Of Midwives and Victor Hugo
Dec. 29th, 2012 11:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakThe Christmas special of Call the Midwife was lovely. Also managed not to go overboard with sentiment and thus coming across as all the more deeply felt. I was at first afraid Jenny would one or several produce Mrs. Jenkins' long-lost children alive and in wealthy state as a resolution, which would have felt as too pseudo-Dickensian and deus ex machina. Whereas Jenny finding the graves of those long dead children and bringing Mrs. Jenkins there felt right, and the visual of Mrs. Jenkins placing her hands in the snow to say goodbye was sad and beautiful. Also, the special pulled no punches as far as the extent of Mrs. Jenkins' neglect and the consequences of her poverty were concerned. (All too often, when people are supposedly literally dirt poor, all the production does is smear some coal on the faces of the otherwise fine looking actors.)
Speaking of believability: other plot, about Lynette (spelling?) the pregnant teenager, managed for the first time present me with a young actress where it's actually believable the parents or anyone else (including, as the show points out, Chummy the experienced midwife) hadn't noticed. (Whereas in Mad Men, season 1, I never could shake my disbelief about that one as far as Peggy was concerned.) Lynette fares better than the other teenager who gave birth in this show, Mary; her parents (of course Mary didn't have those anymore) react, once they do find out, in a period-believable mixture of shock and affection and support eventually winning the day.
Our ensemble: was endearing as usual. Aw.
In Yuletide news, I got some lovely comments on both stories by now; more on the official assignment than on the treat, but that was to be expected because of the fandoms in question. Also, I spotted the assignment story recced on the journal of someone who is a complete stranger, which is extra thrilling. For all the fretting, that's the charm of the anonymous period before the reveal: getting comments, and perhaps being recced, solely on the basis of the story itself.
I haven't had the chance to watch the film version of Les Miserables yet for the simple reason it hasn't been released in Bamberg (but I'm off to Munich again next week, which is when I'll also go watch The Hobbit for a second time in the undubbed version). However, being familiar with both the novel and the musical meant I've been leisurely reading through reviews. Some comments about Marius reminded me that Hugo is a good example of reader/viewer training clashing with authorial intent, and not in the usual way. Because I don't think Marius is meant to be the young romantic hero of the tale (and failing at it). Hugo, writing from exile on his channel island because of his anti-Napoleon-III. pamphlet Napoleon Le Petit, isn't exactly charitable towards Marius ; who starts out raised by royalists, discovers his late father was a Bonapartist and thus becomes one, too (plus it pisses off Granddad! Yay!), adopts revolutionary convictions when hanging out with his his student friends but is all too easily distracted by a pretty girl, and ends up as a solid citizen in the restored monarchy. Not to mention that he's a snob who finds even touching Valjean revolting once he finds out the man is a former convict. And yet Marius is still the most sympathetic variation of a certain type that shows up in The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Le Roi s'amuse, the drama which forms the basis of Verdi's opera Rigoletto (Verdi had to transport the whole plot to Mantua and make the king a duke in order to get around the censor), always in conjunction with an amazing woman in unrequited love with him. To wit: the shallow pretty boy whom the heroine falls in love with and who never feels anything remotely like love for her, and who goes on being shallow, pretty and successful unbothered by the fact she died because of him. There is a reason why most adaptions of The Hunchback of Notre Dame either omit Esmeralda's love for Captain Phoebus altogether or make him a completely different character. Because Esmeralda being desperately and deludedly til the bitter end in love with Phoebus who only wants a one night stand, doesn't lift a finger to help her, collaborates on the contrary in her demise and is not bothered by the least by it is as pitch-black and cynical as you can get about unrequited love. (Whereas Quasimodo's love for Esmeralda has the benefit of at least getting a bit of friendliness on her part in return.) (Hugo is is at his most arch about Phoebus when summing up the fate of the surviving dramatis personae at the end of the novel, saying that Phoebus, too, suffered a tragic fate: "He got married.") But beating all the shallow pretty boys who at best only briefly lust after the heroine and care not one whit for her as a person in exploitativeness, and go on untouched by her tragic demise which is their fault, is Hugo's version of King Francis II., who in Verdi's opera becomes the Duke of Mantua. At least Esmeralda is deluded enough to actually believe Phoebus loves her; Gilda has gotten a graphic demonstration that she's as interchangable for the Duke as any other woman and he's moved on to the next already, and still substitutes her life for his, getting herself murdered while he sings his ditty about the faithlessness of women.
Given the existence of at least three Hugo heroines who are in unrequited love with unworthy men and die for them - Eponine, Esmeralda and Blanche (who is Gilda in the opera) - I'm tempted to eye the possibility of authorial issues (after all, his second daughter, Adélè, literally went mad of unrequited love to a man who couldn't have cared less; see also Truffaut's movie The Story of Adélè H.). But be that as it may, what none of these boys are meant to be are admirable heroes. And that's where the clash with reader/viewer expectations comes in. If a woman dies for a man's benefit, he's at least supposed to have moral catharsis of sorts and change his life (see also: fridging), if he isn't in love with her already. He's not supposed to say "eh", and continue the same way as before, if he notices at all. Conversely, heroines are supposed to love somewhat worthy men. But not when they're in a Victor Hugo plot. As I said, Marius actually fares better in comparison with the other guys: he at least feels sorry for Eponine when she dies, and while generally shallow, he also has some good qualities. But a romantic hero, he most certainly is not. Nor was he meant to be.
Speaking of believability: other plot, about Lynette (spelling?) the pregnant teenager, managed for the first time present me with a young actress where it's actually believable the parents or anyone else (including, as the show points out, Chummy the experienced midwife) hadn't noticed. (Whereas in Mad Men, season 1, I never could shake my disbelief about that one as far as Peggy was concerned.) Lynette fares better than the other teenager who gave birth in this show, Mary; her parents (of course Mary didn't have those anymore) react, once they do find out, in a period-believable mixture of shock and affection and support eventually winning the day.
Our ensemble: was endearing as usual. Aw.
In Yuletide news, I got some lovely comments on both stories by now; more on the official assignment than on the treat, but that was to be expected because of the fandoms in question. Also, I spotted the assignment story recced on the journal of someone who is a complete stranger, which is extra thrilling. For all the fretting, that's the charm of the anonymous period before the reveal: getting comments, and perhaps being recced, solely on the basis of the story itself.
I haven't had the chance to watch the film version of Les Miserables yet for the simple reason it hasn't been released in Bamberg (but I'm off to Munich again next week, which is when I'll also go watch The Hobbit for a second time in the undubbed version). However, being familiar with both the novel and the musical meant I've been leisurely reading through reviews. Some comments about Marius reminded me that Hugo is a good example of reader/viewer training clashing with authorial intent, and not in the usual way. Because I don't think Marius is meant to be the young romantic hero of the tale (and failing at it). Hugo, writing from exile on his channel island because of his anti-Napoleon-III. pamphlet Napoleon Le Petit, isn't exactly charitable towards Marius ; who starts out raised by royalists, discovers his late father was a Bonapartist and thus becomes one, too (plus it pisses off Granddad! Yay!), adopts revolutionary convictions when hanging out with his his student friends but is all too easily distracted by a pretty girl, and ends up as a solid citizen in the restored monarchy. Not to mention that he's a snob who finds even touching Valjean revolting once he finds out the man is a former convict. And yet Marius is still the most sympathetic variation of a certain type that shows up in The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Le Roi s'amuse, the drama which forms the basis of Verdi's opera Rigoletto (Verdi had to transport the whole plot to Mantua and make the king a duke in order to get around the censor), always in conjunction with an amazing woman in unrequited love with him. To wit: the shallow pretty boy whom the heroine falls in love with and who never feels anything remotely like love for her, and who goes on being shallow, pretty and successful unbothered by the fact she died because of him. There is a reason why most adaptions of The Hunchback of Notre Dame either omit Esmeralda's love for Captain Phoebus altogether or make him a completely different character. Because Esmeralda being desperately and deludedly til the bitter end in love with Phoebus who only wants a one night stand, doesn't lift a finger to help her, collaborates on the contrary in her demise and is not bothered by the least by it is as pitch-black and cynical as you can get about unrequited love. (Whereas Quasimodo's love for Esmeralda has the benefit of at least getting a bit of friendliness on her part in return.) (Hugo is is at his most arch about Phoebus when summing up the fate of the surviving dramatis personae at the end of the novel, saying that Phoebus, too, suffered a tragic fate: "He got married.") But beating all the shallow pretty boys who at best only briefly lust after the heroine and care not one whit for her as a person in exploitativeness, and go on untouched by her tragic demise which is their fault, is Hugo's version of King Francis II., who in Verdi's opera becomes the Duke of Mantua. At least Esmeralda is deluded enough to actually believe Phoebus loves her; Gilda has gotten a graphic demonstration that she's as interchangable for the Duke as any other woman and he's moved on to the next already, and still substitutes her life for his, getting herself murdered while he sings his ditty about the faithlessness of women.
Given the existence of at least three Hugo heroines who are in unrequited love with unworthy men and die for them - Eponine, Esmeralda and Blanche (who is Gilda in the opera) - I'm tempted to eye the possibility of authorial issues (after all, his second daughter, Adélè, literally went mad of unrequited love to a man who couldn't have cared less; see also Truffaut's movie The Story of Adélè H.). But be that as it may, what none of these boys are meant to be are admirable heroes. And that's where the clash with reader/viewer expectations comes in. If a woman dies for a man's benefit, he's at least supposed to have moral catharsis of sorts and change his life (see also: fridging), if he isn't in love with her already. He's not supposed to say "eh", and continue the same way as before, if he notices at all. Conversely, heroines are supposed to love somewhat worthy men. But not when they're in a Victor Hugo plot. As I said, Marius actually fares better in comparison with the other guys: he at least feels sorry for Eponine when she dies, and while generally shallow, he also has some good qualities. But a romantic hero, he most certainly is not. Nor was he meant to be.
no subject
Date: 2012-12-29 11:40 am (UTC)And yes, Hugo is deeply unsympathetic to the consequences of romantic love - most of the women die (Fantine as well), most of the men couldn't care less. Marius did grow up a bit, at least, though not through anything to do with Cosette, but the deaths of all his friends including Eponine. I suspect he got this chance because at least he wasn't actively harmful or even particularly uncaring towards Eponine.
no subject
Date: 2012-12-29 01:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-29 02:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-29 01:00 pm (UTC)In short, the privilege jackass -- I've never attempted to read Les Miserables, because it's a doorstopper of a book, but even from just hearing the soundtrack to the musical I knew Marius was not worth a jot of emotional investment. I'm amazed at the number of people who love him.
no subject
Date: 2012-12-29 01:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-29 02:50 pm (UTC)Bitter Dad was bitter.no subject
Date: 2012-12-29 03:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-29 02:52 pm (UTC)