Vanity Unfair
Last night, I watched the most horrible film in the history of humankind.
Vanity Fair. Starring Reese Witherspoon, and the delectable James Purefoy. It was well acted, it was visually beautiful, but the whole thing left me so singularly disgusted that all of the good pieces of the film were lost on me.
Vanity Fair is one of those books that I, the English major, somehow managed to escape skip. And who knows, maybe the book is better, maybe the book has an actual character arc in which Becky Sharpe has some sort of realization of her wrongdoing, and her absolutely horrific treatment of her poor husband and her poor child, but all in all, if the movie is in fact an honorable treatment of the story, I really believe this character is among the most unlikable, irredeemable female characters in the whole of Brit Lit. The whole thing just made me want to jump in the television and scream at everyone involved: all women are not like this!!!
The girl, who spends her youth crafting herself into someone who can marry richly in order to be a part of aristocratic soceity (her greatest desire) skips from suitor to suitor, flirts with her best friend's louse of a husband, tricks the honorable Capt. Crawley into marriage, causes him to be disinherited, runs up enormous debt which cause him to be jailed in a debtor's prison, all the while she is seeking advancement through the venomous Lord Steyne...by using all the tricks in her little trick toolbox.
But here's the part that gets me and here's why you should care.
The other actors and the writer and director talk about this character as being a plucky survivor who uses gumption and wit to move up in a world that has never done her any favors.
No, she's not a surivor. She's a user. She's a user who survives by using, by destroying, by hurting, and ruining other people's lives. She is in no way any sort of hero, there's nothing heroic about her actions. She's a nasty young woman who's only goals and dreams in life are to be wealthy. What kind of dream is that? Since when is the all-out, no holds barred pursuit of wealth the makings of a great person? Since when is someone who will positively destroy the life of her husband and son so that she can have a few extra dresses and extraordinarily garish eye makeup someone who 'defies the odds' and in anyway evidence of wit, intelligence and strength?
Even at the end, this character doesn't learn a thing. Doesn't learn a darn thing, and that's what makes the whole thing so distasteful. Doesn't realize now that its gone, what she once had. No. Doesn't care at all. And that's unacceptable.
I actually found myself, at the end, hoping she would be taken by fever, and die, miserable, and alone.
Vanity Fair. Starring Reese Witherspoon, and the delectable James Purefoy. It was well acted, it was visually beautiful, but the whole thing left me so singularly disgusted that all of the good pieces of the film were lost on me.
Vanity Fair is one of those books that I, the English major, somehow managed to escape skip. And who knows, maybe the book is better, maybe the book has an actual character arc in which Becky Sharpe has some sort of realization of her wrongdoing, and her absolutely horrific treatment of her poor husband and her poor child, but all in all, if the movie is in fact an honorable treatment of the story, I really believe this character is among the most unlikable, irredeemable female characters in the whole of Brit Lit. The whole thing just made me want to jump in the television and scream at everyone involved: all women are not like this!!!
The girl, who spends her youth crafting herself into someone who can marry richly in order to be a part of aristocratic soceity (her greatest desire) skips from suitor to suitor, flirts with her best friend's louse of a husband, tricks the honorable Capt. Crawley into marriage, causes him to be disinherited, runs up enormous debt which cause him to be jailed in a debtor's prison, all the while she is seeking advancement through the venomous Lord Steyne...by using all the tricks in her little trick toolbox.
But here's the part that gets me and here's why you should care.
The other actors and the writer and director talk about this character as being a plucky survivor who uses gumption and wit to move up in a world that has never done her any favors.
No, she's not a surivor. She's a user. She's a user who survives by using, by destroying, by hurting, and ruining other people's lives. She is in no way any sort of hero, there's nothing heroic about her actions. She's a nasty young woman who's only goals and dreams in life are to be wealthy. What kind of dream is that? Since when is the all-out, no holds barred pursuit of wealth the makings of a great person? Since when is someone who will positively destroy the life of her husband and son so that she can have a few extra dresses and extraordinarily garish eye makeup someone who 'defies the odds' and in anyway evidence of wit, intelligence and strength?
Even at the end, this character doesn't learn a thing. Doesn't learn a darn thing, and that's what makes the whole thing so distasteful. Doesn't realize now that its gone, what she once had. No. Doesn't care at all. And that's unacceptable.
I actually found myself, at the end, hoping she would be taken by fever, and die, miserable, and alone.