo fiasco, and was pleasantly proven wrong -- especially with the skulls, snake and perfect alien-fetus-Voldemort hand. Then Barty Jr. (oddly reminiscent of Neil Gaiman, down to the leather jacket) stooped in front of the armchair, and I thought we were doomed. But it made sense by the end why they'd added the third person in the room, and I'm all in favor of plot re-arrangement if it spares us house elves, so as far as I'm concerned that's forgiven.
What I didn't like was that eliminating Dobby from the movie meant Neville had to steal the gillyweed from Snape; I can't see him overcoming his terror of the man to pull something like that, no matter how much Moody/Crouch'd been boosting his confidence. Maybe M/C nicked it for him while he nipped into the store room for more Polyjuice supplies. (P.S. Hello, Snape's supply closet! home of so many illicit fanfic encounters.)
Oh, Neville. What a treat to see Matthew Lewis do a dramatic scene instead of getting hung by his ears or cross-dressing the Snape Boggart. The poignancy of his reaction to the Cruciatus curse in the DADA lesson came as a wonderful surprise, as did his haunted look on the stairway after class. In fact the whole DADA scene was great; they really captured the shift in emotion from hilarity to horror when Moody/Crouch explained exactly what one can be made to do under the Imperius curse. Ha, and he hurled chalk at Seamus. One question: Why do teachers in the movies keep interrupting Hermione? First Lupin and now Moody/Crouch.
Okay, here's another question: Where'd all the students go? The tables in the Great Hall seemed halved at least, the stands at the tournament events seemed smaller than those at Quidditch matches in the previous movies, and it looked like there were only a few dozen kids jumping around to the Weird Sisters. They did strike a balance with the multiculturalism: no 90%-white student body nor an unexplained black kid talking about Grims and catching smoke, just a bunch of diverse students not calling attention to their diversity. (The only "look!" moment I noticed, not counting the various ethnic outfits at the Ball, was the group of Africans at the World Cup.) Nice that that should finally happen in the movie for the book where one of the themes is learning to befriend people who are different from you.
On a semi-related note, it was amusing to watch the one-upmanship continue with the design of Hogwarts castle. "Oh yeah? I'll see your spiral staircase and raise you a triple turret."
The graveyard scene didn't scare the bejeezus out of me as I'd hoped, but two others were frightening, unexpectedly: the World Cup attack and the first minute or two of the dragon task. Maybe it was the Death Eaters' incomprehensible chanting, the panic and tumult and fireballs, Harry getting kicked in the head or the hollow cry of the Dark Mark afterwards, but the whole attack had me riveted. (And while we're on the Dark Mark, I don't know why, considering it's magical, but I didn't ever imagine that it moved, either in the sky or as a tattoo, so that was cool.) The lack of Muggle torture was regrettable. I guess Mike Newell and/or Steve Kloves didn't want to spend the time explaining the DEs' prejudiced philosophy when there was a Hungarian Horntail to chase Harry around half of Scotland. That's one scene I would have trimmed (along with a few of the underwater shots) to make more time for the graveyard scene -- though I did like how the Horntail scrabbled for purchase on the roof tiles.
So. The graveyard. Overall, pretty good. It did feel rushed but I didn't think it got ruined as badly as the Shrieking Shack did in the PoA movie (but again, maybe that's a reflection of my investment in the Marauders). Ironically enough, my main complaint about this scene upon first viewing was that Cedric didn't die soon enough. He should have gone down the moment they arrived, instead of letting them take a mini-tour while genius Harry figured out where they were.
As for the rest of it, it was good that the concoction of the resurrecting potion went quickly because they're supposed to whiz by as Harry still tries to wrap his mind around the fact that Cedric's been killed, although Wormtail did chop his hand off with minimal effort, no writhing and no blood (kids' movie, blah blah). His double cry when Wormtail sliced his arm was unexpectedly believable.
Yes, I was happy to discover that Daniel Radcliffe has added a fourth emotional state to his repertoire: agony. I say that cheekily, but as opposed to his usually less than convincing performance (need I say more than "attempting to cry on the rock after fleeing the Three Broomsticks in PoA"?), he was really good at this. His spasms under Crucio aroused my inner sadist in a way not experienced since Luke shuddered under the Emperor's zaps in "Return of the Jedi," and the whole gasping/shouting/wide-eyed exchange with Voldemort as he touched Harry's scar was deliciously creepy. I'll take that over Cedric's suggestive bath comment any day.
As for Voldemort, well, yesterday I was very happy with what Ralph Fiennes did, even if there was an uncertain moment at first when I almost laughed because I remembered that New York Times comment about the Butoh dancer from Hell. His face turned out about how you would have expected based on Quirrell!mort in the first movie. Wish his eyes had been properly red though. He moved well, he had the right amount of melodrama, he properly intimidated his followers (except for Lucius, and how on Earth did he get away with standing up? especially when he's taller?). Loved his half-smile when he murmured that when Harry begged for death he would oblige. But something was off about him -- something that detracted from his power as a villain -- and I can't put my finger on what, exactly.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
synn
was a bit put off by his flippancy, but we agreed afterwards that it
could be ascribed to his enthusiasm for being properly corporeal again
after 13 years. Thoughts welcome.
While we're in the graveyard, let me add that having the Death Eaters arrive via the Dark Mark in the sky was a nice touch, even if they appeared too sparsely and too quickly. At least the first problem was fixed as the scene progressed and more caped crusaders trickled in. Was that Bellatrix for a split-second at Voldemort's left side after Harry re-emerged from behind the tomb?
And where was the bit about "One, too cowardly to return, one who I believe has left me forever, and one who remains my most faithful servant"? Too complicated?
The KKK thing wasn't as awful as anticipated and the costuming was appropriately scary when they torched the tents at the World Cup but it was a poor choice to have the masks cover only half the face (not to mention Lucius' hood/hair faux pas) when the members aren't supposed to all know one another. I mean, if they'd worn those masks back in the day, Karkaroff should've been able to rattle off at least a dozen names for the Wizengamot.
James & Lily came out in the right order and weren't too annoying, which was nice. I don't know what was up with the shaving cream when Expelliarmus met Avada Kedavra (and again with the Star Wars reference, blue and pink lightsabers evenly matched), but the powerful hum of the arcs of wand-light rang true for me.
The return from the graveyard was devastating. Devastating. As far as I can remember, only two scenes in the books consistently move me (the Shrieking Shack Marauders revelations, right about when Sirius yells, "THEN YOU SHOULD HAVE DIED!"; and the tense wait around the kitchen table at 12 Grimmauld Place to hear about Mr. Weasley's condition after the snake attack). This makes a third. Harry sobbing and clutching the body, traumatized, while the blissfully ignorant audience cheers -- then falters -- and Amos crying "My boy" in the silence, after the adorable father/son shoulder-chucking send-off they had... And for us and the Wizarding audience to realize that every single person about to be killed in this war is going to provoke the same reaction from a loved one... Oh, man. They nailed it.
Bad choice to show Cho (who is now apparently Scottish) crying, though, considering the implications for people who've read the next book; at the IMAX today you could hear people snickering.
The denouement could have been worse. Dumbledore's speech to the assembled masses about Cedric was necessarily truncated but still touching. The real Moody waving up from the bottom of the trunk was funny, though that wasn't really the time for funny. But I can't believe Dumbledore didn't explain to Harry that his and Voldemort's wands share Fawkes' feathers. Couldn't they have shucked the bed-curtains anecdote for that? That whole scene was off. The "what is right and what is easy" comment lacked its power taken out of the context of the rest of his speech to Harry; and was that supposed to be the infamous "gleam" when his eyes sort of widened and he murmured "Priori Incantatem"? Not to mention, Dumbledore wouldn't set foot in the dormitories unless something awful had happened.
A few miscellaneous complaints: Fleur wasn't cold enough, even taking into account that they dropped the whole veela premise. Snape wasn't mean enough (though I wouldn't trade his comic relief study period scene for anything -- whacking Ron and Harry with his notebook and hitching up his sleeves will always, always be funny; I guess that's GoF's answer to the tap-dancing spiders). Miranda Richardson needed to pick a direction and run with it, because Rita Skeeter didn't do it for me -- the broom cupboard comment cut, but otherwise she was only a lukewarm presence. Hermione and Krum making eyes at each other from the beginning. There was no need for Karkaroff's teeth to be that disgusting. And what was with the sudden surge in Evil Rings? And the sighing butterflies/stick-stomping acrobatic floor show of an entrance for Beauxbatons and Durmstrang? And the identical uniforms? -- I couldn't help but think of Star Trek and how the humans always get to be diverse while the alien race wear the same clothes/have the same skin tone/hair color/style etc.
Anyway. Things I didn't realize I'd like in the movie:
The opening was promising -- I expected them to skip to the Quidditch World Cup or at least to the Dursley Floo fiasco, and was pleasantly proven wrong -- especially with the skulls, snake and perfect alien-fetus-Voldemort hand. Then Barty Jr. (oddly reminiscent of Neil Gaiman, down to the leather jacket) stooped in front of the armchair, and I thought we were doomed. But it made sense by the end why they'd added the third person in the room, and I'm all in favor of plot re-arrangement if it spares us house elves, so as far as I'm concerned that's forgiven.
What I didn't like was that eliminating Dobby from the movie meant Neville had to steal the gillyweed from Snape; I can't see him overcoming his terror of the man to pull something like that, no matter how much Moody/Crouch'd been boosting his confidence. Maybe M/C nicked it for him while he nipped into the store room for more Polyjuice supplies. (P.S. Hello, Snape's supply closet! home of so many illicit fanfic encounters.)
Oh, Neville. What a treat to see Matthew Lewis do a dramatic scene instead of getting hung by his ears or cross-dressing the Snape Boggart. The poignancy of his reaction to the Cruciatus curse in the DADA lesson came as a wonderful surprise, as did his haunted look on the stairway after class. In fact the whole DADA scene was great; they really captured the shift in emotion from hilarity to horror when Moody/Crouch explained exactly what one can be made to do under the Imperius curse. Ha, and he hurled chalk at Seamus. One question: Why do teachers in the movies keep interrupting Hermione? First Lupin and now Moody/Crouch.
Okay, here's another question: Where'd all the students go? The tables in the Great Hall seemed halved at least, the stands at the tournament events seemed smaller than those at Quidditch matches in the previous movies, and it looked like there were only a few dozen kids jumping around to the Weird Sisters. They did strike a balance with the multiculturalism: no 90%-white student body nor an unexplained black kid talking about Grims and catching smoke, just a bunch of diverse students not calling attention to their diversity. (The only "look!" moment I noticed, not counting the various ethnic outfits at the Ball, was the group of Africans at the World Cup.) Nice that that should finally happen in the movie for the book where one of the themes is learning to befriend people who are different from you.
On a semi-related note, it was amusing to watch the one-upmanship continue with the design of Hogwarts castle. "Oh yeah? I'll see your spiral staircase and raise you a triple turret."
The graveyard scene didn't scare the bejeezus out of me as I'd hoped, but two others were frightening, unexpectedly: the World Cup attack and the first minute or two of the dragon task. Maybe it was the Death Eaters' incomprehensible chanting, the panic and tumult and fireballs, Harry getting kicked in the head or the hollow cry of the Dark Mark afterwards, but the whole attack had me riveted. (And while we're on the Dark Mark, I don't know why, considering it's magical, but I didn't ever imagine that it moved, either in the sky or as a tattoo, so that was cool.) The lack of Muggle torture was regrettable. I guess Mike Newell and/or Steve Kloves didn't want to spend the time explaining the DEs' prejudiced philosophy when there was a Hungarian Horntail to chase Harry around half of Scotland. That's one scene I would have trimmed (along with a few of the underwater shots) to make more time for the graveyard scene -- though I did like how the Horntail scrabbled for purchase on the roof tiles.
So. The graveyard. Overall, pretty good. It did feel rushed but I didn't think it got ruined as badly as the Shrieking Shack did in the PoA movie (but again, maybe that's a reflection of my investment in the Marauders). Ironically enough, my main complaint about this scene upon first viewing was that Cedric didn't die soon enough. He should have gone down the moment they arrived, instead of letting them take a mini-tour while genius Harry figured out where they were.
As for the rest of it, it was good that the concoction of the resurrecting potion went quickly because they're supposed to whiz by as Harry still tries to wrap his mind around the fact that Cedric's been killed, although Wormtail did chop his hand off with minimal effort, no writhing and no blood (kids' movie, blah blah). His double cry when Wormtail sliced his arm was unexpectedly believable.
Yes, I was happy to discover that Daniel Radcliffe has added a fourth emotional state to his repertoire: agony. I say that cheekily, but as opposed to his usually less than convincing performance (need I say more than "attempting to cry on the rock after fleeing the Three Broomsticks in PoA"?), he was really good at this. His spasms under Crucio aroused my inner sadist in a way not experienced since Luke shuddered under the Emperor's zaps in "Return of the Jedi," and the whole gasping/shouting/wide-eyed exchange with Voldemort as he touched Harry's scar was deliciously creepy. I'll take that over Cedric's suggestive bath comment any day.
As for Voldemort, well, yesterday I was very happy with what Ralph Fiennes did, even if there was an uncertain moment at first when I almost laughed because I remembered that New York Times comment about the Butoh dancer from Hell. His face turned out about how you would have expected based on Quirrell!mort in the first movie. Wish his eyes had been properly red though. He moved well, he had the right amount of melodrama, he properly intimidated his followers (except for Lucius, and how on Earth did he get away with standing up? especially when he's taller?). Loved his half-smile when he murmured that when Harry begged for death he would oblige. But something was off about him -- something that detracted from his power as a villain -- and I can't put my finger on what, exactly.
synn
was a bit put off by his flippancy, but we agreed afterwards that it
could be ascribed to his enthusiasm for being properly corporeal again
after 13 years. Thoughts welcome.While we're in the graveyard, let me add that having the Death Eaters arrive via the Dark Mark in the sky was a nice touch, even if they appeared too sparsely and too quickly. At least the first problem was fixed as the scene progressed and more caped crusaders trickled in. Was that Bellatrix for a split-second at Voldemort's left side after Harry re-emerged from behind the tomb?
And where was the bit about "One, too cowardly to return, one who I believe has left me forever, and one who remains my most faithful servant"? Too complicated?
The KKK thing wasn't as awful as anticipated and the costuming was appropriately scary when they torched the tents at the World Cup but it was a poor choice to have the masks cover only half the face (not to mention Lucius' hood/hair faux pas) when the members aren't supposed to all know one another. I mean, if they'd worn those masks back in the day, Karkaroff should've been able to rattle off at least a dozen names for the Wizengamot.
James & Lily came out in the right order and weren't too annoying, which was nice. I don't know what was up with the shaving cream when Expelliarmus met Avada Kedavra (and again with the Star Wars reference, blue and pink lightsabers evenly matched), but the powerful hum of the arcs of wand-light rang true for me.
The return from the graveyard was devastating. Devastating. As far as I can remember, only two scenes in the books consistently move me (the Shrieking Shack Marauders revelations, right about when Sirius yells, "THEN YOU SHOULD HAVE DIED!"; and the tense wait around the kitchen table at 12 Grimmauld Place to hear about Mr. Weasley's condition after the snake attack). This makes a third. Harry sobbing and clutching the body, traumatized, while the blissfully ignorant audience cheers -- then falters -- and Amos crying "My boy" in the silence, after the adorable father/son shoulder-chucking send-off they had... And for us and the Wizarding audience to realize that every single person about to be killed in this war is going to provoke the same reaction from a loved one... Oh, man. They nailed it.
Bad choice to show Cho (who is now apparently Scottish) crying, though, considering the implications for people who've read the next book; at the IMAX today you could hear people snickering.
The denouement could have been worse. Dumbledore's speech to the assembled masses about Cedric was necessarily truncated but still touching. The real Moody waving up from the bottom of the trunk was funny, though that wasn't really the time for funny. But I can't believe Dumbledore didn't explain to Harry that his and Voldemort's wands share Fawkes' feathers. Couldn't they have shucked the bed-curtains anecdote for that? That whole scene was off. The "what is right and what is easy" comment lacked its power taken out of the context of the rest of his speech to Harry; and was that supposed to be the infamous "gleam" when his eyes sort of widened and he murmured "Priori Incantatem"? Not to mention, Dumbledore wouldn't set foot in the dormitories unless something awful had happened.
A few miscellaneous complaints: Fleur wasn't cold enough, even taking into account that they dropped the whole veela premise. Snape wasn't mean enough (though I wouldn't trade his comic relief study period scene for anything -- whacking Ron and Harry with his notebook and hitching up his sleeves will always, always be funny; I guess that's GoF's answer to the tap-dancing spiders). Miranda Richardson needed to pick a direction and run with it, because Rita Skeeter didn't do it for me -- the broom cupboard comment cut, but otherwise she was only a lukewarm presence. Hermione and Krum making eyes at each other from the beginning. There was no need for Karkaroff's teeth to be that disgusting. And what was with the sudden surge in Evil Rings? And the sighing butterflies/stick-stomping acrobatic floor show of an entrance for Beauxbatons and Durmstrang? And the identical uniforms? -- I couldn't help but think of Star Trek and how the humans always get to be diverse while the alien race wear the same clothes/have the same skin tone/hair color/style etc.
Anyway. Things I didn't realize I'd like in the movie:
- McGonagall's
horrified reaction to ferret-Draco.
- Copious screen time for the Weasley twins (the aging
potion/wrestling match; "Try saying that five times fast";
propositioning Angelina).
- The Pensieve. I hadn't been expecting to see the effect until the fifth movie, but there it was and it was just right -- the slight effort it took to pull the thought out, the sticky/electric texture of the thought-strand when it came free, and the jellyfish-looking ring as it floated into the basin. The surface wasn't quite right and the Pensieve itself was much larger than I'd pictured it, but the important part was very satisfying.
- Okay, and Filch was really funny when he ran up to Dumbledore at the Welcoming Feast. And waltzing with Mrs. Norris? Are there any theories out there about a pre-feline Mrs. Norris being a woman Filch loved and then he couldn't fix her having turned into a cat because he's a Squib? Anyone?
- Snape blasting the rose bushes.
- Snape showing his Dark Mark to Fudge / Fudge "accidentally" letting the Dementor get Barty Jr. / Dumbledore sending Snape out on his mission.
- "Lie low at Lupin's."
- Harry hiding on the stairs under the cloak with the Map while Snape sniffs around.
- The prize money. When Fudge plonked the bag of Galleons down in front of Harry after all he'd been through, it was such an empty gesture I wanted to cry. I can only imagine what that would have added to this scene in the movie.
- Mrs. Weasley.
- "Constant Vigilance!"
- The creatures in the Hedge Maze of Doom. Even though the animals
and whatever were only in there as a sort of series of practical exams,
to have the maze just be foggy and tall while the kids wandered around
didn't pose the same kind of threat or offer the sense of
accomplishment or failure they got in the book after defeating or being
defeated by the challenges.
no subject
Date: Nov. 21st, 2005 06:36 pm (UTC)And as the flatmate pointed out, "you've got Umbridge, who's a simpering woman who spends her whole life sucking up to Fudge, and can't imagine that McGonogall is any different with Dumbledore." I think the fact that she's a VILLAIN is about as far away from being sexist as you can get.
no subject
Date: Nov. 22nd, 2005 12:58 am (UTC)Hermione, Lily and Tonks have their strengths and I wouldn't include McGonagall under the sexist example, but also remember --
Hermione: Cries when it's not really called for (ooh, you'll have my head for that one), is very emotional (again, not that there's anything wrong with being emotional, it's just a traditionally feminine characteristic and most of the other male schoolchildren don't exhibit this), and is hardly ever allowed to participate in the action/face the villain.
Lily: All we know is she gave up her life. Her action may be heroic but it's a "feminine," maternal one: passivity & sacrifice, for her child.
Tonks: Totally falls apart over love for a man.
As for the female villains (Umbridge, Bellatrix, Skeeter), I don't see how Rowling making them villains negates her being in some ways sexist. If being villainous is necessarily masculine, the characters' methods are nevertheless feminine: Skeeter's main threat is the feminine power of gossip, Umbridge simpers and manipulates, Bellatrix would probably prostitute herself to Voldemort if this weren't a children's series (she also can't handle any insinuation that she might not be his "favorite," something that doesn't so visibly rattle Malfoy, Snape or the other male Death Eaters). I wish you had the conference proceedings from Convention Alley and Accio - Carla Hodge's Degrees of Evil and Kimberly Lesk's Triple Gorgon Threat spring to mind.
no subject
Date: Nov. 22nd, 2005 02:18 am (UTC)As for the heroines, though, I do have a few objections:
Hermione: Cries when it's not really called for (ooh, you'll have my head for that one), is very emotional (again, not that there's anything wrong with being emotional, it's just a traditionally feminine characteristic and most of the other male schoolchildren don't exhibit this), and is hardly ever allowed to participate in the action/face the villain.
The male schoolchildren don't get very emotional? I'd say that they get EXTREMELY emotional, but in more typically "male" ways - and perhaps we're being prejudiced ourselves if we consider male emotionality somehow "not as bad" (read: not as irrational/hysterical) as female emotion. Harry nearly derails the war effort in OotP because he's pouting and snarling at everyone. Ron is one of the most consistently emotional and irrational characters in the series - he's forever sulking, flouncing, blowing up at people, and having diva-esque fits of jealousy. Don't even get me started on drama queen Draco. It's only if we consider male anger more "respectable" than female tears (as society conditions us to) that Hermione becomes more emotional. Significantly, Hermione has almost never rendered herself useless to the cause by being too emotional, while both Harry and Ron have for large amounts of time. She can work through the bad patches (in PoA she manages to research Hagrid's defence for Buckbeak on top of her insane course load, even though she's upset about her friendship with Harry and Ron; in HBP she's depicted as far more dedicated to the war than Ron, who's the one of the pair actually letting his romance interfere with his work), and is explicitly praised in Philosopher's Stone for "cool logic" in the face of danger.
As for facing danger, I think that, again, the best comparison is with Ron, who has participated in the action about as much as Hermione has. Consider the climaxes of the books so far:
PS - Ron and Hermione both join Harry in chasing Quirrel through the obstacle course; Ron is disabled early on. Hermione accompanies Harry one level further, and only turns back when it's clear only one of them is allowed to continue.
CoS - Ron does get to go with Harry on this one, true, but again, he's kept back from the final confrontation with Tom Riddle. Hermione sits this round out only because she's already faced the basilisk and survived through cunning (the mirror).
PoA - Hermione and Ron are both in the Shrieking Shack; Hermione gets to accompany Harry on the time-travelling journey and sort out a lot of the cleverer bits while Ron sits at home fretting.
GoF - Harry's flying solo on this one.
OotP - All three of Our Intrepid Heros end up at the Department of Mysteries, and all three fight the Death Eaters. Both Ron and Hermione are incapacitated.
HBP - Ron and Hermione both fight the Death Eaters in the Great Hall.
That's almost dead even.
Continued...
no subject
Date: Nov. 22nd, 2005 02:19 am (UTC)Yes, the image is stereotypically feminine, but it's a powerful feminine archetype - the strong, protective mother goddess rather than the passive maternal martyr. Remember, James sacrificed his life for his child, too, and it could be argued that his was the more passive sacrifice - Lily was given a choice, and actively chose to die to protect Harry.
Tonks: Totally falls apart over love for a man.
Okay, I lied - I don't actually have an argument against that one. You got me there. The most I can do is stick my fingers in my ears and say that la la la la la, TONKS/REMUS DOES NOT EXIST! And despite the fact that that's my personal credo, it's hardly productive when I'm, you know, operating in the real world instead of in Catherine's Personal Canon-Rewriting Fantasyland. ;)
no subject
Date: Nov. 22nd, 2005 05:46 pm (UTC)Well, yes, but it's Hermione's research and training that gets him through the dragon test, isn't it? He's sort of sitting around freaking out, and Hermione goes to him and says, "look, bitch, you're going to actually have to face the dragon, so maybe you should have something vaguely resembling a PLAN???"
While Ron is completely useless throughout.
As for the villainesses, bad aspects of traditionally feminine behaviour (sucking up to powerful men, being socially manipulative) are portrayed as BAD, and I think this is actually a feminist element of the books. Umbridge and Bellatrix define their whole existences around the men they serve, and they're BAD. Skeeter is a manipulative prissy bitch, and that's BAD. Feminism isn't just a question of having stereotypical "spunky heroines" and nothing else; it's a question of having a range of behaviours and archetypes in your female characters, and in holding up the most ennobling ones as the good ones. Feminism isn't just about providing "good role models for our daughters," it's about recognising women as the challenging and complex human beings they are - neither all good nor all bad. We do ourselves no service if we pretend that women have to be entirely cool and good and heroic in order to be good women. Where would we go with the bad parts of ourselves? How is it a good thing to tell little girls that those parts of themselves don't exist?
The women in fairy tales are both good AND evil. We acknowledge that good and evil both exist within the same woman, and hold up the better parts (brave, clever, kind - most fairy tale heroines are all three, once you get beyond Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty and into a richer body of folklore) as the ones to emulate. By showing a woman like Bellatrix, we give the girl who is inclined towards that behaviour a safe place to work through her desires, to play with both their appeal and their horror, and by showing those desires ultimately defeated, we encourage her in her resolution of her internal conflicts.
As for Lily, I agree with Catilinarian - I think there's a great deal of power in the "Mama Bear" response. What's WRONG with being maternal? Lily stood up to the Dark Lord and basically said "BRING IT ON - YOU WILL NOT TOUCH MY BABY." I think that's a damn powerful thing to do!
The woman was an intelligent and respected member of the Order; it's made clear that she had brains and that she used them. Feminism isn't in the business of telling women that having babies and caring about them is bad!
More below on Tonks.
no subject
Date: Nov. 22nd, 2005 05:48 pm (UTC)As for Tonks, the question is twofold: first of all, is she *REALLY* falling apart over love for a man, or is she evil/Imperiused? I think we need to withhold judgment on that one. Secondly, isn't Remus portrayed as similarly falling apart over love for a woman? Don't people who have problems in relationships with strong emotions tend to fall apart? To say that women can never struggle, can never be weak, can never be distracted or have problems, is anti-feminist. Tonks is a strong and capable Auror who's going through a really rough time, and who are we to say that she's not allowed to because it makes her look bad? Feminism isn't about being strong and resilient and tough ALL THE TIME. That's unrealistic and will eventually turn us all into guilty wrecks when we fail to live up to it.
no subject
Date: Nov. 23rd, 2005 11:52 am (UTC)Seriously, though, I don't think I'd consider Remus to be "falling apart" over Tonks. Sure, he stares moodily into the fire at Christmas, but it's not really clear what that's about - after all, he just lost his best friend (and potentially lover, but that's my interpretation) half a year earlier, and he's just recently gotten back from what, going by his description, must have been a very difficult and unsettling spell living with feral werewolves whose lifestyle flies in the face of all his desperate attempts to be a normal, harmless human. And that's really all we get from him on the topic, except an overwhelming sense of reluctance. He might be conflicted about Tonks, but he's not falling apart over her.
And while I don't deny that women in literature should be allowed to have strong emotions and show weakness, I wouldn't classify having an unrequited crush as "going through a really rough time". Sure, they can hurt quite a lot, but it seems rather a petty, common, even selfish consideration to be sapping SO much of Tonks' strength. I mean, if she loses both the (very strategically valuable) ability to transform and her concentration because a man she likes won't go out with her, how is she going to cope with the difficulty and losses of a genuine war? Harry and Hermione both manage to remain effective while still giving themselves over to the powerful feelings involved in their own individual romantic dramas, and they're teenagers! Tonks is a grown woman and a trained Auror!
no subject
Date: Nov. 22nd, 2005 02:22 am (UTC)She wrote that WITHOUT looking at my comment above it.
OMG WTF GET OUT OF MY BRAIN! :)
No, actually, this is the only drawback to having someone to manically discuss the entire film with on the bus ride home at 3 am - your arguments tend to blend...
no subject
Date: Nov. 22nd, 2005 03:23 am (UTC)P.S. I didn't see your comment either. LJ sure chose a great weekend to move its servers. Comments appear out of nowhere and the email notifications are sporadic at best. Sigh.