Victimized Girl Trope in Three Part Harmony...

[shadowkat]

I finished reading and watching two narratives that featured the victimized girl trope in two different ways. And of course there's the third one, that haunts me, the works of Joss Whedon - who of all writers appears to be the most obsessed with the trope.

[WARNING: This post is highly critical of Joss Whedon's writings, if that offends or bothers you in any way, please skip this entry. I understand why it would, I used to be the same way. It's tough to be a fan. I have hidden the criticism behind lj cut tags to aid you in avoidance.]

Just finished watching the tv series Nikita's two part season finale tonight - which in some respects is the originator of the trope in my experience. Although I'm certain people did it prior to Luc Besson, the French auteur who did both the original film Nikita and The Professional - a 12 year old Natalie Portman is taken in by a male hitman and trained to hurt those who victimized her and killed her parents. Besson did quite a few of these films. The Fifth Element is also Luc Besson. In the tv series - for those who don't know it - Nikita's family is killed, becomes a felon herself, and is taken in by Division (a counter-intelligence agency) and turned into an assassin. After Division kills her lover, Daniel, she goes Rogue, with the sole purpose of taking down Division and evening the scales - redeeming herself for the people she killed or the families she destroyed. One of those people she fights to even the scales for is Alex, who she rescues and trains to become an operative like herself and places in the heart of Division. The Television version of Nikita varies from all the other's including Joss Whedon's Dollhouse and most notably the original film and the Canadian television series starring Peta Wilson, as well as Alias another off-shoot - in this way: the trainer and rescuer of the victimized girl is female. The women take center stage in this drama, turning the tables on the men.



I was rather surprised by the season finale, where the series is completely flipped over and remade into something else entirely. It may be the first time that women are featured as the controlling force or the force to be reckoned with in the Nikita franchise. The male mentor...isn't really in force here. And the catering towards male fantasy that is promised in the opening episodes - with scanty clothes is rapidly dropped by the third or forth episode and never comes up again. Alias it's not. Nor is it Dollhouse. Here the scales are far more balanced in all ways. Having watched all the versions of this particular franchise - I was rather impressed with this unexpected turn of events.

In the two part finale, Alex learns that Nikita killed her family and then took her in to train her. Nikita takes on the Michael/Luc Besson (Hitman) role in this drama - she is both the victimizer (albeit via another's orders - a man's) and the redeemer or teacher/mentor. She saves the girl - she traumatized. But the girl can't quite forgive her for being the one who pulled the trigger.

Amanda instead of Percy, becomes the master manipulator - who pushes Percy out of the way and takes over Division - letting Alex go and bringing Alex under her wing. Amanda is the one who molds the girls and agents not Percy. And Oversight ruled by men and women - seems to be both Harris Yulin and the great Alberta Watson (who played Madeline (the Amanda role) in the original tv version).

Michael instead of leading the charge to get Nikita out, joins her, bringing her the black box. He doesn't save her - she saves herself. They are equals in this version more so than in all the others.

Up until the final twenty minutes I feared a return to the status quo, which I'd seen in the trope to date - Michael saves Nikita, Percy controls Alex...etc. But Amanda surprised me and took center stage. And they flipped it - making Michael and Nikita the two agents on the run, and Amanda and Alex the two chasing them. Alex - Nikita's creation, as opposed to Nikita being Michael's or even Percy's. The gender biasis seems to be lifted finally.



Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larrson (hereinafter: "Girl" or GWTDT)

Before going too in depth on this novel - I should provide a bit of background on Larrson. Larrson prior to being a journalist was a sci-fi fan, who wrote for and edited science fiction fanzines.

Here's a quick blurb from wiki:

Larsson was initially a political activist for the Kommunistiska Arbetareförbundet (Communist Workers League), a photographer, and one of Sweden's leading science fiction fans.In politics he was the editor of the Swedish Trotskyist journal Fjärde internationalen, journal of the Swedish section of the Fourth International. He also wrote regularly for the weekly Internationalen.

Larsson spent part of 1977 in Eritrea, training a squad of female Eritrean People's Liberation Front guerrillas in the use of grenade launchers. He was forced to abandon that work due to having contracted a kidney disease. Upon his return to Sweden, he worked as a graphic designer at the largest Swedish news agency, Tidningarnas Telegrambyrå (TT) between 1977 and 1999.

Larsson's political convictions, as well as his journalistic experiences, led him to found the Swedish Expo Foundation, similar to the British Searchlight Foundation, established to "counteract the growth of the extreme right and the white power-culture in schools and among young people."He also became the editor of the foundation's magazine, Expo, in 1995.

When he was not at his day job, he worked on independent research of right-wing extremism in Sweden. In 1991, his research resulted in his first book Extremhögern (Right-wing extremism). Larsson quickly became instrumental in documenting and exposing Swedish extreme right and racist organizations; he was an influential debater and lecturer on the subject, reportedly living for years under death threats from his political enemies. The political party Sweden Democrats (Sverigedemokraterna) was a major subject of his research.

"Girl" or GWTDT - feels a times like reading a journalistic piece in The Financial Times or
The Economist or maybe The Wall Street Journal. It has that same weird emotional distance. You can tell the writer was a journalist. Also the translator, Reege Keeland, is definitely British or UK - since the English translation has UK spellings and UK words - examples include arse (not ass) and gaol, not jail - although he uses both. Also "boot" not "trunk". These are minor but pop out. In some respects it is more realistic since someone from Sweden is far more likely to learn British English than American English. I hope Fincher is aware of this while doing an American version of the film. Possibly since he cast two Brits in the male lead roles.

The first 250 pages of Girl read like a financial journalistic piece in well The Financial Times business section. I felt like I was reading a business journal. After page 250 - when we meet Lisbeth Salander - the girl in question, or the girl with the dragon tattoo - the novel starts to take off. She's far more interesting than Blomkvist - the financial journalist who has gotten in over his head on not one but three matters. He's the damsel in this tale and the kind caretaker. Larrson unlike many of his mystery/thriller contemporaries, flips the two roles. Larrson also explores in precise and often graphic detail the victimized female trope and it is not pretty.



Unlike Nikita, or even Buffy, River, Echo, et al - Lisbeth Salander is not a pretty girl or a girl who has popped out of a magazine. She has body piercings all over her body, tattoos everywhere, and is aneorexic with no breasts or bust to speak of. She is four foot ten, if that. Tiny. Black hair. And anti-social. She looks like a victim, but it quickly becomes clear that she is anything but and has little patience for victims and refuses to be saved. It's clear from the outset that she has been victimized by a male dominated and male run social welfare system, and a patriachial society.

While it is tempting to call Girl male fantasy - it's not. Unlike Joss Whedon's Dollhouse or even Alias or for that matter Nikita - there's nothing erotic about Lisbeth or her tale. The rape that occurs in the book is told factually - like you were reading a forensic report. Dry and clear. Hard. And painful. We are told in detail that after it - Lisbeth can barely walk. That she had to call in sick and lay in bed for a week. That she couldn't sit down. That her abdomen hurt. The author does not allow the reader the privilege to look away or to get off on it, and if we do - we are shown how painful it was to Lisbeth - then she gets revenge. And she gets it - well I'll let you read the book. Lisbeth becomes a sort of avenging angel for women who have been raped, beaten or abused by men. Anyone actually who has.

And it comes as no surprise that the Swedish title was originally - "Men Who Hate Women". It's a story about a missing woman, that's the central mystery, then it rapidly becomes a tale about a serial rapist/murderer/kidnapper who along with his father before him, kidnapped, raped, and killed women. Picking those who were immigrants or had no one, people like Lisbeth. Larrson dissects the misogyny and male fantasy surrounding it with a deftness that is almost cringe inducing. The serial killer in the novel turns his killings into parodies of bibilical passages from Leviticus. And rapes his own sister repeatedly.

Blomkvist doesn't save or guide Salander in this novel, although I'm told he does do this in the next two - falling into the trap of the trope, unfortunately. But here, Salander is the rescuer. And Salander takes on the traditional role of the hard-bitten male hero. Unfortunately the comparison stops there - in the tales of the hard-bitten male hero often portrayed by Clint Eastwood back in the day...the hero mistrusts women, mistrusts men and may have been abused as child or just has Mommy or Daddy issues. He was not raped, beaten, and repeatedly by the system or his father. His not someone who has been victimized. David Baldacci's hardbitten hero is cynical but from war or the system or unlucky in love, not well like this. We don't really see the male version of this trope because it does not exist. Men aren't victimized in quite this way or if they are it is rare. Women on the other hand - are. Unfortunately in rather brutal numbers. The statistics on rape, domestic abuse, and slayings aren't pretty. We all know this of course. And since we can't really do much about it, except protect ourselves and our loved one's as best we can - we try not to think about it. Larson shines a light on it in his books.

Without going into too much detail - Blomkvist owes Salander a debt of gratitude at the end, but we and Salander are made acutely aware of the unlevel playing field they both occupy. He is free to do as he pleases, she is not. He has privilege, she does not. She continues to be victimized by the very system that he to a degree lives within, even though as a journalist he attempts to expose the underlying corruption - but since, like it or not, he is privileged and as such holds power over her - she runs from him. She knows he holds all the power here. He forgets it. Just as his gal friend and co-editor, Erika Berger, a powerful woman in her own right - and his equal or at least it seems, is also to a degree beholden to him. He holds the power there as well. The power dynamics remain uneven. The story is never really Lisbeth's so much as it is Blomkvist's. She remains the girl he wants to save or rather the author wants to save.

Which is the problem with this trope. That's not to say that the writer is not a feminist and does not do an exemplary job in exposing the brutalities committed against women in our society - he does. And Lisbeth and Erika both, to give him credit - are powerful women, women who are not established as male fantasy figures - which is what separates Girl from both Nikita (above - although Nikita stopped being a male fantasy show rather quickly) and Buffy/Dollhouse/Firefly. In some respects this is due to the genre and the fact that it is a novel not a film - although I'm told the film is similar in this respect. The failings if any in Larrson's tale, besides the sometimes dry and often humorless journalistic style (although there is a dry wit that emerges at times), is that Blomkvist does eventually save and help Lisbeth or mentor her, or try to. But this is also, realistic. As for Blomkvist being a ladies man - extremely kind to women and an attentive lover, a marked contrast to almost all the other men in the novel - I think this is the writer's way of underlining the differences between the male testrone fantasy of the macho guy who treats woman like possessions or candy and the guy who treats them like equals, human beings not a separate species to dispose of how he see's fit. He is attempting to show how women should be treated - with respect. And while it may feel a bit too good to be true - I think it is a necessary contrast.

It's hard for me not to relate Girl back to Buffy and Whedon, a horror writer who appears to be obsessed with this particular trope because he states, somewhat disingenuously, I think, that he identifies with it. I don't believe it is possible for a man to fully identify with the victimized female, any more than I believe it is possible for a white person to fully identify with a person of color. We can feel empathy, we can imagine. It has taken me years to fully realize this - even though more than one person has pointed it out to me. Larrson - I will state - does not appear to take the same condescending and at times patronizing view towards his subject matter as the television and Hollywood writers do, nor does he appear to believe that he can begin to identify with Lisbeth. Instead he just tells her story. Takes us inside her head. And inside Blomkvist. Not really judging her one way or the other. This may be due to different backgrounds - Larrson has clearly seen things that many of us cannot imagine, and been in danger for his life. He is not a Hollywood writer sitting in a mansion in California. And he died long before his Millenium series was even published. It never achieved the seven issues he envisioned. Only three were finished before he died.

While it is true that Larrson's novel is a mystery not a horror tale per se, it feels like one.
Especially if you are female. I thought after reading it - that I don't want to visit Sweden any time soon and especially not as a single woman traveling alone. Granted NYC isn't necessarily much safer. I'm careful here. There's a realism and to a degree an optimism in Larsson's writing. Lisbeth rises above her circumstances. Men don't save her. They attempt to keep her down. But she fights back. They don't win. She's not their victim, their weapon, or their tool or sex object. She has sex if she wants it. And she chooses her own path.

Whedon's tales try to go in a similar direction, but he undercuts them. The girl is reigned back in, placed under the male supervision or his guidance in some way. We are reminded that he is her God. Her creator. Her power-source. Her mentor. Sure River flies the Firefly, but only at Mal's allowance. Mal is there. And sure Buffy is out killing vampires - but she's crashing on Xander's couch. And sure Echo is off to seek her fortune, but Ballard sits inside her brain, and it's clear Boyd created her. Nikita may get to ride off into the stormy skies, but Michael drives the car and Alex may get to choose her own life, but the Oversite committee has more men than women on it. Lisbeth takes off and Blomkvist tries to help - but she ignores him. You have no power over me. The scream is a silent one, but heard all the same. We'll see if it continues throughout the series. I'm working my way through The Girl Who Played With Fire as I write this.

Comments

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

It's good to know it's better than elsewhere in the world. The US is clearly better as well - since women can work in male occupations and claim a modicum of power here. The places to avoid appear to be the Middle East, most if not all of Persia, a good portion of Africa, sections of Southeast Asia and India, and sections of Eastern Europe, South America, and Central America. Mexico at the moment isn't really safe for anyone - it's going through drug wars (although that may be getting better.)

But saying all of that? I don't know for certain. What I know is what the media and other people tell me. Which I admittedly have learned to take with a grain of salt. I do tend to avoid areas of civil unrest and where wars are going on.

Not sure any place is purely safe. In the US - there are places that are safer than others. Times Square at night tends to be fairly safe now - because of the crowds. But I'd still be cautious.

[flake-sake.livejournal.com]

I think it is possible to distinguish among the western modern democracies too and Sweden still comes out top of the back.

The criteria I'm applying to a society once at least theoretical equality is given by law, concern abortion rights, how prostitution is dealt with, how sexual harassment is persecuted and also how prevalent sexist images are in the general culture. And finally how much money are women making in relation to men and how much of the childrearing is done by men.

In say Austria the basics are fulfilled but the mentality is nothing like in Sweden. People would still root for a sexist hero and it's more feminists that get painted as the bad guys. Men are slowly realizing that they have duties in child rearing too but it's far from a scenario where men and women are sharing this unpaid work equally.

I'd place the US somewhere in the middle too from what I know (or think to know). Job equality wise it seems to be one of the best countries for women, but abortion rights are constantly in question and child rearing is still something mostly pinned on women. And the body images conveyed by the media are super unrealistic and crippling mainly for women.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I think we are both guilty of making assumptions and broad generalizations without utilizing or even knowing all the information.

I admit what I know about Sweden and Austria can fill a thimble.
It's not much. And it is limited to what the media has told me. This is true of you as well - it is limited to what the media (internet, books, movies, tv, etc). Unless you have actually visited a place, walked around, stayed with people who are residents and citizens, and not just played tourist? I don't believe you can truly know it. Having done both. But I think we can imagine it through our interactions with others who are citizens and live there.

What we are both ignoring, I think, are things like changing population density, cultural shifts, population diversity, scope of landmass, legal systems, governmental systems, immigration statistics and laws, climate, historical perspective...

In the US for example - the Northwest or Northern Midwest - Wisconsin, Michigan, Minneosota - are basically made up of immigrants from Scandinavia. Many people actually still speak Swedish and Norweigian. My cousins father's side comes from Scandinavia. Then in the South - Texas, Miami, Mexico, Florida - a major Spainish influence - my cousins in Texas are of Aztec and Spainish descent or Hispanic, and they speak Spainish. Louisana, Mississippi Delta, Northern New York, Maine, Vermount - have a heavy French influence - in Lousiana it is mixed with Cherokee.
In New York, Pennyslvania, and New Jersey - we have the Dutch, the German, Irish and Italian. Also a lot of Russian, Ukranian, etc.
Then in California, Kansas, Iowa, Illinois, and New York - Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, German, etc.

The US is basically a melting plot of every country on the globe. I don't think there is anyone not represented. And it has over 308 million people. 8.4 million in NYC alone. Now let's look up Sweden?
9,088,728 (July 2011 est.) - So the entire country of Sweden according to this site: http://www.indexmundi.com/sweden/demographics_profile.html - has roughly 1 million more people than New York City. But also according to the same site? They are all Swedish or Finnish, and only speak Swedish. According to the same site - 85% are urban. Although according to another site - there are quite a few immigrants - maybe not as many as in NY, but relatively sizable - I think close to 300,000? The site on immigration policy of Sweden is here - http://www.immi.se/migration/control.htm.

Is it safer than the US or better for women, I've no clue. I've been told I should go to Scandinavia to find a guy - because they grow them tall up there and I'm 6 foot. But according to Larrson's novel they don't. But Larrson novel is fiction and definitely pushing the writer's perspective, which is obviously dated - since I think he died five years before the books ever made it to the US.

US - totally different demographic make up.

I studied law in Kansas and passed the Bar. Kansas with a population of about 3,993,000 - clearly has easier laws. New York is a tough bar to pass - the laws are confusing and our state legislature has been fighting since before the Revolutionary War.
NY has more immigrants, more urban areas, and a completely different climate and landscape. Comparing Kansas to NY is a bit like well comparing Sweden to the United States.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I went back to see what prompted this debate in my original post and realized that I said :

While it is true that Larrson's novel is a mystery not a horror tale per se, it feels like one.
Especially if you are female. I thought after reading it - that I don't want to visit Sweden any time soon and especially not as a single woman traveling alone. Granted NYC isn't necessarily much safer. I'm careful here.

So I do admit that NYC isn't any better than Larrson's depiction of Sweden. And it is a reaction to the novel. Not the actuality.
Because obviously just because the media reports tons of rapes and beatings, I don't experience any - (knocks on wood).

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

FTR, speaking as someone who does have first-hand knowledge (though admittedly not as a woman ;) ), I would say flake_sake is pretty spot on in her description of the equality situation in Sweden. Which, again, is not to say things are perfect.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Sounds pretty much like the US. Women are treated as equals.
Actually the two countries don't sound all that different in how they treat women.

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

*shrug* Hard to compare, obviously, unless you want to go to statistics on wages, parental leave, political influence, discrimination laws, etc - and even statistics are unreliable, so let's not.

But just an anecdote: as it happens, one of the biggest news items in Sweden today was that one (1) politician, not even on the national level (by US standards she'd be a state representative in... let's say Illinois), belonging to the most conservative and by far tiniest party, suggested that maybe, just maybe, we should at least theoretically consider thinking about encouraging alternatives to abortion, which hasn't been a political issue since it was completely legalized in the 60s. Everyone was very scandalized by the mere suggestion. Her party leadership (this is the Christian party) seeing the female voters running from them and every other party lining up to lynch them, panicked and quickly declared to anyone who would listen that she didn't represent the party line in this and that they definitely have no intention of putting the issue on the agenda.

Not saying that proves anything, especially not knowing your opinion on the matter, but just to give you an idea of where the goalposts in the public debate are as compared to the US.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I try not to discuss the abortion issue, along with the death penalty and rape and Joss Whedon and the comics...sigh (apparently not doing very well on at least three of those topics so why not give up entirely?) Because I end up in heated debates. LOL!!!

The abortion issue isn't one that I think can be ascribed solely to women's rights. And is far from black and white or clear-cut. Very complicated topic. The vast majority of pro-life advocates believe that life begins at gestation and that terminating is akin to murder. From their perspective the debate is not about women's rights - it's about children's rights - male and female. And they cite country's that permit even demand abortion due to population density -as killing women or children who are developmentally disabled first. They fear if abortion is legalized and state funding is permitted - that we will fall down the slippery slope so to speak.

But - there are a lot in the middle of the debate. And each State has different laws regarding it. Federal law legalized it under Roe vs. Wade, and then later the trimester rule was put into effect. But it does still vary depending on state law. It is not illegal in the US. And most legislators - Republican and Democrat believe that a woman should have a right to get an abortion within the first few weeks of pregnancy. We even have a drug you can take right after you find out that you are pregnant for an instant abortion - I forget what it is called. They give it rape victims.
And I've had friends who have taken it.

The laws regarding abortion in the US are complicated. I remember writing a 50 page paper in law school analyzing the Supreme Court Opinions of Justice's Rhenquist and Sandra Day O'Connor on Abortion - both conservatives, both permitting it in their rulings under certain circumstances.

My own experience with it is varied. In school - I knew one woman who basically waited until the third trimester - so she could bilk all the men she slept with - get money from them, before doing it.
Mind-boggling. Another woman I knew was traumatized by it. A third, it was her only choice. Each case different.

Justice O'Connor's view on abortion was it should be decided on case by case basis.

I'm pro-choice. But I see the topic as a difficult one. Taken too far - one way, you end up with people killing a child just because it was a girl. Taken too far the other way - you end up with women who don't want children who should never have gotten pregnant forced to carry a child to term. You also end up with back-alley abortion clinics.

When I studied the topic from both sides in high school for debate,
I discovered from a historical perspective, prior to Roe vs. Wade, more children and women had died from abortions and more abortions were done than when it had been legalized. But, other methods still need to be proposed - such as education, birth control,
adoption amongst others. The difficultly with the abortion debate is people lean towards extremes. (Sigh, people are such extremists.)

See? This is why I don't discuss it. ;-)

[ponygirl2000.livejournal.com]

But do you think that the fact that you and many people don't like to discuss abortion means that the right wing in the US has succeeded in their agenda and turned what is a woman's medical issue into something political or moral? I'm not trying to debate just offering something to think about.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Short answer? No. I think it is an emotionally charged issue regardless of who is debating it for a lot of reasons.

Long answer? The debate has been an emotionally charged one long before the right-wing got involved, pre-dating Roe vs. Wade.

I know this for several reasons. 1) I debated it in 1984 long before the right-wing took off. 2)I've tried to discuss it as purely a woman's medical issue or a legal issue way back in the 1980s and the 1970s long before the right-wing became the vocal minority it currently is, but you just can't.

It's not like you are removing a parasite or tumor after all. It's a medical procedure that results in the termination of a potential human life. It's similar to the debates that have emerged over the ethical considerations of medical procedures ranging from twin separation, fertility, artificial insemination, cloning, stem-cell experimentation, euthansia (another topic I try to steer free of.)

The reason is more or less that people get emotional about it. They can't discuss it objectively. I remember having a lengthy debate in college with a pre-med student who kept insisting abortion was wrong because there was proof that life began immediately after gestation. So you were killing a human life and it was murder, end of discussion. I don't believe it is that simple. From a purely medical/scientific point of view - up until the third trimester - it's a group of cells that can't exist on their own, and feeds off other cells to develop, with no thought or knowledge of its existence (akin to a parasitical growth actually). Also - in some cases, it can end up in the wrong place and take on all the attributes of a tumor -resulting directly in the mother's death if permitted to continue, and since it can never further develop to the stage in which it can legitimately live on its own...so medical procedure to remove, not ethical dilemma.

But...well..I think you can see why it's difficult to discuss, I think, without me going to into even more detail. Emotional powderkeg. Those two sentences that I listed above are enough to make several people go ballastic. In fact, I'm sure if someone randomly read them - they'd find those sentences highly offensive. How dare you call a "baby" - a "parasite"! Or describe it as such! It's an emotional issue.