Just an interesting cultural, female monster-dom to point out, since we’re on the topic (See the comments for Nov. 1’s post if you’ve missed the recent chatter.).
So, we all know the story of Beauty and the Beast - mostly as brought to us by our old friend Disney (Note the multi-tiered sarcasm.), but also from translations of popular text versions, such the Grim Brothers’. Of course, long before anyone wrote the thing down, Beauty and the Beast, in one form or another, was an oral tale. The first written version, however, was put together by a Frenchman named Charles Perrault in the seventeenth century. Therefore, when we think of the piece in its original form, we have to think of it in French.
And, obviously, the French title wasn’t “Beauty and the Beast”. Instead, it’s “La Belle et La Bête”.
Now, for those of you who know the smallest bit about French (and who remember what kind of crazy, gender-obsessed site you’re hanging out on), the first thing that should come to your attention is the presence of not one, but two, feminine definite articles. Granted, the word “bête” is itself feminine. But that doesn’t negate the implication of its gender. French has plenty of other nouns that could stand its place. Clearly there are reasons why time (and Perrault) decided on this particular word.
If you’ve ever seen Jean Cocteau’s film version of the tale (It’s a bit strange, but he was a damn cool surrealist, so he can get away with it.), Beauty always calls her captor/lover “La Bête”, as opposed to just “Bête”. And she says it over and over and over: “La Bête, La Bête, La Bête”. Lady - you feel like saying - we get the idea. But maybe that’s the idea. Maybe we don’t.
There are lots of new insights and possible meanings that a reevaluation of the gender roles in Beauty in the Beast - a tale we normally assume describes so straightforwardly an encounter between the gentile feminine and the violent masculine - could unearth. On the surface level at the least, the feminizing of the Beast speaks to a certain inherent femininity of monster-dom: That which is outside of society is female; that which is female is outside of society.
Or, perhaps, instead of being a story about the two opposing human humours, masculine and feminine, this is really an allegory about the two sides of femininity - the tamed, loving, beautiful Belle, and the wild, violent, fearfully sexual Beast.
Naturally, in our accepted version of the tale, the “healthier” form of womanhood (namely the highly-socialized, non-intimidating form) wins over the cruder, more powerful form, and literally transforms her. In alternative readings though, such as Angela Carter’s haunting retelling, “The Tyger’s Bride”, it’s the wild side that takes over the civilized one - as “each stroke of his tongue ripped off skin after successive skin, all the skins of a life in the world, and left behind a nascent patina of shiny hairs. My earrings turned back to water and trickled down my shoulders; I shrugged the drops off my beautiful fur.”
November 3rd, 2005 at 10:28 am
“He who makes of himself a monster avoids the pain of being a man.”
Robert Johnson said that, I’m not sure if it works directly the same way for women. Maybe is more like “she who tames the monster avoids the pain of being a woman”, which would fit in with the Belle a la Bete.
November 4th, 2005 at 10:23 am
Ah, but what does it mean to be a “man” or a “woman” in the first place?
November 4th, 2005 at 12:14 pm
Nice way to penetrate the semantic. Maybe by “man” Robert Johnson meant “human” in the general sense that people say “mankind” to mean “humanity”. I think what the fairytale and Dr. Johnson are both getting at is that, no matter who you are, being human means confronting the monstrosity within first and foremost.
November 4th, 2005 at 12:25 pm
I agree with you as far as being a “man” - that that is meant to imply being “human”. But when you transfer that do being being a monster to avoid being a “woman”, I think it comes to me something different - that being a monster lets you out of the worries, not of humanity itself, but of the social construction of acceptable womanhood.
November 4th, 2005 at 6:49 pm
That makes sense, likewise Hunter Thompson in “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” (the film adaptation of which features that quote at its outset) escapes the responsibility of being a man in society by making a total drug fiend of himself.
Social challenge is the way of the future for games, its the way games will appeal to women, men, older folks, casual gamers, non-gamers, maybe even figity politicians. A major theme I want to explore in my storybuilding is letting the player play outside the conventions of normal social situations. GTA does this in a shallow way, but I’m thinking more Fear and Loathing than Goodfellas.
I think your ticket to making titles which play with sexuality and gender roles is along similar lines.
November 4th, 2005 at 9:00 pm
In what way are you envisioning Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas? I’ve seen the film, but I don’t quite see the connection to game storybuilding. But I’d love to be informed!
November 5th, 2005 at 11:26 am
I don’t mean Fear and Loathing in particular, but the whole attitude of playing outside of the bounds of society, which could underlay a whole variety of verbs and dynamics. Belle in Beauty and the Beast, or at least the Disney version, fits this mold in a different way than Hunter Thompson, but the spirit is the same. As Austin Powers said, its freedom baby!
Most (single-player) games we’ve seen have set-up the conflict by putting the player in the role of an entity which is outside the system. So far these conflicts have been moslty concerned with violence, but think about it: Mario 2 has the characters descending into a dream world, GTA has the player coming home or escaping from prison or entering a new town to take it over, Doom has the player invading the abatoires of hell, even The Sims is a sort of post-modern take on suburban materialism and “keeping up with the Joneses”. All these games set-up a system and demand the player rise to the challenge of these systems, it makes sense that the extraneous narrative frame the conflict like-wise. As we move into gameplay in which narrative isn’t extraneous, it will make sense to test the boundaries of the gameplay with similar tropes, but extended into the realm of the social symbolic.
Some Western writer once said theres only two basic types of stories, “the hero’s journey” and “stranger comes to town”. I’m not a big fan of structuralist theory, but from a systems building standpoint that appraisal makes sense.
November 5th, 2005 at 6:55 pm
“That which is outside of society is female; that which is female is outside of society.”
But at the same time, there’s always that reccuring image of female as the foundation of society. Think in Gilgamesh the relationship between Enkidu and the priestess. It’s not necessary ” the gentile feminine and the violent masculine ” which are depicted here, but asocial brute strengh and socializing power.
Foundation isn’t the right word. Medium. Females as the choice medium of society. The ambiguity of the word here is just perfect.
What a programming we’ve subjected ourselves to !
Oh, and on a linguistical side-note, in french, and in most languages where masculine/feminine has meaning, you’ll find that masculine is more akin to neutral, while feminine holds feelings (whether it is positive or negative, you’ll find more insults in feminine forms, but also more words implying affection. Russian is another perfect exemple.)
Make of this what you will, but I find it meaningful. Now if only I knew what the meaning was…
November 6th, 2005 at 8:45 pm
MD^2 - interesting point about the “feeling” behind female gendered words in romantic languages. I’m not sure about Russian, but in French there’s no neuter, so, as you say, the masculine becomes the neutral choice. It seems that feminization, therefore, is always something special; it indicates a particularly strong sentiment… whatever that sentiment happens to be.