March 25th, 2008
by
Naamenblog
So I went to type up a new post for this blog and found this old post from like a month ago that I never ended up putting up. Here it ism, my reactions to The Spiderwick Chronicles:
Now this post is just based on my viewing of the movie The Spiderwick Chronicles, and not on the book series ’cause I haven’t read them yet. I thought the film had some very interesting gender dynamics going on that I wanted to talk about. I’ve seen the film twice and the second time some of the things really stood out for me. This post does contain spoilers for the film.
I’m gonna analyze the film in two separate sections:
First I just want to talk a little about The Fairies
Yes the fairies are not human but within the film most are still very clearly gendered (excluding the Troll & Slyphs, although an argument could be made about both of these) not only by the voice actors but by the way they appear. All the enemy fairies are very clearly gendered male, in fact I would almost go as far to say that all we see are male fairies. To quote a friend of mine, “How do they breed?” The only clearly gendered female fairies are the “flower-fairies” (I’m unsure/unclear on what they were called within the film) not only are they a very stereotyped form “nude size-2 female bodies with flowers on their head” flowers but they also take up the role of caretaker (considered a traditionally[stereotypically] female role) for an older female character. There’s no mention of compensation or exchange we are simply supposed to believe that these fairies need/want to help this woman and spend a chunk of their immortal existence taking care of her. Is it because they like her? Because they have nothing better to do with their time? Because they owe her? We’re never told and I’m not sure we’re supposed to ask.
Now it’s easy to say that I’m reading too much into it but the way the fairies are framed is very much along strict gender roles. Even the ones who might be considered non-gendered such as the cave troll can be seen as defaulting to male.
The Humans
The main male character was very much what you would expect from a film like this, young, plucky, bad attitude, troublesome but good deep down, hence I found him more than a little boring. His twin brother however was much more intriguing, he takes on various roles that are traditionally connected with femaleness, he’s a pacifist, uncomfortable with conflict , he’s a huge animal lover. These are traits that are traditionally (stereotypically) connected with the female character so for me he was one of the most interesting characters. Not because of the traits assigned to him but because they’re never brought up. In a more traditional film his maleness/masculinity would be mocked for embracing these traits, yet no one really brings it up here. Sure it’s played up for laughs a bit at times but it’s never verbally stated.
The older sister was another non-traditional (can we just agree that for the purposes of this entry when I say traditional I mean stereotypical) characters. Now, I lovea tough girl and she was definitely a tough girl. Not only was she a swordswoman (fencing) but she was not at all afraid to get beat up to go for it. I loved the attitude they gave her and she rang true in a way I think a lot of female action stars don’t. Also it was interesting that she was the older sister. I think very often in movies there’s tendency to make the sister younger and more child-like than her brothers (E.T., The Last Mimzy, Chronicles of Narnia) so this sibling relationship had an additional layer to it because she was clearly the dominant one in the interactions between her and the main character brother. Now this shifts later because he is the only one that has knowledge of the fairies and so she defers to him in those situations but she is still very much the older sister. She mocks him and loves him in equal measure and is never subordinate to him.
The mother, now I admit I may have a little bit of a bias here because the mother was played by Mary Louise Parker and I have a deep deep love for her as an actress. That being said I was worried about the mother because at first she seemed to be falling into a very bland parental divorced-mother stereotype but I think what saved her character ffom that miasma for me were the interactions she had with her other children besides the protagonist and the end where she saw and believed. Because yes she screams and is a bit shocked but she doesn’t freeze or breakdown, she prepares to fight.
The most revealing scene for me was the moment when the whole family is back to back preparing to hold of an attack. The weapons each member was holding were not traditional really. Here we have both male twins holding what to anyone but fairies would be completely non-lethal weapons, water balloons filled with tomato sauce and water bottles filled with the same. Whereas the sister and the mother have bladed weapons, the sister – a sword she ripped from the wall and the mother – two butchers knives, which her son hands to her and her only comment is “Thank goodness we’re from New York.”. It was this that made me look at the movie differently the second time around and try to deconstruct at least some of what I saw.
There were of course problems with the film, as there are with 90% of the films that are released, one of which was the positioning of this young boy as protector of the family but I thought overall it was good, and there were very few parts that made me outright cringe. Although I think it’s horrible that this is now how I rate films, by how many times I rolled my eyes and cringed in my seat.
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Filed under TV & Film, Young Adult, female characters | Comments (9)
thanks for this! i’ll add it to my queue because of the kick-ass girl. so many sf films out in the last year i have not been able to keep up.
re: the difference in gender conformity between the humans and the fairies
That’s very much true in the books as well, which were written by Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi and illustrated by the latter. I’m guessing that Tony did more of the character development of the fairies and Holly did more of the character development of the people. Simply because Holly’s heroines always kick ass, but Tony’s books (art and writing) has mostly been short picture books that are very fantastical, but (I believe) gender conforming.
I had basically the same take on the film, though I wasn’t able to articulate very fully the gender dynamics I was picking up on in the family. It really was neat to see the nurturing character as a boy and the straight-up fighter as a girl.
[...] Feminist SF – The Blog! » Blog Archive » The Fairies Are Traditional. The Humans Not So Much. “…based on my viewing of the movie The Spiderwick Chronicles…” Send us a link! [...]
Laura Q – Yeah definitely check it out. It’s one I’m gonna buy when it’s released on DVD.
Mickle – Thanks for the heads-up. I’ve been thinking about picking up the books but was unsure how the gender conformity would shake out in the actual text.
I’ve only read one Holly Black novel (and no Tony DiTerlizzi) and while I found it entertaining it simply wasn’t enough of a new take on the fairies to interest me. But if her female heroines are consistently kick ass it might be worth it to go back and read her solo series of novels.
Revena –
It was so great to see the girl as a born-warrior and the boy as a animal-loving caretaker. It was a wonderful reversal or stereotypical gender expectations.
[...] An older post I thought I had already put up but apparently I was lying to myself. The Fairies Are Traditional. The Humans Not So Much a look at the film, The Spiderwick Chronicles and the gender steretypes used [...]
“….her solo series of novels.”
FYI, they aren’t really solo. The three she has out now make two series that take place in the same world. The first (Tithe) and third (Ironside) feature the same characters, and the second (Valiant) features new characters, but there is a bit of overlap at the very end.
Most people seem to like Valiant the best, and I think that it is the the least gender conforming. It’s also the other one of her books whose movie rights have been bought. There’s nothing actually happening on the movie front, as far as I can tell, but that may change once Twilight comes out. Assuming it does as well as I think it will, anyway.