Mists of Avalon

[rm]

I am watching the Mists of Avalon miniseries, and it is, as Kat promised, bad.

The casting is mostly apalling. Most of the faces are too modern, most of the acting is mediocre, and few of the actors seem physically able to inhabit their roles and that's before they get on a horse and have a sword in their hand.

The changes made from the book mostly seem unnecessary, and in the interest of sanitizing things that can't really be sanitzed, and that's annoying as well. The entire king-making thing was especially awful, visually displeasing and neither frightening or arousing (and it probably should have been at least one).

That said, the matter of Arthur's heir and the infamous threesome issue, while also utter crap in this thing (let me count the ways), still made me look up from the work I've been doing while watching and held my focus forcefully. I've often said, what a strong, precise literary memory that is for me and the various things it made me understand about writing and people and sacrifice and complexity, but to see that infamous discussion on screen, even in this tripe, moved me more than I would have thought -- not out of any great anything in this awful project, but just because that's been laid so deep under my skin for so long, and if nothing else, it got the sense that no one breathed once during that whole conversation down perfectly.

Other things that suck: okay, people... having some chickens around doesn't make your project all Middle Ages authentic. The people are still too damn clean, and straw on the ground and chickens do not make up for manicures, blindingly white teeth, and men who have no scars on their flesh.

Also -- cheesy blue light surrounding Excalibur? Was that really necessary? Man.

This is sucktacular, and not even terribly fun for all that.

Comments

[orien.livejournal.com]

Overall, Arthurian legend continually disappoints me, but the miniseries was pretty bad. Morgaine had little to no personal power, and despite the book being one big feminist diatribe, the women were overall weak and pointless. Some of the scenes about the religion were still good, but it seemed more shallow than it should have been. And while I don't remember why I was so upset at the time, there was something to do with Kevin that really bothered me-- do you have any idea? Was he simply not in it, or in it hardly at all?

[rm.livejournal.com]

No Kevin.

And yes, while the book has a number of flaws, they are at least often mitigated by other things. This meanwhile has maintained the flaws, lost the focus, and completely left any redeeming detail behind.

[orien.livejournal.com]

How could they leave out Kevin? He had so much to do with Morgaine's whole-- blar! Loss of character development, aisle six.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Also they completely rewrite the kingmaking (so they never have sex willingly), and they delay when Morgaine finds out it was Arthur, so as to somehow make it less squicky... but it's squicky, and this alteration comes off merely as weak.

Is it really feminist at all?

[nuns.livejournal.com]

Actually I am always amazed when people point to this as a feminist document of ANY kind, diatribe or otherwise. I did really enjoy reading it, so please don't misunderstand me. But I don't see how it is especially feminist at all.

In the beginning, we have an explicit and lengthy scene of Morgan getting it on with Arthur. Subsequent chapters feature several other lavish sex scenes between Morgan and other men, all held up to detailed scrutiny and compared unfavorably to Arthur. "If only I could find another man who could fill me like Arthur." "Why am I so unfullfilled? Isn't there another man who can fill me like Arthur did?" It seems strange that an allegedly powerful woman in a feminist novel should need a man in order to find fulfillment.

Furthermore, the sheer volume of sex in MYSTS makes me think Bradley deliberately aimed it at 14 year old boys -- no matter what she said to the contrary. And the fact that 14 year old boys were the dominant audience for sci-fi and fantasy when this book came out suggests so as well. Of course, I WAS a 14 year old boy at the time, so it's possible I am projecting.

Either way, while focusing on the women's voices is new with Bradley, and while doing so COULD, handled differently, have been a major feminist achievement, the particular women's voices portrayed here tend in my mind to reinforce the image of women as the object of sexual imagination and masturbation fodder rather than as truly powerful or frankly even believable individuals.

Re: Is it really feminist at all?

[orien.livejournal.com]

I didn't particularly enjoy reading it, I don't consider myself to be much of a feminist, and I still found it to be overall a statement that women's lives are as valid, as painful, and as meaningful as anyone else's, without being excessively weepy about it.

Morgaine lived her life the way she wished to live it: despite marriage arranged for her by the 'patriarchy' at the time, she continued to maintain her own love affairs at her discretion, she also refused to bear children when it was inconvenient to do so and gave herself an abortion--as excessively pro-choice as one can possibly be, and either actively or passively fought against an assortment of men throughout the entire book for one reason or another. Lancelet spurned her, so she ruined him. Then, of course, there's Vivianne, and Morgause, and when did either of them ever do a single thing that a man told them to do? The Sisters making large choices for themselves regarding the state of their lives-- who was it, Raven? who decided to remain silent--a very powerful thing to chose to do. Etc.

Igraine and Gwen-whatever spelling-ver's perpetual whining and o! god! make me pregnant! aside, really, what is the issue here?

Re: Is it really feminist at all?

[nuns.livejournal.com]

Those are all very persuasive points, and as I indicated it's a long time since my reading. Aside from the two primary points I initially noted, I have no issues.

Purely because I like to hear myself talk, though, I will elaborate a little. I won't blame you if you ignore me. I probably would in your shoes. I am largely full of hot air this week... :-)

I'm not sure, especially given the novel's frequent (and remember I was 14, so perhaps I over-remember this) depictions of sex and M's attitude toward those events ("gotta get me a man as good in bed as Arthur -- why are these guys all such crappy lays"), it may not be entirely fair to dismiss G's whining.

On the other hand, a responsible feminist document SHOULD recognize that women can be strong OR weak, just like men; and it should recognize that a woman DOES deserve a satisfying sex life.

It's certain that Bradley is TRYING to write a feminist document. I suppose that effort, no matter the extent to which the publishing conditions of the time made it seem like soft porn for teen aged boys, makes MISTS indeed a feminist document, although perhaps not in the same sense. And Bradley herself historically did everything she could to present herself as a strong woman in control of her own life and choices.

It's just that the particular way I remember Bradley depicting that M wants and deserves a fulfilling sex life (do I misremember that this is one of the biggest reasons she refuses the marriage set up for her by the patriarchy?) has left a lasting (20 year) soft-porn impression that makes me wonder how effectively she succeeded in THIS book.

In reading my previous post I see that it sounds as though I accused Bradley of cynically using the trappings of feminism to sell porn to children. I'm sorry for that -- it was not my intention at all, and I'm embarrassed by it as well, because usually I am much more completely in control of my writing.

I think Bradley's feminist ideals were sincere, and I think the same thing about her project in MISTS. I also think, though, that if Piers Anthony had written this novel, women's studies courses would have DENOUNCED it rather than embracing it.

A side note: the depiction of the patriarchy and the Christians Versus Pagans issue in MISTS is one thing I found annoying (and, remember, I liked the book) -- it came at a time when the only people I encountered who used the word 'patriarchy' were angry teen-aged women bent on placing me firmly at the oppressive head of it, whose understanding of history was not just paranoid but bizarre.

I was young and confused about what feminism meant, and I am sure I was a big ass about it. These women, only slightly older, to be consistent with the ideals they claimed, ought to have tried to clarify and explain why (if it was, which it probably was) my behavior was poor. Instead, I and all other boys and men were dismissed with hostility and shrill rhetoric as "patriarchal agents."

MISTS used "patriarchy" as a straw man in the midst of that environment. And the Christians versus Pagans rivalry it depicts in doing so is profoundly unmedieval. In hindsight I think it's an interesting way to structure a fantasy novel, and it makes good sense in Bradley's FICTIONAL world.

But in using "patriarchy" in that way at that time, MISTS reinforced the shrillness of the angry teen-aged feminist and caused many people to believe that was all there was to feminism at a time when many mature, balanced, reasonable people -- Bradley perhaps herself among them -- were saying persuasive, constructive things about ways the genders could work together to achieve true equality.

Re: Is it really feminist at all?

[nuns.livejournal.com]

This isn't strictly relevant to the discussion of MISTS as feminist document, and my transitional excuse is that it explains my surprise at another way that people rally around MISTS. Why isn't it enough simply to enjoy this book? Why must it be an Important Cultural Document, beyond its more-than-sufficient quality as a part of the literature of its time? Anyhow:

Historically, records really don't support the sort of religious antagonism Bradley and the SCA like to depict. We DO know that the Roman Church incorporated a lot of pagan elements into its ritual in an effort to convert the people of Britain. Doing so would have made Christianity more appealing, and we can see evidence of its effectiveness all over Europe.

And we know that the Roman Church brought literacy and iron age technology to a culture that was at that time only recently moving toward the bronze age, and even that only in the easy-to-live-in areas of the island. The mountains and moors were still stone age, and it was not uncommon for early Britons in these less forgiving regions to live in (no doubt very well furnished) caves.

Early British Pagans had a lot of good reasons to convert, and a lot of them did so willingly. This process was not a conquest attempt by the Roman Church. They were trying to help people.

It's not as though the stone- and early bronze-age Celts of Britain had resources that the Roman Church wanted. And the Church were snobby enough that they wouldn't have explicitly desired the membership of a people they considered barbarians. They were trying to save souls according to their own understanding of what that meant. It was a generous instinct.

The Roman military was another story. They came much earlier, and they really were looking for conquest. Caesar wanted to run the whole world, to its extreme corners, and that meant Britain. The army brought a lot of benefits too, but their motivations were not generous.

Thing is, in the 50s AD, when the Roman military came to Britain to take over, the Romans were not Christian. They were still Pagan themselves, and the Pagan authorities in Rome were busily throwing Christians to the lions. To the extent that a hostile rivalry existed between the Christians and the Pagans, it was in Rome, and the Pagans were the aggressors. Different Pagans of course.

Real religious misbehavior by the Roman Church will come later. But, the inquisition is primarily concerned not with reluctant Pagans, but with Christians who spread heretical doctrine. The later, a corrupt inquisition uses its influence for political purposes, executing politically strong rivals even in the absence of heresy. But by then, these rivals were also largely Christian.

[feyandstrange.livejournal.com]

Twice now I've mis-read that as _Mistress of Avalon_, and now my mind will not let go of a porn-parody Arthurian.

[ekatarina.livejournal.com]

Ahh, the wonders of what a movie studio can do to a book.

I took a university course on Authriana a couple of years ago. ALong with other medieval studies class as well as some experience in theatre and film, "The Mists of Avalon" just makes my toes hurts.

Really really hurt.

Ugh.

Ekatarina

[nuns.livejournal.com]

Hi!

I'm probably talking too much (or perhaps inappropriately) in your journal. If so, please let me know -- I don't want to be a bad guest. Thanks!

Bill

[rm.livejournal.com]

It's fine. I'll probably interject at some point.