2023-07-28 12:04:17
Feminist films have a certain template. A woman who has to deal with a fatal, horrible incident or person. Their survival from it, breaking the terror and jumping out. That is the minimum qualification to be a “female” oriented film. Does this template represent the 30905 million women in the world? Just ask yourself, how many times have you seen your story on screen? Have you seen your most ordinary life on screen?
There is a filmmaker who shows the most ordinary life of women through his films. None of their women came out to lead the revolution, not to take revenge on the men who violated them, not to break the shackles of patriarchy with loud noises, but they are women who live life as normal: love, work, art, marriage, friendships, family relationships, love and lust. Greta Gerwig’s Women.
Whether it’s Christine McPherson’s Lady Bird, who is bursting with life, searching for what she wants, or the March Sisters in Little Women, who love each other and root for each other, the female characters in films directed by Greta Gerwig have accepted themselves. As the women and girls question the system throughout their lifetimes, the signs of the times are with them.
But filmmaker, screenwriter and actress Greta Gerwig should not be lumped into the single tag of women’s storyteller. Greta is a textbook scriptwriter and filmmaker who gives a soft touch to the viewer’s eyes, ears and heart.
Little Women is a semi-autobiographical novel by Louisa May Alcott written 150 years ago. Since 1917, the book has been adapted thirteen times. In 2019, Greta Gerwig extended Little Women over a century into a society that had been calling every adaptation a feminist thought. But Greta Gerwig leaped forward, leaving behind so many films and series that had been filmed till then, and gave the lyrics written that time a meaning. Therefore, the director Greta Gerwig can be described as a feminist only with Little Women.
Meg March decides for herself that she wants to get married and have children. Women who refuse to marry are debunked as empowered women. Meg says that those who recognize that marriage is their choice and enter into marriage and motherhood are also empowered. ‘Just because my dreams differ from yours, it doesn’t mean they are unimportant’, Greta said it with a line from Meg.
Where Marmi has been shown as a picture of goodness, love and patience, the Marmi who expresses her frustration is the mother we see all around us. There is a scene where Marmi comes to say that she has to give the Christmas Day meal to another family. This is how Greta scripted that scene…
EXT./INT. CONCORD. MARCH HOUSE. CONTINUOUS. 1861.
Marmee approaches her modest home, and sees her girls
laughing and rehearsing, joyfully playing make-believe. She
fights tears and sadness, regarding what, we don’t entirely know.
We just know that what she does as a mother isn’t free. Of
course it’s not, nothing is ever free, even a joy a mother
can make.*
They have written what they want to say in that text itself.
Marriage is not an option for everyone. There are reasons why it might not be a choice. Aimee March’s monologue is the woman’s helplessness as she calls out the reasons that keep her from her desires. That too they have written so beautifully.
Greta’s Little Women makes a visible difference from the others, however, in the end of the story.
In fact, they also told the story behind that novel, which has been used for almost a century. In Alcott’s first story, Joe March was living alone. But the story ends with Alcott’s literal parallel, Jo March, finding love, saying that no one wants the story of a woman living alone in those circumstances. That is what was being depicted for a century.
But the film ends with Joe watching the birth of his book on Little Women written by Greta following studying Alcott’s life. Greta gives Alcott the ending she deserves.
Heroines who lead the revolution are not only tools to tell women’s stories, to tell problems, to tell lives. Women also have normal lives. There are reasons for that, like everyone else. Greta’s women are useful for that. That’s how Greta turned a novel that has been adapted so many times, that children grew up reading, into her film. It is because of this that it is relevant how Greta sees Barbie, which children grew up playing with and which has become a cult, both negative and positive.
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