YouTube link here. Kitty-free, now that Ezzie’s off the hunger strike.
We’re back, baby! This week, William talks about stuff he can’t talk about, and Tony has a lot to say about things he doesn’t have anything to say about. Then we let Jas drag us into a quagmire of discussion, per usual. Enjoy!
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
On a distant hillock rising up from a quagmire of discussion, there stood….
An Enormous Hound!!!!!
So just to give a brief overview of how I address some gender issues in Detective Fiction:
Sherlock Holmes stories: superficially seem to support some of the recent changes in women’s legal status (like the Married Women’s Property Act) while at the same time making using of underlying fears about those changes (particularly women gaining independence from their husbands) to drive the narrative. Also men’s association with women (including Watson’s marriages) make them subject to emotion and therefore exposed to surveillance (easily read by deductive powers). But at the same time suggest that there is not something “essential” about male/female–where characters like Holmes and Irene Adler can slip in and out of various gendered roles.
American hard-boiled detective fiction – (especially Chandler) openly misogynistic. The worlds of hard-boiled detective fiction are corrupt and the corruption has both a moral meaning and the more archaic physical meaning of decay/rot. Both are traced back to female sexuality primarily associated with women, but also with effeminate men. The male detective is helpless to change the corruption of the world, and is the lone moral point of view.
After this, I talk about how various authors starting in the 70s take characters who would usually have been associated with that moral corruption and make them the detectives in hard-boiled detective fiction, giving them a voice, and giving them the moral pov high ground.
In one novel, I talk about how comedy and romance undercut some of the stereotypical tropes of hard-boiled detective fiction.
And in the Dresden files, I talk about how fantasy does the same thing. Hard-boiled detective stories are basically quest romances, but without any possibility of transcendence so one is always stuck in the corruption. In Storm Front–the addition of magic, which makes a lot of metaphors literal, makes it possible to fight evil. Power can not be used for evil purposes without paying consequences. Magical laws (which are more like natural laws) replace human laws.
And then as far as sexism in the novel–I do talk about Harry’s sexism, but I show how that sexism (particularly the sarcastic sexual remarks), are shown to be a cover for his fear of death/evil. Machismo is a cover for male fears of the body/sexuality/death.
The student’s request–I’m mulling over and looking at some other texts, especially some more recent ones, just ’cause I’ve been using these same ones over and over and it might be time for a change. What I find odd about the request to remove Storm Front is that Chandler’s novels are so much worse, but the student said she didn’t have as much trouble with them because of the time period when they were written. But Storm Front is pretty old at this point as well, it’s just written by someone who is still alive.
This is a common thread I’ve found recently–a number of students get more upset by flaws they see in authors who are still living. The complaints that I get most often are along the lines of “Oh, my god, this author clearly created a Mary Sue in her main character” or “This reads like fanfic written by a Disney Adult.” It’s like they can’t stand the idea that a writer has some kind of personal axe to grind that is showing up in their fiction. I still don’t know why this only applies to authors that are currently alive.
I mean… fiction that reveals the author’s axes… I kind of thought there wasn’t any other kind…
Well right. Maybe it’s this whole thing that I’ve noticed before where the highest accolade is that something is realistic, and of course, if the author’s personal issues are part of the writing, it’s no longer “real” but biased and subjective.
I blame the Enlightenment.
Yes, you often do. 🙂
They have a lot to answer for!!
Given what you say here, I’d say don’t remove the book… use it as a jumping off point for this very issue. Why does it bother you more because it’s recent? How do you define recent, as this is quite old now? How far back do you need to go for it to be not bothersome?
This seems like an interesting discussion that makes the book actually more valuable in the class. 🙂
Good idea!