The Trouble With Her is the Noise
I don’t really make new year resolutions (why bother?) but I have been thinking of a few things following some Christmas viewing and reading.
I watched Soul after Christmas, it is a charming, wonderfully warm Pixar film full of thoughtful topics that we have come to expect from Peter Docter. Importantly, it includes a diverse cast which we should hopefully come to expect. However, there was a throwaway gag in the film that was really jarring.
We meet 22, played by Tina Fey, who represents a cynical soul, not ready to join a human. She is asked, why do you sound like a middle aged white woman and answers that she can have any voice she likes but chooses this voice as it’s the most annoying. Ho ho.
Isn’t is so annoying to sound like a middle aged white woman? A Karen demanding to see the manager, asking why you are parked there, calling the cops because a black man has asked her to put her dog on a leash in Central Park. I will refer to Helen Lewis’ excellent essay on Karens in the Atlantic for a better analysis of this word, but there is a big difference between despicable behaviours displayed by racist white women and a word that is now thrown at any woman speaking out about any topic. Shut up, be quiet, who does she think she is?
Women must be quiet, we must be small, so small, tiny feet, tiny hands, demure, shy, beautiful, humble, agreeable, sooth and serve, sooth and serve the men around her.
I met a middle aged white woman in Oxford last year, Dr Rachel Clarke. She is a palliative care doctor and was there to promote her book about death. I have grappled with grief for almost a decade now and had the absolute pleasure of her company over a couple of days. She is a wonderful and remarkable middle aged white woman, and is currently tweeting about the virus on Twitter. In a recent thread she analysed some data about the virus and it was retweeted several times on my timeline. To my despair, the retweets were only discussing her comments about the virus and not that she also mentioned that she is receiving rape and death threats for her tweets.
A doctor is receiving rape and death threats for tweeting about the virus and we have become immune to reading this, like, yes of course she is. Stupid middle aged woman, what an irritating voice you have.
In Ian Dunt’s excellent new book, How to be a Liberal , he talks of when feminists first started to reject liberal philosophy as it was complicit in silencing women, “[T]he silencing started in school. Feminist researchers in the US discovered that both male and female teachers, across all age groups, from kindergarten to college, were more likely to pick boys than girls to answer questions in the classroom. The researcher Peggy Orenstein found this approach reduced girls’ willingness to speak at a very young age. It then continued into adulthood: across various cultures, from England to Japan, women were encouraged to behave demure as a prerequisite of ladylike behaviour.”
Yes, Soul is just a cartoon and why am I going nuts about one line in an otherwise fabulous film? It was pointed out to me that Tina Fey wrote and delivered the line. Really, don’t get me started on internalised misogyny and actually my point is exactly about it being a cartoon. Even in a cartoon, for families, we have to joke about middle aged women’s voices being annoying? Tell me, when was the the last time you saw a middle aged woman on screen? One with a wrinkly face? Was she allowed to talk to another woman? What was her role, what was her function in that story?
I saw Unhinged a couple of days ago. No pretty male faces on screen but our heroine is beautiful, as she must be. She has a 13 year old son and she looks 32 years old max. Now, I understand that a 32 year old could have a 13 year old son but it just struck me as very odd. Why not give her a younger son, or gasp, make her a 50 year old woman? We can’t empathise with a 50 year old woman? It would be less exciting, less scary? Who wants to see an OLD LADY FACE on screen, shudder. Middle aged women don’t exist, even when the role is made for them.
Finally, I leave you with Harrison Ford. Our darling nephew chose to watch Temple of Doom over Christmas, sigh, it is the most racist and sexist film I have seen in a while. I know, I know it was made in the 80s but I am sorry, it was racist and sexist in the 80s. I felt sad watching it as an adult because it was a favourite film from my childhood, when in fact it wasn’t made for me and would have given me a strong signal of what was ahead of me. Boys have adventures and fun, are intelligent and witty. Girls just scream and moan and bend over so you can see different parts of their starved bodies. Anyway, Ford says, you know the trouble with her is the noise. Yes, you better believe it, now there is a new years’ resolution that I can get behind. My middle aged irritating voice will be as loud as I can make it in 2021.