#Little Women

[finalgirlguy]

h o t t o g o snap and clap and touch your toes raise your hands now body roll dance it out you're hot to go

(I just wanted to make one of those dancing in film edits and this was fun)

(largely inspired by @wellwaterhysteria )

youtube link

[boleynecklace]

WINONA RYDER and CHRISTIAN BALE as JO MARCH and THEODORE 'LAURIE' LAURENCE in LITTLE WOMEN (1994) dir. GILLIAN ARMSTRONG

[benzatthanin]

LITTLE WOMEN 2017 | dir. Vanessa Caswill

[petaltexturedskies]

I think she is growing up, and so begins to dream dreams, and have hopes and fears and fidgets, without knowing why or being able to explain them.

Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

[princesssarisa]

I decided to make this poll because I've been listening to the excellent Little Women videos from @littlewomenpodcast, whose opinions and arguments I nearly always find to be spot-on. (And who so generously quotes some of my analysis now and then.) But I'll admit I was taken aback by one remark she and others have occasionally made about Jo and Amy. Namely that as a teenager, Jo bullies Amy, and that Amy burning Jo's manuscript is just the moment when she finally snaps after having been picked on by her sister all her life.

After hearing this, I had to go back and reread all of Jo and Amy's interactions in Part I, because I had never thought of their conflict that way, and I'm still not sure if I do.

I always saw their sibling rivalry as mutual, with both at fault. They're both strong-willed, attention-seeking, quick-tempered girls, they arguably both have different forms of internalized misogyny (Jo by disdaining femininity, Amy by disdaining tomboyishness), and they get on each other's nerves. Jo mocks Amy's childish attempts to be ladylike (and even an only child like myself knows that between siblings, teasing is normal and doesn't equal bullying), while Amy annoys Jo by correcting her manners, and neither is generally better or worse than the other.

Now of course this is their relationship in general: I'm not talking about "Jo Meets Apollyon." In that specific case, Jo does provoke Amy by refusing to take her to the play just because she, Jo, doesn't want to babysit, leaving Amy in tears. And while Amy burning her manuscript is an inexcusable, out-of-proportion response, it's even more wrong of Jo to physically attack Amy when she learns what she did, and almost horrific that she doesn't warn her about the thin ice the next day. But even then, Alcott doesn't describe Jo as always insulting and excluding Amy, and she makes it clear that Amy has played other pranks on Jo before the manuscript-burning. She writes that they've always been prone to "lively skirmishes" because of their mutual tempers – she doesn't blame Jo alone.

Still, maybe it can't be mutual, because Jo is a teenager while Amy is a child. The fact that I have no siblings puts me at a disadvantage, because not only do I not personally know the difference between normal sibling rivalry and bullying, I don't know how much of a difference certain age gaps create. Maybe the fact that Jo is three years older than Amy makes her more of a bully than if they were only a year apart in age. (Still, three years isn't that big of a gap. I don't remember feeling much more mature at fifteen than I was at twelve, just more hormonal.) Also, Alcott does write that Jo had less self-control than Amy despite being older, and in their typical scenes of light bickering, when Jo laughs at Amy's malapropisms and Amy corrects Jo's manners, Jo does always laugh at Amy first, and then Amy scolds her in response. There's also the moment in "Experiments" when Jo hears Beth crying and thinks to herself that if Amy was the one who upset her (she wasn't – Beth's bird died), she'll shake her. We could argue that this just shows how protective Jo is of Beth, but at the same time, she's thinking about physically attacking her little sister again.

In the end, I'm tempted to think this issue is open to interpretation. We can either view the two sisters as having a mutual rivalry and mutually provoking each other (apart from isolated incidents when either one or the other is more to blame), or view Jo as more of a bully and Amy as more of the victim.

I'd like to see what other people think, though.

[books4her]

Missing them <3

[achillieus]

what a shame doctors don’t prescribe vacation to secluded seaside towns like they used to

[rodrickheffeley]

[ayo-edebiri]

My favorite genre!!

[freightandgroove]

the reason why Barbie (2023) will work as a movie and as a feminist piece is because Greta Gerwig actually also knows how to write complex, funny and interesting male characters. her Laurie in Little Women was kind and fun and authentic in a way that made the audience understand what the girls see in him; the guy from Lady Bird (yes, Timothée Chalamet again) was a really cool twist on the douchebag archetype. like there's no way Barbie will be about how all the Kens suck (and from the new trailer i believe it's also going to focus on Barbie' self-actualization which, god I'm so excited for Greta to make me cry in a Barbie movie!)

[rizahawkais]

FLORENCE PUGH in LITTLE WOMEN (2019) dir. Greta Gerwig

[greengableslover]

Life is worth living as long as there's a laugh in it. ― Lucy Maud Montgomery, ANNE OF GREEN GABLES

EMMA. (2020)

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE (2005)

ANNE WITH AN E (2017 - 2019)

LITTLE WOMEN (2017)

SANDITON (2019 - 2023)

BRIDGERTON (2020 - )

NORTHANGER ABBEY (2007)

ANNE OF GREEN GABLES (1985)

MARIE ANTOINETTE (2006)

[rotnread]

reading smut in public without showing an ounce of emotion like the lady that I am

[popcultureds]

LITTLE WOMEN (2019) dir. Greta Gerwig

[dailyflicks]

LITTLE WOMEN 2019, dir. Greta Gerwig