Men have no Fitzwilliam Darcy

Laura’s post on men in BBC adaptations crystallized for me something that has flitted about in the back of my mind for a while now: there is no female character that men as a community are aware of and find as appealing as Mr. Darcy. This is true for most of Jane Austen’s male characters, but Mr. Darcy seems to occupy the top spot. Try as I might, I can’t think of a female character every man is likely to be aware of, much less find romantically appealing; in fact, I can’t think of any female characters universally appealing to men purely on the basis of mere physical or sexual attractiveness. I suspect this might explain the general bafflement that men often feel when women talk about how more men should be like Mr. Darcy or how many times they’ve seen the miniseries. That characters like Darcy exist, we understand. What we don’t understand is why he is what he is to women.

I have no explanation for this, and it bugs me. Darcy and all he represents are quite culturally powerful, and, being the sort of hack sociologist that I am, I wonder what the absence of a male equivalent means. I don’t think this absence is necessarily a problem, but it occasionally does give the nagging impression that in practice men simply end up attracted to women who settle for them instead of the kind of men they really want. That’s certainly the most pessimal interpretation, and I don’t think that’s how it really works. I know, too, that by some definitions there is no gap: goddess of the hearth, girl next door, and, in Japan’s case the yamato nadeshiko have all been put forward as stereotypical constructions of the ideal woman by somebody. I don’t think these are the same kind of thing, for all of these have been A) largely discredited, and B) mostly existed as “ideals” in the sense of “idealized concepts” rather than actual prototypes for femininity. Mr. Darcy and the other Austen heroes haven’t experienced a similar fall from grace, as far as I can tell.

One possible explanation: men have traditionally written and published more than women have (and have been allowed to), so they write more from a male perspective and consequently haven’t developed any female characters as universally appealing. One possible objection to this explanation: if men have dominated literature and publishing for so long, how come they haven’t made more progress creating an ideal female character? Like I said, I have no solution that really works, but I’m pretty sure I’ve found an interesting problem.

I don’t normally ask for comments, but I’d really appreciate any thoughts people have on this. What should we make of the Darcy gap?

Twilight: The movie

Well, here we go. The Twilight movie. Let me open with a compliment: it’s not bad. It’s better, in fact, than the book, and not many movie adaptations can say that. Having real flesh-and-blood humans playing the roles does a lot to flesh out characterization that can charitably be described as spartan. This cuts both ways, though, since a lot of the menace that was described (albeit poorly) in the book is reduced to zoom pans of  actors glaring at the camera, and this doesn’t make me think of “menace” so much as of Derek Zoolander’s “blue steel.”

There are other improvements as well. There are a few nice touches, like the mural of graduation caps on the wall at the Cullens’ house and the scene where the Cullens quickly try to cook for Bella (though now that I think of it, they’d probably remember from their human days). Bella is more likeable, for they’ve written her to be reserved instead of merely cold, and she no longer contemplates running people over all the time. Edward comes across as more uncertain or awkward than stiff and in control. It’s just more believable, and while I’m normally leery of attempts by a movie to “improve” upon a book(1), I’m okay with it here.

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(1) See Starship Troopers, or, better yet, don’t.

Reflections on seeing Raiders of the Lost Ark for the first time

Pretty good. But a few questions remain:

• Why did Belloq bring a pretty white dress to the desert dig site? Who would have worn it if they hadn’t happened to capture Marion? Maybe Belloq never wanted to be an archaeologist, he wanted to be a lumberjack!
• After Indiana Jones burned a path through the snakes to the Ark, it must have smelled terrible in there.
• When Indy finds Marion at the Nazi camp, he almost frees her but decides against it in order not to attract attention. So what does he do next? Start digging in the middle of the Nazi camp with thirty men after putting on his trademark hat. Real nice, Indy.
• Speaking of attracting attention, did nobody notice Indy and his men setting up a separate dig site about twenty feet away from the Nazis? So much for the master race.
• Why did Indy pull up the Ark in the middle of the day? Is there any reason he couldn’t do it at 3AM when everyone is asleep?
• Did Indy hold his breath the entire time while riding the U-boat? It’s not clear how he could have gotten inside, much less done it without being noticed; it’s not like submarines have copious free space.
• The Nazis took the Ark seriously enough to dress Belloq up like a high priest and have him conduct a mini-consecration. So what do they do next? Repeatedly touch the Ark. Didn’t anyone think that was dangerous? Did their copy of the Bible have only the even verses or something?
• Indy is implied to have had a relationship with Marion when they were both younger. How much younger? We aren’t told, but it looks like George Lucas had some unsettling figures in mind.

It’s a mediocre life: Rethinking George Bailey

I saw It’s a Wonderful Life for the first time in 2007, at age 22. It’s a little unusual to go that long without seeing this movie, though it does put me in pretty good company. In a way, I’m glad I waited, for watching a classic so late in life has its advantages. Like all classics, it’s easy to watch It’s a Wonderful Life carelessly, and so miss out on a lot of the nuances. Watching the movie for the first time as an adult allowed me to pick up on some of the moral nuances I probably would have missed as a child. It’s a Wonderful Life is easily interpreted as a Manichean morality play between the saintly George Bailey and the wicked Mr. Potter, but I found that this didn’t sit well with me. In fact, the more I thought about George Bailey, the more it seemed that a second look at his character was in order.

George Bailey comes across as a man who has made selfless choices throughout his life at the cost of his own disappointment, and is nearly driven to suicide when it appears that he’ll end up in prison for his troubles. His disappointments come at the worst time for him, so they resonate well with the audiences. Similarly, we are meant to feel the same dismay as George when he encounters “Potterville.” (1) But is it really as easy to sympathize with George as it might seem? 

The problem is that George Bailey doesn’t come across as selfless so much as hideously passive. Oh, I don’t mean his deer-in-the-headlights look when confronted with the board of directors looking to him for guidance; that’s understandable. What’s harder for me to understand is why George runs the bank indefinitely rather than see it through the transition period and search for someone qualified to run it. Is George Bailey really the only man on earth who could run the bank? This may seem like nitpicking, but remember that the bank is essentially the only thing that keeps George in New Bedford. In one sense, George has no one to blame but himself for his failure to live out his dream of seeing the world. Being handed the responsibility for the family business is a hard stroke of luck, but it doesn’t have to ruin your life unless you let it. George knows his heart isn’t in the business, so why pretend that it is?

The only explanation I can find that is consistent with what we are shown is that George doesn’t know any other way to handle disappointment. Whenever George is faced with disappointment, he reacts with shock, brief resentment, and then unmitigated selflessness. It seems to me that George isn’t so much putting the well being of others above his own desires as pretending his own desires don’t exist. Rather than try to be content with the decisions he has made, George silently chooses to resent the life he has chosen for himself. We see the results of this decision when he blows up at his family, his neighbors, and life in general. 

Fortunately for Mary and the kids, George Bailey isn’t quite saved by a deus ex machina, but he gets the next best thing: an angel comes down from heaven to stop George from feeling sorry for himself. It takes a bit of work, for not even the garishness of Potterville can upset him. Next time you watch the movie, see what George is most worried about. Is it the fact that his hometown has been turned into diet Vegas and his neighborhood into a slum? No, he’s upset that nobody seems to recognize him. Charming.

Then there are the little things. Potterville-Mary is a feminist’s nightmare, a timid mouse of a creature who is implied to have become a failed person–a spinster librarian, the horror!–without George Bailey to marry. Leaving aside the unintentional insult to librarians, this character arc makes no sense. In the movie’s “real” world, the New Bedford world, Mary Bailey is by far the most dynamic person in the Bailey family. She is the one who always finds a solution to George’s crises, self-imposed or not. She’s even the one who works to keep George out of prison while he’s out getting drunk and wrecking his car.(2) In short, everything we see about Mary Bailey contradicts the film’s assertion that she would have had a miserable life if George had never been born. But why stop here? Imagine, for a moment, what George’s life would have been like had Mary never been born. How many times has she pulled his bacon out of the fire?

On a more amusing note, George Bailey’s lending practices look a little less praiseworthy from the other side of the subprime mortgage crisis. Portfolio.com recently wrote an article pointing out uncomfortable similarities between George Bailey’s bank and the banks that torpedoed the current economy. The article is more tongue-in-cheek than a serious criticism of George, but it’s still worth thinking about.

Finally, in George’s defense, I’m not sure he’s wrong when he calls Uncle Billy a “silly, stupid old fool” while in the middle of his breakdown. Adjusted for inflation, $8000 works out to roughly $84,000 in modern dollars. What would you call a person who lost eighty-four large on the day your bank was being inspected? After all his time working for the bank, did it not occur to Uncle Billy that newspaper might be good for wrapping fish, but it sucks for carrying cash? Of course, George shares some of the blame for trusting Uncle Billy instead of an armored car, but it’s clear Uncle Billy was carrying the idiot ball this time. Carelessly handing your bank’s financial future to a mortal enemy is about as dumb as you can get.

By now you might be wondering where I’m going with this. Do I think It’s a Wonderful Life is a bad movie? I go back and forth on this, but I’m going to say no. I think the problem isn’t with the movie but with the way we often view George Bailey. He’s regarded as a modern day Job, a good man placed in a hard situation, but I don’t think we’re meant to view him this way. I think the movie as written is a rebuke to a resentful man who has largely ignored the blessings given to him. There may even be a Christian subtext to George Bailey’s redemption: perhaps we are seeing, for the first time in George’s life, his turn towards genuine faith instead of simulated virtue? 

So fear not, It’s a Wonderful Life fans. There’s a positive message . Don’t be like pre-Clarence George Bailey, a whitewashed tomb of a man. Be honest, content, and thankful, and make decisions you can live with. And last but not least, don’t trust $84,000 to a guy who treats money like fish.

 

 

(1) Though not everyone is obliging; see Salon’s “All hail Pottersville!” or the New York Times article below for different takes on a Bailey-less world.

(2) Or not: a recent New York Times editorial (login required) pointed out that restitution might make a jury more lenient, but it won’t get you fully off the hook of an embezzlement charge. But hey, at least George will be sitting in a holding cell on Christmas Day in New Bedford instead of Potterville.