The World According to Garp
I watched this in bed tonight with Litttle Girl. What an excellent movie. I can't believe it's been since high school that I've seen it. I "get it" a lot more now. It makes me want to go out and read the book.
Lots of stuff to think about radical feminism, gender studies, sexuality, mother-son relations, transgenderism and emotional healing in this movie.
I remember my mother taking me to a sneak preview of this movie at SMU when I was 9 years old and in third grade. But we walked out not too long into it, because she felt there was too much sex in it. She complained about actors (Robin Williams) who made adult-audience films after making kids films (his first was Popeye). I guess she had thought that with Robin Williams in it that it would be a kid-friendly comedy or something.
I remember being fascinated with the transsexual character Roberta, played by John Lithgow. Looking back now, it turns out the role won him a best supporting actor nomination. And now that I've met plenty of trans-women, I can see that Lithgow played the role so spot-on perfect. I've met middle-aged trannies just like her! He must have done his research well.
The World According... is the story of T.S. Garp, raised by an overprotective mother who wanted a child but didn't want a man in her life (hmmm... sound familiar???), so she sleeps with a dying WWII solder who's in a coma in order to get pregnant. Other than this one instance, she's very anti-sex and anti-lust, and views these as "male weaknesses" which men project onto women and women internalize. Garp is an aspiring writer who does a lot of daydreaming (sound familiar again?). But he ends up back in his mother's shadow when a publisher prints her autobiography, and it becomes a lightening-rod political manifesto of the feminist movement, a runaway best-seller, and huge crowds of women come out to hear her speak.
One thing that always struck me in the movie was the uneasy relationship Garp had with some of the radical feminists who surrounded his mother. No matter how hard he tried, no matter how much sympathy he had for the women's movement, no matter that he was her son, he was still a man, and therefore a suspect, outsider or enemy in their eyes.
Somehow, I'm reminded of Janice Raymond's ugly book "The Transsexual Empire", also from this period (the 70's), which basically accused all transsexuals of being fetishistic men who wanted to invade women's space and dominate it from within. It urged feminists to be suspicious of transsexuals and exclude them from women's space. The book was taken quite seriously for a while, and it's long-term effects can even be felt in some circles today such as the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival. My feeling is that that book created unncessary divisivness and damage and hurt people for no reason.
The problem is that there's no room for fluidity in these world views. There's no room for nuance, for genderqueer, for anything outside binary gender, or even for differences in upbringing. There's only unchanging men and unchanging women, locked in battle, and both are painted with broad, garish brush strokes.
Examining my own feelings... even when I id'd as male, I always felt a lot of solidarity with women, and I used to feel guilt over having male privledge. I also used to feel guilt over pornography, because I bought into the argument that all pornography degrades women. This was back around my college days. Thank god I have a more a balanced world view now, in a sex-positive gender-fluid subculture, where I don't feel guilty about being myself.
Lots of stuff to think about radical feminism, gender studies, sexuality, mother-son relations, transgenderism and emotional healing in this movie.
I remember my mother taking me to a sneak preview of this movie at SMU when I was 9 years old and in third grade. But we walked out not too long into it, because she felt there was too much sex in it. She complained about actors (Robin Williams) who made adult-audience films after making kids films (his first was Popeye). I guess she had thought that with Robin Williams in it that it would be a kid-friendly comedy or something.
I remember being fascinated with the transsexual character Roberta, played by John Lithgow. Looking back now, it turns out the role won him a best supporting actor nomination. And now that I've met plenty of trans-women, I can see that Lithgow played the role so spot-on perfect. I've met middle-aged trannies just like her! He must have done his research well.
The World According... is the story of T.S. Garp, raised by an overprotective mother who wanted a child but didn't want a man in her life (hmmm... sound familiar???), so she sleeps with a dying WWII solder who's in a coma in order to get pregnant. Other than this one instance, she's very anti-sex and anti-lust, and views these as "male weaknesses" which men project onto women and women internalize. Garp is an aspiring writer who does a lot of daydreaming (sound familiar again?). But he ends up back in his mother's shadow when a publisher prints her autobiography, and it becomes a lightening-rod political manifesto of the feminist movement, a runaway best-seller, and huge crowds of women come out to hear her speak.
One thing that always struck me in the movie was the uneasy relationship Garp had with some of the radical feminists who surrounded his mother. No matter how hard he tried, no matter how much sympathy he had for the women's movement, no matter that he was her son, he was still a man, and therefore a suspect, outsider or enemy in their eyes.
Somehow, I'm reminded of Janice Raymond's ugly book "The Transsexual Empire", also from this period (the 70's), which basically accused all transsexuals of being fetishistic men who wanted to invade women's space and dominate it from within. It urged feminists to be suspicious of transsexuals and exclude them from women's space. The book was taken quite seriously for a while, and it's long-term effects can even be felt in some circles today such as the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival. My feeling is that that book created unncessary divisivness and damage and hurt people for no reason.
The problem is that there's no room for fluidity in these world views. There's no room for nuance, for genderqueer, for anything outside binary gender, or even for differences in upbringing. There's only unchanging men and unchanging women, locked in battle, and both are painted with broad, garish brush strokes.
Examining my own feelings... even when I id'd as male, I always felt a lot of solidarity with women, and I used to feel guilt over having male privledge. I also used to feel guilt over pornography, because I bought into the argument that all pornography degrades women. This was back around my college days. Thank god I have a more a balanced world view now, in a sex-positive gender-fluid subculture, where I don't feel guilty about being myself.
posted by E at 6:45 PM
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