Comments Off on Faithless Adaptations: A Critique of Little Women (2019)
Adaptations are a tricky business for any filmmaker. Regardless of the text you are adapting, there will be a dedicated fan base for the original source material who will be both the first in the cinema to watch your creation, as well as the ones most eager to tear it apart. I found myself in this position after reading Louisa May Alcott’s coming-of-age novel Little Women.
In typical bildungsroman fashion, Little Women follows sisters Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy March from childhood to adulthood. Originally published in two volumes in 1868 and 1869, the story was heavily inspired by the author’s own childhood and family. Since its publication, the novel has been well loved by readers for its honest portrayal of sisterhood, love and self-discovery.
In 2019, the novel was once again adapted into a film by renowned director Greta Gerwig. At the 92nd Academy Awards, Gerwig’s film was nominated for several awards, including Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay. Naturally, I was very excited to watch this so-called masterpiece.
However, I was sorely disappointed. Gerwig made considerable changes to the structure of Alcott’s novel and to her characterisation. While changes are inevitable in transplanting hundreds of pages of writing into two hours of screen time, they have to make sense. If a change is nonsensical, it risks undermining the authenticity of the adaptation and calls into question the adaptor’s understanding and interpretation of the text.
One major change in Gerwig’s Little Women was the decision to alter the timeline of the book. Instead of beginning during the sisters’ adolescence and ending during their adulthood, Gerwig’s film flits between two narratives; the childhood sequences serve as flashbacks to the main adult storyline. This, I believe, renders mute the major themes of the novel: family and growth. As readers, we watch the March sisters grow and develop as the eponymous “little women”. Many of the chapters in Part One of the novel involve the sisters learning moral lessons through their mishaps and misjudgments. For instance, in “A Merry Christmas”, the sisters are exposed to the value of sacrifice. In “Amy’s Valley of Humiliation”, Amy faces the consequences of disobedience and conceit, while in “Jo meets Apollyon”, Jo is shown the importance of patience and self-control. This depiction of personal growth is undercut by bringing the adult storyline to the forefront. The girls’ childhood is not meant to be merely fodder for character development; it is integral to who they are as women. Their familial and sororal bonds are the driving forces behind their entire existence.
In a similar vein, Marmee — the mother of the March sisters — is horribly characterised. During the years of the American Civil War, she is the main caregiver of the girls as her husband is serving as a chaplain for the Union Army. Alcott’s Marmee is the guiding light for both her children and the reader; she epitomises all she preaches. She allows her daughters to make mistakes and then helps them learn from the error of their ways. She teaches them what is important and good and right in a way that makes them (and the reader) want to (or at least try to) obey because they know they will be all the better for it.
Gerwig’s script is written in such a way that Marmee, despite being played by the incredibly talented Laura Dern, fades into the background in every scene instead of being the central force that her daughters gravitate towards. Her dialogue is reduced to backhanded quips at her husband for a reason that is difficult to identify. Perhaps this is Gerwig attempting to add comedy or perhaps it’s her not knowing how to subvert a relationship that is already quite subversive. The marriage between Mr and Mrs March is meant to be one of love, devotion, adoration and equality. Alcott’s Marmee is imbued with agency and wisdom; she is respected by all who meet her. The essence of her role in the family is established in the very first chapter as Marmee reads aloud the letter sent by Mr March: “They all drew to the fire, Mother in the big chair with Beth at her feet, Meg and Amy perched on either arm of the chair, and Jo leaning on the back”. Gerwig seems to believe that Marmee cannot embrace these principles in a film set during the 19th century so she must resort to making sharp retorts to whatever her silly husband says to assert her authority.
The film also makes the mistake of attempting to adapt Little Women in line with contemporary standards of feminism, ignoring the fact that the novel is already subversive for the time period and place in which it was written and set. In one of the film’s early scenes, Jo responds angrily to Friedrich Bhaer, a German professor who is staying at the same boarding house, when he criticises her writing. Jo’s reaction, while stemming from hurt, is illogical. Jo is writing ‘sensationalist’ stories for a newspaper to make money; importantly, she elects for the stories to not be printed under her name. In the novel, she hides this occupation from her mother because “she was doing what she is ashamed to own”. Jo does not need to ask Bhaer his opinion because she shares it already. She eventually quits writing sensationalist stories, musing “I almost wish I hadn’t any conscience, it’s so inconvenient. If I didn’t care about doing right, and didn’t feel uncomfortable when doing wrong, I should get on capitally.” The director instead appears to have re-imagined this scene from a “feminist” lens; Jo can write whatever she pleases, Gerwig seems to be saying, and how dare Bhaer judge her when he knows nothing about literature! This representation has no footing when we take into account that in the source text, Jo and Bhaer’s views on the matter are aligned.
Just because Alcott’s novel does not embody that which we perceive as feminism today, does not mean that it is not a subversive representation and examination of womanhood. The sisters were never restricted by their gender, at least not by their parents. They were not forced to conform to societal standards of womanhood. They stayed true to who they were. The novel centres on familial love, it promotes empathy and compassion, it encourages the reader to — like the sisters — to be the best version of themselves. It is very empowering to read a novel about four sisters who love each other dearly and who have a strong maternal figure that cares exclusively for their happiness. Marmee does not need to assert her authority by shaking her head mournfully at her husband’s idiocy, and the “tom-boy” sister does not need to prove her agency by disagreeing with something that she fundamentally agrees with.
Gerwig also struggles to authentically represent the progression of Amy and Laurie’s relationship from childhood friends to two young people in love. In one line, Amy contends that she has always loved Laurie. However, none of the flashbacks in the film even hint at a romantic affection harboured by the young Amy. Similarly, the two seem to be just pushed together and suddenly declare their love for each other. This fails to capture the mutual respect and adoration that develops while the two characters write letters to each other while in Europe. Jo’s rejection of Laurie also fits awkwardly within the narrative, creating an uncomfortable love triangle. After Beth’s death, Jo reveals that if Laurie were to ask her to marry him again she would say yes. She even writes him a letter, but hurriedly removes it from his mailbox after discovering he has married her sister. Here, Gerwig misinterprets the effect Beth’s death has on Jo. The death does not suddenly make Jo realise that she does in fact love Laurie or that she desires to get married. Instead, the loss of her sister opens herself up to experiencing a different kind of love that she has not yet felt.
A novel worthy of an adaptation is naturally loved for what it is, so the question stands: why do filmmakers make these changes? In May, George RR Martin wrote a post on his “Not a Blog” blog, titled “The Adaptation Tango” that appeared to answer this question. He makes excellent observations from the perspective of an author who is no stranger to his work being adapted (and butchered). He states, “Everywhere you look, there are more screenwriters and producers eager to take great stories and ‘make them their own’.” Regardless of who the author is or how great their work is, he says, “there always seems to be someone on hand who thinks he can do better, eager to take the story and ‘improve’ on it.” He finishes with: “They never make it better, though. Nine hundred ninety-nine times out of a thousand, they make it worse.”
Gerwig’s Little Women has been enjoyed by audiences, and for that I am glad, especially if they felt the same joy as I did reading the novel. Yet, I cannot help but feel that it is almost disrespectful to mischaracterise an author’s creation for your own monetary gain.
Of course, Gerwig is not alone in this. Adaptations have been criticised, crucified, and torn to pieces for years past, and will be in years to come. Netflix recently announced that they were adapting Oscar Wilde’s masterpiece, The Picture of Dorian Gray, but instead of remaining true to his queer construction of Basil Hallward and the titular protagonist, the characters are instead to be made siblings. This seems particularly troubling as Wilde was imprisoned for homosexuality, with excerpts of the novel used as evidence to convict him. Emerald Fennell is also set to release her own adaptation of Emily Bronte’s Victorian gothic, Wuthering Heights, although no details on that project have yet been revealed. It appears that as long as the written word remains, the adaptation tango will too keep on going.
Whenever we drove to Cooma to visit my grandmother, I would always pester my father to put on Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute) for our drive. Something about the tinkling glockenspiel and jolly tones of Papageno’s comical arias was charming, even if I couldn’t understand all the words yet. I would always get upset when we arrived just as the Queen of the Night came on to sing her famous aria. My father would never leave the car running for another mere two minutes to let me listen to the Queen trying to emotionally blackmail her daughter into committing murder.
While watching this opera a few months ago, I registered an interesting theme that was present in it, a theme that is also present in many of the fairy tales and stories so many of us grow up with. Even while basking in pure joy at seeing this beloved opera performed, I recognised the villainisation of strong, independent mother figures — those powerful women with no husband or no man directly in their lives. I noticed how their wickedness is starkened when cast as the dark shadow to their glowing, virtuous daughters or stepdaughters. The Queen is a prime example of this, a paragon of jealousy and vengefulness. Her assigned archetype of antagonist is her eternal punishment for daring to try and keep her daughter, Pamina, out of the clutches of her nemesis Sarastro, the rational and just leader of the enlightened Temple of the Sun cult.
But is the Queen justly cast as jealous and irrationally vengeful, and Sarastro fairly hailed as just, rational and enlightened? It is important to recognise the origins of the opera, which was written by men, and which premiered in 1791 — a very different century in terms of gender equality than that with which we are familiar with. Villainising a woman in a patriarchal worldview would hardly have been blinked at, as shown by the continued acceptance of the villainous nature of the Queen throughout the opera’s history. But how does the trend of strong women being punished manifest not only in this old opera but follow through to also exist in the stories we are so familiar with today? Bear with me, I know opera isn’t everyone’s thing (actually, it isn’t really mine either, and this is the exception), but the Queen and her relationship with her daughter is such a perfect lens through which to view this common theme that is tangled into so many of the stories we are raised on.
The opera starts when a handsome prince, Tamino, is rescued from a fearful serpent by the Queen’s ladies-in-waiting, who can harness the Queen’s immense power. The Queen then sets Tamino to rescue her daughter, Pamina, from the clutches of the evil man Sarastro, who heads the Temple of the Sun. Tamino embarks on this quest, with the promise of Pamina’s hand in marriage if he succeeds, with his companion Papageno, a cheeky and disobedient bird catcher also indebted to the Queen and her ladies. However, instead of rescuing Pamina, both he and Pamina herself see the “error” of the Queen’s ways and instead convert to join Sarastro in blissful and patriarchal “enlightenment”. Endings to the opera vary, some with the Queen receiving the ultimate punishment of banishment, others with the Queen reluctantly accepting her daughter’s choice and Sarastro’s undeniable wisdom.
The Queen is certainly no hero, as is obvious enough from the aforementioned emotional blackmail of her distressed young daughter. Offering one’s daughter to the first man who can save her is also questionable, though Pamina is conveniently quite pleased with the arrangement. However, the same abhorrence that infests the Queen’s actions does not do the same to her motives. She is a woman who refuses to bow to powerful men in a blatantly misogynistic world, as is evident from the lyrics of multiple arias — not surprising when considering the fact that the opera was written by men for a patriarchal society.
In the middle of the opera, we learn that the Queen’s husband died many years ago and that she refused to then relinquish her power and bow down to Sarastro. Fair enough, why should she? In Sarastro’s opinion: because she’s a woman, of course, and women are irrational and threatening to the values of justice and truthfulness when they have no man for guidance. Pamina, recently traumatised and vulnerable from her mother demanding Sarastro’s cold, dead body, is receptive to this message as he embraces her and tells her the gentle truth as he sees fit. And she enacts this “truth” she had been told, suddenly convinced that the idea of life without her own man, Tamino, is quite unbearable. It is surprising Disney never took up the story, as the Queen has such potential as a wicked stepmother and Pamina is the perfect inspiration for another princess who is given no purpose by the writers other than a prince as a means to happiness.
This corruption of Pamina, then, is the first punishment Sarastro, and as an extension, the librettists, enact against the Queen. Her daughter has fallen into the trap the Queen so desperately wished to keep her from, and the prince she thought she could rely on, a compromise to save her daughter, has likewise been ‘enlightened’ by the sexist, domineering Sarastro. Yet she continues to be punished. Throughout the opera, she becomes a trickster. At the beginning of the opera, she is portrayed as the hero, a mother desperate to get her kidnapped daughter back from a man she doesn’t trust. Yet, by the end, she has become a vicious and jealous woman who is unreceptive to reason. Her initial virtues are cast, then, as nothing but a trick, her name, and as an extension, the name of other women in a plight that refuse to conform, slandered forever.
Yet the punishment that stings the most, of course, is her banishment at the end. The ultimate punishment is a warning of what happens to women who reject the notion of male guidance and prefer to live their own lives and raise their daughters as they see fit. To the modern-day woman, Sarastro’s solemn arias about how women are not to be trusted are rather amusing, and we tease each other in the intermission about being hysterical. But to the Queen, and perhaps any women watching this performance throughout its two-and-a-half century existence, her fate is a cruel reminder of the society in which they live, where the presence of a man in their lives is the only guarantee of survival, where any desire or quest or attempt to live independently or semi-independently of men will be scorned and punished. The Queen’s fate is common in many fairy tales, where the mother figures (often a stepmother) act cruelly but are in a similar position of a dead husband or a second husband to ensure their survival. They are pitted against their daughters, their daughters sweet where they are bitter, gentle where they are harsh, submissive where they are authoritative. Being a woman is a nuanced business, but these dichotomies insinuate that there are only two ways to go about it — be good or be evil — a lie through which male dominance has historically consolidated its grip on humanity. So next time you watch a Disney movie or read a fairytale to a young cousin or sibling, or perhaps even go to the opera (not that the Canberra opera scene is particularly active), lend an extra thought to the wicked mother, and whether she is truly wicked, or merely forced by the writers of the past to be wicked through her actions.
I have an ardent confession to make: I love love.
Not the kind where you keep your options in a shopping cart, swiping left and right like you’re browsing for a winter coat. Not the kind where you meet someone twice, tell them they feel like home, and then disappear from the face of the planet. Not the kind where you bask in the warmth of a “what are we?” conversation when you’ve already met their mum. And certainly not the kind where affection arrives in the form of “you up?” at 3 a.m.
I love love: the kind where you buy them flowers just because; where you remember the little things, some told, some observed. The kind where you keep a secret list of their likes and dislikes in your Notes app; where you write silly little love missives, i’s dotted with hearts, and slip them into their bag. The kind where you soak paper in coffee, spray it with your perfume and post letters that smell like you. The gut-wrenchingly vulnerable kind of love.
And oh, love letters! I love love in love letters. Because what do you mean you sat down, picked up a pen, and poured your feelings onto paper, knowing those words would endure? Love letters once carried the weight of human emotion, but maybe we don’t want to confront that weight anymore. Maybe knowing you can always just ghost someone feels safer. Maybe we fear the vulnerability, and lack the sheer courage it takes to send something we can’t edit, can’t unsend, can’t delete. After all, it takes time for ink on paper to fade.
My fervent interest in the disappearance of love letters led me to Kafka’s Letters to Milena, a poignant glimpse into what love once looked like on paper.
If you don’t know Franz Kafka (which, honestly, loser behaviour), here’s a crash course: brilliant, existentially tortured, and pathetically in love. A man obsessed with writing letters. His letters to Milena Jesenská, his long-time lover, are some of the most intimate insights into his mind.
Now that I’ve read the book, and based on the multiple love letters my friends have penned for me over time, here’s how to (and how not to) write a love letter.
Lost for words, not lost for love
Your love letter doesn’t need to begin with a grand, sweeping declaration of eternal devotion. You don’t need to overthink it. Just start writing.
A lot of Kafka’s letters to Milena are simply him describing his day, his surroundings, and the way the world feels without her in it:
“I’m living quite well here, the mortal body could hardly stand more care. The balcony outside my room is sunk into a garden, overgrown and covered with blooming bushes… Lizards and birds, unlikely couples, come visit me: I would very much like to share Meran with you.”
He describes the world around him and says, I wish you were here. That’s it. That’s love.
Love isn’t just grand gestures; it’s the desire to share even the most mundane moments with someone. It’s missing them, not just when you’re alone but in a room full of distractions too. Write, no matter how trivial your thoughts seem. Ultimately, it’s the sentiment that counts.
Say what you mean, mean what you feel
In one letter, Milena tells Kafka she loves him, but she also loves her husband, Pollak, and will never leave him.
Emotionally devastating? Yes. Diabolical? Yes.
But at least they’re honest with each other. They both know where they stand.
A love letter must be steeped in truth, a sincere reflection of your heart. Be clear in your intentions, and for the love of all that matters, don’t twist something as sacred as a love letter into a tool for manipulation or love-bombing. It should resonate with authenticity, so that even decades later, when discovered in a forgotten shoebox, its essence remains as vibrant and true as the day it was penned.
You can be vulnerable without being a walking red flag (unlike Kafka)
“Perhaps it isn’t love when I say you are what I love the most—you are the knife I turn inside myself, this is love.”
Look, I love vulnerability. I love raw, messy, unfiltered emotion as much as the next person. But there’s a fine line between being deeply romantic and concerningly unhinged. Kafka, unfortunately, did not know where that line was.
You, however, should.
Pour your heart out, yes. Tell them how much they mean to you. But maybe don’t write things that make them question whether they need to file a restraining order. Aim for endearment, not distress. Love letters should leave the reader feeling adored, not burdened.
Beware: love is both glory and doom
“I wrote you a note from Prague and then from Meran. I have not received any answer. It so happens the notes did not require a particularly prompt reply and if your silence is nothing more than a sign of relative well-being, then I am completely satisfied.”
Kafka writes every day. He writes without expecting a response. Because perhaps the greatest joy of love was always being able to express it.
Now, I’m not telling you to flood your crush’s inbox with a thousand love letters even after they’ve clearly rejected you. I am not enabling that behaviour.
All I am saying is, don’t be afraid to let people know what they mean to you. Just don’t expect too much in return. As much as it sucks, sometimes HE’S JUST NOT THAT INTO YOU. But then there is always that lucky possibility that they adore you just as much as you do. You’ll never know until you deliver that letter.
Kafka is overwhelming and raw in his honesty. Would a modern-day Milena be charmed by Kafka’s letters, or would she block him for sending messages at dawn that sound like existential crises? Who knows.
Letters to Milena reminds us that love–real, heart-wrenching love, is worth writing down.
Sure: we’re all hustling through life, our emotions are condensed into emoji quick-reactions and hastily-composed replies to Instagram stories, and vulnerability feels more like a risk than a rite. Who has time for grandiloquent prose when doom scrolling is afoot and another “seen” notification waits to be artfully ignored? Love letters are a high-stakes gamble with scant returns.
But here’s a little secret: I still have every note and letter I’ve ever received, lovingly placed on my bedside table. Some are from people who have since become strangers to me, while others are from those I speak to every day. Regardless, I cherish the habit of revisiting them every few weeks.
People often lose sight of how loved they are, no matter how many cutesy reels you send their way. Love letters, however, ensure that this truth remains vivid and undeniable.
So, write one. Let the people you love know you love them. It will always be worth every effort.
Woroni Radio welcomes you to the first Woroni Gig Guide for 2025! This guide lists most, if not all, shows happening in Canberra between now and the start of April. Originally, this was devised as a feature for the upcoming Extinction magazine, to showcase the fact that local live music is very much, in fact, not extinct. However, timelines made this impossible, so we have published it on our site so that whoever needs it can use it to its fullest extent. This list isn’t comprehensive, so if you know of any upcoming shows, feel free to let us know via emailing radio@woroni.com.
Bands, times, and prices are accurate at time of writing * = concession prices
Every Saturday
Wayne Kelly Trio @ Tilley’s Devine Cafe Gallery (6:00pm, FREE)
Friday 14/3
Crucial Waft (calyx, Sia Ahmed + Tom Fell & NIMBY) @ Dissent Cafe & Bar (7:30pm, $15)
Tijuana Cartel @ The Baso (7:00pm, $51)
A Commoner’s Revolt, Domesticated Incels & Ben Pegram @ The Polo (7:00pm, $15)
Saturday 15/3
Pseudo Echo @ The Baso (7:00pm, $51)
Lost Coast & Flik & Frames @ The Polo (7:30pm, $20)
The Filthy Darlings, The Shadow Ministers & The Petch Experience @ Smith’s Alternative (9:00pm, $15)
Sunday 16/3
Georgia Bennett @ The Old Canberra Inn (4:00pm, FREE)
Inez Hargaden (4:00pm, FREE)
Sam Buckingham @ Smith’s Alternative (7:00, $25*)
Tuesday 18/3
Ruthie Foster @ The Street Theatre (7:30pm, $75)
Thursday 20/3
Kim Salmon’s Smoked Salmon @ Smith’s Alternative (9:30pm, $35*)
The Brother Brothers & Isobel Rumble @ Smith’s Alternative (6:30pm, $20*)
Friday 21/3
Khan & Voodoo Acid Space Kings @ The Baso (7:00pm, $30)
Majelen & Tessa Devine @ Smith’s Alternative (6:30pm, $15*)
RAMSTONE, The Filthy Darlings & Napoleon Ice Cream @ Dissent Cafe & Bar (7:30pm, $20)
Shivi Vachaspati Trio @ Dickson Taphouse (8:00pm, FREE)
Ziggy Alberts @ UC Refectory (7:30pm, $93)
Saturday 22/3
Blue Angel & Dr Wiedemann’s Orchestra & Black Owl Quartet @ Smith’s Alternative (3:00pm, $10*)
David McCredie @ Smith’s Alternative (6:00pm, $20*)
Eviscerate The Crown, Russian Novel, Telurian & Switch Up @ The Baso (7:00pm, $18)
FUNLAND (Tired Lion, Verge Collection, Egoism, Smartcasual, Sonic Reducer, Sunsick Daisy, Swapmeet & Archie) @ UC Hub Courtyard (4:00pm, $52)
STS Fest (Flavuh, The Engine, Nuta Mantis & Buffy) @ Dissent Bar & Cafe (7:30pm, $20)
The Sunday Estate @ The Baso (7:00pm, $23)
Zambezi Sounds @ Smith’s Alternative (9:00pm, $15)
Sunday 23/3
Chris O’Connor @ The Old Canberra Inn (4:00pm, FREE)
Comfy Gutters & Liz Caddy @ Smith’s Alternative (3:00pm, $10*)
Moondog @ Dickson Taphouse (4:00pm, FREE)
Wednesday 26/3
Kristina Olsen & Peter Grayling @ Smith’s Alternative (6:30pm, $25*)
Thursday 27/3
Travis Collins @ The Baso (7:00pm, $33*)
Friday 28/3
Black Owl Quartet @ Dickson Taphouse (8:00pm, FREE)
Cardboard Cutouts & Sex With Men @ Dissent Cafe & Bar (7:30pm, $15)
Kasey Chambers @ Canberra Theatre Centre (7:30pm, $91)
Lakeside at 5 (Rachel Thoms Trio & Aidan and Bianca) @ Tuggeranong Arts Centre (5:30pm, donation)
The Crossbenchers @ The Old Canberra Inn (7:00pm, FREE)
The Weeping Willows & Great Aunt @ Smith’s Alternative (6:30pm, $20*)
Saturday 29/3
Big Reef, Rat Boy School Excursion & Buzzcuts @ Dissent Cafe & Bar (7:30pm, $10)
Capital Punishment (Shackles, Fat Lip, Gravitate, Highland Light, Discount Code, Step 2 Me & Minefield) @ The Baso (7:00pm, $45)
John Craigie & Kassi Valazza @ Smith’s Alternative (6:00pm, $45)
Johnny Reynolds Band @ The Old Canberra Inn (2:00pm, FREE)
La Descarga & Los Chavos @ The Polo (7:30pm, $35) Sunday 30/3 Flik @ The Old Canberra Inn (4:00pm, FREE)
Georgia Bennett @ Dickson Taphouse (4:00pm, FREE)
Tuesday 1/4
Stand Atlantic & RedHook @ The Baso (7:00pm,. $56)
Thursday 3/4
Kim Churchill @ Smith’s Alternative (9:30pm, $40)
Pierce Brothers & Flynn Gurry @ UC Hub (7:00pm, $46)
You Am I & Grace Cummings @ UC Refectory (7:00pm, $91)
Friday 4/4
Bootleg Rascal, Dante Knows & Dizzy Days @ The Baso (7:00pm, $45)
Flynn Marcus Quartet @ Dickson Taphouse (8:00pm, FREE)
We Mavericks & Two If By Sea @ Smith’s Alternative (6:30pm, $20*)
Saturday 5/4
Ess-Em, Doxxed & A Commoner’s Revolt @ Dissent Cafe & Bar (7:30pm, $20)
Lucie Thorne + Hamish Stuart @ Smith’s Alternative (4:00pm, $20*)
Sunday 6/4
Dean Haitani @ Dickson Taphouse (4:00pm, FREE)
Lewis DeLorenzo @ The Old Canberra Inn (4:00pm, FREE)
Comments Off on So, You Want to Read Judith Butler? Start with these 5 Essays.
Love them or hate them, Judith Butler might just be one of the most influential thinkers of the last 30 years, spawning and developing our understanding of basically all humanities concerns: sexuality and gender, language and meaning, peace and violence, relationships and family, identity and subjectivity, law and politics, and even life and death.
I would argue that anyone studying law, arts, philosophy, languages, politics, and even biology or medicine would benefit greatly from at least one of Butler’s insights — and I’d assume that’s very likely to include you.
Butler is best-known for their theory of performativity, applying linguist J. L. Austin’s theory of ‘performative’ utterances – acts of speech which, in being spoken, bring that action into being (e.g. “I promise…” → constitutes a promise) – to a general understanding of our performative constitution of gender/sexual identity – acts of social speech, if you will. Or, in Butler’s words:
Consider gender, for instance, as a corporeal style, an “act,” as it were, which is both intentional and performative, where “performative” suggests a dramatic and contingent construction of meaning. (Gender Trouble, p177)
Confused? Don’t worry.
Whether you’ve ever referred to gender as ‘performed’, or simply acted in a way that was intended to represent – to ‘do’ – your gender (like actively choosing the cologne that’s assigned to your gender)… you’re evidence of Butler’s argument.
Butler’s ideas remain equally consequential and controversial in the wide-ranging canon of continental philosophy; whilst the philosopher has books and prizes written in their honour, they have also been dubbed ‘the Professor of Parody’ with protests against their work in Brazil which burnt an effigy of her.
That said, Darin Barney provides the following defence of Butler, summarising their legacy amid polarised reception amongst certain sections of their academe:
[Their] work… on gender, sex, sexuality, queerness, feminism, bodies, political speech and ethics has… also changed the lives of countless people whose bodies, genders, sexualities and desires have made them subject to violence, exclusion and oppression, by lending recognition, dignity and power to their experience, and by illuminating the contours of an ethics in which we might begin to live well with, and because of, the differences that constitute us.
Where do I stand?
After reading the preface to Gender Trouble in Year 10 at the ripe age of 15, my life was never the same; truly, an anagnorisis of my gay (?) teenagehood.
Butler’s work proved instrumental to my relationship with myself, my body, and the plethora of bodies and selves (and embodied selfhoods!) I have come across in my lifetime. I probably revisit Butler on a fortnightly-to-monthly basis in some capacity, either reading their work directly or another scholar’s Butlerian analysis.
However, even a Butlerite like me can admit that their work can be difficult to read, especially for a beginner. 26 years ago, Butler won first prize in the journal Philosophy and Literature’s ‘Bad Writing Competition’ for a 94-word sentence.
…Regardless of the polarity of their work’s reception, Butler’s importance as a theorist, a writer, and an academic is clear.
So, having chipped away at Butler’s body of work for four, coming on five, years… I have collated an ordered list of five essays (~70 pages total) to get started with Butler’s work, each with a difficulty rating, the length, the overall topics, and my favourite quote.
Essay 1) Judith Butler: ‘We need to rethink the category of woman’
For: anyone!!
Difficulty: 1 / 5 stars (2000 words)
Topics: Queer and feminist politics/activism; performativity; queer history
Gender is an assignment that does not just happen once: it is ongoing. We are assigned a sex at birth and then a slew of expectations follow which continue to “assign” gender to us.
Let’s start with an interview with theorist Julie Gleeson. Here, Butler’s reflections span a range of topics, tracking temporal and cultural differences in the many political arenas in which they operate: queer rights, access to academia, collective action, what it means to have or do a gender. While not essential reading, Gleeson’s interview showcases Butler’s interconnected, interdisciplinary approach, deepening your reading of her work.
Essay 2) Protest, Violent, and Nonviolent
For: politics, international relations, history, and law students
Difficulty: 1 / 5 stars (12 pages)
Topics: (Anti-)Fascism; political action; democracy; class; justification of violence; harm
Protest is a way of voting on and with the streets, asserting a sense of the people that remains radically unrepresented by the “representative” government that exists. (p 239)
Two great things about this essay are that it’s written really simply, and there are no overdrawn academic footnotes as Butler introduces, analyses, and moves on from each external reference. This is great for those without a thorough backing in theory or philosophy, hence why I’ve suggested it so early in my list of accessible Butler works. Read these 12 pages and you’ll never think the same way about the scenes of violence our society lets slide (but maybe shouldn’t): tasers, arrests, insecticide, your parents smacking you.
Essay 3) How Can I Deny That These Hands and This Body Are Mine?
For: philosophy, linguistics, and English students
Difficulty: 2 / 5 stars (18 pages)
Topics: Descartes; the mind vs the body; thinking; writing; embodiment; metaphysics
There is no writing without the body, but no body fully appears along with the writing that it produces. (p 28)
Did you take PHIL1004 and also find yourself deeply dissatisfied with Descartes’ work? Read this. I found this when preparing for my PHIL1004 final exam, desperate for an articulation of the holes I kept poking in Cartesian mind-body dualism (the idea that our minds and our bodies are separate entities; the former, reliable and the latter, an obstacle to our access to the former). Butler tears Descartes to shreds, without the overly verbose technicality that analytic philosophy seeks to ingrain in a budding philosopher. Like psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, Butler exposes the impossibility of Descartes’ attempt to disembody himself through his philosophical practice.
Essay 4) Kinship beyond the Bloodline
For: sociology, biology, medicine, policy, law, international relations, or history students
Difficulty: 3 / 5 stars (22 pages)
Topics: Family; queerness; slavery; blood; culture; race; friends-as-family; relationships; coming out; family law
On the one hand, the reduction of kinship to genetic tie… is one way that the government evacuates the affective character of the bond of kinship. On the other hand, that same affective tie is presumed and exploited by the exact same policy. (p 33)
Is blood thicker than water? Butler manages to pack a LOT into this essay, blending STEM and the Arts remarkably, hence my 3/5 difficulty rating; even though everyone should read this essay, some aspect of this analysis will almost certainly be outside of your usual. Butler covers epigenetics, migration policy, tribalism, reproduction, and the family to present an account for how society and science blend natural and cultural processes in its heteronormative structuring of relationships.
Essay 5) Performative Acts and Gender Constitution
For: anyone gay; English, sociology, philosophy — or any Arts students
Difficulty: 4 / 5 stars (12 pages)
Topics: Phenomenology; bodies; theatre; gender; identity; performance; speech acts; gay shit
Gender reality is performative which means, quite simply, that it is real only to the extent that it is performed. (p 527)
I’m leaving the most challenging, but most rewarding for last: where it all started (at least, the gender theory). It’s here that Butler first introduces their theory of gender performativity. This piece is technical, but not particularly challenging – I read it in Year 10 without any background in philosophy; for me, my curiosity about much-asked questions (Why are you gay? What makes you gay? Are you a guy or a girl?) were plenty to pique my interest.
If you want to really, really understand every question you’ve probably asked yourself from an early age about your gender and our gendered world, these 12 pages are scripture. Although written in 1988, Butler presents a cogent explanation of many historical and current phenomena, and how male and female are unstable, shifting, and largely discursively established categories: how can “man” include Louis XIV’s silk stockings and Andrew Tate’s extra-tight V-neck shirts? How can “woman” both presume and chastise sexuality?
The danger of Butler’s work, its thrill, resides within these 12 pages…exemplifying knowledge’s power to challenge power itself.
Comments Off on What arts degrees are really costing us
Upon making the ever-predictable switch from the flashy PPE degree to the humble Bachelor of Arts at the end of my first semester of university, the typical reaction — after a cursory glance at my outfit, followed by a quip that I ‘look more like an Arts student anyway’ — was that of good-natured derision: ‘studying unemployment, then?’. After all, as one jokes, I may as well have taken several tens of thousands of dollars and tossed them in the creek. The disdain towards arts degrees as endeavours of childish passion or directionless experimentation is one which I have internalised since learning of their existence and the attitudes they elicit, and one which has been perpetuated for generations. The idea that the BA is professionally futile sits smugly in the minds of Australians, young and old, not budging for any desperate attempts by arts students (myself included, of course) made to polish its colloquial reputation. They’re unemployable, plain and simple!
Adding fuel to the fire for the status of arts degrees is the ever-looming rise in their prices, a lingering hangover from the Coalition government’s 2021 implementation of the ‘Job Ready Graduates’ (JRG) scheme, which increased student contribution to humanities degrees by 113 percent. 2024 is the first year that the average arts degree costs a student over $50,000. The scheme has been subject to heavy criticism by Australian universities but nevertheless forced the tightening of their budgetary belts to respond to the withdrawal of government funding to the humanities. Close to home, several Bachelor programs such as Development Studies and Middle East and Asian Studies have been struck off the ANU’s degree offerings in light of the changes.
The JRG scheme has, however, proven a failure, with the subsidisation of ‘in-demand’ non-humanities degrees making negligible changes to interest in the arts. The Labor government is soon set to reflect in new policy a need to reconstruct the scheme and its fee arrangements ‘before it causes long-term and entrenched damage to Australian higher education’, according to education minister Jason Clare.
However, the impacts have already been felt. Pre-existing notions of arts degrees as futile, unemployable ventures have snowballed, with their emergent association with financial irresponsibility and privileged pretension. All this against the backdrop of the cost-of-living crisis and persistent HECS-HELP indexation has led to the warped image of the BA as being accessible exclusively to those cushioned by wealth and guarantees of stability.
This image is not innocuous, and threatens not only a new arts student’s fragile ego but the essence of the study of humanities itself. Studies of politics, literature, history, anthropology, development and sociology rely inherently on diversity of perspective and challenge the structures that govern human interaction to foster the critical thinking skills required to maintain it. For as long as arts degrees are believed, understandably, to be lying behind significant social and financial barriers, the arts degree will fall victim to the fatal flaw of any area of study: homogeneity.
ANU’s status as the university with the lowest proportion of low-income students in the country makes this all the more apparent. The mere fact that the typical ice-breaker question in the first tutorial of Introduction to Philosophy was which inordinately expensive residential hall each of us resided at was evidence enough that diversity of background and perspective is, for the most part, not the forte of the arts cohort. The reality remains that for many prospective students from low socio-economic backgrounds, these expensive courses are cast as a rich kids’ playground, where ideas from well-funded high school philosophy classes are recycled and jargon is revered. Admittedly, epiphenomenal consciousness can have even the most avid wordsmith’s eyes rolling. Still, it is the critical thinking skills that humanities courses seek to attune that are the victims of the stereotype of pretentiousness that surrounds them.
The development of literacy, critical analysis and communication skills — emboldening the idea that more than one solution to a problem exists and that subjectivity holds value — are the arts degree’s overt strengths and those its defenders eagerly spout. However, as far as their usefulness is concerned, for every prospective student who refrains from pursuing tertiary education by virtue of its financial impossibility, the quality of these skills diminishes.
Suppose there are not wide ranges of perspectives and criticism in the classrooms of these courses. In that case, they will never truly serve to develop the ‘adaptability and ability to help shape change’ proclaimed by our university as the degree’s purpose. What’s more, at a time when artificial intelligence has thrown the replicability status of human critical thinking and retrospection into question, to hike the prices of the courses designed to foster them such that they are confined to the realm of academic indulgence, rather than the accessible mainstream, is irresponsible. It only acts to give arts degrees unique futility.
In a time where HECS no longer universally cushions young people’s tertiary education decisions and university education maintains its culture of exclusivity, a costly course thought to be undertaken by those with the assurance of employability and financial stability is ‘useless’ insofar as it remains restricted and stained by elitism. Change to the JRG scheme is imperative; job readiness is never achieved through punishing students’ pursuit of passion, but by opening opportunities to bring invaluable diversity of attitude and perspective to the classrooms, training the future (very employable, thank you very much) professionals of Australia.
Comments Off on ANU Arts Revue: Sending Brian Back to Kansas
Arts Revue opens with a joke. Not a skit, a single joke. The keyboard player gets up, walks to centre stage, and announces that he’s going to tell a joke that’s ‘okay to say’, because he heard it on the radio.
“How does a pornstar get paid?
Income.”
(Get it, because it sounds like in-cum?)
It wasn’t a bad joke – it was fine, it got a laugh – but we were left confused. Who was this guy, who didn’t appear in a single skit after his one joke? Why was this the opener? Were they stalling while they sorted out technical issues? Did he just really want to be a part of it, while also playing his keyboard?
Arts Revue left all of these questions unanswered, but it gave us a great show to make up for it. The just-fine pornstar joke is thankfully followed by an excellent ‘Life is a Highway’ parody, ‘Life is a Parkes Way’, full of jokes about the perils of driving in Canberra. This was the first of many solid parodies. A special shoutout to ‘Love is an Open Door/There’s Vomit on the Floor’, an ode to a scenario many a Senior Resident has faced on a Thursday night, and a long but funny and oddly heartwarming skit where the Phantom of the Opera joins the Backstreet Boys. Though these were all good, the highlight had to be the number about society keeping Miss Piggy and Kermit apart. The costuming – a frog suit, a dress and a cheap wig – was exactly what you’d expect, and Georgia Mcculloch’s performance as Kermit was especially moving. From Kermit to Brian Schmidt’s American accent to the practised cadence of a newsreader, Mcculloch’s unique talent for impressions – ie. ‘doing funny voices’ – meant she never once broke character.
If a powerful, poignant anthem about the enduring power of frog-pig sex doesn’t sound like your kind of thing, then Arts Revue provided plenty of ANU-related comedy for the average revue enjoyer. A breakup between ANU and Schmidt, where his Nobel Prize is the other woman, captured the heartbreak of Schmidt’s departure. Even the Devil himself, accompanied by a grovelling minion he had an insane amount of sexual tension with, visited to announce his plans for a new and improved ANU. These ranged from not-that-bad-maybe-an-improvement-actually (sinking Wamburun into the depths of Hell) to downright evil (quadruple-factor authentication for every sign-on).
Not all of the skits were this good. A few were just drawn-out puns. A woman goes to the doctor about a lump on her arm; it’s Taylor Cyst, a cyst that plays Taylor Swift songs. Bird watchers make jokes about seeing nice pairs of tits. The latter does get points for walking right up to my co-writer and implying they had thrush, though. Excellent audience participation, almost as good as the bit where they turned off all the lights and ran a guided meditation, lulling us all into a false sense of security so that they could steal our belongings. Thankfully everything was returned after the show – no need to press charges.
Charlie Joyce Thompson deserves a special mention for bringing an extra laugh to every skit he starred in. His delivery, accents, acting and improv were fantastic and he had us keeling over, whether he was playing Miss Piggy or a South African High Court judge.
We saw Arts Revue on the opening night, so we were ready to forgive any tech issues. Which is good, because there were a fair few of them: lights going up randomly during scenes that were supposed to be dark (at least we think so), Taylor Swift playing during the devil’s speech and the wrong Powerpoint playing during a student presentation skit – somehow, this last one was still kind of funny.
Nonetheless, Arts Revue proved a funny, well-coordinated, well-acted performance. Its strengths were its actors and its parodies and musical numbers, each one somehow better than the last. It ended with a bang: a parody of ‘I’m Just Ken’ to the tune of “I’m Just Brian” and mashed up with even more Backstreet Boys. A fantastic way to the end night, and a charming and funny end to the revue season.
Comments Off on Interview with ANU alum, director and producer of The Giants, Rachael Antony
Few figures have had as powerful an impact on the course of Australian history as Bob Brown.
Currently showing in cinemas, The Giants is a feature length biopic directed and produced by ANU alumn Rachael Antony, exploring the life and accomplishments of Bob Brown alongside a stunning portrayal of the history of the Tasmanian forest and landscape. The documentary reveals his journey from doctor in Tasmania, to eventual leader of the first Greens party, and hero of the Australian environmentalism movement.
The Giants skilfully traces the achievements of Bob Brown as champion and protector of the Tasmanian forest and Franklin River, beautifully interwoven with the lifecycle and stories of the forest itself. While much of Bob’s life has been subject of public interest and knowledge, The Giants takes viewers behind the curtain. The film explores Bob’s private world and the important figures who have continually supported him behind the scenes. Showing the parallel life stories of Bob and the forest he treasured, side by side, The Giants invites viewers to come to know the trees as Bob did; wise custodians of the land and complex beings with their own history to tell.
Seeking to both entertain and educate, The Giants explores the horrors of clear felling and logging that plague the Tasmanian forest. While tracing the journey of Brown’s courageous fight to save both the trees and the Franklin River, viewers are reminded of the willing ignorance of political figures against whom Bob fought, showing (as if Australians needed further reminding) the sheer greed and recklessness of private interest and political parties’ historic, blatant disregard for Australia’s natural treasures. This destruction continues to this day. I suggest readers check out the Bob Brown Foundation Instagram to follow the journey of Lenny who is currently attached in protest to a cable logger, protecting the forest around her from logging, which is a critical habitat for Swift parrots.
Breathtaking drone shots, archival footage, and intriguing animations work together to create a stunning cinemascape for viewers, bringing the trees to life and immersing viewers in the world that Bob fought so hard to protect. For aspiring activists, those interested in the origins of Australian politics, or any lover of the natural world, The Giants is a worthwhile watch.
I sat down with Rachel to chat about making The Giants, the inspiration behind the film, and why more people should put Tasmania on their travel lists.
To start off with, I’d love to know a little bit about you and your background, and how you came to be directing and producing this documentary?
Long story short, I studied in Canberra. I studied anthropology and politics. And even though I didn’t work in either of those fields, I found that they were really quite helpful because I think both anthropology and politics ask you to question your assumptions and to ask questions of the status quo, and that’s really the starting point of any storytelling, I think. Later I studied journalism at RMIT. So I started out as a writer, and then I guess as time has evolved, and video has evolved, I’ve branched into different mediums and worked in TV and online video.
Originally the idea was to get people off screens and get them engaged into events, but based around the screens, I guess. So one of the things that came out of that was we wanted to do this big event for the anniversary of Cathy Freeman’s win at the Sydney Olympics in 2000. So we want to do that in 2020, and then what happened was everybody loved this idea, but we couldn’t get any money. Then we ended up getting some funding from ABC to make a documentary and that was the best possible thing that could have happened because September 2020, everybody was locked down, stuck at home watching television. Yeah. So that’s how that came about.
So then once we finished Freeman, I guess we were thinking about telling stories about people whose stories are bigger than themselves. Because I think, while people can be fascinating individually, the stories that they tell in terms of the way that their life is, and the messages, the bigger that is, the more compelling it is.
We were thinking about other people who we felt were really interesting and to be honest, really only one name came up and that was Bob Brown.
I think one thing that we were quite concerned about was the messages we’re getting about climate change. We have a kid ourselves, so we have this very tangible link to the next generation. Which is not to say that we wouldn’t have cared otherwise, because we did. Then of course, with the bushfires, what we saw was a massive amount of our native forests destroyed. And then soon after that, you know, while native animals were being pushed to the brink of extinction, we saw state logging operations coming in and conduct salvage logging, so removing old dead trees from the forest that – if they had just been left – would have served as habitat because various species of birds or possums can live in dead trees, and it gets them off the ground away from predators.
At this point, we just felt this was taking things too far, humans will never have enough. We’ll never say ‘no, we’re done now’. It’s always about more, things are really out of balance. We thought ‘this is crazy’, and around the same time we have been getting really inspired by some of the reading we had been doing. So we’ve been reading the Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben, Finding the Mother Tree by Suzanne Simard, and they’re making us start thinking differently about forests and trees and also realising how crucial they were.
We made this film pretty quickly, so it’s hard to remember exactly how it all came together. But what we came up with was telling the story of Bob Brown, intertwined with the life of trees. The reason we did that is because we felt that by embedding the forest into the film from the outset, it sort of explained Bob’s worldview and why he’s worked so hard to save these forests and why we should all care about this as well. We also wanted to show the majesty and beauty of these places. Keeping in mind that, you know, Australia is one of the few places left on earth that does have primary forest. In Europe, they basically have no primary forest. So this is a very long story, but um, an answer to your question ‘how did it end up producing directing?’ well, a whole lot of life events.
One of my favourite parts of the film was the way it wove together Bob’s personal life with the hidden story of the trees and embedded his story within the story of the forest. I got the impression of so much richness and depth to Bob’s life. How did you decide which aspects of Bob’s personal life you were going to kind of focus on?
So we decided we would tell the story of Bob, intertwine it with a life of trees, everybody said that was a good idea. Nobody said ‘you’re crazy, how are you going to put Bob’s life into 45 minutes and the trees into 45 minutes?’ And so the answer to that is, we didn’t.
The film was at an hour and fifty three minutes, we could not get it any shorter. Our first cut was three hours, and we hadn’t even finished making the film. So to answer that, we really had to be quite brutal. I guess, because we had intertwined the life of trees, we had meeting points for both. So that gave us a trajectory, from you know, seedling, childhood, to sapling, maturity, and grandfather elder, if you like.
So we knew where we were going, then we needed to figure out which things to put in, which not. In the end, we had to get rid of a lot of stuff that’s actually pretty fascinating. Bob tried to pass gun control in Tasmania, years before Port Arthur happened and both Liberal and Labour parties shot it down, figuratively speaking. We didn’t put in the fact that he and another bunch of environmentalists were sued for $20 million by the Gunns wood chipping company in Tasmania.
We didn’t put in the fact that Bob once took out a mortgage to pay the ransom of an Australian pirate who had been kidnapped in Somalia.
So I know this is so much more, so what we had to do is this broad brushstroke story that connected as much as possible with those key convictions. He talks about optimism, he talks about defiance and he talks about compassion. So we found those stories, the ones that told those stories most strongly, or pointed into the direction of the forest, are the ones that we went to. So it was really quite a heartbreaking process. Also, obviously Paul [Bob’s partner] is a central character, but I’m sure if you’ve seen the films, you know that at every step there’s this amazing woman, right in there, doing exactly the same thing, he doesn’t do it alone. Each one of those women has a whole backstory. Basically we could have made a mini series, but we didn’t, we’ve made a film. So yeah, so the answer is, we just took the bits that told the story the best, and then we had to kill our darlings, so to speak.
Obviously we were always going to talk about his relationship with Paul, and then that became a slightly bigger part of the story, because while we always wanted to present that essentially as a love story, obviously it was complicated by the legal and social context of the time, so we needed to provide some background to that. So we have Paul, who was involved in gay law reform in Tasmania, tell that story about the movement that was headed up by people like Rodney Croome. So that did become a little bit bigger, but I think it also became stronger because of it.
When you were envisioning the documentary, how were you hoping people would feel walking away from it? Was there something in particular that you wanted people to feel or be influenced towards?
We felt Bob was an interesting character because he’s a baby boomer, but his interest in his message is so contemporary. We felt that a lot of the dialogue around climate change has pitted one generation against the other: the generation that’s old and has benefited from everything and stuffed it up for the younger generation. And a lot of that is true, but not entirely true. We felt that the best way to tackle these issues was in a cross generational way, whether it’s on action or voting, or whatever it is. We thought that Bob, because he’s an older person, but he speaks to younger audiences, we felt that he was potentially a unifying person in some ways. What we wanted people to feel was wonder and marvel for our forest and our natural heritage, which is so extraordinary. Most Australians know about the Redwoods, but I don’t think many people know about the Eucalyptus regnans. People would be horrified if they thought ‘oh, you would just pulp the redwoods for toilet paper’, but that’s apparently okay in Australia!
But it’s not, because 70% to 80% of people want native logging stopped, they just don’t understand what it really entails. People think it’s been used to make fine furniture, but it’s not, only 2% is used for long term wood products, 60% of it is left on the forest floors, and it’s set on fire. It transforms from a carbon storage facility of a forest to carbon emissions. It’s just insanity.
So we want people to feel a wonderment about the forest, but we also wanted them to feel hopeful and galvanised, if that’s possible. We didn’t want to make a depressing documentary. We can’t watch depressing documentaries and definitely can’t spend two and a half years making one. So while some of the subject material was challenging, I think overall it’s a hopeful film, and I think overall, Bob is a hopeful person and you do need hope right now.
We just need to stay focused on the idea that if we are hopeful and if we act, then change will come. And as Bob says, it was a long campaign to save the Franklin, eighteen months before it was saved, it looked like it was doomed. So eighteen months isn’t a long time, it’s not even two years. So what we think is, let’s talk about native forest logging now and let’s finish it now. Because if we’ve got money for submarines and football stadiums and tax cuts for very rich people, then we have money to stop this industry that’s costing us money and to make meaningful action on climate change.
There’s some absolutely stunning shots of the Tasmanian landscape throughout the film. How did you balance trying to get those shots with trying not to disturb or harm the ecosystems and wildlife where you were filming?
We worked with a team called The Tree Projects in Tasmania. They’re professional tree climbers, and they helped to rig cameras high up into the canopy. So the opening shot that you see is not a drone camera. We showed the forest in a number of ways. One was using cameras, one was using drones, and one was 3D scanning of the forest working with an organisation called TerraLuma, at University of Tasmania. Then sending the data to Alex Le Guillou who’s a French animator, and he turned it into point cloud animation. The animation you see in the film is actually an actual tree. So what we did was actually cast three trees like you would do three characters. Eucalyptus regnans, which are amongst the tallest plants from the world; Huon pines, one of the oldest lived and myrtle beech in the Tarkine, which is one the most diversity rich trees. One of the people we spoke to described it as a ‘great barrier reef of trees’ because it’s covered in lichen and algae and stuff. Very interesting trees. So in answer to your question, for instance that tree in the Tarkine, it’s just inside an area near a clear fell. So basically, the Bob Brown foundation stopped them logging it, otherwise it wouldn’t have been there. They’re really taking direct action, using whatever means they have to protect the Tarkine and to protect native forest in Tasmania, as are, you know, groups across Australia. And it’s really thanks to their direct action that we could film that tree, because literally, it’s next in line.
Speaking about some of the other groups that are operating in Australia, while you were making this documentary, I think it was at the same time that Blockade Australia was taking action that was very reminiscent of Bob’s methods, these really direct, not aggressive, but impactful stages of a protest. How do you kind of feel about that? Did it give you any similar hope, reflecting on those young people doing such similar work to what Bob did during his life?
I didn’t think specifically about Blockade Australia, but, obviously, we’re all very well aware of the school strikes and all those other environmental grassroots movements, and also youth movements. At the time, I remember just before COVID-19, when there were these massive street protests, and there was debate over whether kids should be on the street or not, and my personal feeling was always to say “when there’s kids on the street, it’s a symptom that adults haven’t stepped up and done their job, so this is the only means left to them.” They can’t vote, they don’t have other means of power. So for me, it was really a symptom of adult failure. I guess we wanted to contribute to that.
I think that when you think about climate environmentalism, it’s very easy to feel overwhelmed. But ultimately, everybody can do something.
When I interviewed Christine Milne, she said something very interesting, which was that environmental movements need everyone, they need people to protest, sometimes they need people to get arrested, but they also need graphic designers or web people. Ultimately, the world just needs people who can just have an environmental frame of mind.
Maybe you can’t protest, but maybe if you’re in health or education or departments, you often have within yourself the power to ask questions to make changes, and these can add up to quite a lot. I think when you look at Bob Brown and all he’s achieved in his life, him being one person alone, but making that decision is just really the fundamental start.
Something I really loved about the film was how it wove archival footage of the protests on the Franklin together with recent footage of Bob Brown. What was the process like of finding that footage?
It was really massive because Bob Brown has basically put on fifty years of activism, so he’s been in the public eye for that time. So, we had an extraordinary amount of material to work with, but that was also the problem as well, because there was so much to work through so we did a number of things. We got a lot of news, archived from the ABC, and probably most of what you see of the Franklin is that, but the more recent Franklin footage was sourced from other places.
One of the reasons why we showed modern footage of the Franklin is that the older footage, I think, fails to capture the beauty because it feels a bit faded and it doesn’t quite have the aesthetic quality of contemporary footage. So we wanted to really show, ‘actually this is how it looks and it is really spectacular’. Also access from the National Library of Australia, they have Bob Brown’s personal archive there, which is again, massive amounts of boxes, and we were able to go through that to get childhood photos and reports, and letters and get up the idea of who was crucially important in his personal life, and then there are a number of documentaries as well that we could source material from. So, let us say that we have an archive producer who basically has this spreadsheet from hell, so it’s a huge job.
When you were going through the process of filming, you said it was over two and a half years. Was there a particular memorable or special moment either with Bob Brown or maybe just with the trees, that stands out to you from your time making the film?
Well, so when I say two and a half years, that’s not filming, that’s doing everything so you know, producing, scripting, and post production everything. We did the shoot in Liffey, at Bob’s farmhouse and it was really, I guess, interesting, because he had talked about this house as like this companion and this friend. So it was interesting to go there and see how it was, and suddenly just to be struck by the warmth of that environment and how beautiful it is. Because you’ve got the farmhouse, you’ve got the mountains, you’ve got the river and all the elements are in place, and I feel like there’s something in that landscape that really balances Bob’s idea, which is like you’ve got this little human space, which is the hut, but there’s space for nature all around it. And that for me sort of encompasses the way he looks at the world. We should take up a little bit of space but let everything else flourish.
What’s interesting is the Tarkine where we filmed, it’s really 30km away from Cradle Mountain National Park, which is one of the biggest tourism draw cards in Tasmania. So you could literally go there and just drive along [to the Tarkine], and that would be like the perfect tourism adventure, but it’s just being logged and Tanya Plibersek is yet to rule on whether that forest will become a toxic waste dump for a Chinese mining company. So really, the more people who go to the Tarkine and talk about it, the better, because this is an absolutely astonishing rainforest and the Bob Brown Foundation has this encampment out there sometimes and you can go and meet people and find out about the place.
When you stand in that forest, it’s weird, it’s like you’re not standing on ground. You’re standing on this sort of spongy surface. It’s like millions of years of organic matter beneath your feet and it’s so quiet, it’s just really unworldly. So I really encourage people to go there, as Bob says, the Tarkine is a very arresting place.
THE GIANTS is now screening at Palace Electric Canberra, find all screenings: https://www.thegiantsfilm.com
There will be a National Day of Action for Native Forests – including Canberra on August 19. Details here: https://defendthegiants.org/events/
Few figures have had as powerful an impact on the course of Australian history as Bob Brown.
Comments Off on On Thin Portraits and the Incurable Brilliance of Zelda Fitzgerald: Her Life and Masterpiece, ‘Save Me the Waltz’
“Nobody has measured, not even poets, how much the heart can hold.”
—Zelda Fitzgerald, Save Me the Waltz
There are exactly two things that I know for certain:
The first is that wholemeal bagels are a direct result of the rapidly dissolving integrity of the human species, and the second is that Zelda Fitzgerald was brilliant. A perpetually unrecognised genius.
Zelda’s first and only novel Save Me the Waltz (1932) is semi-autobiographical and, like Scott’s later Tender is the Night, predominantly written about the period during the 1920s which the Fitzgeralds and their contemporaries spent in Paris. It is the lesser-known of the pair, but certainly not the less valuable for it. The novel was written by Zelda in a creative fervour of six weeks while institutionalised for schizophrenia (whether or not she actually suffered with schizophrenia is debated—her “breakdowns” are often attributed to bipolar disorder, or alternatively depression or anxiety). When Scott initially discovered its existence, he was furious; his letters, notably to friends including Ernest Hemingway, and industry figures such as editor Max Perkins, disclose his anger at her depiction of him. In a letter with Zelda’s psychiatrist, he wrote:
“My God, my books made her a legend and her single intention in this somewhat thin portrait is to make me a nonentity.” –Scott, in a letter to Zelda’s psychiatrist
Originally written, to quote Scott, as a “thin portrait” of their marriage and their characters, in Zelda’s early drafts she went to the lengths of naming the love interest “Amory Blaine” after Scott’s autobiographical protagonist in This Side of Paradise. Afraid that the book would damage his reputation, and angry that she had chosen to write based on the same period of their lives as his then-unfinished Tender is the Night, he convinced her to rewrite it. Eventually, he helped her to edit and publish the novel, and praised its quality. But not before she had made significant changes, which she didn’t appear to resent, and on which we can only trust her judgement as the competent and intelligent writer she has painstakingly proven herself to be.
Save Me the Waltz offers, for the first time, some real insight into the glamorous and turbulent marriage of the Fitzgeralds, as well as Zelda’s thoughts, feelings, and character, beyond what is shown to us in Scott’s work. The female love interests throughout his fiction are, by his own confession, thin portraits of her, his muse. On their marriage, he told a reporter, “I married the heroine of my stories.” At times, he lifted entire passages from her diaries and letters, which Zelda playfully notes in her review of The Beautiful and Damned.
“Mr. Fitzgerald—I believe that’s how he spells his name—seems to believe that plagiarism begins at home.” –Zelda Fitzgerald, in The New York Tribune
Zelda Fitzgerald has been often viewed as “the original flapper,” “jazz baby,” “wild child.” Rarely “writer,” “artist,” “dancer.” In marrying Scott, she “unknowingly sealed her fate as a symbolic being…as the quintessential muse, artist’s wife, and, eventually, doomed woman—a brilliant but mercurial talent whose public persona subsumed the identity she herself attempted to create and control” (Lawson, 2015).
Scott opposed most of Zelda’s creative endeavours; he discouraged her work in ballet, and actively tried to prevent the publishing of her book in its early stages. In Save Me the Waltz, protagonist Alabama Beggs’ husband (David Knight) openly disapproves of her dancing, probably reflective of the author’s own situation. David is a successful painter—thinly replacing Scott’s writing—and refuses to acknowledge Alabama as an artist equal to himself. I don’t believe or mean to suggest that Scott was fundamentally a bad person, or a woman-hater. But he was a romantic, an idealist, and he was validated by the standards of the time in his expectation of a romantic relationship with the dynamic of female muse for the male artist—a tale as old as time, an idea which hasn’t been disrupted or challenged until comparatively recently. He built up an expectation which she fulfilled—friends noted how he would hang on her words, scribble down her comments at parties. She was the heroine of his stories, and things were good, so long as she could be reduced to something two-dimensional, and could be distilled into beautiful words and pressed onto white pages.
But then there was the problem of her incurable brilliance, her capacity as expansive as his for creation. In fact, she excelled in ballet and painting and writing. When she wanted to create, she became something more than the heroine of his stories, rejecting the expectations he had so fancifully set. And this, I think, is where their problems began—assisted, of course, by the excessive drinking, affairs, and inadequate mental health care courtesy of the time.
The overwhelming majority of the—sorely limited—critical attention Save Me the Waltz received on and since its publication has been negative; in the preface of the second edition of Save Me the Waltz, Zelda’s writing ability is called merely “surface level,” (Moore, 1966) repeating the oft-cited criticism of her unusual use of language.
But it is her fantastically imaginative language that makes her writing so wildly unique, so fantastically appealing.
“The rain spun and twisted the light of their third wedding anniversary to thin prismatic streams; alto rain, soprano rain, rain for Englishmen and farmers, rubber rain, metal rain, crystal rain.”
Especially towards the beginning of the novel, she writes to disorientate—metaphors composed of borderline-nonsense; surrealist imagery; wacky, Zelda-devised turns of phrase to make your head spin. And it is truly, utterly captivating.
Caught inside Zelda’s words are feelings of bewilderment, joy, fractured relationships, obsession, hedonism, and beneath it all, a fight for a sense of self. Her style, regularly criticised as unpolished, simultaneously confronts the reader with the glamorous, playful ‘Jazz Age’ and its contorted underbelly of subtle misogyny and the imbalanced perception of one’s own identity.
“He pulled himself intermittently to pieces, showered himself in fragments above her head.”
“She crawled into the friendly cave of his ear. The area inside was grey and ghostly classic as she stared about the deep trenches of the cerebellum. There was not a growth nor a flowery substance to break those smooth convolutions, just the puffy rise of sleek gray matter. ‘I’ve got to see the front lines,” Alabama said to herself. The lumpy mounds rose wet above her head and she set out following the creases. Before long she was lost. Like a mystic maze the folds and ridges rose in desolation; there was nothing to indicate one way from another. She stumbled on and finally reached the medulla oblongata. Vast tortuous indentations led her round and round. Hysterically, she began to run. David, distracted by a tickling sensation at the head of his spine, lifted his lips from hers.”
“Outside the wide doors of the country club they pressed their bodies against the cosmos, the jibberish of jazz, the black heat from the greens in the hollow like people making an imprint for a cast of humanity. They swam in the moonlight that varnished the land like a honey-coating and David swore and cursed the collars of his uniforms and rode all night to the rifle range rather than give up his hours after supper with Alabama. They broke the beat of the universe to measures of their own conceptions and mesmerised themselves with its precious thumping.”
Perhaps even more remarkable than the stylistic depth and character of Zelda’s writing is the means by which she presents the feminine search for self within the early 20th century. Throughout Save Me the Waltz, Zelda uses mirrors as tools for the female pursuit of creative, intellectual, and emotional identity, in a blink-and-you-miss-it subversion of what may be considered the traditional notion of mirrors as tools for female vanity.
Zelda conveys the intrinsic dislocated sense of identity within her protagonist from an early age through mirrors and reflections, introducing the idea towards the beginning of the novel.
“She ran her fingers tentatively through her breast pocket, staring pessimistically at her reflection. ‘The feet look as if they were somebody else’s,’ she said. ‘But maybe it’ll be all right.’”
To David’s displeasure, Alabama takes up ballet during her late twenties, where she dances incessantly in a room filled with floor-to-ceiling mirrors, Zelda thus skillfully entwines Alabama’s near unhealthy compulsion to dance with her unyielding search for identity. It grows into an obsession; a relentless cycle of eating, sleeping, and breathing ballet, despite—or perhaps in part driven by—her husband’s criticism. Alabama’s disjointed sense of self is once again presented in a separation from the psychological and the physical, the mirror and the mind in conflict.
“…she thought her breasts hung like old English dugs. It did not show in the mirror. She was nothing but sinew. To succeed had become an obsession.”
However, before there was ballet, there was David, and Alabama initially sought to find herself in him; she feels that being with him is like “gazing into her own eyes”. But this perception of him becomes “distorted,” having warped her own view of him in a fervent attempt to find meaning within herself.
“So much she loved the man, so close and closer she felt herself that he became distorted in her vision, like pressing her nose upon a mirror and gazing into her own eyes.”
David, however, only looks in a mirror once in the entire novel, in stark contrast with Alabama’s dozens of times, and it culminates in his being “pleased to find himself complete.” Complete. Assured of his identity, recognised as an artist, an individual, certain of his place in the world.
“He verified himself in the mirror…as if he had taken inventory of himself before leaving and was pleased to find himself complete.”
For me, Save Me the Waltz is both joy and melancholy. I wonder if Alabama—which is to say Zelda Fitzgerald herself—ever found what she was looking for. I wonder if, after all the parties and all the laughter, and the breakdowns and the fame and the starlit revelry, she found something that fulfilled her. I hope in her painting, and her dancing, and her writing, she came to some understanding within herself about her world, and her place in it—an understanding that I also hope brought her security and strength of identity.
And so, I’ll leave you with one final urge to pick up the magnum opus of Zelda Fitzgerald (writer, artist, dancer).
Love,
Caelan xxx
Lawson, Ashley. “The Muse and the Maker: Gender, Collaboration, and Appropriation in the Life and Work of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald.” The F. Scott Fitzgerald Review, vol. 13, no. 1, 2015, pp. 76–109.
Moore, H,T. 1966, Preface in: Fitzgerald, Z. Save Me the Last Dance.
There are exactly two things that I know for certain: The first is that wholemeal bagels are a direct result of the rapidly dissolving integrity of the human species, and the second is that Zelda Fitzgerald was brilliant. A perpetually unrecognised genius.
All that was left was me and the jar of biccies. In the space of silence, there is so much that a food-stained late primary-schooler could hear. After Dad’s assistant, who had entertained me by asking about the square roots and divisions that I had recently discovered, left to do some copying, all sense of movement drifted out the room with her. The tick-tock of the clock bearing from the wall rang through my chest like a dry church bell; always reaching the next tock a moment after I had expected it, yet always jolting. This was the year before I got my first phone. There was no easy distraction. I had already scoured Dad’s bookshelf of faceless leather-bound books so I decided to rest my head in my chubby hands and look out towards the blooming jacaranda tree. Years later, my incoming high-school principal would tell me that the jacaranda represents the time in the Sydney University semester when it is too late to start studying and still expect to pass final exams. I am grateful those trees didn’t follow me to Canberra.
Dad’s assistant had told me earlier that I could have as many biccies from the jar as I very well pleased. I don’t want to romanticise these biccies. It was a jar of ANZACs and shortbreads – a far cry from the velvety chocolate of Tim Tams and Mint Slices that my tweenage heart desired. I thanked her enthusiastically regardless, and ate my first ANZAC with the gusto of a drunken midnight kebab. Satisfied after my first biccie, I looked further into the room for any chance of entertainment. The computer on the mahogany desk was not to be touched. My primary school didn’t give out homework, so there was no work to be done. I didn’t know how long Dad would be in his meeting – any given meeting could be either a 15 minute coffee catch up with a thesis student or a great diplomacy match with an egotistical, self-interested, stubborn academic over a fruitless matter. Every boom from the clock was a reminder that I did not know which one it would be, and patience is not a virtue learned by many eleven-year-olds.
Patience is a skill like meditation; our digital attention spans are a barrier in our minds to accepting the exercise. Yet, with diligent practice, you begin to enjoy its splendours. At this stage my patience was as unpractised as the clarinet of a child forced into their school band. It didn’t take long at all for that second biccie to fall. It felt very mechanical: I saw the jar, I felt the desire to devour its contents, I tussled in my head for a respectable amount of time, and I ate my next biccie. Anyone who’s ever thought about not scratching an insatiable itch or ruminating on the difficulty of a workout will know that given any negative or positive attention, the itch will be scratched and the workout will end. And, I ate the biccie. Now I was faced with a choice. Indulge in the pretence of patience displayed in my effort, or take this game of temptation seriously. I watched the long flat arm orbit around the centre of the clock through the slowest minute I had ever bothered counting. Neither the laughs and chatter of the Uni students on the tennis courts outside the window nor the typical buzz and business of the office machinery impeached on the tick-tock of that clock during the minute. Neither shadow, shade or hue sparkled or danced across the bookshelf on this gloomy afternoon. I chose to stare at the jar.
That glass jar stood on the coffee table like a piece of iconography on an altar. The fatigue (temptation) would slowly build before collapsing into a state of alertness – a state of normal mind. Yet you know the damage is done. Those waves of temptation rolled over me as the office began to form its own physics of inertia. When I did finally eat my third biccie it was not out of involuntary compulsions like the previous ones, but rather out of a curiosity to see if I was able to resist a second time. The big hand made a few orbits and just when I had forgotten the original reason for my being in the office, my Dad gushed into the room with the vivaciousness of someone whose life was a windmill of moving parts. I bounced like I had been caught stealing from his wallet. Dad apologised for how long he had taken, popped on his jacket and gathered his belongings into an adult leather bag. He asked me what I had been up to considering his assistant was gone and the evident lack of any stimulation for a child’s mind in the room of a Professor’s office. I shrugged and mentioned something about the biccies. No, I wasn’t bored, I insisted, I lied. Would you like a biccie for the trip home, he asked me. I’m okay, I replied.
We had Tim Tams at home anyway.
Originally published in Woroni Vol. 72 Issue 2 ‘To Be Confirmed’
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