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Saturday, January 18, 2020

Little Women and the Limits of Mainstream Radicalism

Greta Gerwig's Lady Bird is one of my favorite movies in recent memory. Most things about it are perfect, from the pacing to the character development to the soundtrack. And on top of everything, it is on the front lines of the Rom Com Resistance. As romance comes in and out of Christine's life, you feel her excitement, and you feel the intimacy of these relationships, but Gerwig makes it abundantly clear that they are just one part of Christine's life. Her friendships, hobbies, dreams for her future, and relationships with family members balance out the plot, with its central focus, of course, on her relationship with her mother.

Lady Bird resists rom com tropes without being too in-your-face about how subversive it is, and without generating a media frenzy about it either. It is simply an excellent movie. Saoirse Ronan's performance as an expressive, audacious teen anchors the film, and I don't really know what directors do, but I'm sure Greta Gerwig played a pretty big role in making this movie as delightful and near-perfect as it is. That said, I was thrilled to hear that Ronan and Gerwig would be collaborating again, and when I saw the trailer for Little Women, I was even more excited.

The trailer made it seem like Gerwig, Ronan, and Co. would be blessing us with a bold and lively spinster manifesto. Or that was how I interpreted it, because I look for the spinster manifesto in everything. (You can find one anywhere if you believe in yourself.) In the trailer, Jo passionately articulates the value of women outside of romantic love, and she is trying to assert this notion through her writing as well, as we see when she negotiates with her publisher. The trailer's final shot, clearly meant as a gag to make us laugh, shows the publisher asking Jo when her protagonist is getting married. He sees marriage as a given for all women, and she is simply not interested in writing her novel that way. Impatiently, she looks away, implying that this is a ridiculous question. Of course her protagonist is not getting married. She has been very clear about this.

The Little Women trailer gave me the pleasure of witnessing a joke at the expense of a man who foolishly expects all women to get married. As someone who has to find ways to respond to these sorts of foolish people who ask me about my plans for marriage, this seconds-long gag was just so satisfying. I felt like this version of Jo March would be someone with whom I could brainstorm one-liners to use when asked about romantic partners or marriage. (She would LOVE Lolly Willowes and the spinster/devil partnership.) We would be able to swap stories about our encounters with ignorant, stubbornly traditional people like her publisher. This trailer version of Jo March felt like the kind of kindred spirit I had not seen on screen before. Naturally, I went into the movie with the highest of hopes.

I was expecting a lot from the movie’s two hours. While I do still believe that Gerwig is immensely talented (despite not really knowing what directors do), I was being a little ridiculous in my expectation that Little Women would be a timeless spinster manifesto. What happened in my brain was very much like If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, except it was more like If You Give a Spinster a Joke at the Expense of a Man Who Asks Her About Marriage. In this film, I thought that Gerwig would show us why it was a good idea to be a spinster in the 1800's. That much was a given. Being married was a confining role for women in the 1800's, and we would see that in the movie. But I also thought that Gerwig would somehow make it clear how the reasoning behind the spinster lifestyle still holds up today. I thought that every person who saw this movie would come out of it fully supportive of all single women everywhere. I thought that this movie would change our culture, our values, and the fundamental way in which our society is structured. As you can gather, this is a lot to put on a single movie. Of course it could not live up to my hopes, but I did still enjoy it. I really had the best time for most of the movie.

My favorite part was the dynamic between the sisters and the chemistry that they had together. The raucousness and the lived-in feeling of their relationship made me wish the movie were even longer so I could spend more time with them, but by the end, I was also troubled. I was upset. Deeply pissed off, even. No matter how ridiculous my expectations were, I was still expecting a timeless spinster manifesto, and I did not feel that Gerwig and Co. gave it to me. They had me going for the first three quarters of the film. I loved watching Jo take on New York City and her writing career by herself. Her life as a literary spinster in the city looked so promising, as did the obvious parallels between her character and real-life literary spinster Louisa May Alcott. Gerwig even had Jo deliver Alcott's famous declaration of independence: "I'd rather be a free spinster and paddle my own canoe." And, of course, it also delighted me when Jo turned down Laurie's marriage proposal, which is a pretty revolutionary plot point for a story written in the 1800's, let alone today. However, this plot point was all Alcott. Gerwig did not have a hand in this.

Alcott never married, and she did not want Jo to marry either. In a letter to a friend, she said: "Jo should have remained a literary spinster but so many enthusiastic young ladies wrote to me clamorously demanding that she should marry Laurie, or somebody, that I didn't dare refuse & out of perversity went & made a funny match for her." Alcott was obligated to have Jo get married, but she carried it out as rebelliously as she could. I wonder: If she were writing the novels today, would she feel like she could end the story with an unmarried Jo and still be a wildly successful writer? We have come so far since the 1800's, but probably not far enough for that. And Gerwig faces the very same question head-on. Can she end the movie with a single Jo and still be a wildly successful director? We will get to a more complicated answer later, but for now let's just say no. In order to produce a mainstream and critical success, aspiring spinster Jo needs to have a change of heart. And by bringing this failed spinster to the big screen, Gerwig and Co. ripped my heart right out of my chest and stomped all over it. As they alternated between past and present to show the March sisters growing up and carving out their space in the world as adults, I watched Jo March's spinster dreams die.

My feelings of betrayal began to take shape when Jo delivered one of the most memorable lines from the trailer. At this point in the film, she has moved from her boarding house in New York City back into her childhood home in Concord because of her sister Beth's poor health. After Beth's death, she and her mother get into a domestic routine and spend time together. During one of their conversations, Jo declares: "Women, they have minds, and the have souls, as well as just hearts. And they've got ambition, and they've got talent, as well as beauty, and I'm so sick of people saying that love is just all a woman is fit for. I'm so sick of it!" I'm with you there, Jo! But she goes on to deliver a pivotal addendum, that is expressly not included in the trailer: "But I'm just so lonely." And that is where she lands. She is still struggling after the recent death of her sister, and she is lonely. It is, of course, liberating to be a free spinster who paddles her own canoe, and it seems to be a crucial sticking point for Jo, but it is hard. As a canoe-paddling spinster myself, I agree! And I think this is a really interesting and rich tension to bring up. As a spinster, or even as a single person who is not dating at the moment, how do you find community and companionship? What a fantastic question, and if you go down that road, there is a lot to explore. But alas, Little Women does not.

After her admission of loneliness, stubborn spinster Jo seems to soften. With her family's encouragement, she enters into a romantic relationship with Fred Bhaer, who she had met while living in New York, and this is when the movie enters rom com territory. After she moves out of their boarding house without saying goodbye, Bhaer tracks down the address of her childhood home and travels all the way to Concord to see her. Showing up at someone's house unannounced is a typical rom com action, and I will also reluctantly concede that it is indeed romantic, since it shows commitment, and it is a massive risk. A grand gesture, even. Jo and Bhaer have a great visit, and when it's time to leave, she basically tells him, "See ya never." With her family's encouragement, Jo admits that she does in fact want to see him again, and the film goes full rom com, complete with a rush to the train station and a kiss in the rain. Naturally, I was livid.

But here's the thing. Jo and Bhaer's romance is intercut with a scene in which Jo is negotiating with her publisher. She does not want her main character to marry; he demands it. He wants to keep the copyright; she demands it. She also negotiates a higher rate of pay and says something to the effect of, "If I'm going to marry off my character, I may as well get paid for it." (As her sister Amy expresses earlier in the film, marriage is an economic arrangement.) So, we are faced with two conflicting versions of Jo. One is stubbornly independent and committed to becoming a spinster, and the other solves the problem of her loneliness by going full rom com with Bhaer.

The nontraditional structure of the film allows Gerwig to present these two different versions of Jo, and it is the reason why these two contrasting scenes are grouped together. The different timelines present Jo living the very story she does not want to write for her protagonist. While it is of course possible for people to contain multitudes and change their minds, this enormous discrepancy makes me wonder if the rom com timeline is actually true.

In addition to the timelines that Gerwig cuts between, which simply seem to depict past and present at the beginning of the film, there is a framing device at play. Jo is writing a novel that is based on her life. This adds another layer to the structure of the film and might even mean that one of the timelines is the fictionalized version of her life that she presents in the novel. When Gerwig introduces the concept of fiction into the film, she brings the veracity of certain plot points into question. What does she want us to believe? I'd say it's pretty clear that she wants us to take Jo's present career and her hardball negotiations with her publisher at face value, but what about the other timeline? Are we supposed to buy that Jo, who proudly paddles her own canoe for the bulk of the film, gives up her literary spinster dreams?

Married or single, either outcome for Jo is plausible, and they are both worth considering. I am truly on the fence, and I don't know which one I believe. While it makes sense for Jo to look for stability and to temper her fiery, risk-taking personality after Beth's death, I can also see a reality in which she takes some time to grieve and then continues pursuing her goals from before. During the moment at the end when Jo proudly clutches her published novel, Fred is nowhere to be seen. I'd 100% believe that that version of Jo is a literary spinster. (Not to mention, that moment is exceptionally well acted. The literary spinsterhood is palpable. Well done, Saoirse Ronan!)

Whichever story is "true," I guess my point is that there is ambiguity here, and it is a lot to ask for audiences to recognize that. Upon my first viewing, I certainly did not. I took the entire film at face value and was livid. (Many people will take it at face value and feel good about the very plot developments that sent me home in a state of rage.) It was only when I got home and started reading analyses of the film that I realized it was open to interpretation. I read numerous articles, took notes, thought things over, discussed them with friends, and started drafting this post. Only after all of these steps was I able to conclude that Gerwig MIGHT have given us a spinster on the big screen. However, the film that most audiences will see presents them with a young woman who claims to want to be a spinster and then goes off and gets married when life gets too hard. In the Little Women that most audiences see, the rom com prevails, and young women who claim to want to be spinsters are foolish. They will make the right choice eventually.

As someone who enjoys analyzing stories, I appreciate the ambiguity, but we spinsters don't get much representation. We cannot afford ambiguous messaging at this point in our PR campaign. It is also striking to consider the media narrative surrounding this film. Here are some headlines: "Greta Gerwig Delivers a 'Little Women' for a New Generation." "'Little Women' Again? Greta Gerwig's Adaptation Is Both Faithful And Radical." And even "The New Little Women Makes Space for Jo's Queerness." The use of language like radical and queerness, along with that powerhouse trailer, made me expect the world of this film. But I had to do some extensive mental gymnastics in order to find spinster Jo, and most people will not do the same, despite the fact that the trailer low-key promises us a spinster manifesto.

When considering the radical (or not) nature of this film, I also think it's worth acknowledging Gerwig's role in mainstream popular culture. She has been nominated for an Oscar, Little Women was a wide release (unlike Lady Bird, which played in indie theaters), and she is married to acclaimed and prolific director Noah Baumbach. In terms of the commentary and reviews of her films in mainstream publications, she is almost universally beloved. Is she the one who is going to come in here, smash the patriarchy with her bare hands, and become a major player in the spinster revolution? Probably not. She is not the right director for the job. She is too mainstream.

I still like her a lot, and I am excited to see what she does next. It's nice to have a woman director out there with all of those men who seems to have the potential for career longevity. But this whole ordeal has made me eager to consume more work of other female directors, especially women of color and LGBTQIA+ women, who aren't getting as much mainstream attention and who are creating much more subversive work than Gerwig is.

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