Matthew Yglesias (July 26, 2007) - Magical Gender Trouble (Culture)

"Let me also re-iterate, for those who weren't convinced by the discussion of the politics of Transformers, that it's perfectly appropriate to try to analyze and understand the ideological and political themes of "non-serious" works"

Indeed.

I just watched Talladega Nights on cable, after having zero interest in seeing it in the theater, and while it's a rather pedestrian movie that I wouldn't recommend as an entertainment, it really is kinda interesting on an ideological and political level.

Posted by Petey | July 26, 2007 8:22 AM

"or whether or not the intended audience is likely to consciously process the messages as there in the text"

It's not the likelihood of conscious processing that's relevant. It's unconscious processing that's occurring. That's why themes in film can have such impact. Hell, it's the entire basis for modern public relations/marketing.

Posted by Kurzleg | July 26, 2007 8:51 AM

An alternate point of view, which has the virtue of evidence, is that TAPPED is the home of a particularly musty form of identity politics. There is a reason why progressives rejected this approach, and apparently only academic feminists haven't gotten the memo. They have column after column about why Hillary must be elected (she's a woman), but the racial identity politics appeals for Obama are acknowledged but distinctly secondary.

Dana's material is of the same kind of idiocy as people who attacked Lord of the Rings as racist - and, in fact, exactly that claim is in her piece.
I already can't read you on the subject of science Matt, which is too bad. You're now extending the "posts to cringe at" category to the arts. I was especially disappointed by your endorsement of utterly false red-baiting against Seeger because you don't like folk music (hint: someone who renounced Communism in 1950 doesn't fit the dead-end Stalinist line).

Posted by Marc | July 26, 2007 8:57 AM

Right. It's one of the first rules of literary analysis; the author has no particular authority over the interpretation of his work. Once it's out there, it's fair game.

Posted by Freddie | July 26, 2007 9:21 AM

couldn't agree more. too many people fail to realize that simply because a work doesn't engage explicitly in a political or ideological dialogue doesn't mean it doesn't have any meaningful content. popular entertainment often contains strongly ideological content - such as the authoritarian bent of "the davinci code," or the pro-cultural, anti-civic propoganda of "forrest gump" - but most folks think that when you identify these ideologcal narratives, you're "reading too much into it," which is an extraordinarily frustrating mode of understanding art and media. it's why artistically bankrupt issue movies like "crash" and "blood diamond" win oscars while far better and far more ideological works get left by the wayside because their commentary isn't shoved into the mouths of their characters.

Posted by max | July 26, 2007 9:32 AM

Not disputing the main theme of her article, but what textual support does Dana Goldstein have for saying "Goblins ... can mate with people"?

Posted by Brock | July 26, 2007 9:42 AM

I agree that even works like Harry Potter are open to all kinds of analysis. But shouldn't analysis attempt some degree of accuracy and complexity? Goldstein has to misconstrue a number of events and comments to force them into her reading of the story. (Her readers point out her take on the Gringots break in is just wrong, for example.) And even if much of what she says is true, (and some of it is), why must all the issues resolve themselves in such a simplistic way. In Goldstein's mind, HP CAN'T be progressive. So rather than having a number of tensions that remain unresolved (say Rowling's emphasis on the importance of family vs. her arguments against aristocracy; An essay on that could be interesting.), Goldstein insists that the HP books HAVE to fall on the conservative side of the ledger. In fact, ALL fantasy stories do. We should all read good, progressive Sci-fi. Like Robert Heinlein, I guess.

Posted by Tom | July 26, 2007 9:49 AM

the same kind of idiocy as people who attacked Lord of the Rings as racist

Look, I've loved LOTR every time I've ever read it; it's one of my favorite literary works of all time, despite its flaws. And I also loved the movies; unlike a lot of heavy (whining) fans of the books I thought the movies made the necessary compromises to bring that story to film - Tolkien's own work having a cinematic scope but not a cinematic style, what with fight scenes having the same narrative import as digressions on the virtues of good rope.

But, come on, it's racist. I don't propose that Tolkien hated all the bloody wogs - I don't know, and I don't particularly care - but his own particular concern in shaping the story of LOTR was that he wanted to create a particularly British/English national mythology, starting with the equation of the Shire with England. While he didn't intend any exact correspondences, Tolkien was pretty explicit in his notes, correspondence, etc., that the realm in which the story takes place is supposed to be, roughly, Europe. It's a mythical story involving a war where the heroes are, roughly, Western Europeans, and while I think making hash out of the Orcs may be pushing this too far, the story also involves fighting undifferentiated hordes of swarthy enemies who originate from the mysterious east and south. Some of them use war elephants. Dude. I don't think Tolkien set out to be racist, I don't think he intentionally sat down and said "Well, since my heroes are corresponding to European white guys, when I need Sauron to be in control of masses of human enemies, I'll just have them all be Moroccan and Persian and the like, because that's what those bastards deserve." But when he, narratively, required/desired such an enemy, the structure he'd established offered up that solution. That's not surprising or remarkable, it's an expected feature of the very kind of story Tolkien was interested in telling - in addition to their specific wicked foes, his heroes must also contend with a vaguer Other. It's a consciously nationalistic myth, and part of that is carving out your nation from all the rest; what would be remarkable is if Tolkien had told his intended story and managed to clearly *not* trade in the kind of laissez-faire racism at work here. I don't think racism is the most important thing about LOTR - clearly, that would be the virtue of a good walk - and it's never hindered my enjoyment of the books, but it's still a part of the fabric Tolkien made.

Posted by Quarterican | July 26, 2007 10:16 AM

What then are we to make of Lupin? Why isn't he like the other werewolves?

Posted by Jerry | July 26, 2007 10:32 AM

Not disputing the main theme of her article, but what textual support does Dana Goldstein have for saying "Goblins ... can mate with people"?

Prof. Flitwick has, according to Rowling, "a touch of goblin ancestry".

Posted by Sam TH | July 26, 2007 10:44 AM

Matt, when you say you agree with Dana, do you really endorse the whole thing? Because it's a ridiculous article with huge factual errors, some pointed to here and others in the comments at TAPPED.

I know she's your friend, but she has herself a gender hammer and everything she sees is a nail. It might be helpful if you specified "my friend" when linking approvingly to things, so we know not to take it serioulsy.

Posted by nolaboyd | July 26, 2007 10:48 AM

While I agree with you that even non serious works of art can be analyzed for ideological and political themes, I still think that Dana Goldstein sucks at it.

As a general rule of thumb, a quick heuristic if you will, the moment I realize that a literary critic is making an argument of the from "This author presents a nuclear family in which the mother works in the household, yet the author does not seek to undermine or question this arrangement, therefore the book is conservative," I conclude that most likely the literary critic is a waste of my time, and tune out.

The "this book is conservative and suspect because it is insufficiently revolutionary" line of reasoning was stupid even back when it was cool.

Posted by Patrick | July 26, 2007 10:54 AM

I agree with Matt that analysis like this can be fun, and maybe illuminating, but I hope this is no defense of Dana Goldstein's facile piece. It's got a million problems with it, the chief one the discussion of house elves without a mention of the most signficant character, Dobby.

Also, the idea that HP has nothing about the War on People Who in Some Way Resemble the People Who Attacked Us on 9/11 is not to believable considering book 5&6 having the ministry of magic arresting people who clearly aren't Death Eaters and throwing them in prison while claiming they've accomplished something in doing so.

Her talk about family structure is silly, too, because the only wizarding family we see up close is the Weasleys who fit that description. We don't see anything much of how other wizarding families act and the presence of women at at least the cabinet level in the wizard government, includign one with a daughter, suggest that everyone isn't like the Weasleys.

The whole 'Harry's lineage is so important' argument is directly contradicted by the whole prophecy plot, where Dumbledore tells Harry that the prophecy came true not because of destiny, but because Voldemort acted on it. Harry could have become owner of the invisiblity cloak in other ways and it would have been just as efficacious in defeating Voldemort.

Posted by witless chum | July 26, 2007 10:54 AM

I have only read some of the books. I thought Flitwick was just a short human, but made into a goblin for cinmatic purposes (plus, how can you not use Warick Davis in your fastasy franchise). I guess in a world with half-giants and half-vila, it makes sense to have half-goblins as well. Makes one cringe to think what type of fan fiction may already be out there.

Posted by dan | July 26, 2007 10:59 AM

My problem with her article is not that it is impossible or even foolish to look at our culture to see what social images it reflects. The problem is that Dana is completely, utterly mistaken.

If you were going to describe, say, the United States right now, you would implicitly be describing a world where there's a hell of lot of gender stereotypes. You would also be describing a world where a significant majority of the populace acted according to those stereotypes. To reflect that isn't to approve of it -- and Rowling has quite a bit of commentary throughout that would seem to pretty clearly undermine the view that she is accepting of these stereotypes at all. Her big example with the Goblins, for example, shows the humans (especially Ron) to be just as willing to be sneaky as the Goblins, and with far less of an excuse (the Goblins, at least, have a belief system that justifies their actions; the humans are merely hateful).

Posted by IP Guy | July 26, 2007 11:04 AM

I don't have a problem with critiquing the political subtext of fantasy fiction...but the Tolkien critique is a bit stoopid. Tolkien's races are just plastic-forehead aliens, not racist tropes like C.S. Lewis' baddies.

If you think Tolkien's "races" are present-day analogues, then tell me who the elves are supposed to be? The orcs? Dwarves? Hobbits? There are no easy parallels.

And the swarthy humans mentioned in that article are not the only bad humans...Aragorn's own kingly (presumably white) ancestors are the worst of the worst.

The only real racial parallel I could see is the fact that "orcs" sounds a bit like the Turkish word for "Turks", and that Tolkein fought in WW1 and might have a grudge against the Turks. Other than that, this line of argument is rubbish.

Posted by Mr. Noah | July 26, 2007 11:17 AM

Why did Dana Goldstein write that piece of excrement? To prove that the left can be just as illiterate and idiotic as the right? Her reading comprehension is at the level of "Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader".

Posted by bullfighter | July 26, 2007 11:25 AM

While I agree with you that even non serious works of art can be analyzed for ideological and political themes, I still think that Dana Goldstein sucks at it.

I agree. I like Dana and often agree with the thrust of what she's arguing, but her pieces always read like something written in a college English class. It seems like she can only explain her subjects with a very vague and redundant analysis of an intersection of race, gender, and class. Regardless of whether I'm reading something on Harry Potter or David Brooks or anything else, it always feels like I'm reading the same thing.

As I said, it's not that I disagree with her. I just think she could be much more nuanced and interesting. She just doesn't have a voice yet.

Posted by Mr. X | July 26, 2007 12:17 PM

There's nothing particularly wrong with any of the points Goldstein raises, but her case is entirely one-sided. Rowling did, after all, meticulously plot out the faculty of Hogwarts so that the genders would be perfectly balanced. Quidditch is a co-ed sport. When the kids break into the Department of Mysteries, the crew consists of three boys and three girls. Gender roles seem more stratified in the 1970s generation of Hogwarts, but the same could be said about the 1970s in the rest of the UK.

It's also true that the House Elves appear to be a genuinely servile race, with a few exceptions, but it would probably have sent an significantly worse message to young readers if they weren't.

The real issue, which Goldstein only hints at, is not even that the fantasy genre limits the author's ability to be truly progressive about issues of individual identity. The real issue is that if she had written the exact same book series with a female protagonist, it would have been wildly less successful, because girls read stories about boys, but boys rarely read stories about girls. And it seems that three decades of identity politics have not changed this basic, unfortunate, marketplace reality.

Posted by Random Passerby | July 26, 2007 12:24 PM

It's just adorable when Americans think they understand how British society works. It's like watching a dog try to program in LISP. A complete fiasco, but interesting that it even thought of trying.

Posted by ajay | July 26, 2007 12:45 PM

I agree completely with the idea that critics should be allowed to place cultural works in whatever context they find interesting or illuminating.

But, as others have pointed out, that does not mean the critic should be allowed to make factual errors. Nor should they be encouraged to create criticism that is just stale, shallow or predictable.

A lot of academic criticism falls into this trap. There are certain "frames" that are applied to every work and (suprise!) every work turns out to be complicit in racism, sexism, homophobia, or classism. It gets old very quickly unless you have something new and interesting to say.

Posted by blah | July 26, 2007 12:57 PM

And the swarthy humans mentioned in that article are not the only bad humans...Aragorn's own kingly (presumably white) ancestors are the worst of the worst.

Um, noooo... The House of Elendil was never the "worst of the worst." They were even on the side of angels back in Numenor, clear back to the first Lords of Adunie. And yes, Numenorian society went bad, and three of the Ringwraiths were supposedly Numenorian, but other than them, the only remaining "bad" Numenorians were the rulers of Umbar... whose military might came from the evil dark-skinned Haradrim of the region. And compare the Dunedain and the Rohirrim with the Dunlendings, the Haradrim, the Wainriders and other Easterlings, and see if you don't notice any differences in either technology, perceived valor, or which fucking side they're on. And Quarterican lays all this out in a way that makes it clear that Tolkien didn't have to viscerally hate the coloureds for the story to come out this way. Hell, I still love the LOTR, though I'd probably agree with any criticism McArdle might offer for its economic system.

But you're right; there are no obvious racial parallels for elves and dwarves, so the portrayals of humans can't be racist. [Smacks forehead] And there's definitely no easy parallel for Hobbits, who were explicitly constructed to be little insular Britons living in idyllic England. [Smacks forehead harder]

Wait, who's this "Harry Potter" of whom you speak?

Posted by mds | July 26, 2007 1:24 PM

I second LOTR's inherently (if not overtly) racist nature, more in terms of aesthetics than anything else. Some of Aragorn's ancestors might have fallen from grace, but they are all still considered beautiful, especially to standards of European beauty and the elves are more beautiful still. The elves are beautiful in an almost exaggerated race way (paleness, slenderness, grey eyes, and sometimes golden hair being prized). The Orcs have issues, but perhaps they can't help that since they are just evil as a species. On the other hand, there are those SOUTHrons and EASTerlings--swarthy human (if barely) hordes fighting against those few blonde Rohirrim and fair skinned Gondorians. But really, when the "goblinishness" or "orcishness" of various characters (like those shady folks in Bree) is expressed in terms of the degree of their squinty or slanted eyes--what else is one supposed to think? Short, slant eyed dark people riding elephants are the enemy--nothing redeemable about the lot of them--not that any of them are seen as individuals anyway.

Oh, and I've reread LOTR quite a bit--I'm considered the family's expert on the subject--so I've enjoyed the book since I was 11 and still like it. That doesn't mean I have to read it with blinkers on, though. Perhaps the most insidious part, though, was that when I was 11, I went right along with the ideas that the good guys were tall, fair, and non squinty eyed, and I'm not a white person!

Posted by JMS | July 26, 2007 1:31 PM

Mr. X- I don't think its inexperience or a failure to "find her voice" that's making Goldstein's commentary grating. Its the approach. Once you decide that

1) present day (or past, or whatever) society is flawed,
2) that any book which portrays present day society tacitly accepts it, and
3) that this is bad and should be avoided,

well, you're on dangerous ground. Its extremely hard to write literary criticism that begins with those premises and which does not immediately turn into an attempt at policing topic choice. The critic becomes the literary world version of crank bloggers who write lengthy screeds demanding to know why their political foes are discussing things their foes care about instead of things the crank wants to discuss.

And that's where Goldstein is placing herself. Part of her criticism boils down to the implied claim that it was wrong of Rowling to write a book with a stay at home mother in it. Finding your writing voice won't make that argument intelligent.

Posted by Cadfan | July 26, 2007 1:52 PM

Gosh, I'm so astonished that the most popular children's literary work of our time reflects deep human archetypes about sex, family, and inheritance. I can't imagine why feminist ideology hasn't been able to produce anything remotely as appealing to children.

Posted by Steve Sailer | July 26, 2007 2:19 PM

I guess "Harry Potter" and "Lord of the Rings" could both be considered "A Story of Race and Inheritance."

Posted by Steve Sailer | July 26, 2007 2:22 PM

You're right. I shouldn't have said it that way. What I should have said is that some of her long form pieces are quite good, but much, if not all, of her work on culture are hamstrung by a reliance on an analysis that is superficially imitative of academic feminist theory. This is why I said that her writing often reminds me of something you would see in a college English class. Getting her voice wasn't the best way to put it. Perhaps I meant learn how to write better cultural criticism.

And looking back at my original post, I regret if I seemed to be saying this was, in any way, a good argument. She followed up on her blog with bad arguments.

Posted by Mr. X. | July 26, 2007 2:24 PM

I suppose I should make clear that I am, in this thread, both "Patrick" and "Cadfan." I slipped and mixed up screen names from blog-world and non-blog-world.

Posted by Patrick | July 26, 2007 3:11 PM

It must be society's fault that children like politically incorrect books that irk Ms. Goldstein. If only feminists and multiculturalists had more control over the education system, children's interests could be social-engineered into perfection!

Posted by Steve Sailer | July 26, 2007 3:39 PM

Steve Sailer, your reductio ad absurdum quips amuse me! This talent must explain why you're such a highly respected intellectual on the Right.

Posted by Random Passerby | July 26, 2007 4:00 PM

Miss Goldstein misses the entire point of having orcs and goblins in fantasy stories. They're bad because the have goblin and orcish 'natures' which no amount of nurture can overcome. The authors make them into orcs and goblins and not humans so there is no ambiguity about their goodness or badness on a human scale, if they were meant to be anthropomorphized like Miss Goldstein foolishly does, the authors would have made them humans, not orcs and goblins.

It does seem that Miss Goldstein's analysis is of the not very bright English major but possibly good at going to school sort that one can write a rather simple computer program to spit out. I seriously hoped she paid full freight at wherever she learned how to do that, she'd be a excellent arguement against higher education subsidies otherwise.

Posted by j mct | July 26, 2007 4:22 PM

Not particularly interested in Harry Potter, but as a life-long Tolkien fan I'll second most of the critics of the good Professor- also note the presence in Sauron's armies of black men like half-trolls with white eyes and red tongues, coming from south of Harad. And he specifically described orcs as "degraded and repulsive versions of the (to Europeans) least lovely Mongol-types". (Though note the "to Europeans").

Of course, he was personally anti-racist (sorry, Steve)-see his letter to his son Christopher who was serving in the RAF in South Africa:
"As for what you say or hint of ‘local’ conditions: I knew of them. I don't think they have much changed (even for the worse). I used to hear them discussed by my mother; and have ever since taken a special interest in that part of the world. The treatment of colour nearly always horrifies anyone going out from Britain, & not only in South Africa. Unfort. not many retain that generous sentiment for long."

And of course his brilliant reply to a German publishing company's demand to know if he was "Aryan":

"Dear Sirs,

Thank you for your letter …. I regret that I am not clear as to what you intend by arisch. I am not of Aryan extraction: that is Indo-iranian; as far as I am aware none of my ancestors spoke Hindustani, Persian, Gypsy, or any related dialects. But if I am to understand that you are enquiring whether I am of Jewish origin, I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people. "

Posted by MiikeN | July 27, 2007 1:45 AM

The Silmarillion is inconvenient for the racial Tolkien hypothesis. The goody-two-shoes Elves commit numerous atrocities, and the most evil men, by far, in the entire series are not the dark skinned servants of Sauron in LOTR - they are the Numenorians who betray their heritage and sail a huge fleet against the Gods.

Basically, Sauron gets to Middle Earth first and corrupts everyone; only those close to where the handful of good Numenorians landed and where the Elves were (e.g. northern and western middle earth) could come over to the light side. The hobbits are the English analog in LOTR, and they are hardly Aryan supermen.

A fantasy setting with actual supernatural evil beings and distinct magical species in it has, shall we say, different standards than those extrapolated onto it by the contemporary language police.

Posted by Marc | July 27, 2007 7:53 AM

Not really, Marc. The "racism" is not about good/evil but human capacity. The Easterners could never become Nazgul b/c they're too weak and dumb. Even in the Sil, the short swarthy folk (Ulfang?) were the betrayers. Tolkien quite deliberately had the greatness of the person manifest itself physically. But really, if we're complining about race or gender, it's the short (human) people who have the real gripe.

Posted by nolaboyd | July 27, 2007 9:36 AM

Re: But, come on, it's racist.

How? On the works' own terms, we have several human subspecies (they can interbreed so they aren't separate species, except maybe for the Ents) managing to overcome their animosities and cooperate for the common good. As for the fact that the Orcs are shown as irredeemable, well, maybe that is racism, except that it's only racist against Orcs who are fictional. Might as well claim Wells' War of the World was racist against Martians. Also, note that at least some of the Nazgul happen to be from the same people as Aragorn. And for that matter Saruman the White becomes corrupt and goes over the side of evil.

Re: the story also involves fighting undifferentiated hordes of swarthy enemies who originate from the mysterious east and south.

But this is an echo of real world history: Europe in the Middle Ages endured and fought invasions of people from the south (the Moors) and from the east (the Mongols). That's what Tolkien is drawing on. Is history racist too?

Re: The only real racial parallel I could see is the fact that "orcs" sounds a bit like the Turkish word for "Turks"

"Orcs" is not an invented word. It meant "monster" originally. "Orca" is the scientific name for whales (i.e., sea monsters to the first Europeans who saw them.)

Re: the only remaining "bad" Numenorians were the rulers of Umbar

Huh? Under Sauron's tutelege, the Numenorean nation as a whole (excepting only a handful, Aragorn's direct ancestors) made war on the Blessed Realm of the West, under the mistaken belief they could seize immortality by conquering that country. Instead their own land was sunk like Atlantis.

Re: And compare the Dunedain and the Rohirrim with the Dunlendings, the Haradrim, the Wainriders and other Easterlings,

What about the mountain tribal people, whose name escapes me? They were original inhabitants of Gondor, not unlike Indians or Aborigines, and they helped Aragorn et al.

Re: Even in the Sil, the short swarthy folk (Ulfang?) were the betrayers.

Oh, good grief, this also describes the Hobbits and Dwarves (the short part especially). How do you accommodate them in this categoriation?

Re: Tolkien quite deliberately had the greatness of the person manifest itself physically.

That's a trait out mythology for time out of mind. But also, the warning case, that beauty can hide graet evil (Sauron was originally very fair, and quite seductive).

Posted by JonF | July 27, 2007 1:15 PM

Oh, good grief, this also describes the Hobbits and Dwarves (the short part especially). How do you accommodate them in this categoriation?

Easily. I said (read it) it's the short human people who have the beef. I could have been clearer, but really, Tolkien goes out of his way to make 'leader' and 'tall' converge. Doesn't apply across species, but often does within (he tells you who the tallest elves and hobbits are -- it's relevant).

Posted by nolaboyd | July 27, 2007 11:35 PM

Magical Gender Trouble

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