Relationships
One of the recent posts on homosexuality in the BSC got me thinking about relationships...
I'll admit that it's rather fun to think about the members' sexual orientation. There is a certain amount of subtext at times, as it has been pointed out. However, there is not much to sustain any real claims of homosexuality and to meet general consensus on any character.
Looking at it more seriously, however, I'm wondering if there is homosexual subtext in the BSC - not in a very definite sense, but in terms of the ideological content of the books. What I mean is that perhaps Ann M. Martin has inserted - whether willingly or not - some aspect of lesbianism in the way she has constructed ill-fated or unhealthy heterosexual relationships.
So my question is: do you think that the heterosexual relationships portrayed in the BSC encourage a homosexual view of love?
You'll tell me that they are 13 years old and that of course, adolescent relationships are doomed to fail. I agree. However, there seems to be some kind of message that always comes back when dealing with heterosexual relationships: that your male friends will hurt you, and that your female friends will save you.
The examples are easy to find. The two most serious relationships - Stacey's with Robert and Mary Anne's with Logan - are also disfunctional ones. Mary Anne is clearly stuck in a power struggle, and Stacey is dependent (and Robert cheats on her.) In both cases, the guy is presented as the ultimate evil, whose crime is not only to hurt the protagonists, but also to prevent contact with female friends or to be the cause of a conflict with them. Female friendship (homosocial interaction?) is always held up as the positive aspect of a binary opposition. Also think of Dawn, with both Lewis and Travis.
Then, there is also the suggestion made by Claudia and the Perfect Boy, which is that the perfect partner is not male, but female. This is the closest to a homosexual ideology that we find in the BSC, I believe: Stacey's attempt at embodying the perfect man is, in some ways, a courtship of Claudia, and also a way of saying that it is useless for Claudia to look anywhere for her man, since obviously only a female can provide what she is looking for.
There is another example, I believe, to be found in Logan Likes Mary Anne, when Kristy invites Dawn over while Mary Anne has a date with Logan. It seems to me that Kristy, in that scene, is trying to get over her "break up" with Mary Anne by finding some kind of soul mate, someone who shares her lack of interest in boys. Mary Anne having been "contaminated" by this infatuation, Kristy doesn't have a choice but to pick Dawn. Their brooding over Mary Anne's date seems to be a mourning of the loss of their "girlfriend" over to the enemy camp, and this is emphasized by the fact that Dawn and Kristy are constantly rivaling over Mary Anne's affection. That Mary Anne prefers boys, thus, is the ultimate betrayal that brings two "enemies" closer, united by a more important cause.
You may think that I'm over-reading this. I probably am, but I also think that ideological positionings tend to infiltrate any writer's work, whether he or she is conscious of it or not. Considering that Ann M. Martin is quite possibly a lesbian, I think it is not impossible that her own possible doubts and anxieties about heterosexual relationships have found their way into her books.
I'll admit that it's rather fun to think about the members' sexual orientation. There is a certain amount of subtext at times, as it has been pointed out. However, there is not much to sustain any real claims of homosexuality and to meet general consensus on any character.
Looking at it more seriously, however, I'm wondering if there is homosexual subtext in the BSC - not in a very definite sense, but in terms of the ideological content of the books. What I mean is that perhaps Ann M. Martin has inserted - whether willingly or not - some aspect of lesbianism in the way she has constructed ill-fated or unhealthy heterosexual relationships.
So my question is: do you think that the heterosexual relationships portrayed in the BSC encourage a homosexual view of love?
You'll tell me that they are 13 years old and that of course, adolescent relationships are doomed to fail. I agree. However, there seems to be some kind of message that always comes back when dealing with heterosexual relationships: that your male friends will hurt you, and that your female friends will save you.
The examples are easy to find. The two most serious relationships - Stacey's with Robert and Mary Anne's with Logan - are also disfunctional ones. Mary Anne is clearly stuck in a power struggle, and Stacey is dependent (and Robert cheats on her.) In both cases, the guy is presented as the ultimate evil, whose crime is not only to hurt the protagonists, but also to prevent contact with female friends or to be the cause of a conflict with them. Female friendship (homosocial interaction?) is always held up as the positive aspect of a binary opposition. Also think of Dawn, with both Lewis and Travis.
Then, there is also the suggestion made by Claudia and the Perfect Boy, which is that the perfect partner is not male, but female. This is the closest to a homosexual ideology that we find in the BSC, I believe: Stacey's attempt at embodying the perfect man is, in some ways, a courtship of Claudia, and also a way of saying that it is useless for Claudia to look anywhere for her man, since obviously only a female can provide what she is looking for.
There is another example, I believe, to be found in Logan Likes Mary Anne, when Kristy invites Dawn over while Mary Anne has a date with Logan. It seems to me that Kristy, in that scene, is trying to get over her "break up" with Mary Anne by finding some kind of soul mate, someone who shares her lack of interest in boys. Mary Anne having been "contaminated" by this infatuation, Kristy doesn't have a choice but to pick Dawn. Their brooding over Mary Anne's date seems to be a mourning of the loss of their "girlfriend" over to the enemy camp, and this is emphasized by the fact that Dawn and Kristy are constantly rivaling over Mary Anne's affection. That Mary Anne prefers boys, thus, is the ultimate betrayal that brings two "enemies" closer, united by a more important cause.
You may think that I'm over-reading this. I probably am, but I also think that ideological positionings tend to infiltrate any writer's work, whether he or she is conscious of it or not. Considering that Ann M. Martin is quite possibly a lesbian, I think it is not impossible that her own possible doubts and anxieties about heterosexual relationships have found their way into her books.