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Comment
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Terri
Unregistered User
(5/3/01 7:26:23 am)
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Manners in fairy tales
Is it just me, or has there been a real decline in manners in western (or
at least American and English) society?
I'll give one, fresh example of the sort of thing I've noticed
becoming ever-more frequent. A couple I know here in Tucson complained
about how little they've seen of me this winter (between moving,
funerals, a terminally ill parent, and deadlines, I haven't exactly
had a lot of free time), and expressed an interest in seeing the
new house I'm living in. We have trouble coming up with a date
that works for all of us, but we settle on one that's convenient
for them and requires juggling doctors appointments for me. I
clean the house, put out fresh flowers, get everything ready beforehand,
then race home from the doctors, have dinner ready, and I'm waiting
for them on the front porch with an open bottle of champagne...and
I wait...and I wait... Finally I go inside to call their mobile
phone to see if they've gotten lost, and find a fresh message
on the phone machine canceling out because the female half of
the couple has "had a tiring day". When I call to say,
"Look, I've kind of put myself out here," they aren't
even particular embarrassed about it. Nor is "I've had a
tiring day" code for some personal crisis or emergency they
don't want to talk about -- it's just that, a tiring day, and
they no longer feel like driving the twenty minutes to my house.
Maybe I'm just old-fashioned, but when this sort of thing happens
(and I've noticing it a lot lately, both here and England), I
either want to give people Miss Manners for Christmas, or simply
bonk them over the head with it.
Now, I'm really not totally off-topic here. What I'm thinking
about is all those fairy tales in which a hero's salvation utterly
depends on them having good manners: the heroes who help a lowly
bird, a peasant, an old woman by the side of the road, etc. etc.
Or whose doom is sealed by bad manners -- either their own (the
girl who ends up with toads coming out of her mouth) or their
parents (Sleeping Beauty's father offending a fairy, etc.) I've
been reading a lot of Jane Austin lately (which is my comfort
food when I'm in stressed-out periods of life), in which having
good manners is a distinguishing sign of Austin's all-important
"good character". In such a society, the emphasis on
good manners in fairy tales makes perfect sense. But what about
it our own, where "being principled" and "doing
the right thing" has an old-fashioned ring to it, and individualism
blurs into mere self-interest? The unprincipled behaviour described
above is small, a momentary annoyance, but this emphasis on self-interest
over "doing the right thing" is something I see more
and more -- including some much more serious examples that I'm
not going to into over a public chat board. If real life mimicked
fairy tales, there are a number of otherwise good people in our
society who'd been spitting toads right now....
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isthmus
nekoi
Registered User
(5/3/01 9:28:24 am)
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Re: Manners in fairy tales
While I've also noticed a lack of manners in urban/suburban areas, I find this is not really due to the fact that people are becoming more selfish but that the environment greatly affects people's behaviour towards each other. As communication/human interaction becomes more and more detached the rules of reciprocity become more and more weak. (e.g. Why should I help x w/their bags when I'll never see them again/they might suspect I'm mugging them?)
A friend of mine coming from a small town noticed this lack of manners (esp driving!! everyone's so detached in their little cars!) and even things like lack of eye contact when she came to the city... there's no connection b/w people.
It's a very dehumanizing environment (think Union station, rush hour - *yuck*), and very demanding even in terms of processing sensory information (my friend had a headache for weeks, noticed *every single siren/car alarm*) it's just easier to shut down, try to distance yourself from others (esp when you're pressed up against them on a crowded subway!!) and concentrate on your own needs.
As for fairy tales, what I glean from them is that selfless acts of kindness are usually repaid by boons or wishes - rules of reciprocity. These rules hardly exist within high population densities where everyone can be annonymous. I'm not suggesting fairy tales encourage good behaviour b/c there is an immediate incentive, but rather this idea of 'what comes around goes around' or 'you made your bed, now lie in it' doesn't exactly hold up to everyday interaction and unfortunatly the result of this can spill over into more personal relationships.
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Gregor9
Registered User
(5/3/01 10:51:04 am)
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Manners
Terri,
First, I agree with the decline in manners. I don't know if it's the result of families that no longer have much glue bonding the individual members (everybody works, they co-exist in a space rather than share, don't eat together, and have to make appointments in order to have "quality time"); or if it's just a general social spiral. There does seem to be a connection between the proliferation of Stupid Useless Vehicles on the road and the "I'm More Important than God" complex that most of their owners/drivers seem to exhibit (maybe that's due to their being painfully aware of how much fuel their 4-wheel toad-whale is devouring each nanosecond). I watch gas prices rise with an admittedly twisted sense of glee.
For your dinner guests, I fear only time spent tied to a whipping post will make their gaffe apparent. If they're that detached, they are truly without clue.
On the fairy-tales side, I think you're on to something, too. It seems to me that it isn't just stories where clever princes have to display good manners; but abstractly, they must behave properly in whatever given situation the story puts them in. When they don't, usually bad things happen to them. There's an implied threat hanging over the failure to respond properly. In the Arabian Nights as well, there are many instances where not living up to a social compact leaves a character/narrator destroyed, ruined, or shunned.
And so, your Honor, there's my case. Bring back literacy.
GF
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Jenna
Unregistered User
(5/3/01 11:16:54 am)
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manners
In fairy tales, we're not just looking at "selfless acts of kindness," we're looking at, to borrow Terri's words, having principles - a code of contact that one follows because it is the right thing to do. Sleeping Beauty's father's crime wasn't a lack of kindness to the thirteenth fairy, but that he didn't follow the proper code of conduct: a place should have been set at the table for her. In fairy tales like Diamonds and Toads, I suspect that the way we interpret the two girls' contrasting behavior has something to do with how any given society looks at these issues. When the youngest sister gives an old woman (fairy in disguise) a drink at the well, we might now say: Ah, she is being rewarded for her selfless kindness, whereas in another era a reader might say: Ah, she is being rewarded for having proper manners, following the proper code of conduct. I recall reading somewhere - perhaps in Besty Hearne's book - that one of the changes that ocurred in subsequent retellings of Beauty and the Beast was that the emphasis changed from Beauty following the correct code of conduct (early French tale), to one in which Fate is what determines what happens to her (Victorian version, they were big on Fate), to a more modern interpretation in which it is her perceptiveness, her ability to determine the man worth loving inside the body of the beast, that wins her happy ending.
I agree that the idea of manners, of correct conduct, of having good principals (or at least the highly guarded and valued appearance of having good principals) was once more prominent in our society, and in societal debate, than it seems to be today. Just look at our politicians, for heaven's sake. I too have been staggered more than once in recent memory by events like the one Terri describes above - small, yes, but a principal is still at stake. Terri spent time, money, energy to give the gift of a lovely evening and meal to someone, who then casually threw it back at her saying, "Eh, don't want it after all." Maybe I'm all just getting older and crankier, but I too have perceived that incidents like this seem to be sharply on the rise within my own extended family and friendship circles, by decent people who ought to know better, and in my case, it's not just the incidents themselves that are bewildering but the complete lack of comprehension by the other party when you are then startled or upset. _You_ , it is implied, are making a big deal over nothing.
I think this is something more than, or at least different than, the impersonalization that happens in large urban areas. My notion is that it has more to do with ignorance of what correct manners are. In this case, getting your butt over to that dinner whether you'e tired or not because you made a commitment and it's much too late to cancel on your host. As someone who grew up with the manners drilled into nice young ladies of the Fifties and Sixties, that one seems to be a no-brainer - but perhaps not to people of later generations, I don't know. And yes, I think this kind of thinking effects our reading - and retelling - of fairy tales. When a hero is rewarded for being selfless or saintly, as opposed to following a moral code of conduct, that hero's act becomes an individual act, the outcome of an individual's character or nature -- as opposed to the act of an individual who is also a member of a community, making a moral choice, guided by the precepts of that community.
I have the feeling I'm babbling here and making no sense at all.
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Laura
McCaffrey
Registered User
(5/3/01 11:42:39 am)
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Re: manners
I've been thinking of a twist on this topic for awhile now. I can't remember where I read or heard this idea, but in former times and other cultures, wealth was demonstrated by how much a person gives, rather than what they have or show off . As I thought more on this topic, I noticed the theme recurring in fairy stories and folk tales. Those truly deserving of the title "king" or "princess" are ones who give without expectation of return. He or she shares their meager meal or last drink of water. The truly well bred person is one who does not hoard and is not greedy. I suppose this is something I wish I saw more of in day to day life.
As to the difference between those born before, say 1967, and those born after - I suppose there is one. Though I certainly try to be polite, I am a horrible thank-you-letter-writer and am lacking in other ways as well, as my grandmother is fond of reminding me. However, I wouldn't want to return to a time where politeness didn't always spill beyond one's racial, ethnic, or social class. Certainly in fairy tales the beast or witch is the outsider and often sees no mercy. Maybe deservedly so, or, as we've explored in the Lilith discussion, maybe not.
Laura Mc
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janeyolen
Unregistered User
(5/3/01 11:50:16 am)
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Manners
Terri--one part of me wants to say, "Next time invite me!" Being the consummate good girl, I would arrive with flowers in hand and diamonds and pearls dripping from my mouth.
Jane
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cianalouise
Registered User
(5/3/01 12:06:21 pm)
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Re: Manners in fairy tales
If fairies and enchanted animals existed in this modern age, I couldn't help but picture opportunistic men and women going about doing charitable acts in the hope of receiving a magical boon. Perhaps that would bring a return of manners in this day and age, though it would be awfully self-serving and hypocritcal…though somewhat amusing. I was reminded of the wicked sisters who hope to benefit as their selfless siblings did, only to be rewarded with toads and snakes and spiders…
Driving home on the NJ roadways sends my blood pressure soaring and I find myself wishing bad things on the other drivers, like rashes and thinning hair…maybe I'll add the spiders and snakes and toads to that rant…
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Richard
Parks
Registered User
(5/3/01 1:04:34 pm)
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Re: Manners in fairy tales
That would make a good story, cianalouise. You should write it.
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Terri
Unregistered User
(5/4/01 7:14:19 am)
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Re: manners in fairy tales
Hmmm, lots of good thoughts here, folks, and ideas to chew on (and no, Jenna, you're not babbling). Laura, I was struck by your comment:
>However, I wouldn't want to return to a time where politeness didn't always spill beyond one's >racial, ethnic, or social class. Certainly in fairy tales the beast or witch is the outsider and often >sees no mercy. Maybe deservedly so, or, as we've explored in the Lilith discussion, maybe not.
That's very true. The old woman by the side of road must be treated with courtesy (nobless oblige), but the ogre or the witch can be tricked, lied to, stolen from with impunity...or any character in the role of the Other, like poor Rumplestiltskin (as Jane has pointed out on another thread). A talent for clever trickery or downright deviousness is often as important to the outcome of a tale as the correct code of conduct is, sometimes within the same tale. Jane Austin would not approve.
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janeyolen
Unregistered User
(5/4/01 10:54:44 am)
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Jane Austen
I'd love to see an entire collection of Jane Austen fairy tales.
Jane
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Kate
Unregistered User
(5/4/01 11:04:47 am)
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Thoughts
Jane, yes, me too! And, our postings just crossed--so all please forgive any errors in what follows. I've reconstituted it too fast! So, Terri, like you too I am saddened by impoliteness. As one who is instinctively overly kind, even the smallest slight—a horn honked when I lingered too long at a green light-can render me helplessly sad.
One small idea I would like to weigh in with is the difficulty of heralding the past. I can’t help but think of it as a false nostalgia. One need only look at the voluminous instances of nonconsensual incest in fairy tales and folklore to see that lack of familial kindness that would breed cultural politeness is nothing new. I think an interesting way to spin the question might be to ask how politeness functions differently in different times, and when politeness is repression, and when it is suppression. (Others have raised this re: culture and race.)
As a hypothetical comparison, one could look at how the heroine of ‘Catskin’ escapes her father’s advances, and how a contemporary protagonist might differently ward off the ills of incest, living in a time where—just recently and only to various, inconsistent degress—victims have the right to sue the perpetrators.
Or, as a less troubling example, you could look at poor Inger, Andersen’s endlessly impolite Girl Who Trod on a Loaf, a peculiar, cruel little girl sent away by her mother at the point of sexual maturation, left finally, punished for her vanity and nastiness, standing with wingless flies plaguing her forever in a bog. Changing attitudes about gender would alter the reception to a contemporary Inger’s dark humor and transgressions. She's a wickedly bad girl, sort of gleefully sadistic, troubled by her body, not criminal at all, but ill and intelligent. Not to harp on the incest thing either, but pulling wings off flies (which is what Inger would do) is a behavior that, when seen in children, is now widely considered a clear indicator that some sort of sexual transgression has taken place. Instead of punishing Inger for her behaviors, one might instead find out who did what to her. The history of the Victims' Rights Bill comes to mind.
I’m sorry if I’m way off track here.
I guess all I’m adding to the count is postmodernism (argh! theory again!) a philosophical approach which, simplistically speaking, brings into question the notion of fixed, universal truths (which renders statements about “lost” eras unstable). But that doesn’t mean our culture lacks politeness. People are rude. It is sad. Your friends, Terri, were very selfish. The problem is, when faced with impoliteness, I, a compulsively polite soul, am nice-nice-nice back! I'm impressed you called them on it.
This string also makes me think of the coded kindnesses of Henry James's characters.
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Kate
Unregistered User
(5/4/01 11:16:08 am)
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incest, etc.
I don't know if I said quite what I meant there at all, but what I meant, without saying, is that I am very interested in this subject--and in the question of 'manners.' I am especially interested in how certain behaviors dissolve over time for better or worse, how manners change over time, and why, and whether it is good or sad. Hmmmm. I need more coffee, I guess.
As an avid collector of etiquette books, past and present, I love this topic. I hope my last post didn't muddle with it too much. (See how polite I am? Apologizing for my post if it's not on-track!)
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Terri
Unregistered User
(5/5/01 7:27:43 am)
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manners in fairy tales
Kate, by all means add postmodern theory to the discussion -- in fact, please add some more! You've made some excellent points here. I have indeed been, simplistically, thinking of a "lost era" of manners, when in fact the emphasis on manners, and the nature of etiquette itself, changes from era to era...and even within the same era, between difffent classes, genders, ethnic groups, countries, etc. What's unforgivably rude in one part of the world can be tolerable, or even expected, in another. An example: Among my friends here in Tuscon of the Tohono O'Odham tribe, it is considered quite rude to look people directly in the eye except briefly or in intimate, emotional moments; whereas in American society at large, avoiding someone's eye when you are speaking to them is considered quite shifty. Another example: O'Odham friends, when requesting something, will say "Give me that...," "Move this...," "Put that over there...," which sounds abrupt and dictatorial, until one understands that they are translating from their own language into English as they speak, and in O'Odham there are no qualifying words like "please" -- the please is implied by expression, gesture, or tone of voice. And a final example: Americans consider it friendly and polite to smile, even at strangers, whereas the French -- at least in Paris -- take smiles more seriously and do not bestow them lightly. Thus an American will go into a shop in Paris and smile politely at the salesclerk, while the salesclerk will bristle, thinking the American is being shallow and rude by flinging smiles around at strangers and assuming an intimacy that has not been earned. Both parties walk away from the encounter thinking the other has very bad manners.
Since manners played a vastly important role in the the societies from which some of our most familiar fairy tales come (the 17th century upper-class Parisian salons of the conte des fees writers; the stolidly middle-class German society of the Brothers Grimm; Copenhagen in the 19th century in HC Anderson's tales and Victorian England in Lang's colored fairy books), it makes me wonder what coded messages of etiquette were clear to the original audiences for the tales that we are blind to today; and conversely, which ones we read into the tales that would shock the original authors. Jenna, I'm glad you brought up Betsy Hearne's book on Beauty and the Beast; she does a good job of tracing the tale through the centuries, showing not only how the tale was changed by generations of retellers, but how audience perceptions of (and assumptions about) the tale changed right along with it. Beauty/Belle, in the Disney cartoon, would have, I think, appallingly bad manners in the eyes of her French 18th century creator, Mme de Villeneuve -- particularly as she has no older woman (guiding fairy) to teach her correct behaviour.
Kate, you collect etiquette books???? Very cool.
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Kate
Unregistered User
(5/5/01 9:47:54 am)
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Not Simplistic!
Terri,
I so did not mean to imply you were being simplistic! I only meant to weigh in with the idea that manners haven't eroded at all, that in fact, people have always been quite crude, even cruel--that in fact in many ways we live in a time where manners are far better than they used to be. But you're right, absolutely--they are far worse than in an Austen novel, than in some circles of the past.
I will read your post more thoroughly after some coffee, but I wanted to write right away and say you are never simplistic, I was just giving a possible spin. Questioning nostalgia has been very important in my thinking, personally and intellectually.
Yes, I collect etiquette books, and have since I was a child. I have always been very obsessed with "good behaviour."
More later,
Kate
Kate
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Laura
McCaffrey
Registered User
(5/5/01 11:00:21 am)
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Re: Manners in fairy tales
To All and Terri especially,
I too wonder about all the codes we don't see in tales because we come from a different era. I'm sure they're there, like the symbols in Renaissance paintings, and we modern listeners/viewers sometimes pass over them. The flower looks simply like a flower to us rather than a symbol of death or purity or infedelity.
I wonder too about the teller and the listener. In _The Beast to the Blonde_ there is a wonderful discussion of of the teller and the listener. Mainly women told the tales and then, often, men wrote them down, hearing the stories in a certain way, maybe a different way then anther woman might have heard them. What we have on paper has the shape of, often, a male nineteenth century listener. Of course not all men are the same and wouldn't all hear the same thing, but the more distinct separation of sex and gender roles must have affected what the Grimms or Andrew Lang or pervious fairy tale collectors heard and put down.
As to Jane Austen - just finished Emma and Persuasion - I could go on and on, though she herself was a woman of her class, if sometimes ambivalently. In many of her stories, the servants, those who kept all those households running, are largely invisible. Becoming a governess or marrying poorly is often a danger in her stories, though not always. However, _Persuasion_ particularly seems to bear on this discussion. She uses the word and concept persuasion in so many ways in that story - examining its evils and benefits, how to know when to be persuaded and when to fight it. Also she examines that difficult balence between duty to family and politeness and stepping forward to get your heart's desire. If you can even truly recognize your heart's desire when it's before you rather than let it slip away! I love all that tangle of manners (or proper behavior) and longing - another fairy tale theme? I guess I'm thinking of selkie tales now with the man capturing the woman against her will because of her beauty and then the woman leaving her children behind to return to the sea. Also Beauty and the Beast - for who should properly love a beast? Or East of the Moon, West of the Sun where the sisters convince the woman to look at her lover rather than trust and she does - again why trust the beast rather than family?
Time to go, but keep talking. Laura Mc
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Terri
Unregistered User
(5/6/01 7:39:19 am)
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to Kate
Kate, just a quick, polite note (manners again!) to say I never thought for a moment you were accusing me of simplistic thinking, don't worry! But after reading your comments I thought "Duh!" and realized that I had been, and that by opening up to the broader picture, the subject becomes all the more fascinating.
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Terri
Unregistered User
(5/6/01 8:17:42 am)
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manners in fairy tales
Laura, your comparison to the symbols in Renaissance paintings is a good one. And your second paragraph, commenting that so many women's tales have been filtered through male sensibilities before they even get to us, is a good reminder here. I suppose that's one of the reasons I'm so fascinated by the French salon tales, since so many of them were composed and published by women. Although those tales too have been reshaped over the years, we can still go back to the original versions, thanks to the 41 volumes of the Cabinet des fees. Yet as Laura points out, we're not actually reading the same tales unless scholars can provide us with the keys to unlock their symbols. So I personally raise a toast to all past, present, and future fairy tale historians, particularly of the feminist persuasion.
And speaking of persuasions -- Laura, if you or anyone else here are game to start a thread on fairy tale motifs in Austen's work, I'm game. I adore that woman's work (...which is perhaps a little odd, since I'm definitely a product of the peasant class.)
Kate, I've been obsessed by the notion of "good manners" since childhood too - enough so that my mother has pointed it out as an oddity about me as a young girl. A psychologist would say that was simply the product of coming from a violent home, and chosing the "good girl" role in response -- a quiet, passive, I'm-good-so-don't-hit-me role. But looking at it from the point of view of this discussion, one could interpret it quite differently in fairy tale terms: In fairy tales, acting politely, kindly, correctly -- even in horrible situations -- is what ensures magical aid and success over enchantment and adversity. It's not passive at all, but pro-active. One is kind to the rude old woman at the well not simply because one is passively good natured (like so many Victorian or Disney ft heroines), but with the consciousness that acting correctly, kindly, is not only the moral thing to do but is also a way of influencing one's overall fate, putting oneself on the path to Fortune (or at least Righteousness) and not to Doom. Or in today's more simplistic Disney turns, choosing the white hate over the black.
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Laura
McCaffrey
Registered User
(5/6/01 5:07:47 pm)
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Re: manners in fairy tales
Terri,
I would love to discuss fairy tale themes in Austen's work! Laura Mc
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Midori
Unregistered User
(5/7/01 7:09:15 am)
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cringe moments
This has been a wonderful thread and since I seemed to be preoccupied by transgression lately, I wanted to add another consideration to the concept of manners in the tales. In a traditional oral narrative community the moral or message of the stories is not always as significant as the emotional moment of the tale telling: the story teller takes a well known story and through performance and the relationship with the audience gives it a liveliness and vitality it never has on the page. I think in some narratives the point of the story is producing outrageous emotions in the performance but keeping them safely contained and patterned within the larger framework of the story. In "Good Girl/Bad Girl narratives where the two tales are contrasted, the audience appreciates the politness, the correctness of the good girl (knowing that it is very difficult to always be such a good girl---in the Xhosa tales, the good girl licks clean the crusty eyes of an old woman...how many of us would do that even on a dare?) But the audience glories in the utter awfulness of the bad girl...knowing perhaps that she does those things we would like to but for which social constraints forbid us. It is a thrilling hilarious ride watching the bad girl do all those awful things...kick the cat, scream "eeeyu, no way" at the old woman and so on. We know she will end up punished...but its getting there that is fun. There is another hilarious Xhosa tale, one of a collection about this poor hapless teenage youth Khakenyana (sorry the spelling may not right). He is going with a group of male youths across the veld all dressed up on their way to a wedding. Khakenyana defecates along the way near a bush and then is followed by his feces screaming "wait for me!!" The story builds on this outrageous tension as the young man desparately tries to get rid of his feces, over and over again, can't, and finally stuffs it into his pocket. Of course you know what's coming...at the party as the drink it being passed around, the feces leaps from his pocket and annouces it wants a drink. That's the whole story. It is a cringe moment, of being caught in the most embarrassing and impolite gesture possible. And that's the pleasure of tale for the audience...that it ain't happening to them (though at some moment in our lives we all recognize analogous horrible moments!) I heard one of Ira Glass's programs on NPR the other day, that made me think of this...He was doing an examination of T.V.'s new programming whose success was based on reproducing "cringe moments"...moments of extreme embarassment that usually involved being caught in transgressive acts of bad manners (like those stumbling drunks in COPS or the blind dates with dopey manners). Audiences watch with lurid fascination, waiting for the cringe moment that comes as some secret trangression is suddenly revealed.
So I think that there is a narrative of manners, or correct behavior...but I also think that oral narratives often play with this, not only to instruct in correctness, but sometimes to wallow and enjoy vicariously the pleasure of both trangressing through the act of the characters and at the same a double pleasure in the "cringe moment" when the transgressor is caught and punished. (because thank god, it wasn't me....though it could have been at some other time). For those Buffy fans, remember how wonderul it was every time "Faith" appeared? The baddest of bad girls...but you couldn't take your eyes off of her. And she had all the best lines. It was interesting that the show resolved her character in such a way as to both punish and forgive her at the same time.
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cianalouise
Registered User
(5/7/01 8:07:40 am)
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Re: Manners in fairy tales
Midori,
I was fascinated by the idea of the "cringe factor" in these kinds of stories. There certainly is a vicarious pleasure in watching emabarrassing things happen to other people. Would you say then that these sort of "manner" tales served as a sort of behavioral guide to those listening? I think we have all heard things like "You'd better be good or the Boogey Man will get you" as children…or perhaps I am assuming too much?
I always remember the "Mother Holle" story from the Grimms' collection, about the little girl who was warned to stay away from Mother Holle because Mother Holle was a witch. But the little girl goes anyway and Mother Holle turns the girl into a log and throws it on the fire…yikes!
In my experience, my father would tell my sister and I about "Mamone", who was a big monster who would visit us if we misbehaved. We sort of knew he was joking, but part of us wondered what would happen if we did something REALLY bad…
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Terri
Unregistered User
(5/7/01 8:10:10 am)
| bad girls/boys
It really depends on the tale (or tale-teller), doesn't it, whether we're supposed to be thrilled by transgression or horrified by it. In a story like Diamonds and Toads, we're clearly supposed to identify with the good girl, not the bad. And the "thrill" of the story comes from virtue's triumph and the bad girl's comeuppance. (How often in life do we wish, usually in vain, for the bad girls/boys who plague us to meet the same fate -- their "bad" actions to become visible and public, while our own receive glittering vindication. Talk about wish-fulfillment!) It seems to me that there must be Western fairy tales where we're supposed to identify with the bad girl, as you've stated Midori, yet I can't immediately bring any to mind. Help! (Maybe I just need more coffee this morning.) And here's a question for you scholars on the board: were there more stories of trangressive bad girls before the Grimms and Victorian editors got hold of the tales? It seems that there must of been, but I'm having trouble thinking of good examples. Certainly heroines were bolder previously: the early angrier, less passive Cinderella; the educated, discerning heroines of French salon tales; the clever girls who outwit witches, fairies, and kings. But genuine bad girls? I can only think of ones we're supposed to loathe -- Cinderella's sisters, other lazy sisters and wicked queens.... Help!
As for Buffy, the power of Faith as a villain is precisely bound
up with her bad girl appeal -- her trangressive bad manners, and
her ability to evoke sympathy in spite of, or because of, them.
Ditto for Darla, in a more subtle way. Ditto for Spike, who -- though
hilarious in his love-sick role -- has lost a lot of the power of
his character as his "bad boy" aspects are diminished.
Glory just doesn't work as an antogonist for me (as "the master"
didn't in the first season) because there's nothing about her that's
appealling -- she evokes no tension of mixed feelings, no thrill
of secretly rooting for her. I'll be glad when this particular story
line is resolved and they move on to something new.... Yet despite
any criticism of individual shows, I still think Buffy's creator/writer
Joss Weedon is a bloody genius. Give me new Buffy episodes to watch
and old Jane Austin's to read, and between them I'm a completely
happy girl.
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