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OFF KILTER QUESTION OF THE WEEK? more likely than you think!

I chose to do this one today because it is much more involved and detailed (as much as you want it to be anyway!) Does this maybe, just a little, read like an english class assignment? I bravely answer, we're on tumblr, which is basically where the people who couldn't get enough of english class landed. Relying heavily on that assumption as we head into our (lengthy) question:

As discussed before, one potential way to analyze media is through the lens of the following questions: (1) what are the goals of this piece of media? (2) did this piece of media accomplish those goals? with an added (3) were those goals worthy in the first place?

How would you answer these three questions in regards to Dean Priest and his role in the Emily trilogy?

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Other Emily of New Moon thoughts-- I'm very fascinated by what LM Montgomery was trying to do re: all of Emily's many suitors. Some kind of vague thoughts under the cut:

Now, ever since there have been professional women writers in the Western canon, they have been reflecting on and writing about what it means to be a person your society categorizes as a woman and as a professional writer, since the two are not a natural mix socially-speaking. Hell, even today there's a lot of genre-writers who identity as or who are assigned as female who get denigrated for it in unthinking and weird ways, i.e. the devaluation of romance as a genre, fantasy/SFF writers automatically getting described as YA writers even when they aren't, clearly documented and demonstrated gaps in book advances, weird interview questions about 'having it all' or 'balancing home life and creative life' that men don't get. A lot of 19th century/ early 20th century female authors write a lot about what seems to be a sometimes mutually exclusive drive between marriage and authorship. This is strange and interesting to me because I don't see as much debate about it these days since I think... it's very rare these days in the US for two married people not to both work, and though the strict social divide between male public sphere and female private sphere isn't as prevalent. Even trad wife content pushing for it involves this weird public exploitation of so-called 'private' work-- like how private, how unemployed are you, when you are a literal content creator for the public for money? That's not to say that household work, childrearing, caretaking etc does not fall disproportionately on women but it isn't expected that a woman give up public life upon marriage, and that in many circles (most?) the major issue is not a question of propriety but of domestic labor or day job labor impeding creative work.

I could be misreading this-- maybe the question is not competing social categories, but a question purely of labor, and the difficulty of being a professional woman writer AND running a household, instead of, Austen-like, being a spinster with other female relations who run the household.

However, if we do just think about 'wife' vs 'writer' as discrete social categories, I think all the beaux Emily has are a really interesting way to disprove a then-prevelant stereotype that a female author becomes an old maid through lack of other options. Her choice of profession, or the personality that drove her to it, alienates the men around her, or makes her ineligible in some way. The basic lived reality is entirely different. It's less that writing extinguishes the more conventional passion, it's just that it can be SUCH a passion with people that anything that does not rise to that level of... emotion, or interest, or what have you, feels fundamentally incompatible with the times where you feel most alive, i.e. writing. I don't think I've ever felt more uncomfortably seen as a writer (one who is always trying to figure out, Emily-like, if I have or can ever earn the title of 'professional' with all my magazine work-- and good God, it's depressing that the pay rates are still EXACTLY THE SAME), when Emily miserably confesses that writing is a compulsion. She can't not do it. There is no choice for her but the alpine path. It is a miserable one. She is often in bleak despair about all the rejections she gets and the reviews that contradict each other, but she can't NOT climb it. She can't get off it for anyone, even a Japanese prince or for the man who almost successfully groomed her (Jesus Christ Dean Priest. That's another post.) It's one of the most... real to me. Like, yes there are other options but... are there really? When you are that called to a specific kind of work, you just can't stop it, any more than you can stop breathing or being allergic to peanuts. Why do I keep slamming myself head-first into the wall of rejections? I have no idea. I just can't not do it.

And though I don't entirely think she succeeded (in large part because we don't see enough to Teddy and understand why he's so great in the last book), I do think it's very telling that LM Montgomery points out that for this specific kind of personality, the role of 'wife' can only be a good fit when the role of 'husband' is taken on by someone who ALSO has this artistic compulsion and knows that it does require long hours of work at odd times, and a certain withdrawing from domestic concerns to get into the right flow state. Dean was a poor fit for a lot of reasons, but the primary one was that he crushed Emily's artistic spirit and impeded the real journey of her life because he wanted to BE her whole life-- Teddy was the right fit because, having been in a similar relationship with his mother, I don't think he's someone who will insist he became Emily's whole life. He's probably happier that they can both go into their creative flow states, and do their own work as they wish without the other feeling abandoned or unhappy. It just becomes parallel play. It's Art Time in the Kent Household, where we don't talk to each other for the next six hours and stay holed up in our separate rooms and we're both extremely happy with that-- that kind of a thing.

tl; dr-- I'm very compelled by how Montgomery puts her own spin on the old, old Western canon debate of wife vs writer and how she reconciles the two, even if I don't think she entirely succeeded in the execution of it.

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Was just informed that "any sufficiently deep enthusiasm is indistinguishable from academic rigor" and hoo boy we are really in a crisis of anti-intellectualism.

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so walter was definitely queer, right?

welcome to a very interesting side of LM Montgomery discussion! LMM scholar Benjamin Lefebvre would say yes in his article Walter's Closet, which I mention because I think it's kind of the ultimate "here's all the literary evidence for this position." years ago, @gogandmagog and I had a really great discussion about this that is floating somewhere in the Walter Blythe tags (helpful, I know). I think there are also some other great discussions under the walter blythe tags on my blog if you care to dig deeper!

My general impression, and I stress the word general, is that people who have a more passing familiarity with the series tend to read Walter that way, and people who have a very in depth knowledge of the series tend not to, which I find interesting. I myself always read him as gay, but I'm also a hardcore Walter/Una shipper (don't ask me to explain myself).

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to indulge

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SUCCESSION 2x10, "this is not for tears"

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being really normal about it

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Rhea Seehorn as Kim Wexler Better Call Saul 2015-2022 | Created by Vince Gilligan ve Peter Gould

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It's #makeaterriblecomicday2025! I'm doing my part!

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Maybe once a week, I wake up paralyzed… reliving that night. But before the sun went down… I think that was the best day of my life. Was it like that for you? SINNERS (2025) dir. Ryan Coogler

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they should invent a 2025 where good things happen

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Maybe if we Ran away with Carly Rae Jepsen in 2015 none of this would have happened

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he's into countercultures okay

og post

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my sdcc badges came in the mail!!!!!! 🤩 so excited!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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coconut american girl is a trans icon

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