I was more surprised by the date of this publication than the content. While, like some of my classmates, I found the use of the phrase 'watering hole' in relation to women in the first presented article a bit disconcerting, this blatant public admission (in a headline) of male interest in powerful, and also exotic, women surprised me a bit more from this time period. While jokes regarding the burdens of marriage have always existed, with men correctly perceiving their dominant role in establishing these lifelong dependent relationships, 'battle of the amazons' suggests the unexpected ability of men at the time to assign roles of violence to women. While literature at the time suggests men's view of women to be restricted to the home and their according subjugated position within the private realm, this injection of exoticism (in the word 'Amazon' itself) apparently allows men to admit their ability to view their feminine counterparts as violent beings (in the use of the word 'battle), and additionally as objects to be viewed for amusement rather than to be protected and restricted to the private realm. That the men of the time allowed this article to be published (subjecting any woman to public spectacle, regardless of her socioeconomic status) was what I found most surprising. I expected greater condescension towards women, and corresponding restriction of behaviors, from Victorian men, and while my expectation leaves very little room for interpretation whether this sort of behavior was pardonable, I found the differences between my expectation and the presented material greater than anticipated.
The event advertised seems to be a play set in Moorish Spain at some point before the Reconquista. It appears to be a romance between a character named Ismael and one named Zulma, with as a backdrop some sort of conflict involving Amazon warriors. It’s a little strange that Amazons show up at all in a play set in Spain during the middle ages, when they were only ever associated with the Greeks of antiquity. There is actually a Rubens painting entitled “Battle of the Amazons,” painted in 1618, from which the play probably draws its inspiration. But the painting shows a melee between Theseus and the Amazons, so it’s unclear how or why Moorish Spain entered the picture. It also would have been an unusual play to have so many actors participating at once, and so the story may have simply been a facilitator for big battle scenes. That would explain why the advertisement uses the word “spectacle” rather than “play,” even though the latter would certainly have been common parlance at that point. If the whole thing was simply an excuse for people to watch women run around on stage, that would explain too why the whole thing could be so anachronistic—it didn’t matter. It was just a spectacle.
Both the first article and this reduce women to animalistic, violent and base creatures. At first, like Christine, I was really surprised by this open characterization of women during this time period. But on second thought, it makes some sense that men would put women in two extreme categories -- mothers/virgins/innocents to Amazons/exotic/violent. Rather than recognizing the complexity of women -- the potential to have a spectrum of characteristics between those two extremes -- Victorian men seem to use humor in order to reduce women to one dimension. Was this a way in which to keep women in their "place"?
What type of event is being advertised here, in a poster from March 1848? What stereotypes are being employed?
I was more surprised by the date of this publication than the content. While, like some of my classmates, I found the use of the phrase 'watering hole' in relation to women in the first presented article a bit disconcerting, this blatant public admission (in a headline) of male interest in powerful, and also exotic, women surprised me a bit more from this time period. While jokes regarding the burdens of marriage have always existed, with men correctly perceiving their dominant role in establishing these lifelong dependent relationships, 'battle of the amazons' suggests the unexpected ability of men at the time to assign roles of violence to women. While literature at the time suggests men's view of women to be restricted to the home and their according subjugated position within the private realm, this injection of exoticism (in the word 'Amazon' itself) apparently allows men to admit their ability to view their feminine counterparts as violent beings (in the use of the word 'battle), and additionally as objects to be viewed for amusement rather than to be protected and restricted to the private realm. That the men of the time allowed this article to be published (subjecting any woman to public spectacle, regardless of her socioeconomic status) was what I found most surprising. I expected greater condescension towards women, and corresponding restriction of behaviors, from Victorian men, and while my expectation leaves very little room for interpretation whether this sort of behavior was pardonable, I found the differences between my expectation and the presented material greater than anticipated.
ReplyDeleteThe event advertised seems to be a play set in Moorish Spain at some point before the Reconquista. It appears to be a romance between a character named Ismael and one named Zulma, with as a backdrop some sort of conflict involving Amazon warriors. It’s a little strange that Amazons show up at all in a play set in Spain during the middle ages, when they were only ever associated with the Greeks of antiquity. There is actually a Rubens painting entitled “Battle of the Amazons,” painted in 1618, from which the play probably draws its inspiration. But the painting shows a melee between Theseus and the Amazons, so it’s unclear how or why Moorish Spain entered the picture.
ReplyDeleteIt also would have been an unusual play to have so many actors participating at once, and so the story may have simply been a facilitator for big battle scenes. That would explain why the advertisement uses the word “spectacle” rather than “play,” even though the latter would certainly have been common parlance at that point. If the whole thing was simply an excuse for people to watch women run around on stage, that would explain too why the whole thing could be so anachronistic—it didn’t matter. It was just a spectacle.
Both the first article and this reduce women to animalistic, violent and base creatures. At first, like Christine, I was really surprised by this open characterization of women during this time period. But on second thought, it makes some sense that men would put women in two extreme categories -- mothers/virgins/innocents to Amazons/exotic/violent. Rather than recognizing the complexity of women -- the potential to have a spectrum of characteristics between those two extremes -- Victorian men seem to use humor in order to reduce women to one dimension. Was this a way in which to keep women in their "place"?
ReplyDelete