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Mar. 2nd, 2010 04:15 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
misatheredpanda.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
revolution_frCAMILLE DESMOULINS IS 250 TODAY!
I don't actually have anything to commemorate the event, sadly. However I would like to encourage you to spare a thought (and perhaps a few words, if you feel so inspired) for this man who slipped into history - and more than a few peoples' hearts in the past 250 years - against the odds. I could never express how grateful I am for it.
I don't actually have anything to commemorate the event, sadly. However I would like to encourage you to spare a thought (and perhaps a few words, if you feel so inspired) for this man who slipped into history - and more than a few peoples' hearts in the past 250 years - against the odds. I could never express how grateful I am for it.
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Date: 2010-03-02 05:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-03 02:27 am (UTC)Camille
Date: 2010-03-02 05:48 pm (UTC)Happy Birthday!
Date: 2010-03-02 07:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-02 09:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-02 10:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-04 04:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-04 07:03 pm (UTC)Obviously, no pressure, but I would do a very, very happy dance if you did this.
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Date: 2010-03-04 11:01 pm (UTC)Not exactly related, but have you seen this: http://www.smh.com.au/world/row-over-talk-of-motherhood-at-14-20100228-pb72.html? It explains a lot.
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Date: 2010-03-05 02:22 am (UTC)So women should have babies at fourteen but men are still children at twenty-six?
She just does not understand the concept of inner life, inner development at all does she? That people, even women, need to go through that radical process of becoming known as being a teenager. We need that revolution, otherwise nothing in the world would ever change. And we need to concentrate on ourselves while we are doing it.
Aaargh, it's far, far too late at night for a coherent response to this but I'm too angry to sleep.
Having sex and having babies is what young women are about, and their instincts are suppressed in the interests of society's timetable.
I clearly missed that memo. Is she just pig ignorant of the fact that globally as education increases, the age of having a first child goes up? That the wealthier one is the longer one puts off starting a family? From this one can reasonably deduce that the minute a woman has any other choice available than breeding, she takes it with both hands.
And lets not even go into the increased depression rates among teenage mothers, increased rates of family breakdown, of children taken into care, of substance use issues and deep, grinding poverty. Lets not mention about cervical cancer rates going up for women sexually active in their early teens, of really young mothers being at greater risk of birth complications, the fact that women who have sex later generally report greater fulfilment, that it's really important to know who you are before you take responsibility for another life... I could be here all day.
I'll see what I can do.
Thank you, but please don't put yourself out.
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Date: 2010-03-05 04:06 am (UTC)I really do feel like I should take a break from my main project. I've been working on it so long... I can't guarantee anything, but going a little bit out of my way to translate something else would probably do me more good than ill.
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Date: 2010-03-06 04:21 am (UTC)I'm reluctant to say this, but this whole thing reads a bit like some twisted application of hindsight - "If I had only had children at fourteen, before my illness, I could have had children."
Yes, absolutely. And I am loath to say this because I can't imagine the pain of being told you can't have children, but nothing justifies reducing a group of people to nothing but their brutal biological function. It's as gross as saying "Men are just sperm donors" or some such crap.
Being uberbitchy, I could also add that if she had really wanted kids at eighteen, she could have done that. Starting a family young might have been considered "common" but it certainly wasn't taboo. (In fact 1971 was the highest year recorded for UK teenage pregnancy rates, roughly double what it is today.) She might have had a few raised eyebrows, but if one is claiming to be ready to raise a family one surely should be tough enough to brave the odd strange look.It certainly explains why all the young women in PoGS are so predatory though. *shudders*
Yes, jumping on Camille and Robespierre out of desperate fear of becoming a barren old spinster. No wonder they are so glum about their seductions. Because I think no matter what Mantel says it's not really the sex or even the babies that they want, it's the belonging, the status and the place in society that being a wife and a mother. Breed now, or become some sort of weirdo.
I've been really enjoying your translation of the Huet article on Wajda's Danton btw. But that's a whole new rant. I remember seeing that film in history class and it being a major lightbulb over head moment, a sort of OMG they're doing to him what they are doing to us moment of righteous feminist indignation.
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Date: 2010-03-06 06:15 pm (UTC)Yes, absolutely. And I am loath to say this because I can't imagine the pain of being told you can't have children, but nothing justifies reducing a group of people to nothing but their brutal biological function.
Exactly.
I agree entirely. Her characters certainly seem to take no joy from either sex or babies, so we have to conclude that it's status they're after. However, while it's true that before very recently many women married in large part because of the status (and economic security!) marriage provided, there's no reason to think that any of the real historical women Mantel portrays were so cold and calculating as to grab the first man they could find and more or less force him to sleep with them.
Breed now, or become some sort of weirdo.
A more accurate characterization of that might be "breed now, or disappear from the historical record." You notice that no one ever says anything about Victoire Duplay. Except to assume that she must have been shy, and that's why she never married.
Isn't that article the best? It's actually not a translation (which means I probably shouldn't have posted it), but I just thought it was so important for people to read. I always encourage people to read the whole book it comes from as well, because it's only one of a number of superb essays. But I absolutely loathe Danton and it seems impossible to read a review about it that doesn't think it's wonderful, and I've come across far too many history classes whose instructors, like yours, find it appropriate to show in class. (Most often without any discussion of the implications of its portrayals. It's so irritating how the film claims to be against a kind of Stalinist falsification of history and then does the same damn thing. Because, honestly, what is falsification of history if not, for example, pretending that David had to erase Fabre from his painting of the "Tennis Court Oath" when not only was Fabre never in the original picture, he was also not present at the event portrayed? It's stooping pretty low when you have to falsify the falsification of history.)
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Date: 2010-03-07 12:11 am (UTC)However, while it's true that before very recently many women married in large part because of the status (and economic security!) marriage provided.
Of course. And sadly, I have been making my eyes bleed by reading more of Mantel's articles for the LRB and found an especial gem (http://www.lrb.co.uk/v26/n05/hilary-mantel/some-girls-want-out)
Why would women feel so hounded, when feminism is a done deal? Think about it. What are the choices on offer? First, the promise of equality was extended to educated professional women. You can be like men, occupy the same positions, earn the same salary. Then equal opportunities were extended to uneducated girls; you, too, can get drunk, and fight in the streets on pay-night. You’ll fit in childcare somehow.
Feminism to Mantel is the chance to be a man. Not the chance to escape having to marry and breed or face obscurity. Instead she appeals to some sort of universal "girl" the access to which is currently blocked by feminism.
Girls may not be girls; they may be gross and sexually primed, like adolescent boys.
I think the point of feminism is that girls can be anything they like. It's a bit woolly, isn't it, this idea of universal girlhood? I'm tempted to say, like Camille's Vieux Cordelier appeals for "Freedom", it is a retreat into sophism in the face of political realities. I'm sure Ms Mantel would be the first to get a bit peeved if she suddenly had to turn over her bank account to the nearest available man.
I've come across far too many history classes whose instructors, like yours, find it appropriate to show in class.
To be fair, as I remember it, my history teacher showed it to us with a proviso that went something like - And this folks, is why I'm teaching you history. He was very much of the opinion that anyone can learn facts and dates but the real point of the exercise is learning analytical skills and recognising the uses to which the facts or the distortions of them are put to. I still fangirl him.
I think Danton is an absolutely gorgeous film, it's the whole empty spectacle of capitalism laid bare. From the first shot of the huge clitoral guillotine through the parade of architypical fairy story characters to Dantons emotive, powerful but ultimately meaningless speech and its gothicy horror music and its innate misogyny it is a complete, perfect demonstration of illusion sold as rebellion/freedom. It's so grossly in love with itself it gives the game away, completely. It might not say much about the French Revolution, but it says a lot about how eighties materialism saw itself. I don't think that was quite Wajda's intention.
Its also very difficult to watch that film and come out not loving Robespierre, or at least that was my experience. The characterisation is cardboard, to put it mildly, but he's the one who believes in something, and is therefore demonised as everyone who believes in something can be. If you nail your colours to the mast and say yes I am a Jacobin Terrorist (or in the films modern parlance socialist, or a even a feminist) you will lay yourself open to abuse. It's much better to adopt the wishy washy rock song rhetoric of freedom like Danton, the film tells us everybody will like you. I think I took from that film have the guts to be demonised or else live in a world of sumptuous cliches.
That probably wasn't Wajda's intention either.
And because I'm really narked now, I'm going to give the last word to Hillary:
It is possible that there is a certain personality structure which has always been problematical for women, and which is as difficult to live with today as it ever was – a type which is withdrawn, thoughtful, reserved, self-contained and judgmental, naturally more cerebral than emotional.
I think Wadja's film proves that this type of personality isn't just a problem when it occurs in women. But goodness, men and women must all be so very different mustn't they? Wadja and Mantel, you bloody well deserve each other.
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Date: 2010-03-07 01:21 am (UTC)That does seem to be the case, but equally disturbingly, since when is feminism "a done deal"?
It's a bit woolly, isn't it, this idea of universal girlhood? I'm tempted to say, like Camille's Vieux Cordelier appeals for "Freedom", it is a retreat into sophism in the face of political realities. I'm sure Ms Mantel would be the first to get a bit peeved if she suddenly had to turn over her bank account to the nearest available man.
I always have to wonder what people are thinking when they write articles like that. I mean, clearly on one level they are very much thinking of their own situations when they write, but on another they don't seem to consider all the implications even for themselves, let alone for everyone else and their disparate circumstances.
I can respect a teacher who shows Danton, or any other film, for the reasons you say yours did. But so many don't. And I know too many people who watch the film and come out thinking something like, "Wow, the parallels between Revolutionary France and Communist Bloc countries are so powerful. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose." I obviously didn't see Danton that way, but neither was I able to see it as you did. I was too busy having my brain broken by all the distortions and falsifications the film contains. I guess it's hard not to pity Robespierre as he's portrayed, but like in PoGS, this is mostly at the expense of his friends, family, and colleagues. The two works actually have a lot in common, come to think of it. That's probably why they seem to be so mutually reinforcing among people who read the one and watch the other. *sighs*
I think Wadja's film proves that this type of personality isn't just a problem when it occurs in women. But goodness, men and women must all be so very different mustn't they? Wadja and Mantel, you bloody well deserve each other.
How very, very true.
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Date: 2010-03-09 08:59 am (UTC)I've been thinking about this because that was rather a WTF moment for me as well. I mean why not use Mirabeau? He was there and in the drawing and he's mentioned in the film as a political undesirable and I think there's a crack theory that the smashing of his statues etc was the start of Soviet "improved" history. Maybe I'm being a bit over suspicious, but I think they might have used Fabre because he is such a minor character most people with a high school education but without a specialist interest would only have a very vague idea of who Fabre was and couldn't confidently tell you whether he was in the Tennis Court Oath or not whereas more people might know Mirabeau is.
I thought it odd that Lucile wasn't arrested in Danton too, surely it would make things look a whole lot more totalitarian if they showed the families of political suspects being menaced? I'm not sure if Wadja might have thought that was going too far politically to get the film shown in Eastern Bloc Poland, although he would have had the excuse it was historical truth.
If I'm not giving him the benefit of the doubt it looks like he altered history to allow him to get in some idealising of a non-political woman, beautiful, devoted to her family,
not about to slap Danton with a sexual harassment suit when he gropes up her arsewho becomes assertive only when those she loves are threatened. Compare and contrast with the evil politicised "maid Duplay."The two works actually have a lot in common, come to think of it.
They both serve up huge portions of misogyny with a side dish of homophobia. It's quite amusing as Mantel claims to hate Wadja's Robespierre but has in effect written him as an almost identical character except straighter and with nicer waistcoats.
like in PoGS, this is mostly at the expense of his friends, family, and colleagues.
But Robespierre didn't have friends family and colleagues. He was alone, the sole voice of the people in direct communion with Jean-Jacques and the supreme being . . . blah blah sodding blah. That's ideology for you, it'll always leave you with no mates.
It's still amazing how many people who think they know about history still write that Robespierre lived alone: There's a very bad example here - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/3652168/Sea-green-Robespierre-mad-as-a-fish.html , and while I'm at it doesn't Fatal Purity sound more like an anorexia memoir than a book about a politician? Also, is there any evidence at all that Robespierre was mad? There's a big difference between very stressed and out and out psychotic.
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Date: 2010-03-10 12:15 am (UTC)I really don't know why he didn't depict Lucile's arrest. I mean, maybe the ribbon-thing she did at the end was supposed to be symbolic of her own death, but if it was, it wasn't very effective. I mean, I have a feeling the reaction he was looking for was not "WTF," but that was my reaction, and the reaction of everyone I've talked to whose seen the film about that incident. I agree that Wajda is trying to keep Lucile unpoliticized. And if cared more about historical accuracy than he does, I would say that maybe he ends the film before Lucile's arrest because he didn't want to get into the whole question of prison conspiracies, which were certainly political, and with which Lucile was almost certainly involved (though probably ineffectually). However, if he didn't feel comfortable using that as a pretext for Lucile's arrest, I can' think that he would have had much scruple about making something up. So I really don't know.
As for Éléonore in "Danton," the falsification there is as blatant as it could possibly be. Her brother was 15 or 16 at the point the film takes place, so she obviously would not be giving him a bath, or lessons, or discipline of any kind. (But especially not the bath. D:) In fact, he wasn't even at home. He was either away at school or with Le Bas (I don't remember which off the top of my head, but he definitely wasn't at home). Besides, the Revolutionaries weren't exactly fond of corporal punishment - the Commune had just passed a decree against it, and Saint-Just wrote in his Institutions républicaines that whoever strikes a woman or a child would be banished from his ideal republic. There is also no possible way she could strike a servant, unless she was someone else's servant (which would be bizarre), because the Duplays didn't have any.
And where are the rest of the Duplays in "Danton"? They're missing because the Dantonistes are the only ones who are allowed to have real families, because of the symbolism Wajda is trying to achieve. As you say, "That's ideology for you, it'll always leave you with no mates." And, of course, I could go on about, say, Saint-Just, as well...
It's quite amusing as Mantel claims to hate Wadja's Robespierre but has in effect written him as an almost identical character except straighter and with nicer waistcoats.
How very true. Oh the irony.
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Date: 2010-03-10 12:20 am (UTC)doesn't Fatal Purity sound more like an anorexia memoir than a book about a politician?
Now that I think of it, yes, it does. I've always hated that title - I hated the book too, but that's another story. The major thing that Robespierre was "pure" of, being, of course, corruption, I find it more than a little disturbing that this seems to be the aspect of Robespierre that bothers people the most. I mean, I understand that corrpt politicians might feel threatened by it - thus explaining the mad rush during the bicentennial for them to declare themselves for Danton over Robespierre, as well as, going further back, the popularity of Danton during the 3rd Republic - but historians? Unless there's a lot more corruption going on in academic circles than even I would have supposed, I really can't understand why historians would feel that way as well.
Also, is there any evidence at all that Robespierre was mad?
I've never seen this argument made in any serious work of history. Actually, I've never seen it made in any non-serious work of history either (though, admittedly, I don't read many of those). I've only ever seen anyone say Robespierre was mad on the internet, which leads me to conclude that it is nothing but an internet meme.
Okay, sure, I've seen (incredibly annoying) psychoanalytic biographies that claim that everything Robespierre did in his life was because of his early loss of his parents (as if this were actually uncommon in the 18th century), but that's not really the same thing as claiming that he was insane. Hell, even that infamous article by David P. Jordan which opens with, "[Robespierre] was unworldly, resentful, vain, egotistical, susceptible to flattery, contemptuous of or indifferent to all the social pleasures except conversation, guarded and suspicious, his innermost self carefully shielded by ancien régime manners. As a politician he was equally compromised, being inflexible, unforgiving, ill at ease in public, secretive, stiff and pedantic as a speaker (with an unpleasing and not very powerful voice), lacking the common touch, preoccupied. As a political and social thinker, he was annoyingly fastidious, adroit and closely focused rather than original, prone to substitute Jacobin rhetorical formulae for logical steps, obsessively self-regarding, too tied to circumstances to formulate general principles (or disentangle those he held from the personalities and issues of the moment), enthralled by abstractions" doesn't mention insanity in this litany of supposed faults (none of which I have noticed in my study of him, but then, this list does seem fueled by a rather unprofessional level of vitriol, which I can only make sense of by supposing that Jordan fears to have the same labels ascribed to him, as they so often are to academics, unfortunately).
...Oh dear, now who's ranting? I do apologize for going on so long.
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Date: 2010-03-16 06:13 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2010-03-16 11:10 am (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2010-03-08 12:27 am (UTC)Aside from all the other issues that have been pointed out with this selection...holy classism. Because that's the pinnacle of equal rights for "uneducated girls" - getting drunk and fighting! Wahoo! Poor people spend all their time in a state of drunken disorder, don't you know? And I love how she refers to them as "girls," while the educated professionals are "women."
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Date: 2010-03-08 08:00 am (UTC)There's this godawful other piece she does about being a social work student in the 70s (which she assumes is somehow relevant to conditions thirty years on) which basically states she knows what she is saying and that it is horribly bourgeoisie to class poor people as anything other than drunks who beat each other. (Which is rather like being a chiropodist and assuming everyone must have a verruca because all the people you see at work do.)
And it ends with this sort of impotent wail at the folly of interventionism. She hits every one of my buttons this woman, EVERY ONE.
Because that's the pinnacle of equal rights for "uneducated girls" - getting drunk and fighting! Wahoo! Poor people spend all their time in a state of drunken disorder, don't you know?
Isn't this a cliche that pre-dates feminism by about two hundred years anyway? How about Hogarth's Gin Lane (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Beer-street-and-Gin-lane.jpg). Plently of sozzled, slatternly, violent poor women and it's too early to even blame Mary Wollenscraft.
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Date: 2010-03-05 03:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-04 07:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-05 03:19 am (UTC)