#women in the wilderness

[chlobody]

California roads

[lia-serrano]

Some moments are elusive - they disappear and are not easily grasped or remembered. Perhaps we recall them in a hazy image or a dream. Photography brings back what we lost.

© Lía Serrano

//

[cosmic-rains-blog]

Let’s enjoy a beautiful sunset together 😍

[blackswaneuroparedux]

We are fallen mostly into pieces but the wild returns us to ourselves.

- Robert Macfarlane, The Wild Places

[princesssarisa]

Some thoughts on "Little Women" and the "Little House" books

In the endless discussions by Little Women fans of the issue of "Jo vs. Amy," I've noticed a slight recurring theme, both when Amy's defenders discuss Jo and when certain Jo fans put Amy down. It's the idea that the books' narrative inherently favors Jo and is biased against Amy. That Jo is the character whom readers are clearly "supposed to identify with," as if Louisa May Alcott expected most of her young girl readers to be free-spirited, ambitious tomboys who struggle with gender expectations. And that Amy's portrayal is "negative," or at least that we're supposed to view her femininity and love of refinement as slightly silly and annoying.

Not too long ago, I found similar sentiments in an essay by a woman writing about her childhood experience of Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House books. She wrote that she never identified with spunky, tomboyish Laura, but as a girly girl and as an eldest daughter who felt pressured to be "the responsible one," she related more to Mary. Then she complained that the books seem to expect readers to identify with Laura, and that we're "not supposed to like Mary."

I'm not sure those claims ring true for either of these literary works.

Both Little Women and the Little House books are autobiographical. Louisa May Alcott based the March family on her own family and Jo on herself, while Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote explicitly about herself and her family without changing the names.

In Little Women, I don't feel as if Alcott expected readers to identify more with Jo than with the other three sisters. Yes, Jo gets the most emphasis of them all, but that's because Alcott personally identified with her. Likewise, in the Little House books, Laura is the protagonist because she was the author. It's only natural that she wrote about her childhood from her own viewpoint, not because she thought readers would relate more to her than to her sisters.

Nor do I think Little Women is overly biased against Amy. Is her portrayal complex, and does it reflect Alcott's complex relationship with her sister May? Yes. Does Alcott use Amy to make fun of May's childhood foibles? Yes. Does she make it clear that May often drove her crazy when they were young, and does her envy of May's charms and social life sometimes bleed through the text? Of course! But none of it seems really mean-spirited; her affection and respect for May also come through clearly. Besides, she's just as willing to use Jo's foibles to make fun of herself.

And in the Little House series, do we really think Wilder set out to insult the memory of her beloved and by then deceased sister Mary? Just because she was honest about their childhood sibling rivalry and made readers feel for her envy of her "perfect" sister doesn't mean she wanted the readers to dislike her.

Maybe I'm giving these authors too much benefit of the doubt. But "An author writes about her own family, makes herself the protagonist, and honestly portrays both her closeness and her sibling rivalry with a sister who was very different from herself" doesn't inherently mean "The author expects all readers to identify with her self-insert and dislike her sister."

[rosypeachblossoms]

Gene Wilder is a man written by a woman 🥺🩷

[rhade-zapan]

Love in the Afternoon ~ Billy Wilder ~ 1957

Feat: Audrey Hepburn

Follow Rhade-Zapan for more visual treats

[fictionadventurer]

Why was "Mrs. Gaskell" used as a way to dismiss her as an author? As if she's just a middle-class wife and mother who can't care about anything beyond the cozy and the domestic? This should be something to celebrate! She was a wife and a mother and an author!

And not just one who's writing stories for her children. (Not that there's anything wrong with writing for your children--Tolkien writing for his children gave us some masterworks--but it is the expected path of a mother of the period who wants to write.) Gaskell wrote stories examining big societal issues like labor and technology and the class divide. She's living proof that a woman doesn't stop having a brain or caring about the wider world once she has a husband and children. She managed to write stories that have become part of the literary canon and raised a family. Why was this used to frame her as a lesser author when she managed to do more with her life? It's amazing that an author with that background got to be part of the literary conversation, and it should be celebrated more.

[rabbits-of-negative-euphoria]

I feel like I'm missing the crux of the man vs. bear debate because it's so silly. of course I would pick the man, because neither my Sig nor jiu jitsu is going to take down a bear

[1071png]

the more zeloses you draw the more i willl love them >:3 he’s my favorite <3

I like Zelos too He got you a cola potion

[kazbrekkerskane]

for the record: feel free to vote even if you are not a lesbian

obligatory I know it's 'wlw' or whatever but I'm calling it lesbian. shut up

if you haven't read any of these I strongly encourage you to do so!!!

rb and share for a larger sample size pls :)

[cosmic-rains-blog]

This is my kind of camping 😍😍😍

[atihsid]

women getting revenge on their lying, cheating, pieces of shit husbands gotta be my favourite genre of movies.

[cdyssey]

The aching solemnity of the Shauna/Nat hug has absolutely gotten to me. We know from the flashbacks that there's kinship between them, that Natalie was right by her side the entire time of that horrible fucking labor, that Shauna drew her bath when Nat was shivering from the cold, that they're the staunchest remaining cynics of the cabin.

And even though we've seen them snipe at each other as adults, they still deeply care for one another all the same. So when they wordlessly embrace at Lottie's compound, we know that this is just another instance where they're expressing that indissoluble regard. But, we as viewers also know that both women are at their lowest points again—so fragile, so broken, continually blowing up the particulars of their lives all around them.

There's kinship in that too, and there's unspoken solidarity in their mutual touch.

[novelconcepts]

I kinda love watching shows by myself, cuz it means no one can judge me for happily singing to myself “she’s gonna kill your ass (push you off a mountain), kill your ass (she’s gonna push you off a mountain)”

Anyway, fuckin get his ass, Liv.

[wellntruly]

Oh right yes, we're back with my top ten movies of 2024

1 McCabe & Mrs. Miller (Altman, 1971) Recommended for: easy but, Leonard Cohen fans

2 Sherlock, Jr. & Steamboat Bill, Jr. (Keaton, 1924 & 1928) Recommended for: Tarsem's The Fall fans

3 Shanghai Express (von Sternberg, 1932) Recommended for: noir fans

4 Solaris (Tarkovsky, 1972) Recommended for: people with a poetry tag

5 My Darling Clementine (Ford, 1946) Recommended for: people who have been told they have an old soul

6 3 Women (Altman, 1977) Recommended for: the witchy wlw Lana Del Rey fans

7 Sorcerer (Friedkin, 1977) Recommended for: Mad Max fans

8 The Apartment (Wilder, 1960) Recommended for: sad girl Christmas!

9 Harold and Maude (Ashby, 1971) Recommended for: Edward Gorey's Gashlycrumb Tinies fans

10 A Zed & Two Noughts (Greenaway, 1985) Recommended for: Bryan Fuller's Hannibal fans

As before, links go to my original Letterboxd “review” (comment), and if you click the poster or title there you’ll be taken to the short synopsis, cast & crew, wide header image for some vibes, etc.

And then the next ten too why not, it was a Good Year in Watching:

12 Angry Men (Lumet, 1957) After Hours (Scorsese, 1985) Lady Vengeance (Chan-wook, 2005) The French Connection (Friedkin, 1971) A New Leaf (May, 1971) Leave Her To Heaven (Stahl, 1945) Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence (Ōshima, 1983) The Lion In Winter (Harvey, 1968) Women On the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (Almodóvar, 1988) Fail Safe (Lumet, 1964)

I loved all these as well