Jack the Giant Slayer Review and Why Fairy Tales Have A Lot To Do With HooHoos.
Although it might come as a shock unless you've read my Beautiful Creatures Review, I'm a feminist. And if you're one of those people who thinks that's a dirty word or it means I run around spelling women 'womyn' you're under the misapprehension that every single Christian protests at soldier's funerals. All a feminist is is a person who advocates for the social, political, legal and economic rights of women to be equal to men. It means I think women should have the same standing as men in all major arenas. It means I am proud of being a woman, but that being a woman is not the same as beign a man. We are different. Biology alone dictates that, and I believe that our biology does have a say in the way we live our lives; a say, not necessarily control. I believe a woman should have the right to do what any man does; find a path that enriches and satisfies her,whatever that may be, without fear of glass ceilings or persecution.
I recently watched the documentary 'Makers' which aired on KPBS. It was about the sexual revolution, the total deconstruction ad analyzation of what a woman's role in the world is and should be in the sixties and how the latter half of the 20th century was a transformative experience that now lingers in a no man's land. Women do not yet stand on equal footing with men, not economically with women still earning 75 cents for every dollar a man earns, not politically where 18% of congress is female, not legally when lawmakers are still trying to force things like the Transvaginal Probes on the populace and govern our sexual morality, and certainly not socially where women still face harassment, objectification, and minimizing on a regular basis.
Lately we seem to be suffering a harsh turn of conservatism which I find repulsive and difficult to swallow as people-largely with a bible in one hand- stand up and try to tell me they have a right to tell me how to live and who to be. Not all of these people are men. A lot of women stand in those ranks, and to be honest, many of them make me ashamed.
We still have a long way to go. Much like race equality, most people assume that there is sexual equality. A lot of people don't realize that we are culturally trained to have a Caucasian male perspective, with their values and their desires our standard lense.
Case; Jack the Giant Slayer.
As you know, Stepbrother had been going to the movies with me now since he moved from Chicago. We have a lot of the same movie tastes, though I sensed he was a little non-plussed to my dislike for Beautiful Creatures. However, when we came out of this movie I was surprised when my anger was greeted with understanding. Apparently, he'd been looking at the film through my yes, and was uncomfortable with what he saw. Or at least noticed what was going to later make me fume with anger, because he will have to listen to me rant about it. I'm sorry, Stepbrother!
I do like the re-imagining of fairy tales. I do. The last hundred years have curiously sanitized these stores which were not for mere childish entertainment, but served doubly as moral and life lessons to more than just children. Take for example Clever Maids: The Secret History of the Grimm Fairy Tales by Valarie Paradiz (A read I well recommend and can be found here at Amazon) which relates the secret of the Grimm Brothers; that the notion of we have of them trekking around the German country side collecting up these stories for posterity is bullshit. The Grimm brothers got the stories in the places they were traded most; in the homes and between women. Why? Because men had jobs, plowing fields, mining coal, being coopers or butchers or what have you. While not impossible to exchange words, these are not opportune periods to exchange stories. But the home- while bunches of women gather to do the washing, or minding children- is an ideal place. Stories likely originated and thrived there, in the hands of women, and most fairy tales in their female characters reflect the societal expectations of women, and carry morals.
Most of the morals we are familiar with. A general Stay-on-the-Path-be-dutiful-and-obediant-don't-be-cruel-or-greedy theme pervades.
Gender roles in fairy tales are more interesting, and we must examine them in the time period in which they were divined. The female role was very limited. Female roles come in marked dual roles generally reflecting the two aspects.
First is the beautiful female protagonist. I'm not going to get into beauty as a shorthand for goodness because it's a thing we mortals do. Anyway, this heroine (I use the term semi-loosely) is the good girl who is the idealized version of woman, the pinnacle of what a girl should be. She works as a servant even though her due might be as the lady of the house, she trades her life for her father's to go shack up with a horny beast, she's silent for seven years to sew shirts, she walks the world for years in iron shoes, ect. She's the fifties housewife. Obedient to a fault, dutiful, silent, yet gracious and polite, kind, generous, gentle, lacking in pride and vanity and, of course, not proactive. And while I disagree with this definition of women, I understand why this ideal existed and why a woman would want to impart these qualities onto her daughter. It existed because this is what 99% of the men in ALL HISTORY EVER wanted. It was what the culture told them to expect their life partner to be, that was the woman's job, and women were not legal, independent entities. They were the accessories to men. While nowadays we look at Mrs. Bennett and scoff her, she was doing what was best for her daughters; She was getting them good marriages. That was the only way for a woman to be socially mobile and financially secure.
However. This ideal can go to far, and we see this most characterized in the heroine's mirror image, and often her antagonist, the Wicked Stepmother. Here is a character who has it in for the children from her new spouse's first marriage. Florina, Hansel and Gretal, Cinderella, all of them were the objects of scorn because they were in line to receive the full benefits of their parent, and the Stepmother wants to clear the way so that all gains and affections belong to her and her children.
A second pair of female characters are the Female Princess Prize, and the Nagging Mother, and the third; good fairies (old or young) and bad fairies
Now. While that was rambly, here'z my point.
Jack and the Beanstalk was never one of my favorite folk tales, and is often muddled in with Jack the Giant Killer. However, in most versions of this tale, Jack is a dumbass. As he is the son of a widow, it should be the widows job to rely on him, but this is the guy who sells their cow for beans. He's an idiot, and Nagging Mother has every right to be put out with him. Well, one thing and another, Jack gets up the beanstalk, and what does he do? He pays back the giant's wife's kindness (She hides him so her husband won't eat him) by stealing from her. Not once, mind you, three times, and when he's caught stealing he kills her husband (which is a nice little be-loyal-to-your-spouse lesson) by cutting down the beanstalk. He then marries well since he is so rich. So. A lot of female characters and a stupid, thieving traitorous hero.
How we got from that to this, Jack the Giant Slayer, is not too much of a stretch. I'm not going to discuss the merits of the film for the most part, since it's generally pretty meh. Poorly developed characters, action scenes which are enver as exciting as they could be, and a generally shallow tale for having gotten the likes of Stanley Tucci, Ian McShane and Ewan McGregor. These guys are all game, but there just isn't enough for them to do and almost no good dialogue for them.
The topic I want to bring up, is the fact that the story exorcizes all the female characters and replaces them with one useless princess. Gone is the grey area. Gone is the lady giant- in fact, there are apparently no women in giant land. Procreating must be interesting. Gone is Jack's Mother- replaced by a father, though the princess has a mother. You can only be inspired by tales from someone of your own gender, you know. I'm not going to talk about the lengths went to vilify Jack either.
But, from the first scene with adult Princess I hated her with a passion and it only got worse. The first scene with this woman involved Jacks seeing her being harassed by some guys. He intercedes, standing between her and three men and in the middle of his defending her the Princess' guard show up. She runs to them, but then just sits there while Jack has a sword drawn on him when he was CLEARLY trying to help her. The first five minutes and I hate her, because she NEVER SAYS A WORD. Try to imagine Jack and Rose meeting for the first time on the Titanic, and when they try and arrest Jack Rose never said a word that he was helping her. Yeah. Why would Jack have any furthur interest in someone so shallow and self absorbed? But Jack the Slayer here is undeterred, but since he probably spends about five minutes of screen time with Isabelle when they aren't fleeing in peril.
So Isabelle's big thing is she wants to be free, wants to NOT marry Stanley Tucci, and her father doesn't think she is able to defend herself or run things. Mostly this comes back to marriage. She wants to marry for love. Nevermind we have a discussion about Isabelle being capable of running things, or the fact that THAT IS NOT HOW MONARCHY WORKS. Even if Roderick married Isabelle she would be Queen Isabelle, he would be Consort or Prince. Their children could take the throne, and he could be regeant, but he just doesn't get to rule.
Anyway, Isabelle also wants an adventure, so she proves how responsible she is by dressing in drag and running away. She gets exactly what she wants that very night when she stops off at Jack's cottage; a beanstalk takes her up to the kingdom of giants. Now, for a woman going on about having adventures and ruling a kingdom on her own, you'd think you could expect something neat from her, right? You'd think she'd be excited that now she could prove herself to her father, right?
No.
No Isabelle does not ONE SINGULAR THING in aide of herself. The extent of her capability seems to be carving her initials on the trees for her to keep track of her path. After that she's kidnapped by giants, and must be rescued by the men. She is the most revolting example of Woman as Damsel/Reward Prop I've seen in a long time. She's nothing but a motivator for all these men, whatever desires or thoughts she had disappearing as soon as she has done her job making this story happen. In fact, Isabelle is captured by giants who do little but talk of eating her, and the story is so much more interested in the agony of King Brahmwell pining for his lost daughter, and Roderick plotting to take over the Kingdom, Ewan McGregor poncing his (Admittedly adorable and amusing) pompous hero around. In fact, in the end I was sure Isabelle would AT LEAST get to stick it to her dad by getting the magic crown that controls giants. Oh no, that goes to Jack.
Point being, there is ONE female character in this movie, excluding Isabelle's mother in the prelude. One female, who is a non-entity in what is kind of her wish fulfillment story, but in an insultingly blatant way.
Eleanor Tomlinson is cast in this thankless role, and was either directed to or elected to play it in the soft milksop way, making her spineless, forgettable and sick inducing. Even Kristen Stewart and Lily Collins were doing more in their respective Snow White adaptations, and to be honest neither of them were really all that empowering.
I guess what I'm saying is that avoid this. Avoid this and...it makes me angry. It makes me angry that female roles-thin on the ground already- are being written out, and that women are still being transformed into pretty props the hero can achieve. We don't need to make the people, or give their self admitted plight any screen time. A man can fix it anyway; he'll take her job and send her off to make babies because damn, women still haven't learned where they belong.
It's a sad day when something as dumb as Hansel and Gretal WitchHunters has more gender equality than this.