reality or unreality?

[kaigou]

One of the other threads in Where the Girls Are was a discussion of one of Bette Davis' earlier melodramas (co-starring a young Humphrey Bogart), Marked Woman. Loosely based on real-life case, Bogart's character convinces Davis' call-girl ("hostess" for censorship purposes) character to testify against a big mob boss. Over the course of the film, it becomes apparent that there's a strong attraction between Davis' low-class character and Bogart's upper-class prosecutor character. Yet at the end, when Bogart's character obliquely suggests that they try and make a go of it, Davis' call-girl turns him down.

The book's assessment of this was that the introduction of reality -- that there was no future in a relationship that crossed such class barriers -- actually turned the film into a subversive work. By showing all the potential of such a relationship, and then reminding the audience of the reality (and thereby removing any chance of a Cinderella-like unrealistic happy ending for the sympathetic female lead)... it actually pissed women-audiences off. It made them say, "why must it be like that? why can't she finally get a decent guy?"

I was reading that book while also working my way through one of the kdramas -- can't recall now which -- but not like it matters; many of them run together when it comes to the Cinderella themes. (Per my previous post, especially when it's poor-girl-who-works-hard manages to snag the chaebol/rich-boy prince. Hell, if you watched kdramas and mistook them for reality, you'd think chaebol-boys grow on freaking trees.) Over and over, the dimwitted but hard-working and well-meaning poor girl gets chosen instead of the highly educated, cultivated, and ambitious rich girl.

The reality of that is... well, it can happen, but it's so rare as to rival hen's teeth. It's not just class; it's also what you have in common and what you were raised to value, and what you can contribute (mentally, emotionally, and even financially) to a relationship. And, of course, there's the fact that humans almost always look to an ingroup for potential partners, and it takes definite circumstances for them to start looking beyond that. When your overall group is relatively homogenous (as it is in Korea, compared to places like Europe or the US), then the divisions may not be as wide as religion or ethnicity, but that doesn't make class any less of a serious division. It can just as easily become a way to distinguish ingroup from outgroup. Basically, the cards are stacked against your average poor girl attracting, landing, and keeping, the first-born son of a multinational company.

Yet over and over, this is what kdramas tell the audience is possible. Is this the ultimate in anti-subversion, a final anti-Marked Woman, offering the pap of this pipedream that even the audience knows would never happen? Is the production of repeated Cinderella-type stories (down to the prince who whisks her away from a life of sanitized-television poverty) nothing more than pop-culture opiate for the masses?

Or is it potentially something to make the female audiences push for what's on screen to become actual fact? The kid from a poor background who makes something of herself, who's valued in the workplace, who's seen as attractive and interesting regardless of how much money her parents made... which, maybe, sometimes, that might be showing the brass ring. As in shows/stories where women are shown working side-by-side and just as valued, it could be that the stories act as a kind of, "this is what the world could be like." (Science fiction has done that route, using its "this is not your world" as the basis/excuse for exploring alternate potentialities, but that has dangers of its own, which I've gone into before so won't here.)

CP's argument was that such fantasy-endings inspire hope/ambition that this is how it could be, and create a kind of template for female audiences, and a point-of-reference for male audiences looking to understand/relate to stronger female characters. "She's not that different from such-and-such a character," and in seeing/understanding that character, perhaps it might also educate the male audiences. Maybe. Or maybe it's that CP's watched only jdramas, which do seem to have this stronger take on things -- and also seem to frequently make it clear that the woman who succeeds, and who gets our sympathy, is a woman with drive, ambition, education, and the will to keep getting better.

Me, I think this may be true of jdramas, but it's far from true of kdramas. In fact (as I mentioned before), the prevalence of kdrama heroines with a complete lack of education, training, or experience (or even self-awareness, in many cases) tends to completely undermine the entire self-empowering aspect of such fantasies.

Here's another thing: in kdrama romance plots or subplots, almost invariably Another Woman is going to pop up. She's also going to be gunning for the chaebol-prince, but unlike the heroine -- who is, of course, a Good Girl and therefore harbors not even a speck of sexuality or worldliness to grasp that the guy is that into her, which usually comes across as a dimwitted kind of naivete and obliviousness that apparently kdrama heroes find sexy -- the Anti-heroine is... Well, she's a jdrama heroine. She's probably pretty successful in whatever she does, she's ambitious, she works hard at what she does (including her efforts to catch the guy), and she's frequently pretty sexually self-aware. (The Anti-heroine in My Girlfriend is a Gumiho was unusual in that she didn't seem to be any more sexually experienced than the hero, while it was Miho herself who was all for the smexxing.)

I don't even have enough fingers on my hands to rattle off the anti-heroines I've seen in kdramas who fit that bill. Not all of them end up total antagonists, and in the rare story they may even get a side-plot of their own (for all its other flaws, Secret Garden got that much right), but... these second-lead female characters are, in a word, smart. Their intelligence and ambition is stark contrast to the female lead, who's stupid and relatively unaspiring (or who aspires on a very small scale).

In jdramas, the female lead is more likely to be intelligent (even if, sometimes, she's still quite naive when it comes to relationships), ambitious, hard-working, and probably also has a decent-to-better education. The old line about Ginger Rogers doing everything Fred Astaire did, but backwards and in high heels, seems to be taken to heart by many jdramas: the woman is clearly, textually, working twice as hard as the men around her, and she gets half the credit. And the anti-heroine? She's lower-class, less educated, less intelligent, and forced to use her feminine wiles to lure the hero, because she can't compete on any other level than being kittenishly sexy.

I find it hard to watch too much jdrama in a stretch, though, because it wears on me, this repeated representation of how male coworkers will wear down the ambitious, successful woman in their midst -- and when there's a rare respite, the heroine must still be on guard against other women backstabbing her. With the exception of the bald-faced "play stupid or men will hate you" message from other women (though it's certainly implied enough, in USian culture), jdramas are often showing a reality that's... realistic, but damn, is it sometimes wearing to keep watching it. I mean, I've lived that. Do I really have to go through it again, via my sympathy with a lead character?

On the other hand, the absolute unreality of the kdramas wears on me equally, but for a different reason: how many young girls are watching this fantasy-nonsense and concluding that education, ambition, and intelligence are only going to make you end up the bitter and lonely rejected second female lead? I know that we are subtly, but often strongly, influenced by what we see on television and in movies; if the constant message is that a woman need only be cute, unaware of her own sexuality, and scatterbrained and she'll end up much happier, how many people (especially women, but also the men in the audience) are buying into this too-many-times-repeated package of lies?

Which is better? To watch the fantasy and have it fire you up to believe the world could be like that? Or to see the reality and get really freaking pissed off because you hate living through that yourself, and want to work for a day when that onscreen misery is nothing but a distant memory?

Comments

[leorising]

Well, my mom lived that "Some Day My Prince Will Come" fantasy, and what she ended up was far, far from royalty. I think the discrepancy between her dreams and reality led her to an almost psychotic break because of the conflict. But my mom was less than stable at the best of times.

And you've put your finger why I hate the endings of both Sleeping Beauty and Pretty Woman. Strangely, Cinderella bothers me not the least, perhaps because she gets to compete on a level playing field with the rich socialites, from whom she is only separated by money, not breeding/manners.

And it's also why I love the relationship between Belle Watson and Rhett Butler in Gone With the Wind. Belle is content enough with her lot that she doesn't have mainstream social aspirations. She's a good woman, though, and Rhett is pleased to hang out with her despite _and_ because of all that.

The peasant girl who gets the high-class prize when she's patently not qualified and despite great odds? Totally absurd and utterly annoying, IMO, usually. There are exceptions for an unusually charming story, but...bleah. :P

[kaigou]

One of the comments Douglas (the author) made about her own mother was that while Douglas and her siblings were watching television shows -- mostly the late 50s into the 60s, from what I gather -- their own mother was, as Douglas put it, rather testy. Looking back with adult hindsight, Douglas commented that the women on television were housewives without a speck of ambition beyond keeping the house nice and deferring to their husbands, and they were all just so happy about it. Bustling around the kitchen, cooking and cleaning and doing laundry, lalalala... while Douglas' mom had had ambitions she'd set aside to raise kids, and she was dissatisfied. But there was no room to complain, because her own children (along with the rest of society, likely) looked at these onscreen role models and said, "they're happy, and you're not, so there must be something wrong with you." Which, inevitably, would make anyone in that situation just that much more pissed off.

The way Japan has adapted the Cinderella motif into one of personal ambition and agency is rather intriguing. It's still hampered/bound by the objective being 'personal beauty' and not necessarily 'equality' or 'being respected as an intelligent and ambitious woman' -- in other words, naked ambition is still only okay if your sole ambition is to make yourself prettier for men (and other judgmental women). But still. It's a long way from the kdrama version of Cinderella, in which it's not her actions at the ball that draw attention, but her willingness to be long-suffering and cheerful despite rich-girls trompling on her, and even (I would editorialize) her sheer stupidity in not even realizing just how much trompling is going on. There's no agency. She just needs to stand there, look good, and keep being stupid.

The peasant girl who gets the high-class prize when she's patently not qualified and despite great odds?

What's particularly intriguing about many of the ambitious-career-woman storylines in jdramas is that if the storyline is older-woman-younger-man, or if the woman is really high ranked in terms of intelligence/ambition, there seems to be a better-than-even chance she'll end up choosing the guy who's less educated, or less skilled, or less experienced. And, curiously, these so-called lesser men are often also nurturers -- they'll do the cooking, the cleaning, the taking-care-of in many ways. (Not always; Kimi wa Pet doesn't follow that, except to the degree that the younger guy is very much an emotional support/nurturer for Iwaya.)

[ETA: this is not to say that men of equal or greater standing aren't interested in this ambitious career character. Often at least one (or more!) are, and do chase after her. The jdrama career-heroine is clearly a sexy, attractive, intelligent woman and from what I've seen, it's usually clearly implied that of course this is a woman that any man would find attractive.]

I find that interesting, as though perhaps the message/cultural assumption is that the stronger a woman is, the less likely she is to pick high-ranked salarymen who expect her to be the one to make all the concessions. That instead, she'll find someone who'll be making the concessions for her. That is, it's a continuation of the superior/inferior imbalance expected in gender relationships, but happily subverted and presented as potentially successful.

I have yet to find a jdrama where the lead heroine and lead hero are of equal rank in terms of ability, ambition, and career status. I'm sure there's got to be some out there, but I've yet to find any. There's always an imbalance, sometimes significantly so.

[leorising]

Just a note, when I said I didn't have a problem with Cinderella, I meant the classic N. Euro. children's story. I loved Ella, too, oh yes. There are a lot of iterations of it I don't like.

I wonder, is the older-woman-younger-man coupling you describe is perhaps fanservice for men who hate competing in the workplace? Men who fantasize about the "lazy" (they think) life of a househusband? Hm. Probably not, because those kinds of guys don't read/watch these kinds of stories?

Maybe more a fantasy for the ambitious but unfulfilled women -- "I can concentrate on my career like a man, and someone will take care of me and my home and fix my meals." You have to admit, men in traditional marriages have a really sweet deal going -- of course women stuck in those cultural roles would envy them!

[kaigou]

I think it's two-part. First is what you describe, of a woman wanting the same kind of concessions and accord that men get, in her position. But second is also showing a way that men can have a role in a relationship and still be considered masculine and attractive to women -- that is, with the exception of the younger man in Ohitorisama (where they really play up his youth, and it doesn't help that the actor himself has all the sex appeal of a chipmunk), these younger men are most definitely virile, handsome, sexy, and successful in what they also do. They're just also more willing to be equal partners, and they respect/admire their female partner for her ambition and intelligence, unlike the higher-level men, who are more likely to see the ambitious woman as some kind of prize, like a taming of the shrew.

That said, the younger men are often unconventional in their own right. The younger man in Kimi wa Pet is a modern dancer of no small acclaim; the younger man in Dalja's Spring is a former high-power lawyer who dreams of opening a bento shop. Even the otherwise ditzy young man in Ohitorisama is a nurturer who believes strongly in his students and does his best to encourage and support them. I know there are others but I'm drawing a blank on a Saturday afternoon (and I d/l plenty and watch, but only save some... thus I have no list to refer to, not without some serious digging!)

So I think it's not really fanservice for the slacker male... so much as it is maybe a kind of fanservice for men who would really rather not have to deal with the incredible stress of being the sole breadwinner in a family. The ones who want a partnership in that endeavor, the same way the women portrayed want to be partners. The stories, perhaps, are illustrations of how by each giving a little -- the woman taking on more responsibility (outside the home) and the man taking on more, inside -- they can meet in the middle in a way that's restricted for traditional relationships.

I think the older/younger dynamic is a sign of the cultural discomfort or not-yet-at-east with that partnership dynamic, though, so the age gap is presented as the conservative part. That the breadwinner/corporate-ambitious half is still the older, more experienced partner, which satisfies the expectations that the eldest/patriarch in the family is the one with power. It's just that the genders have been flipped so it's matriarch, but it's still "eldest is the one who runs things".

Again, Dalja's Spring stands out, in that the younger man does reveal himself in many ways to be more experienced and more knowledgeable, even more self-confident, than Dalja... but he doesn't exert that experience, so much as use it to support Dalja. It's still a flip -- the woman who sacrifices for the sake of her husband, but here it's the younger boyfriend who sacrifices for the sake of his girlfriend -- but it's not a flip you see very often, of the guy being the one to make significant concessions on behalf of his female partner. Even in Kimi wa Pet, the younger man's sacrifice is that he won't go overseas for a three-year dance contract, choosing to stay with his girlfriend, but he doesn't otherwise sacrifice his dreams, or compromise on them, to further her ambitions.

Not that I'm saying either partner should do that kind of sacrifice... only that when we see it onscreen, it's almost always the woman sacrificing as though giving something up is her only way to contribute to the man's success.

[mediumrawr]

The conceit, which we buy into when viewing (or, I assume so, though I've little experience with this material) is that the girl is appealing to the male lead because she is sexy/sexless. The reality is of course that the girl is sexy/sexless because she must be appealing to the male lead. That reality isn't confined to kdramas. One example in particular occurred to me as I read:

Spider-Man's primary love interest, Mary Jane Watson, was introduced as the aggressive, beautiful foil to Gwen Stacy, the extremely attractive but uncomfortable science major. Then Gwen (forty-year old spoiler alert) dies. Abruptly, Mary Jane is a struggling actress, demure, with a wardrobe suddenly replete with sweaters and long skirts.

More importantly, that shift extends to all of the major Spider-Man adaptations. In many, Gwen is even pushed into the position Mary Jane had been in so that Mary Jane's purity can be highlighted by contrast.

No matter who it is who's Spider-Man's primary love interest, she exhibits personality shifts that make her ideal. This happens as well with other love interests, including Kitty Pryde and the Black Cat - neither of whom are originally that kind of character.

(This kind of shift is very prevalent in superhero comics, in which female characters are often depicted as very strong until the very moment when they have to kick off a romantic relationship.)

Maybe the broader implication isn't quite that "education, ambition, and intelligence are only going to make you end up the bitter and lonely rejected second female lead", but rather that they are supposed to become irrelevant when you find the right man. That is, of course, no less problematic.

[kaigou]

Maybe the broader implication isn't quite that "education, ambition, and intelligence are only going to make you end up the bitter and lonely rejected second female lead", but rather that they are supposed to become irrelevant when you find the right man. That is, of course, no less problematic.

Absolutely, and I think what I'm seeing in kdramas is that the argument is: so why bother having any of those in the first place?

Or perhaps there's also the implication that upon having education, ambition, and intelligence -- really, some form of power -- is something you can't let go of, once you've tasted it. Thus, those second female leads will never get a guy at all (in many of the dramas) because they can never accept that eventual irrelevance. It feels almost like an argument for seeing ambition as a forbidden fruit, that once tasted, you can never go back to the paradise of blissful dimwitted ignorance.

I am sure there's an entire dissertation, or seven, in just the Spiderman Treatment (of Mary Jane), hell, of nearly all superhero comics... but I've also seen the same trait in many live-action television shows. Strong awesome female character suddenly turns insipid as soon as she lands herself a romantic subplot.

For most of my teenage years, I was determined not to ever actually fall in love, because it was obvious (in my then so-expansive-experience, bwah) from movies and television that if you're female, falling in love EATS YOUR BRAINS. And you lose all self-respect or even the ability to pick up a two-by-four and defend yourself. I didn't see "having the guy" as a prize worth paying the cost of turning stupid.

I guess you could say I took pop culture to be a warning label, and not an enticing advertisement.

[soukup]

Maybe a stupid and sexually timid/clueless girl is supposed to be more relatable because education and worldliness are intimidating? It worked for George W.

Also, regarding your final paragraph: Eeee. For similar reasons, I have always tended to identify with the villain instead of with the heroine -- the villain is off plotting world domination while the lead couple is busy canoodling. (I mean, the villain also usually gets to be queer instead of sickeningly vanilla, and worldly instead of innocent, and to have an amount/type of agency the female lead doesn't often get. But the ditzy heroines definitely were a factor too.)

[taithe]

That's an interesting perspective. Having grown up in a Korean household, I was actually told the exact opposite by my mother and everyone else. That no man would look at me if I was not educated, cultured, and ambitious. The social pressure of getting into the right school, knowing how to play multiple instruments and speak fluent English, and be the best in your field is enormous. This isn't just applicable to girls but I think Korean girls have the extra pressure of needing to look both beautiful and capable. Appearances, names, money, and attitude can, and often times is, everything.

Kdrama may be responding to this societal pressure by showing that you don't always have to meet social expectations to be lovable. In my childhood there was an implicit message beneath the "you must be driven, successful, and highly educated". It was that if you didn't have the ambition, couldn't achieve the success, or somehow didn't get an Education you were less worthy, both as a daughter, a wife, and woman. In a way the anti-heroine reflects everything you're supposed to be but can't live up to. Maybe it's cathartic to see that perfect woman struck down because that woman is basically your goal and your enemy. You want to be that person, but that person reminds you of your shortcomings. You'll never be as pretty, as smart, as cultured, as driven as she is. Society will always favor her.

Having grown up in America, I agree with you there are issues surrounding this kind of narrative motif. But I can also understand, from cultural-psychological point of view, why it may be appealing.

[kaigou]

I absolutely agree that there are reasons why the theme would be appealing. Hell, there are times even I find it appealing to watch (in a well-written drama, admittedly) because I do get awfully tired of watching jdramas and cringing because I've been in that same spot. Watching a drama where as long as I can act as blissfully ignorant as the heroine (of all the sexism around her and against her), then maybe for that little bit I, too, can pretend that happy endings are possible. Let alone fantastical chaebol-boy-on-tree endings.

The "you must be ambitious, smart, cultured (and of course attractive)" is not limited to Korea. Most of my USian friends, and European friends, and hell, my Asian friends have reported the same pressures growing up. It seems to be near-universal, though if once it was "you must be perfect wife" now it's "you must be perfect woman which just happens to include also being perfect wife but also achieving as much as men in the public spheres". Which is a really freaking tall order for any human being.

I'm used to USian (and UKian) television where the women we see are the exemplars -- the ones who really do manage to do it all, have it all, even if they're about as realistic as that always-smiling housewife in the 50s sitcoms. The only way we might see a less-than-perfect woman onscreen is if she's privately neurotic as hell (and the shows are almost always quietly arguing that this neurosis is because she's trying to Do A Man's Role and if she were just, y'know, less then she'd be all happy and not neurotic! And she'd probably have a man, too!) ... or if she's an alcoholic or is actually a complete failure at something.

That message seems like it's saying: you must appear to be perfect, but you can never actually achieve it, because you're going to pay a price. Your sanity, your relationships, your self-respect, your ability to have friends, whatever. You can't be successful and also be happy. The woman always gets punished, one way or another. It's just that in the West, the successful woman may be happy being alone (or so she claims, the shows will snark) but gets punished via neurosis; in kdramas, the successful woman gets punished by not having a guy.

That's sort of why the stupid-heroine-with-no-skills-gets-guy trend in kdramas really surprised me. I was totally expecting more along the lines of jdramas, twdramas, or even western dramas, where it's pressure-pressure-pressure for the woman to Be Everything. And it's a complete flip on that.

I don't know about whether it's cathartic, though. In a way, it makes me feel this slight tinge of bitterness (which might be stronger if I were in my early 20s and didn't have the experience/perspective on things). Like: what the hell am I doing, working so damn hard, if all these characters can bumble their way through, and everything ends up perfect because some guy thought they were cute? What was the point of all those hours of studying this and that, of learning this and that, of overtime and extra effort and weekend training? Is this like some cosmic joke on me, for trying to do so much?

Under that, too, is the sense -- especially if you were raised to value your intelligence highly, which I think in modernized societies is something that mothers see as tickets for daughters -- that intelligence is your strong point. But here are stupid heroines, and you don't want to be stupid, because that's denying your own self-worth. What else must be different? Well, she's at health-danger levels of skinniness, and had plastic surgery, and is a size negative-six. Maybe if you were perfect-looking too, with awesome fashion sense, this would be compensation. I mean, it's compensation for having no brains, so could it be compensation for having too many?

In a way the anti-heroine reflects everything you're supposed to be but can't live up to. Maybe it's cathartic to see that perfect woman struck down because that woman is basically your goal and your enemy. You want to be that person, but that person reminds you of your shortcomings.

She's everything you want to be, but if you look at the stories, what almost always destroys her is not her own ambition. It's that she's focused solely on getting the guy -- and it's clear that she never will. In fact, she's frequently punished for trying. To me, the message is pretty clear that you might want to live up to that role model of the smart, savvy, ambitious Anti-heroine, but if you do... be prepared to end up bitter, angry, and alone.

Strangely, although I'm not bitter (despite my mother's fears that adulthood in this world would inevitably lead me there, out of sheer frustration) and I'm not alone... I do find myself still just as angry as ever. It doesn't seem to go away. Or maybe it's the fact that horrendous messages like these still exist, that the anger sticks around... because there's still something to be really angry about.

[taithe]

*nods* I think it's universal, but in my experience American parents are generally a bit more lax about their interpretations of success and standards for their children. Maybe the pressure was coming more from the external environment vs. home life? It may also be a class distinction as well -- my friends in childhood were mostly poor and didn't have the same kind of messages broadcast to them. I sense this notion of the Perfect Woman is universal but its burden lies among middle/upper class women.

Hmm if you see yourself as being intelligent and your self-worth is based on such characteristics it's pretty painful to watch the anti-heroine get crushed. I think it's more trying to appeal to girls who don't see themselves as being as smart, ambitious, beautiful, rich, etc. as their peers.

I don't know about whether it's cathartic, though. In a way, it makes me feel this slight tinge of bitterness (which might be stronger if I were in my early 20s and didn't have the experience/perspective on things). Like: what the hell am I doing, working so damn hard, if all these characters can bumble their way through, and everything ends up perfect because some guy thought they were cute? What was the point of all those hours of studying this and that, of learning this and that, of overtime and extra effort and weekend training? Is this like some cosmic joke on me, for trying to do so much?

Cathartic is probably not the right word -- oy, sleep deprivation. I have a bitterness about such messages, but it stems largely from my distaste for romantic love being the end all be all of love/life. It's not so much a question of what was the point of my efforts, but why it is that "love" is capable of discrediting it. The idea that being alone and childless as a woman is somehow freakish is also bothersome.

[kaigou]

American parents are generally a bit more lax about their interpretations of success and standards for their children

I thinking this thread over, and I think maybe what I'm twigging on is that the underlying message -- specifically for girls, that is -- doesn't seem to vary too much, in general. Overall, sure, standards of success may be more fluid for American children, but... for female children, no matter what measures success, I think the message they get is the same as most of my female friends raised in other countries: you should be intelligent, ambitious, educated, and successful... so you can keep up with the man/men* in your life. But you should never be more than him.

[* that is: potential husband, but also future colleagues, neighbors, etc.]

Whether it's stated explicitly (as it was to friends of mine, from non-US cultures) or implicitly, as my peers and I got, growing up in the US, it seems to be a somewhat consistent message. You do all that work and whatnot, either because that's what it takes to attract a successful, educated, ambitious man, or you do it (in the more progressive versions of the message) so you can be as good as a man. But lord help you if you ever decide to be better.

Actually, now that I think of it, I recall having that discussion with my mom, when I was maybe 13 or 14. I'd answered a question in class and one of my male classmates had harassed me about it, afterwards, because he'd gotten the question wrong (and I'd corrected him). My mom's response was essentially a warning: if you are smart, if you are good, you will have to face that this means a lot of men will attack you, belittle you, and undermine you, because they'll be threatened by you. (This is also why, I recently learned, she was worried that teaching me this awareness so young might've engendered a taste of bitterness, in my career, to know that this attitude wasn't a one-time thing, but would be a lifetime's worth.)

This is no different from the message many of my friends got, but my mother went a step further (as befits her wildly liberal/progressive -- and highly educated -- perspective). My friends' mothers were basically saying: "I'm warning you so you know what not to do." My mom's version: "I'm warning you so you know what's coming and you blow right on past it and don't care." Or as she put it once after I came home from a miserable date with a guy who turned into a jerk the moment he found out I knew a hell of a lot more about economics than he did: "if a man is threatened by your intelligence and your success, then he's not a man. He's a child who's not worth your time."

[cyphomandra]

Tough choice. I find the fantasy problematic, but that's largely because I've spent a not inconsiderable amount of time getting educated, being ambitious and so forth - if I hadn't? Hmm. I still think the failure of the world to provide me with the recognition that I deserved would become apparent fairly soon - the Cinderella story doesn't really spend a lot of time being content with their lot, or being just like all the other happy peasants out there (there has to be a better way to put this, but I guess I've always felt that that particular archetype reinforces existing hierarchies far more than it challenges them). I do feel the need for escapism, but into other sorts of stories!

I like your comment about power as (for females) forbidden fruit. A lot of older (pre 1950s) girls' literature struggles with this, where you have all these interesting, talented characters, who when they grow up have to be "rewarded" with a husband and family - which suddenly, and dramatically, shrinks all their options. Anne of Green Gables, for example, or British series such as the Chalet School that cover thirty years or more with their characters - hard to do while staying true to the characters, but they can't stay young (and relatively privileged) either.

[kaigou]

Ah, yeah. Anne of Green Gables was one of my favorite series as a kid, but I simply refused to acknowledge anything that happened after she started teaching, I think it was. Whenever she started dating Gilbert Whotshisface. Hints here and there made it clear that marriage meant the end of everything for her, and it was a series that hinged completely on the protagonist having Big Dreams... and falling in love meant losing all of them. It felt like a sort of suicide on the protagonist's part (though I didn't put it in so many words, at only age 8) but I would classify now, years later, my sense of despair in reading the last books as a kind of grief in being forced to participate in that assisted character suicide.

[kraehe.livejournal.com]

This would be why I skip dramas and watch DIY shows, which have kick-ass babes knocking down walls and using power tools. (Double entendres intended.) They're not perfect -- some of these shows do stick closely to gender roles -- but overall I think they're empowering in that they do have women like Amy Matthews wielding sledgehammers.

SciFi (while far from perfect) also tends to have better roles for women -- probably another reason why I watch more of that.

[kaigou]

The problem with what-we-watch is that it does influence us, or maybe I should say, the problem is in being unaware of how it influences us. An underlying point is that if you watch some cultures' television shows, you'd get the completely unrealistic impression that women have it pretty good. For that matter, if you watch DIY shows and see women wielding power tools, you might also get the completely unrealistic impression that women who have a freaking clue about power tools are respected... and seeing how if it weren't for knowing people by name, now, at my local hardware store, I'd still be struggling to crawl out of the Invisible Suit every time I go. Men (and even the young women) at my other local hardware store will walk RIGHT PAST me, and directly to whatever guy is in the aisle. I've had men ask me, "Are you looking for the wallpaper/windows section?" and similar, making their assumptions clear about What Business Women Have In Hardware Stores, instead of just asking, "do you have a question?"

That's what I mean by the reality is far from what you see on television, sometimes -- and it's when the reality is really distanced from television that I start wondering what this says about the culture in general. Is this presented unreality meant to delude us into thinking that when we encounter the ugly truth, that we're more likely to tell ourselves, "oh, it must just be me"? Is it a way to deny what we see around us, ie, "if that were really so, then we'd see it on TV"? ...as though seeing something on TV -- or reading it in a Really Old Book, or reading it on the intarweebs -- actually makes it so.