(no subject)

[rm]

Cate Blanchett interview:

http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/Movies/10/15/film.cateblanchett.ap/index.html

"To have someone walk into court who's literally gone to the edges of the known world. How incredible and expansive must that have been for her, her sense of poetry and the possibility of what life could be," Blanchett said. "It was interesting, I found, to play a vicariousness in the relationship with Raleigh, rather than simply making it, here comes Clive Owen, isn't he handsome?

"Which of course he is, and undeniably charming. But to actually sort of say, 'I'd like to BE him.' I've certainly had those experiences. I was talking today about watching the 'Indiana Jones' films. My experience was as a young girl, and of course, you want to kiss Harrison Ford. But I wanted to BE him. I wanted to BE Indiana Jones and have those adventures."

See, this is great. This is one of those experiences that I think lots of young girls have -- "I want to be the hero" and then we learn that we're supposed to want the kiss the hero too or instead. I think we still don't talk about that enough, this idea that role models can be outside gender and that desire can be outside sex.

Comments

[delchi.livejournal.com]

"I want to be the hero" and then we learn that we're supposed to want the kiss the hero too or instead.

I think the root of that problem is not that you learn, but you are taught that way of thinking. This is not only taught by parenting but by mass media as well as social situations. Also public education does what it can to reenforce this by backing up the expectations, if not outright teaching them.

I don't want to think that it's done out of malice, but I think it's not done out of fear. Who wants to be the teacher who has to deal with the angry parent threatening you because you are teaching an " adgenda " to their child who they don't want to see grow up that way.

As I see it, the only way to counteract this is by education from birth. Setting in stone the ideas that you can do/be anything before exposure to traditional nursery stories, teaching what television is prior to letting them watch it, and exposing them to possibilities without limits. If this is done right, then exposure to the norm in public is seen for what it is - and can be readily handled with a little help.

In short, parenting.

The people who are there now are there mostly on their own accord. Through the school of tough knocks and self liberation from external expectations. The task is to teach these things to future generations in the hope that the butterfly effect will take over and someday these norms will evolve.

< /IMHO >

[saltbox.livejournal.com]

This is not only taught by parenting but by mass media as well as social situations.

I agree. I mean, part of why these gender-role stereotypes never seemed to affect me nearly as much as other females is that (a) my parents pretty much had a moratorium on all mass media (no television, only "classic" fiction of the sort that would help me in my formal education), and (b) for my formative years, my mother was a chemistry professor and my father was a stay-at-home dad. So my own patterning was quite different from the norm and had a profound effect on me.

That said, my parents were strongly against having heroes, and I think I picked up some of that. Why try to be like someone else when what you really should do is focus on self-improvement?

[rm.livejournal.com]

Gah, when did having heroes become about trying to be like someone else?

They are talismans of possibility, proof that the one in a million exists.

[delchi.livejournal.com]

Well alot of times the heroes are supposed to be people to hold ourselves up to. There was a seies of recordings in the 50's called " The Heroes of Democracy " that parised firefighters, policemen and utility workers. the idea of the hero ( and less often the heroine ) was to get people to say " I want to be like that person " and emulate their behavior. This lead to " Well if you want to be strong like Popeye eat your spinach " , and then the first time you eat spinach and can't life a car with one hand it kinda diminishes.

If one in a million exists, wouldn't you want to be that one? I know I did. I wanted to be Dexter Reilly, James Bond, Michael Knight , McGuyver , etc.. etc...

Eventually I became my own blend of those and more.

There is no fun in just knowing that one in a million exists, it's the possibility that you could be the one in a million that makes it interesting. How many people lines up to try to pull the sword from the stone?

[rm.livejournal.com]

Of course I want to be that one in a million, Frank, that's my point.

I'm as ambitious as plagues. All I need to know is that there can be a one in a million to decide it's going to be me.

[delchi.livejournal.com]

Well I think that part has already happened. you have already established that you are that one in a million, now the rest is just watching the story develop.

I can see what you mean though - without any example how does one know that one can become the one in a million.

Where I'm standing, part of being one in a million means that there is a responsibility to create the next one in a million. Some day you will hand over a used practice foil into the hands of someone who will cherish it not just because it is a symbol of choice and empowerment, but because it came from you - who is the one in a million.

Imagine how many lives you could change if you published your fencing dairy as a book.

[saltbox.livejournal.com]

Gah, when did having heroes become about trying to be like someone else?

I'm not saying it *has* to be. But that was the sense I got from the quotation you cut-and-pasted: "But I wanted to BE him. I wanted to BE Indiana Jones and have those adventures."

Literally, the quotation is about wanting to be (like) someone else.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Wanting to be a character in a story isn't about having heroes. It's about identifying with the protagonist, which is how lots of stories are designed to be enjoyed. As far as I can tell, Blanchett is saying she wanted to be that protagonist, even if the protagonist was male. And what I'm saying is that that should be okay, this cross-gender identification in stories and imagination, instead of telling girls they should want to kiss the boys in the stories they like, as opposed to wishing to inhabit those stories in the same way their male counterparts might desire to.

[saltbox.livejournal.com]

That's fine. I was just conflating two parts of your post--the Cate Blanchett excerpt and the statement "I want to be the hero." Sorry.

[delchi.livejournal.com]

I wasn't turned away from television, but I was taught what it was all about. I also benefited from my parents owning their own business so I developed a business sense and understood the how and why oc tv commercials early on. Also though I loved reading, and my father encouraged this by supplying me with book after book after book. Eventually instead of watching TV I was working on VCRs and working in a TV station.

I realize that as a male of the species I've had some advantage and leverage in this society, but I also would liek to think that I've never held anyone back / put them aside by saying " you're a girl, you can't do that ".

[rm.livejournal.com]

Frank, your excellence and that of many many men I have had the pleasure to know and even more I haven't, regrettably, is not enough to undo the rest of the shit going on out there.

[delchi.livejournal.com]

I know it's not. However it is my responsibility to pass on the excellence on in the attempt to make it real. It is also my responsibility to support those who put forward the motions to change things.

I know I can't undo it by myself. I know that maybe 100 of me could not undo it. That's no reason not to fight it. I want to at least say that I made an effort to change it instead of just letting it happen. the result might not come for 100 years, but at least somewhere down the road a person could look back and see what people like you and I have done to make their lives possible.