June 18, 2013

Writing in the Rain: Towards an English Mythology

The Dorset Ooser: His significance is now obscure.

It is a peculiarity that England – the country to have lead the way more than any other with the contemporary Pagan revival – has in fact no coherent pantheon or ancient mythology of its own. We have a great many pieces of folklore, traditional rites, interesting characters, places and themes, but there has never been – either in Ancient Times or Modern – an attempt to synthesise or unite them in a common set of stories. Countries with a far more vigorously attested ancient mythology – Greece, Iceland, Russia, Italy, Ireland – were all relative latecomers to Paganism. Although there are many good historical reasons why, the problem is that English Paganism has not yet filled this void completely. There is of course a really popular English Pagan myth – that of the Horned God and the Triple Goddess, worshipped by Witches, who are themselves the subject of a myth all their own. And this is the myth I’d like to examine.

I am speaking of course of the myth of the persecution of Europe’s witches by “the Church”, of the fertility cult they enacted and the God and Goddess they worshipped. As myths are wont to, it has captured the imagination of many – but due to its roots in history, rather than mystery, it has had a short-lived efflorescence. Within 20 years of its birth, the “Witch-Cult Hypothesis” was rejected by academe, within 50, it had fallen out of favour in the country of its birth, even amongst Wiccans.

In my view, this myth has boasted other less obvious shortcomings. Firstly, it isn’t truly English. As a “Pan-European” legend, it is not rooted in the rolling hills, grey skies and mirrored waters of this green and pleasant land, but in a much wider ethnoscape – one in which all Christian peoples persecuted by their priests, not just the English, have purchase. As such, it isn’t really the “English” legend that we might like to balance the legends we find in other lands. Rather, it’s the antithesis to the concept of Christendom – a cultural critique of the overarching narrative of a triumphant Roman Christ who liberated our beleaguered continent from itself. Instead, the Witch Cult Hypothesis suggests that the people of Europe aren’t/weren’t truly Christian in their hearts, or that only threats and violence made them so. This may be true in places, but this process was begun and over long before the time when the supposed persecutions were imagined to have taken place, having been more a feature of Christianisation rather than Inquisition.

The other issue I have with the Witch Cult as an English myth is that it owes as much to Victorian conceits of lumping gods and cultures together into ill-conceived, grand categories as it does to ancient history or the worldview of the rural cultures it apes after. Suggesting that all gods are facets of the One, all goddesses are reflections of Her may be a profound spiritual truth, but it’s very bad anthropology. Small-scale, localised societies such as those which make most Pagans misty-eyed often show great interest in particularity; knowing the difference between this and that stream, these and those mushrooms, the season now and the season is given great importance. Gods are not assumed to have universal significance, nor are “our” gods meant to be connected, necessarily, to those of one’s neighbours. Zeus is NOT Thunor is NOT Taranis is NOT Thor is NOT Taran. They are each very different beings, with their own personalities, histories, cultus and spiritus. In this way, the gods are like humans – although emphasising the oneness of Mankind can teach many things, ignoring the fact that we are all different people can have terrible side-effects. Just as I have similarities with other Geminis, so Thunder Gods share certain similarities. In this regard, I see the divine realm as no different to the human.

Another thing that makes me feel a little frustrated with the WCH as a local myth is that it is very limited. In comparison to the huge variety to be found within most traditional cultural worldviews, detail in the WCH is thin on the ground. Two gods. A Great Rite. A single rede. A rumour of genocide, and the promise of grandmother stories. That’s it.

This doesn’t mean that the Witch-Cult Hypothesis and the dimensions of it that modern Wiccans adhere to is bad. It’s only that it’s the beginnings of a tradition, not the whole of one. As for the pseudo-historical witch hunt, it’s certainly not what I’m looking for from Paganism. If I wanted a persecution narrative, I could identify with my sexuality, or my Jewish relatives on my mother’s side. If I wanted one binaristic divinity, there’s plenty of that in Hinduism and Catholicism. What I want is something local.

Now, none of this is to suggest that nobody in England has tried to devise a mythology to go with our homeland. In fact, plenty of people have – but sadly, most (all?) of them aren’t Pagan. C.S. Lewis, despite never setting out to create an English myth, created in Narnia a joyful arcadia that reminds me deeply of my homeland. JK Rowling’s depictions of witches and wizards in the Harry Potter series is – sociologically speaking – sometimes alarmingly similar to the British Pagan community; with batty-named people who all know each other living in secret, keeping the magic alive. Eva Ibbotsen, an Austrian author whose work I devoured as a child, masterfully syncretised all manner of English magical creatures into singular, coherently English bestiaries for her novels. But the two leaders in this field of mythopoeisis are, in my humble opinion, JRR Tolkein and Susannah Clarke.

Notable about their work is the way in which it is designed around the setting, rather than the other way around. Tolkein, whose expressed purpose was to create a myth for the English people, created landscapes, languages, peoples and angelic beings that have proved so captivating that he has literally set the mould into which the majority of contemporary, world-builder fantasy is cast. Unfortunately, though, Tolkein’s work had the weakness (as far as his aim of mythologizing England was concerned) of not being sufficiently rooted in England, its heritage and localities. With my observations about traditional, localised societies in mind, it’s easy to see how Tolkein’s corpus – despite being amazing myth – failed to be an English one. His creativity got the better of him; by re-inventing everything, Tolkein divorced Middle Earth utterly from its roots as a spiritual twin of the country in which he grew up.

What lies beyond the gates: England could do with another good mythos, in my view.

Susannah Clarke has not made the same mistake in Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell; under her pen, Northern England is a place both otherworldly and immanent. It is not some strange dominion named Menegroth that is guarded by mystical woodland, but the city of Newcastle. It isn’t someone we’ve never heard-of named Theoden who is faced by the Storm Crow, but rather Edward III. She captures the essence of what Pagan spirituality is about – a throbbing animism that enchants body and soul, by tugging you down into the very land you live with – and gives it life within her pages. As Liz Williams remarked to me when I enthused about JS&MN: I found myself wishing very deeply that her invented history of English magic, with its carefully footnoted faux-scholarship, had been the real history.

And yet… England does have a rich and well-documented magical history. It isn’t without good reason that Romanticism flourished here, that The Tempest was written here, that some of the English language’s greatest fantasy writers have worked here, and that Paganism, in modern times, was born here. Great magicians – from Dee to Ashmole – have sweated, strained, and spellcast in some of our greatest institutions. Ancient monuments cover the land, as do funny little stories, with more being made all the time.

Why? Because these hills, springs, woods, and rivers sing. They demand our attention, generation after generation, and insist upon our expressing what we think and feel from living amongst them. And though we have of late wrapped ourselves in the trappings of modern life, that power still has the same grip upon us it always had. All that advanced technology has bought us is the opportunity to put our fingers in our ears, and pretend to each other that we’re not listening. Or, in some cases, write down some sheet music.

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With this in mind, I think somebody (probably me), needs to set about fusing that history into a mythos. But rather than be “fake” scholarship, as the previous attempt was, I intend to participate fully as a scholar, and then from there embark upon writing works of fiction, clearly bracketed as such. If Tolkein’s life shows nothing else, it proves that fiction can be just as profound as fact. Indeed, it becomes more so, if fact has inspired it.

Posted in "Britishness", Narnia, Paganism, Social Anthropology, Writing | 1 Comment »

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March 17, 2013

In defence of aesthetics: A review of The Spirit of Albion

Although Damh’s folk songs are very popular, I don’t think the film based on them actually reflects authentic Pagan values.

Damh the Bard is one of Britain’s more popular Pagan Folk artists. He’s released seven albums, a whole bunch of songs, and is an experienced ritualist. I’ve never spoken to him at length (though I have chatted to him briefly at a couple of OBOD gatherings – he’s the Pendragon of the Order), but he seems like a genuine, affable guy, with a real passion for music and a great, down-to-earth style.  His popularity, especially down in Sussex where he is based, is not inconsiderable, and a couple of years back of collection of songs were turned into a musical (Mamma-Mia style), which eventually grew into a full-length feature film – The Spirit of Albion.

It’s hard reviewing a film that someone you know, or at least, someone in your social circle, has been involved with. It’s even harder to give a critical review, especially if it’s really critical. So I’ve felt pretty wary about writing what I’m about to pen here – I’ve put it off for months. But the more time has passed, the more I believe what I want to say needs to be said.

The Spirit of Albion was a terrible film.

When I first sat down to watch it, I was wishing very much for it to be good. Sure, I knew the production values couldn’t be that huge, nor would the acting be of Academy Award standard, but, I reasoned, as a member of the British Pagan community, I could surely look past all that, and enjoy it for what it was; a low budget film, expounding views and dealing with themes close to my heart, in a way a more “mainstream” production never could. It’s the charm of the village panto, or the school play – I like it not because it’s “perfect”, but because it’s family. Besides, I spent £16 on the damn thing.

Anyway, before I get out the knives, I’ll give you a brief plot summary. Spoilers ahoy (not that you should go on from this blog to watch it).

Three young people – Esther, Annie, and George – are beset by ever-so-modern problems. Esther is stuck in a boring office job; Annie is a vivisectionist drug-addict; while George is a recently bereaved peace activist. None of them show any interest or enthusiasm towards the landscape or folklore, until three strangers – who turn out to be Ceredwin, Herne, and The Mórrígan – spirit them to a woodland glade, where they are walked through their life stories (and why they’re shit) by Robin Goodfellow and Arianrhod. Along the way, the gods educate their mortal charges about the loveliness of nature, and what this has to teach us. Eventually, it turns out that George is actually dead, and he is taken off into the afterlife, while Esther and Annie are left to carry on their lives with a newfound sense of connection to the world around them.

So what makes it a terrible film? I wasn’t expecting Emmerich, so why should I judge it so harshly? Well, there are two things the Spirit of Albion is. It is a representation of Paganism and it is an amateur film. And it is against both of these standards I’m judging it here.

Return to the Earth: The coming home experience is a pivotal Pagan conversion narrative. So why doesn’t The Spirit of Albion use it?

Firstly, Paganism. What the Spirit of Albion is trying to be is essentially a Pagan conversation narrative. I say trying, because there is nothing remotely Pagan about the structure of how Esther, Annie and George come to be Pagan. What they have is a mystical moment, out in the wild, where they go from being mooks of modernity, if slightly frustrated ones, into full-blown Cauldron Born. But this is a Christian conversion story. It’s Paul on his Road to Damascus. It’s Moses in the Desert. But it sure as shit isn’t Doreen Valiente at Dafo’s table.

The more common Pagan conversion narrative is very different. Rather than feeling transformed by an act of the Divine, most Pagans argue that rather than convert, they are returning to a primordial state – both socially and personally. As individuals, we “come home” to Paganism – rediscovering magic we felt, often as children, in some earlier phase of our lives. As a group, we are revivifying atavistic urges – to paraphrase Andy Letcher, another Pagan bard – in an attempt to bring to life earlier, more authentic forms of humanity. As Pagans, we don’t convert, we re-vert.

Given their use of a basically Christian narrative, it’s rather vexing to see Christianity depicted in an almost uncompromisingly negative, ineffectual light. This becomes understandable, when you realise that this is not Paganism of a non-Christian kind, but of an anti-Christian kind. We Pagans are painted as the opposite of Christians. Goddess vs. God. Priest vs. Priestess. Prayer vs. Magic. Oppression vs. Freedom. Black and White vs. Green and Grey. As Paganisms go, this is film is as simplistic is it gets – Jesus puts on his wizard’s hat, conjuring up characters from myth and literature recast as skydaddies for a modern audience, with little appreciation for history or locality. This isn’t Christo-paganism (a fine and noble tradition), or even cherry picking; this is a superficial cut and shut of both traditions.

There were hundreds of other little details that irked me. How the Horned God – and not a Goddess – was responsible for helping a vulnerable woman find her power. The fact that George was killed off – and told off – for being an activist. How The Mórrígan was depicted as solely a death goddess. Feminism, activism, and the study of history – all crucial parts of the Pagan tradition – being systematically ignored or maligned. It just feels like EgoTrip have not done their homework – that they’ve not bothered learning about what Pagan spirituality actually involves, and have instead stuck firmly to the Waterstones-bookshelf variety of the tradition.

Youtube has helped transform the way in which content creators produce and share their work.

But it’s not just as a piece of Pagan art this film fails to impress. We no longer live in an age when low production values justify a poor product. This is a time of Youtube, where technology has made creating and distributing films a hell of a lot easier and cheaper. Apple, Google, Adobe and other software companies have turned what were once rarefied fields into viable areas for hobbyists. CGI. Video-editing. Music-editing. A new generation of dynamic, skilful, and ingenious content creators have raised the bar for all amateur and low-budget filmmaking, producing great films, even for niche audiences, on a shoestring budget.

And yet still there exists a rump of the for-profit video industry, that has yet to wake up or capitalise (it seems) on this flush of new possibilities. Manufacturers of daytime television, adverts for ambulance chasers, and substandard pornography – and, perhaps, EgoTrip – still seem to be making good money producing content not even half as good as what the likes of Tomska, Kermitcasson and KickthePJ produce with much smaller budgets. But what these Youtubers have done – as their back-catalogue of work demonstrates – is work hard to constantly learn and improve. This has evidently paid considerable dividends, and I wish the Spirit of Albion team had done likewise. Because the unfortunate fact is, that the Spirit of Albion looks nowhere near as polished as Divinity, despite the fact that Drew Casson had precisely zero budget and less years experience than the EgoTrip Media team.

In my view, the dual failure of the Spirit of Albion – failure to be a deep and insightful depiction of Paganism, and failure to be a decent piece of low-budget filmmaking – actually communicates something rather important about the condition of Paganism itself at present, at least in Britain. We’re in danger of losing something rather precious – our authenticity.

Andy Letcher: Argues that hard work has a vital role to play in bardic creativity.

Andy Letcher, who I’ve mentioned above, presented a very good lecture at the Mount Haemus lectures this year in Salisbury. In it, he argued persuasively for a Bardism not just rooted in inspiration, but also in pure and simple hard work. Getting good at something isn’t just about having a nice idea, Andy argued, you have to be sufficiently accomplished at whatever your medium is to actually express that idea so others can enjoy it. Inspiration comes and goes, but in anticipation of its coming we must practice. The ancient bards worked so desperately hard to become the best possible vessels of inspiration they could be. I see no reason why we shouldn’t do the same; to represent the enchantment we feel authentically.

Because that’s what modern Paganism is about, in my view – while Christianity is (or, was) a call to a new morality, the new Paganism is at its heart a defence of aesthetics; claiming as we do that just because something is made-up doesn’t mean it isn’t real. We do this by harkening back; to the days when things like beauty and craft meant something more than an accomplishment that you could put on a dating profile, a hobby, or a way for a fortunate few to make money. To days when inspiration was holy, and a Muse was a Goddess rather than something a state of laughter. We take what was an earnest heartache for the Romantics and give it ontological depth and weight. The Gods are fiction – made up. And so are Men. And they are just as real as anything else, for all that – because they are well-made.

The Spirit of Albion, though, is far distant from this central virtue. Its engagement with its subject matter is appropriative and insipid; showing little care and attentiveness to the true history and culture of the very tradition it seeks to explore. As such, the characterisation of the divinities and humans it includes is flimsy at best. By not having honed their craft as much as other low-budget content creators, the makers of Spirit of Albion have failed to do Paganism justice, and have become a pale imitation of the Pagan movement’s authentic values as a result.

Unlike my previous negative reviews, where I’ve critiqued work whose producers most likely will never read my blog, there is a relatively good chance that the makers of the Spirit of Albion will read what I’ve written here. If they do read this, I’d like to apologise in advance if any of my remarks that hurt their feelings – I know, from your vlog and elsewhere, how passionately you believe in this film, and how you gave it your all. That passion and love is totally beyond reproach; in fact, it ennobles our entire tradition. My aim isn’t to antagonize, embarrass, or upset you. I commend the fact that (unlike myself), you have actually made something. All I ask – nay, challenge – you to do, is this: Do better. Because you can. I know you can.

Posted in Feminism, Paganism, Reviews, Social Anthropology, Writing | 3 Comments »

February 23, 2013

H&M Update: An Apology!

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A short while ago, I covered how H&M had used a gratuitously offensive design on one of their T-shirts. I had a couple of really interesting conversations about it with people who stumbled across the article, and on the back of these I complained directly to H&M themselves.

A couple of weeks later, I recieved this:

Dear Jonathan,
 
Thank you for your patience while we have been following up with your recent query regarding the vest top.
 
Your feedback has been passed on to the relevant department who have advised us that this particular print was not one designed by H&M, but bought directly from one of our suppliers.
 
The decision has been taken that this print and others similar to this will not be used by H&M in the future. Please be assured that we do not wish to cause offence to any of our customers.
 
Please accept our apologies for any offence that this image has caused for yourself and we thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts and feelings with us.
 
Kind regards,
H&M Customer Services

I think this is a result. H&M clearly care enough to respond to my query, and to act upon it. Given their prompt response, I may well shop there again in the future.

This just goes to show how important it is to stand up and speak up. Companies need our custom if they are to survive, and if they feel that custom is threatened, they will act. Especially if doing so has a negligible impact on their bottom line.

Well done H&M, let’s hope the rest of the fashion industry follows suit, and cultural appropriation becomes a thing of the past.

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January 10, 2013

“Half of all food is ‘wasted’”: Food, Famine and Human Nature

Say no to waste: Food is precious, and yet 50% grown globally is wasted.

“Don’t just leave it!” My mum would exclaim, when I, aged five, would attempt to dodge the copious veggies she had placed unapologetically on my plate. “What about those little starving boys in Ethiopia? They’d love to have that!”

 

How I used to rail against this constant mantra of waste-awareness. How I used to desperately argue around my mum “Why can’t they have it then?” I begged. “I don’t even like sweetcorn!” My mum, as usual, was resolute.

It worked, though. I am now a food-waste zealot. If something is put on my plate, I eat it. I cook the food in my fridge that looks likely to go off, not the food I fancy. I save grease from fatty meals for seasoning soups. I don’t give a shit about how my fruit looks. I finish my plate in restaurants, even if the meal is massive. I haunt the reduced section in Sainsbury’s, trying to grab stuff before it gets chucked. I overcame profound OCD about drinking from cups of water that had been left out (something about them getting “contaminated” by dust – it wasn’t very rational) because I hated the thought of pouring all that fresh, clean water away.

Most of this is based on my environmental awareness – I know (roughly) how much it costs in energy and resources to raise a chicken, to grow a carrot, to harvest salt. I know how the human project is sailing sedately towards disaster, and I think that we all must do everything we can to slow its progress. But beneath all that right-on ecological education, there still exists the psychical payoff of the sustained guilt-trip my mum worked on me for about ten years.

 

Initially, obviously, it didn’t work. Children find second-order empathy difficult, as they aren’t neurologically developed enough to cope with the complex field of thought that underpins the more abstract varieties of human kindness. They might be able to cope with “Play nicely, now.” or “Be gentle with that bunny, otherwise you’ll hurt him.” or “Don’t lie to mummy.” But someone along the lines of “We all have a limited amount of resources in our world, of which a small sampling has been placed on your plate. If you waste them, you will be reducing the amount available for everyone else (because you’ll doubtless want to eat something else)” is well beyond their ken. So my mum had to constantly fight with me to get me to eat my bloody dinner.

 

I won the occasional battle. But she most definitely won the war. During adolescence, when my higher functions started kicking in, all that baby taming my mum did bloomed like a very waste-conscious flower, and I started gobbling down sprouts as though they were manna from heaven. Which naturally, they are.

 

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The Institution of Mechanical Engineers have reported today, that 50% of the food we harvest from the Earth and Sea is wasted. That is, in my opinion, an utterly staggering statistic. The idea that so much of the time, energy and material we invest in feeding ourselves is left to rot is staggering, especially considering the rhetoric from the agribusiness lobby claiming that we must adopt GM and other industrial food production methods if we are to stave off mass starvation.

 

To be honest, the injustice is both natural and social – in a world where countless millions of acres of wildlife habitat are being swallowed up to feed human beings, we should not be wasting a single sprout. And it’s abysmal that none of that wasted food is being directed to where it is truly needed. According to Kate Raworth of Oxfam, we could already feed the world’s population with current yields.

 

But the fault doesn’t lie with the same people everywhere: “If you’re in the developing world, then the losses are in the early part of the food supply chain, so between the field and the marketplace.” Dr Fox, lead researcher in the team who compiled the report, pointed out. “In the mature, developed economies the waste is really down to poor marketing practices and consumer behaviour.”

That means, us. In the developed world, this is our fault. It may well be that supermarkets encourage us to overbuy with BOGOF offers, and mislabel products to give us the impression they go off sooner than they really do, but in all honesty, neither of these ploys would work if ordinary people showed more inclination to fight waste, or some measure of common sense.

A great many people I know personally lack that inclination. They buy more food when they don’t need any, just because they fancy having something different, leaving an entire fridge-full to rot. They leave leftovers in restaurants rather than ask for a doggybag. They just don’t care.

Popular dispositions are tricky things – in contrast to the demonstrable plasticity of the mind, people have an unerring tendency to assume that they are impossible to shift. Whenever I point out that people need to change the way they view taxation, or nature, or wasting food I always abut against what I’ve come to call the Human Nature Defence. When this is invoked, people say, “Oh, you can’t change X, because it’s human nature isn’t it?” Retailers frequently resort to a variant of this view when defending their practices (as, no doubt, British supermarkets will do in their response to this report), claiming, “We’re just giving people what they want!”

 

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Is all this waste only natural? I don’t think so.

As an anthropologist, I think I’m well placed to give an expert view on what human nature actually consists of. Unlike even the majority of academics, who like most of us exist within a realm of relative cultural homogeneity, anthropology confronts you with the sheer and unexpected diversity of our species being. And let me assure you, dear reader, there is nothing in human nature that says we necessarily must be wasteful of food.

 

The root cause of all this waste, if not a necessary feature of our being human, is simple – parenting. Going back to the anecdote from my childhood with which I began this article, it should be obvious that my mum had quite a challenge on her hands. She had to struggle against my truculent, infantile fussiness in order to instil in me the basic principle of valuing what you eat. I am sure a great many parents give up, or don’t even bother at all.

 

Although I am not a parent myself (yet), I know it is a load of hard work. It takes time, effort, love and discipline in copious quantities, and it’s not for the faint-hearted. But I think a lot of parents seem to believe that means they are automatically guaranteed respect (at least, from non-parents). So, I’m afraid I’m going to commit a massive faux pas, and offer some advice on parenting.

 

As a very important caveat – this isn’t directed at single parents, or working parents, or anything like that. I know a great many poor, working, single parents who do a damn-site better job of raising their children than entire families of the spoilt and middle-class. Of the former, I am in awe. Where food waste is concerned, I think the middle-classes are often worse than the poor – they can afford to throw food in the bin.

 

Nobody expects anyone to be a perfect parent. I certainly don’t. But it just frustrates me that so many parents spend so much time and effort on things that don’t really matter, or even harm their children (such as finding a must-have Christmas present, or imposing on their children certain gender roles). I wish that more parents would spend as much time encouraging their sons to clean their plates, as they do currently encouraging them to play with trucks or take up football. My mum did. And you know what? It worked.

Posted in Social Anthropology | 1 Comment »

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January 8, 2013

H&M and Cultural Appropriation

“I’ve removed myself from a lot of the cultural appropriation debates because as a person of colour, it is fucking exhausting trying to have your feelings and pain constantly invalidated by white folks.” – My Culture is Not a Trend.

Last November, I was doing a bit of shopping in the centre of Bristol. Although I normally stick to St Nicks Market if I’m in the heart of the city, on this occasion I ventured into Broadmead. As anyone who has ever been to Broadmead will testify, it is a grindingly depressing, eigenplace – whatever genius the area might have had in days of yore is buried deep under concrete and banal shop frontage, of the sort you could find anywhere. While the rest of Bristol (which is an entirely awesome city), has the genuine feel of Nature and Humanity worming their way through a crumbling edifice of global modernity, in Broadmead, and its prettier, but similarly undistinguished sister Cabot Circus, the drifts of disenchantment lie thickly still.

However foolishly, I nonetheless decided to venture into H&M to see if there was anything worth spending some hard-earned pennies on. I was expecting to come out empty handed, but I wasn’t really expecting to leave open-mouthed.

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On one of the rails, I found this:

A skull wearing a Native American headdress. On a T-shirt. Wow.

 —

You don’t hear much about cultural appropriation in Europe. Given Europe has sired most of the oppressors in colonial theatres elsewhere, this is unsurprising. Indigenous groups are, to the European imagination, a phenomenon of Lands Abroad. And, despite the hysterical prognostications of essentialist scholars like Samuel Huntington or right-wing venom-spitters like Geert Wilders, we are not experiencing an ethnocidal campaign by a radical Other from Outside. We Europeans happily capitalise on the cultural heritage of others, who by their spatial distance, we don’t need to give a passing thought to.

Hence a T-shirt in H&M that, to my mind, couldn’t be more offensive to Native Americans if it tried. It’s not just commodifying the headdress – a treasured artefact of many Plains cultures and a symbol of the dignity and honour of respected elders – but it’s commodifying the death of someone who wears the headdress. It’s literally turning genocide into a fashion statement.

I’m left wondering what sort of mentality lead to the creation of this item of clothing. After I saw it, I started scrabbling around, looking for some reasonable explanation that credited the designers at H&M with some iota of emotional intelligence and cultural sensitivity. Is it a ham-fisted attempt to memorialise the destruction of Native peoples – a skeleton at the feast? Is it mocking the hipster-appropriator, reminding them of the bloodied history of the item they are appropriating?

Even if it is, it fails at these higher goals for two reasons. 1) H&M are still selling this T-shirt for £11.99 a pop, and therefore have transformed whatever symbols it involves into commodities for their own profit and 2) Any sobering lesson is overshadowed by the fact that, by intimately associating the headdress with death, this T-shirt seems to argue that Native Peoples are dead and gone (which they most certainly aren’t). From a vital part of a living culture, it seems to advertise that the headdress exists solely to adorn the bones of a dead people. When you consider the fact that Native Peoples still have trouble attaining visibility in their own country, where many still believe that the Native population were wiped out entirely (and thus, can be safely forgotten), this subtext becomes entirely reprehensible.

So I’ve been boycotting H&M for some months now, I’m going to write a letter of complaint, and I’d recommend you all do the same. Native Culture does not exist to make white men rich, it never has and it never well.

Posted in Social Anthropology | 10 Comments »

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December 19, 2012

Jam tomorrow: Gina Rinehart and the Poor

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“What good’s a god who gives you everything you want? … It’s the HOPE that’s important. Give people jam today, and they’ll just sit and eat it. Jam tomorrow, now — that’ll keep them going for ever.”
- Terry Pratchett, Hogfather

Of the people alive today, if there is one I find most terrifying, it is Gina Rinehart. Australia’s richest citizen and the world’s richest woman, Rinehart is the Executive Chair of Hancock Prospecting, a lucrative iron ore mining concern that has a turnover of A$870 million every year. In addition to being fabulously wealthy, Rinehart is politically very outspoken – putting her money and influence to work in opposing measures that seek to reduce climate change, yet threaten her company’s bottom line. For example, she has actively campaigned against Australia’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, and has funded the creation of ANDEV, a climate-change sceptic lobby group. To make matters worse, she has recently purchased significant shares in both Fairfax Media and Ten Network Holdings; two of Australia’s most influential media conglomerates. A variety of commentators have expressed concern that Rinehart has acquired these interests in order to push her own neoliberal views. And recently, Rinehart has nailed those views to the mast – claiming that there is no real obstacle to anyone seeking to get rich.

“If you’re jealous of those with more money, don’t just sit there and complain,” she said, in her regular column in Australian Resources and Investment magazine, “Do something to make more money yourself — spend less time drinking or smoking and socialising, and more time working.” As a final, encouraging note, Rinehart assures us “There is no monopoly on becoming a millionaire”.

The idea that the deserving poor are, in fact, deservedly poor – and that all that they need to get rich quick is to work more and do everything else less, is very common. One might expect Rinehart to spout straight-up Hayek; arguing that growth has the potential to lift everyone out of poverty; because as the rich get richer, they pull everyone else up by generating jobs – both by spending their money, and by needing employees for their successful businesses. However, a second (and less pleasant) aspect of this “trickle-down” model is that inequality remains in place – the poor remain at the bottom. Of course, its supporters claim that this is no bad thing; the presence of a thrusting economic elite is beneficial, because they generate more “stuff” for everyone. They deserve a bigger slice of the pie, so the theory goes, because they make the pie itself bigger.

But what’s odd is the Rinehart isn’t saying this at all. She claims that “there’s no monopoly on millionaires”. Now, if she means that there’s nothing stopping people from striving for that status, then Hayek would agree with her. But if (as she appears to be hinting at), it is possible for everyone to be a millionaire, if they work hard, then she’s clearly mistaken. If we all became millionaires in monetary terms, the purchasing power per unit currency would plummet due to inflationary pressures; more money does not necessarily mean more wealth. And the rather grim fact is that there simply aren’t enough resources in the world for us all to be as fabulously wealthy as the likes of Gina Rinehart – we can all live well, perhaps, but not that well.

In addition to being hideously out of touch with the lives of ordinary people and the realities of living on planet Earth, this kind of overoptimistic work ethic doesn’t even reflect Rinehart’s own life history. If she were a self-made woman, preaching of this kind would at least be rooted in something substantial – but she’s not. She didn’t earn her position of vast privilege; she inherited it from her father, Lang Hancock. Hancock himself owed his success as much to luck as hard graft – when his family bought up large tracts of central Pilbara district in Western Australia, nobody knew some of the largest deposits of iron ore in the world lay beneath the dusty ground. And let us not forget that landowners such as the Hancocks claimed their stations under the ropey legal pretext of terra nullius – something which amounts to little more than outright theft from Australia’s indigenous population. The Aboriginal people of Pilbara, it should be noted, have benefitted little from Hancock Prospecting’s operations in their country.

The story of Rinehart’s wealth is illuminating for a number of reasons. It reveals a basic flaw in her reasoning – people don’t make succeed just by working hard; the wealthy frequently benefit from inheritance, structural inequalities in the rest of society that favour them personally, or even just blind luck. And the odd occlusion by her of a crucial aspect of trickle-down economics – the preservation of inequality to drive the engines of economic progress – tells us something else; perhaps rather than revealing the “secret” of “investing in Australia’s future”, she’s actually keeping a deeper secret – that she’s essentially invoking the power of hope to hoodwink the poor. As Terry Pratchett points out in the quote above, the promise of jam tomorrow is a powerful thing, that can be even better at controlling people than the bread-and-circuses principle upon which Rome was run. If you give the mob what they want, they’ll be satiated for a day. But if you parade your wealth in front of them, and then promise them that, if they work hard, they live as you do; they will follow you forever.

And that tells us that the monopoly on millionaires is not just a fact of nature – a restriction imposed by a lifeboat Earth of limited resources – it is a social fact, too. People like Gina Rinehart are not above using misinformation and bad economics to justify their own avarice, and to deny the rights of all of us to enjoy this world’s bounty equally.

Posted in Capitalism, Political Economy | 1 Comment »

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November 12, 2012

There’s only One Direction out of the closet…

One Direction: Any gays in there?

A couple of weeks ago now it was International Coming Out Day. Given that I’ve quite unequivocally already got that T-shirt, to mark the occasion I think I’ll admit something else.

Here goes…

… I quite like One Direction.

Yes, yes, yes, I know. They’re awful, boyband, bubblegum pop, with about much soul, sincerity and authenticity as a corporate greenwash. I know their music is formulaic and trite, with certain lyrics that are a bit ropey from a feminist standpoint (“You don’t your beautiful/That’s what makes you beautiful”). I know they exist solely for teenage girls and gossip columnists. I know they and their entire production history is a manifestation of everything I despise about the modern media and its profiteering ways, I know. But some of the songs are pretty catchy (I will admit to listening to “Gotta Be You” an embarrassing number of times), and I have a bit of a man-crush on Harry Styles – he’s got great fashion sense (or at least, his personal stylist does), and he has successfully rehabilitated big hair for the modern gentleman. Besides, I’m gay – I can enjoy shit things and call them kitsch. So sue me.

But One Direction also interests me because of how homosexuality – or rather, its potential existence – has been an increasing feature of their public presence, and how the various responses to this demonstrate how far industry bosses have fallen behind the contemporary attitudes.

I think it’s fair to say that One Direction have faced some of the most sustained and creative speculation about their sexual identities of any boy band in history. The rumoured relationship between the softly spoken Louis Tomlinson and the dandyish Harry set the blogosphere and twitter abuzz. The rustling of magazine-pages has got so bad, that Louis has begged everyone to just shut up about it, as its affecting his relationship with both his girlfriend and Harry. Personally, I don’t believe for a moment that they’re actually in a relationship. But I’ve read plenty of older commentators claiming that, in effect, no straight boys would ever be that tender with one another, or that if one (usually Harry) was gay, then there is no way Louis would flirt with him, if he were truly straight.

Firstly, I think this demonstrates how much the bounds of what is acceptably masculine behaviour are changing. Men below the age of 25 seem much happier and more comfortable with being intimate with other men – the so-called “bromance” – without the fear of being labelled gay, at least by their peers. Harry and Louis behaving in this way publicly has surprised huge numbers of people outside of that age group, leading to them fanning the flames of gay speculation. As for gay men not being able to flirt with heteros – Bitch, please. If anything, I flirt more with my straight friends than I do with my gay ones. Just as with my straight female friends, the understanding that nothing could ever happen basically means that it’s more or less open season. Flirting with someone you know to be gay, if you are gay yourself, is much more likely to result in mixed signals being given, and eventual heartache.

There’s nothing to it: These days, young men are happy to form very intimate, but non-sexual, relationships with one another.

But this “Larry” controversy is only the tip of a very sparkly iceberg. Pretty much every conceivable possible pairing of the members of One Direction has been concocted by Directioners on tumblr and other social networking sites; a process known as “shipping”. Shipping doesn’t just happen to One Direction, either – a vast array of real and fictional characters are shipped by fans online. One thing that is important to note, though, is that shipping doesn’t necessarily equate to a belief that the relationship in question is really going on; rather, it can be (and usually is) an exercise in wishful thinking. I wonder if part of the reason why Louis and Harry have been subjected to so much speculation is because gossip columnists witnessed an unfolding bromance, googled “Harry and Louis One Direction gay” and discovered the Larry fandom, put 2 and 2 together and came up with 69.

This open, laid-back speculation about other people’s sexual behaviour, and the willingness of young men of all orientations to express intimacy with one another, are examples of what has become, in my view, a second sexual revolution, facilitated by the Internet. Having instant access to global audiences of people Just Like You has allowed young people to grow up and socialise relatively unhindered by high-school hierarchy and small-town bigotry for the first time, which has in turn disempowered those forms of domination. Although the communications revolution has had its darker side, it has also allowed people of my generation to cast off even more of the heritage of of sex-negativity and patriarchy than our parents in the swinging 60s managed. Straight guys and gays can be BFFs, and the girls are free to guess and lust to their heart’s content.

Social Media have broken down the barriers that previously defined sexual and social conduct for young people; making homosociality, homosexuality, and nerdy interests more acceptable.

So when did it all change? I think I can square it down to the year – 2006, the year I started my undergrad. That was the year of the Social Network – when facebook truly exploded, when vlogging Youtube started to really take off. My year and above had an adolescent experience much like those that came before – popularity vs. unpopularity, fun vs. isolation. Those that came after had a different experience – because they could be so much cooler Online.

Of course, the Record (and Film, and TV) Industry have been slow to respond to this development. The internet is not just a closed book in terms of sales, its social impact has also left them standing. The fact that part of the appeal of boy bands is that teenage girls (and teenage gay guys) like to imagine the boys with each other has, as yet, completely eluded most Media Execs. If it hadn’t, we’d see way more boy bands following the mould of Madonna, Katy Perry and Russian duo t.A.T.u., who all have capitalised significantly on the sex appeal of lesbianism for both straight men and lesbian/bi/bicurious women. I can appreciate Louis’ frustration (it’s telling he’s more concerned about how the speculation might make his girlfriend feel than about being labelled gay himself) but I think the fault lies not with him, nor with his fans, but with a medium unaware of the new ways young people are thinking. And, if any member of One Direction is in fact gay, I’d advise them to listen to older-brother-homo Lance Bass – coming out won’t kill your career. In fact, your fans may love you even more for it!

Posted in Queer Stuff, Social Anthropology | 1 Comment »

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November 12, 2012

End of Hiatus!

It’s been over a month since my last post here. The reason for that is I’ve been really busy attempting to find full time work, copywriting for other blogs and putting together PhD proposals. Now that I’ve found a Christmas job, and I’ve put together one of the two PhD proposals I’m really focusing on, I should be back to posting more frequently!

Thanks for the continued support everyone – I appreciate all the views and likes you’ve been giving me. I’ll be responding to any comments you’ve made in the next couple of days!

Very best wishes,

Jonathan

Posted in Daily Life | 3 Comments »

September 27, 2012

REVIEW: The Chronicles of Narnia Film Series and Planet Narnia

 

The Chronicles of Narnia: An epic film series, in more ways than one.

 

A couple of months ago, I wrote an article concerning my mixed feelings about The Chronicles of Narnia, by C.S. Lewis. I’m still mulling over how best to approach the project I mentioned at the end of that piece – writing a more contemporary version of Narnia – but I decided to write something more about the series, because over the past couple of days I’ve been watching the recent Disney adaptations of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, Prince Caspian, and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader on DVD, and I had some thoughts on them.

I remember when I first saw The Chronicles of Narnia in the cinema I enjoyed them all thoroughly. They were exciting, cleverly written, visually stunning, well acted and beautifully imagined. Andrew Adamson is an accomplished director, with such greats as the first two Shrek films under his belt, so it’s unsurprising that he should turn out three perfectly formed adaptions of the books. In fact, I remember liking them so much that when Skandar Keynes – the talented actor who plays Edmund with precocious confidence – joined my former college at Cambridge the year before last while I was doing my Masters there, I was so star-struck I didn’t corner him about the films, despite my long-time interest in the industry and in Narnia itself. I did, however, try to sell him a RAG Blind Date form one evening. But that, along with how I met Tilda Swinton’s nephew on the train from London to Cambridge, is a story for another time.

A couple of things stood out as being particularly memorable. Firstly, the casting in all three films was utterly inspired. James McAvoy cleverly combined in Tumnus the perfect measure of weakness and likeability; Georgie Henley’s Lucy was spot on whilst William Moseley looked (and sounded) as though he just stepped out of the books. Casting Spanish actors as the Telmarines was a point of genius, whilst avoiding casting ethnic minority actors as Calormenes in Dawn Treader was a disaster avoided. The sublime Peter Dinklage turned Trumpkin into a far more believable character than he was in the books – Lewis’ attempt to satirise sceptical academics in Trumpkin’s person jarred with his reputation as an accomplished warrior – while whoever asked Dawn French to give voice to Mrs Beaver deserves a knighthood. The next thing that really struck me was the music – Harry Gregson-Williams’ scores, with notable contributions from some of my favourite artists such as Alanis Morrisette and Imogen Heap were so good I was listening to them for months afterwards. And as a lover of “ordinary Narnia”, I really appreciated the artistic direction’s attention to detail in Narnian homes.

Like other reviewers, the one thing I found mildly disappointing, though, was how Adamson chose to make Prince Caspian into a war story. What worked so well with Wardrobe – telling the story as straight as any Hallmark movie – failed miserably as a strategy for approaching Caspian. This is odd, though, because Prince Caspian is, at heart, a war story – it is the tale of how a wronged prince fights to free his kingdom from tyranny. So why didn’t Adamson’s treatment do Prince Caspian justice, in the views of some?

 

Planet Narnia, by Michael Ward

I think the reason can be found in an amazing book I read on the Narnia series a couple of years ago – Planet Narnia, by Michael Ward. Ward puts forward the fascinating thesis that each book in the series reflects the traits of one of the planets in classical astrology. The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, for example, is a jovial book – that is to say, it is a book thematically aligned with the planet Jupiter. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, with the heavy use of gold, the presence of many dragons and the suggestive use of the word “Dawn” in the title, is a book written in a solar vein. Prince Caspian, according to Ward, is Lewis’ treatment on Mars.

On one level, this seems to fit rather neatly with Adamson’s choice to portray Caspian as the Enemy at the Gates with fauns.  Mars, after all, was the Roman god of war, so it only makes sense that his book (and its film) should be about warfare. However, a deeper understanding of Mars’ significance dispels such superficiality; Mars was not simply a god of slaughter, like the Greek war-god Ares, but rather a god of necessity. For the Ancient Romans, Mars was their go-to divinity in all situations where your life was on the line – not just in a fight, but in all the basic acts of living, from hunting to agriculture. Mars was syncretised with the woodland god Sylvanus, to become the embodiment of Nature – the realm of base needs. It is for good reason that victory in Prince Caspian is won by an army of trees – the trees are Mars’ people.

In this way, Mars is also connected with other gods who shared the woodland realm, and yet lack planetary influence – such as Baccus, who makes an appearance in the book, but not the film. Also through his syncretism with Sylvanus, Mars becomes a god of wild abandon and rusticity, first amongst the genius loci of the Tiber river valley; a world lamentably overcome by the cladding of civilisation as Rome (and Narnia) became progressively more civilised.

Ward’s observation – that Prince Caspian is a fully martial, rather than military, story – explains certain otherwise bizarre elements to the novel. The revival of Narnia’s genius loci in a Baccic romp; the fact that very little fighting actually takes place, except through proxies; the prevalence of trees – all of these elements become elegantly poignant when you apply the perspective suggested by Ward.

Adamson chose instead to flatten the complexity of Lewis’ martial vision, by focusing solely on the negative consequences of martial energies. In this way, the plot became a boys’ own war story – with the addition of several battle sequences, and a refocusing upon Peter and Caspian vying for power. Although this was a reasonable thing to have two brave young men doing, this same feature was largely absent from the book.

This reassessment of the martial themes within Prince Caspian extends into another sphere – the trope of necessity. They didn’t need to go down to Beruna, they didn’t need to attack Miraz’s castle, they didn’t need to wait so long before reaching out to Aslan – but they did so anyway. Unlike in the books, where it is insisted that everything is done because of direst need, Adamson bends the plot to incorporate even more profoundly unnecessary behaviour. Much of war, Adamson seems to be saying, is driven by the unnecessary vanity of boys, and of men playing games of power. This flatly contradicts Lewis’ own view on the subject; which in Prince Caspian at least seems to be that war is very much justified, so long as it is a matter of survival.

What’s illuminating about this is that Adamson is shown to have toed a much more faithfully Christian line here, than Lewis ever did. Jesus is a renowned pacifist, who would have had no truck with the martial call to arms in defence of life and limb. Adamson’s choice of bringing Lucy’s simple faith in Aslan to the fore, at the expense of the rampant animism of the original novel really hammers home the point that it is God, not ourselves, in whom we should trust to save the day. This is particularly evident in the disparity between the final few scenes of the film and what occurs in the books. While in the books Aslan roars once and for all to rouse the talking beasts, trees and rivers from their torpor, in the films he roars a number of times. This minor change shifted the tone of the animist assault upon the Telmarines considerably – rather than a reawakened landscape casting off the yoke of a foreign oppressor, the (few) walking trees and the river god seemed to be little more than anthropomorphic weapons, conjured by a singular Aslan who is very much in control of them.

In my view, though, Caspian is in no way a “bad” retelling of the original – in fact, I would say it makes a “better” Christian fantasy than the original. Prince Caspian – with its revived gods, astrological prophecies, personal landscape, and valorisation of the martial ethic of doing what you must to survive – is probably the most profoundly Pagan of all the Narnia books. By stripping out much of Lewis’ embellishments in favour of a more straightforward critique of war, Adamson has returned Prince Caspian to a far more evenly Christian keel.

However, the reason why people have criticised the film so much, and the reason why I can’t bring myself to watch it all the way through again, is that Lewis’ original is so much cleverer. The intricately woven dialogue between Pagan and Christian influences that so typifies Lewis’ writing was almost entirely abolished in this second instalment of the series, in favour of something far more simple and digestible for Midwestern moviegoers. But it still feels like a wasted opportunity.

I could criticise Adamson for this, but to be honest I’m loathed to do so – I think it’s a legitimate interpretation of the text (it is ultimately Aslan who saves the day, not Peter or Caspian), and it certainly doesn’t make The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian a bad film. A film does not need to brave in order to be well made, or enjoyable. But what this does remind me of is how, even if I want to give the Pagan side of Narnia greater emphasis – I can’t leave the Christian aspect out completely, without seriously impoverishing the source material.

Something to think about, at least.

Posted in Disney, Fan Fiction, Narnia, Paganism, Reviews | Leave a Comment »

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September 8, 2012

REVIEW: Doctor Who – Dinosaurs on a Spaceship

The Gang’s Girls: But do female characters really stand in the limelight in this episode of Doctor Who?

WARNING: Spoilers, descriptions of misogyny, and critical thinking. Oh, and some swears.

There’s been a lot said on the interwebs recently on how Steven Moffat, head writer of hit BBC dramas Doctor Who and Sherlock, can’t write female characters – to the point of out-and-out sexism. Like too many heterosexual men, Moffat thinks that a strong female character equates to a femme fatale; as such, he chooses to bypass character development in favour of shooting straight for sex appeal. Whether its Amy Pond, River Song or Moffat’s mutilated vision of Conan Doyle’s Irene Adler, it seems that Moffat can’t help but write really shoddy female characters.

To be fair to the Moff, there are plenty of things he does exceptionally well. He has a marvellous sense of fun and suspense, and is deliciously willing to apply the rule of cool when coming up with concepts, which is refreshing given his predecessor Russell T. Davies’ fondness for high drama and the Sorting Algorithm of Evil over mere enjoyment. Moffat is also very, very good at writing eccentric, rather surprising male leads. Now, listening to him interview, it’s not hard to see why – there’s plenty of Moffat’s loquacious charm in both The Doctor and his rendition of Sherlock Holmes. But, again unlike Davies, Moffat’s female characters are just awful. Amy Pond is essentially passive, River Song is a hideous Mary Sue and Oswyn Oswald, Amy’s speculated replacement from last weeks’ episode, is basically an Amy clone – but with more brains, less boyfriend.

Which brings us to last night’s offering – Dinosaurs on a Spaceship. This was written not by Moffat himself, but by Chris Chibnall – yet another nerdy straight white dude; a demographic that seems heavily over-represented in Moffat’s writing team. Befitting this rather dubious statistical anomaly, Chibnall has produced what is even more sexist steaming pile of dirt than his two previous episodes under Moffat’s tenure; The Hungry Earth and Cold Blood.

In Dinosaurs, The Doctor is called by the Indian Space Agency (a cool touch, it has to be said), which has picked up a spaceship that is on a collision call with Earth. Spontaneously decides to form a little “gang” (gangs are cool now), bringing along Queen Nefertiti, an imperial big game hunter named Riddell, and the Ponds, for the ride. They discover the ship is filled with dinosaurs, although their keepers have mysteriously disappeared. With only six hours before a bunch of Indian missiles take the spaceship out, the Doctor has to race against the clock to save the vessel’s precious cargo from destruction, and discover who is responsible for this seemingly abandoned arc…

The episode was enjoyable enough, to be sure. It was well scripted and the plot was brisk and exciting. But as you’d expect from my preamble, Chibnall couldn’t resist doing a Moffat and reducing the major female characters into empty vessels for playing out male fantasies.

Amy Pond was on good form, successfully pressing a couple of buttons at random (because the Doctor does it, too) and miraculously revealing that the Silurians are the absent owners of the vessel. She also manages to shoot a couple of raptors while being supervised by Mr Big Game Hunter Riddell, despite expressing disdain for his harming endangered species earlier in the same episode. I shit you not, she goes from saying “Meh, I just don’t think killing a bunch of rare animals is that worthy of my attention” to “It’ll be better when they [some raptors] go back to being extinct.” (I paraphrase). The reset button clearly activates between scenes now, too.

But the really horrible stuff is reserved for a character who, as a real person from history, deserves a little bit more respect than the miniskirt-wearing product of Moffat’s fevered imagination. Queen Nefertiti is first shown demanding (sexually) the Doctor take her with him following a visit to Ancient Egypt where the Doctor defends the Egyptian people from a plague. Okay, fair enough. Nefertiti is a living goddess, and The Doctor is a Lonely God with a fondness for royal ladies – I can accept that they might feel some attraction for one another. But the story goes on.

Initially, Nefertiti doesn’t seem to be straying into problematic territory. She isn’t wearing a particularly revealing outfit, and she’s employed in something other than prostitution, which is something. She is intelligent, brave and open-minded, which is more than can be said for Riddell, whose primary asset seems to be his *ahem* large gun. And, when Riddell makes a series of extremely creepy, lascivious remarks at her, Nefertiti initially responds as any true feminist would – by telling him where he can stick his Nitro Express. At that joyous, split second moment, I thought “Oh my gods… Chibnall is subverting Moffat!”

I thought too soon, however. Riddell, undeterred, continues his virulent misogyny to new heights by threatening to spank Nefertiti for biting his head off. And then, the smile happens. Nefertiti grins, not in a “What a fucking arrogant cockhead” sort of way, but in a “Oooh, now you threatened to physically abuse me for refusing your advances, I’m actually kindof hot for you!” sort of way. Ugh.

Cue Amy, who tells them to stop flirting. All hopes that I had misread the Lady of Grace’s smile were dashed in that moment. Because putting a statement like that in is a clear bit of writer signposting – a way of making it absolutely crystal clear to the audience what is actually going on is some hardcore verbal foreplay, rather than (heaven forbid) a woman not wanting to sleep with a douchebag. Like that’d happen!

Subsequently, if Nefertiti’s golden legacy hasn’t been besmirched enough, she is appropriated by the main antagonist – a greedy trader named Solomon, who murdered the Silurian residents of the arc and who proceeds to make all sorts of unfair demands on The Doctor, including that he hand over Nefertiti. The Doctor, being an honourable chap, naturally refuses; but The Mistress of Upper and Lower Egypt demands to be handed over, sacrificing herself to Solomon’s lecherous appetites so the rest of the group can go free.

After a bit more creeping over the Lady of all Women, Solomon teleports back to his ship with his prize. The Doctor then concocts a plan, managing to steal on board and rescue Nefertiti, who resolves an impasse between The Doctor and Solomon by knocking the weapon from Solomon’s hand. To top it all off, we’re treated to a little scene at the end showing a ruffle-haired Nefertiti emerging from Riddell’s tent in Africa – clearly having made good on all that flirting from earlier.

There’s so much wrong with this, it’s difficult to know where to start. Quite obviously the damsel-in-distress trope is iffy to say the least, and having the girl do something vaguely assertive by kicking the gun from the villain’s hand might have been a boldly feminist move in the 1950s, but it doesn’t cut the mustard now. Even worse is the entirely odious “love story” (if you could call it that) between Nefertiti and Riddell – as a woman who has amorous designs on the Doctor, and has a God-King at home, settling for a gun-toting, incompetent, disrespectful sleaze from the 19th century seems about as in-character as River Song joining a convent. The similarity between Riddell and Solomon seems to have entirely eluded Chibnall – both denigrate Nefertiti, and attempt to circumvent her dignity in order to have sex with her. The fact that Riddell succeeds where Solomon fails only serves to praise one form of patriarchy over another; owning women as things is bad, yeah, but if you treat them like shit anyway they’ll still sleep with you! Yay!

And none of what I’ve written above even touches upon the troubling symbolic associations of a European colonial wooing and boning a literal African Queen.

But the worst thing about all of this is that Nefertiti has absolutely no character development in the entire story. Her driving animus – which seems to be to find a “man” – remains unexplained and unexplored, as does her ability to happily accept dinosaurs, spaceships and alien worlds despite being from Bronze Age Egypt. In fact, despite her choices being pivotal in the finale (much as Rory and his dad’s relationship, which is tenderly and rather subtly developed), we get next to no insight into her inner life; Nefertiti is just a closed book. Like Pond, Song, Oswald and Adler, Nefertiti is simply a physical embodiment of a straight male nerdy erotic fantasy: a brainy girl with a gun.

Unlike the male characters in the Doctor’s “gang”, who seem to serve the purpose of helping the Doctor by doing cool things – Riddell tranquilizes a bunch of raptors, protects Amy while doing so, then fucks Nefertiti; Rory and his Dad get to talk gadgets, bond and ultimately pilot a spaceship together – Amy and Nefertiti don’t “do” very much. Unlike the male characters, they don’t open up new possibilities through acts of genius or by taking control of the situation. Instead, they move the plot by trying things at random (Amy) or by just being there (Nefertiti), or by joining in with a male character doing something cool (Amy again), or by acquiescing to his wishes (Nefertiti again). To me, this makes the functions of the characters rather clear – while boys are the Doctor’s pals, the girls are mere accessories.

Whether these issues reflect choices made by Chibnall or Moffat, one thing is certain – there is more than one kind of dinosaur aboard this spaceship.

Posted in Feminism, Writing | 5 Comments »

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