LITTLE WOMEN, due out December 25th, breaks no new ground and really has no reason to exist except possibly to perpetuate racism. Greta Gerwig has dressed up the story a little, trying to modernize it with reactions and statements that are not true to the novel. All she's really done is demonstrate that she's both a pedestrian director and, yes, a racist.
We make the world we want. We make it with our choices.
Greta decided the world needed a movie based on the novel LITTLE WOMEN.
Of course, the world already had films -- plural -- based upon LITTLE WOMEN.
Many films.
In 1917, Alexander Butler directed the first known film of Louisa May Alcott's novel. It was a silent film as was the one a year later directed by Harley Knoles. In 1933, George Cukor directed the classic version starring Katharine Hepburn. In 1949, Mervyn LeRoy directed the embarrassment starring June Allyson -- it was an abomination and Greta should be happy for that -- she hasn't directed the worst version of the film, just the second worst version.
In 1978, the novel was a two-part mini-series with a cast led by Susan Dey. In 1994, Gillian Armstrong's version was released and it remains the only version to seriously rival George Cukor's. 2018 found another film of the novel, this one directed by Clare Niederpruem.
And now Greta.
The only question is: Why?
A gift to little girls?
How sweet but maybe a real gift to all little girls would be a film that featured little girls of various races and not just White little girls?
Some will wrongly insist that the film must be great beause it is on a some best-of lists. They're not grading the film, they're grading intentions. It's a bad film, it's poorly paced and Greta's trying to improve upon Alcott and the characters aren't the ones you know because she's given 21st century sensibilities.
Well . . . the sensibilities of 21st century White women who live sheltered lives and never bother to look around and think, "Where are the people of color?"
That's the question that needs to be asked of Greta.
LITTLE WOMEN is done. No one needs another movie.
Where's the film of MOSES, MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN, for example?
Or is it Oprah -- and only Oprah -- who has a responsibility to bring novels by women of color to the small screen and the big screen?
Zora Neale Hurston?
There was a time, before Alice Walker spent years bringing her back into the public awareness, when Zora was largely unknown.
Why is it we applaud White women for doing tired films based on books written by White women?
At what point do we start demanding that these prissy little women start stepping beyond their comfort zones and stop re-directing the same damn film over and over.
LITTLE WOMEN didn't need another film. Books by other women? Yeah, there are tons. Stop applauding the nonsense that Greta's serving.
Let's quote from Alice Walker, from her essay "One Child of One's Own" (which can be found in Alice's essay collection IN SEARCH OF OUR MOTHER'S GARDENS):
Our young mother had designed a course in black women writers which she proceeded to teach at an upper-class, largely white, women's college (her students were racially mixed). There she shared an office with a white woman feminist scholar who taught poetry and literature. This woman throught black literature consisted predominantly of Nikki Giovanni, whom she had, apparently, once seen inadvertently on TV. Our young mother was appalled. She made a habit of leaving books by Gwendolyn Brooks, Margaret Walker, Toni Morrison, Nella Larsen, Paule Marshall, and Zora Neale Hurston face up on her own desk, which was just behind the white feminist scholar's. For the truly scholarly feminist, she thought, subtlety is enough. She had heard that this scholar was writing a massive study of women's imagination throughout the centuries, and what women's imaginations were better than those displayed on her desk, our mother wondered, what woman's imagination better than her own, for that matter; but she was modest and, as I have said, trusted subtlety.
Time passed. The scholarly tome was published. Dozens of imaginative women paraded across its pages. They were all white. Papers of the status quo, like the TIMES, and liberal inquirers like the NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS and the VILLAGE VOICE, and even feminist magazines such as MS. (for which our young mother was later to work) actually reviewed this work with varying degrees of seriousness. Yet to our young mother, the index alone was sufficient proof that the work could not be really serious scholarship, only serious white female chauvinism. And for this she had little time and less patience.
In the prologue to her book, THE FEMALE IMAGINATION, Patricia Meyer Spacks attempts to explain why her book deals solely with women in the "Anglo-American literary tradition." (She means, of course, white women in the Anglo-American literary tradition.) Speaking of the books she has chosen to study, she writes: "Almost all delineate the lives of white middle-class women. Phyllis Chesler has remarked, 'I have no theory to offer of Third World female psychology in America. . . . As a white woman, I'm reluctant and unable to construct theories about experiences I haven't had.' So am I: the books I talk about describe familiar experiences, belong to a familiar cultural setting; their particular immediacy depends partly on these facts. My bibliography balances works everyone knows (JANE EYRE, MIDDLEMARCH) with works that should be better known (THE STORY OF MARY MACLANE). Sill, the question remains: Why only these?" (my italics).
Why only these? Because they are white, and middle class, and because, to Spacks, female imagination is only that. Perhaps, however, this is the white female imagination is only that. Perhaps, however, this is the white female imagination, one that is "reluctant and unable to construct theories about experiences I haven't had." (Yet Spacks never lived in nineteenth-cnetury Yorkshire, so why theorize about the Brontes?)
[. . .]
It is, apparently, inconvenient, if not downright mind straining, for white women scholars to think of black women as women, perhaps because "woman" (like "man" among white males) is a name they are claiming for themselves, and themselves alone. Racism decrees that if they are now women (years ago they were ladies, but fashions change) then black women must, perforce, be something else. (While they were "ladies," black women could be "women," and so on.)
Seven films. A mini-series. Why are we going to the same well over and over?
In some of the press material the studio's distributing, Greta's film is called "a gift"? A gift for who?
Little girls of color who can try to see themselves reflected in the faces of White women?
Greta tries to present herself as 'woke' but she's nothing but insulting.
And stupid. As we noted in 2018:
As embarrassing as Greta saying in a clip, "All the movies I loved were directed by men."
Really, Greta?
You never saw the work of Nancy Savoca (including DOGFIGHT)? Lee Grant
(including STAYING TOGETHER)? Barbra Streisand (YENTL, PRINCE OF TIDES,
THE MIRROR HAS TWO FACES)? Elaine May (THE HEARTBREAK KID, A NEW LEAF,
MIKEY AND NICKY)? Ida Lupino (THE TROUBLE WITH ANGELS, OUTRAGE, THE
BIGAMIST, etc.)? Jane Campion (THE PIANO, THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY, IN
THE CUT, etc.)? Lois Weber (FINE FEATHERS, HOW MEN PROPOSE, WHERE ARE
MY CHILDREN?, etc.)? Gillian Armstrong (MRS. SOFFEL, MY BRILLIANT
CAREER, LITTLE WOMEN, etc)? Betty Thomas (THE BRADY BUNCH MOVIE, DR.
DOLITTLE, 28 DAYS, PRIVATE PARTS, etc.)? Kathryn Bigelow (NEAR DARK,
POINT BREAK, STRANGE DAYS, DETROIT, ZERO DARK THIRTY, THE HURT LOCKER,
etc.). Dorothy Arzner (THE BRIDE WORE RED, CRAIG'S WIFE, CHRISTOPHER
STRONG, MERRILY WE GO TO HELL, etc)? Penny Marshall (BIG, AWAKENINGS,
RIDING IN CARS WITH BOYS, JUMPING JACK FLASH, etc)? Nora Ephron
(SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE, YOU"VE GOT MAIL, JULIE & JULIA)? Jocelyn
Moorhouse (A THOUSAND ACRES, HOW TO MAKE AN AMERICAN QUILT, THE
DRESSMAKER)? Amy Heckerling (CLUELESS, LOOK WHO'S TALKING, FAST TIMES
AT RIDGEMONT HIGH, etc)? Nancy Meyers (THE HOLIDAY, WHAT WOMEN WANT,
SOMETHING'S GOTTA GIVE, IT'S COMPLICATED, PARENT TRAP, etc)? Diane
Keaton (UNSTRUNG HEROES, HANGING UP)? Sofia Coppola (THE BLING RING,
LOST IN TRANSLATION, SOMEWHERE, THE VIRGIN SUICIDES, THE BEGUILED, etc)?
Cheryl Hines (SERIOUS MOONLIGHT)? Ava DuVernay (A WRINKLE IN TIME,
SELMA, MIDDLE OF NOWHERE)? Penelope Spheeris (WAYNE'S WORLD, THE LITTLE
RASCALS, THE BEVERY HILLBILLIES, THE BOYS NEXT DOOR, etc)? Jodie Foster
(THE BEAVER, LITTLE MAN TATE, HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS, MONEY MONSTER)?
Joan Micklin Silver (CROSSING DELANCY, HESTER STREET, etc)? Mira Nair
(MONSOON WEDDING, MISSISSIPPI MASALA, SALAAM BOMBAY, etc)? Kimberly
Peirce (STOP-LOSS, CARRIE, BOYS DON'T CRY)? Lisa Cholodenko (THE KIDS
ARE ALRIGHT, LAUREL CANYON, HIGH ART)? Mimi Leder (DEEP IMPACT, THE
PEACEMAKER)? Martha Coolidge (RAMBLING ROSE, VALLEY GIRL, REAL GENIUS,
etc)? Karyn Kusama (GIRL FIGHT, JENNIFER'S BODY, AEON FLUX)? Allison
Anders (MI VIDA LOCA, GAS FOOD AND LODGING, GRACE OF MY HEART)? Anne
Fletcher (THE PROPOSAL, STEP UP, 27 DRESSES, THE GUILT TRIP, etc)? Randa
Haines (CHILDREN OF A LESSER GOD, DANCE WITH ME, THE DOCTOR, etc)?
Gina Prince-Bythewood (THE SECRET LIFE OF BEES, LOVE & BASKETBALL,
BEYOND THE LIGHTS, etc.)? Patty Jenkins (MONSTER, WONDER WOMAN)?
Greta was born in 1983. Her formative years include the 90s -- check
out the list of women who couldn't make a film Greta enjoyed: Amy
Heckerling, Penny Marshall, Jocelyn Moorhouse, Nora Eprhon, Kathryn
Bigelow, Barbra Streisand, Nancy Meyers, Diane Keaton, Penelope
Spheeris, Jane Campion, Ida Lupino, Gillian Armstrong, Betty Thomas,
Lois Weber, Dorothy Arzner, Nancy Savoca, Elaine May, Jodie Foster . . .
How sad and pathetic Greta is.
You'd think someone that stupid would try to educate herself. You'd be so wrong.
She's offered a movie based on a book about what life is like after the Civil War . . . for White women. What a brave choice she's made (that was sarcasm).
Hate to break it to Greta and her fellow White Klanswomen but the White experience after the Civil War really wasn't the big story -- or even the main one.
LITTLE WOMEN has always had a whiff of racism about it. Even when Cukor's film version opened. In fact, at the time VANITY FAIR observed that the film "brought out from their lairs elderly ladies who all but drove up in fringed surreys to see their first film since BIRTH OF A NATION."
Someday we may get movies that speak to the world we live in right now. If that happens, it's doubtful it will be due to any directing effort on the part of Greta.