Majorly shitty month thus far, hence why I haven't posted; it would only be full of rage and misery, which while cathartic, would prove a very boring and depressing read.
I have other plans for today's post but, to cut a long story short, I've been stuck at home for pretty much the whole of the past three weeks, with no access to my own car, while mother has been driving back and forth to my sister's – who's recovering from a very small, totally non-life-threatening operation. Damn, how bitter do I sound? In normal circumstances, of course I wouldn't begrudge anyone receiving help from their mother, particularly when she already does so much for me, as my main carer. However, nothing about my family is 'normal', or simple – whose is, I hear you scream – good point, but when you take into consideration that we moved away from living with my sister because she's a manipulative, immature, abusive and violent bitch, you can kinda see why it might grate on me. I haven't said a lot about this in previous posts, maybe the odd hint, cos it's so difficult to discuss, and I almost feel embarrassed when I do have to talk about my family sitch. Stupid, huh? Anyway, the whole point of this blog was to be honest with my readers, so there you go; [some] honesty. So, because mother's had exclusive use of the car – my car, paid for by me, via Motability – I haven't been able to get out with my enabler, SB. And no, I couldn't have just gone for a 'walk' to town, or round the park with SB, as that would've involved mother getting me into my wheelchair before she left early in the morning, and me staying sat up all day, which I can't physically do (see The Spoon Theory to really make sense of this).
I have, consequently, really struggled to get through this month, and have had some epic rows with mother; brought on by a combination of cabin fever, boredom, frustration, exhaustion – from days of early starts – and a general feeling of loneliness and isolation. If it wasn't for daily heart to hearts with The Wife, visits from VW and @FranBMan23, and getting out to work on two of the days, I don't know how I'd have coped. Still not feeling great at the moment; having some pretty emotional, angry, and stressful bouts, and I have scared myself at times into thinking I'll end up like I was last year/end of 2010. I'm hoping I've come through the worst though; mother isn't up at my sister's quite so much now, and from next week I should have a bit more use of my car. Here's hoping, cos I'm not sure I can handle this way of 'life' for much longer. I'm banking on the testing of a new, specially made sling on Friday that, if successful, would mean – once installed – I could be lifted and moved by my carers, rather than solely mother. As much as I'm worried about it – the thought of anyone, or anything, new lifting me is pretty terrifying, on account of the slightest movement potentially causing a broken bone – I desperately want, no, need, for this to work. Maybe then I'll achieve the independence that so many spoonies, quite rightly, seem to acquire so easily.
Right, on to the actual topic of this post; my PhD. I wanted to put into words what I'm intending to research, as it's all jumbled up in my head at the moment, so it needs some organisation anyway, and what better way to do that than in public. These are all initial, very rough ideas that I've had, based on the findings of my MA dissertation, and before I'd done any proper research. I'm sure the plans will change, but I'm living in the moment, so here goes.
For my MA dissertation in Film, I wrote about issues of girlhood, and the representation of young women in the Disney film; specifically The Little Mermaid (Clements & Musker, 1989) and Beauty and the Beast (Trousdale & Wise, 1991). I am going to share this work over the next few posts, so bear with me; I don't wanna give away any spoilers at the moment. What I can say is that, as both of the above films were based on fairy tales and folklore, I followed the progression of these two stories, charting the differences between the representations of the little mermaid (Ariel, to those of the Disney generation), and Beauty (Belle). These characters naturally became the main focus, but during my research, and throughout the course of writing up, Ursula (a.k.a. the Sea Witch) kept rearing her [very ugly] head, and proved difficult to ignore.
Ursula brought up some very interesting issues of femininity; of being cast aside once you reach the age of infertility and unattractiveness – according to society, not my belief, honestly. Yet, cos Ariel and Belle took the lead roles, Ursula kind of faded into the background, and didn't get as much recognition as she'd have liked. Indeed, The Legend, who second marked my dissertation, and whose advice I will always follow to the letter, said that she would have been interested to read a lot more about Ursula, and her 'issues'. Hint for a future PhD topic? Methinks so. Thus, the seed was planted, and I'm intending to follow up this idea further, by means of a PhD.
Current working title is 'The Other Woman; Monstrous Femininity and Ageing in the Disney Fairy Tale', and I'm intending to broaden my horizons – and word count – by looking at a much wider range of Disney films, and comparing them to their 'live-action' counterparts. Fairy tales are totally in vogue at the moment, what with Sky's current ad campaign, Channel 5's Once Upon a Time, and the recent release of Snow White and the Huntsman (Sanders, 2012), to name but a few. Moreover, according to HH – who was my very brilliant dissertation supervisor – there's loads of research being carried out on ageing, and it just so happens that the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) – who I'm banking on for funding – are looking for people to research 'New Dynamics of Ageing'. Um, yay. If I ever get to writing a proposal, I will play on this muchly.
By 'Other', I mean the process of 'us' versus 'them'; primarily associated with Said's 1978 book, Orientalism, where the creation of a society:
'[...] whether Orient or Occident, France or Britain… involves establishing opposites and otherness whose actuality is always subject to the continuous interpretation and reinterpretation of their differences from us‘. (1995:332)
My PhD thesis will [hopefully] be on a much smaller scale than continental politics, and the idea of the 'Other' will instead be used twofold. First, as a kind of play on words; not the heroin, the other one, and also Other with a capital O; the women that offer something different, oppose the 'norm', aren't seen as 'us'. This may be cos they aren't beautiful, aren't married, are childless or infertile, etc. Basically, anything that differentiates these women, such as Ursula, Maleficant, The Wicked Stepmother, from what we – us – deem socially acceptable, or traditionally conventional.
By 'Monstrous Femininity', I'm of course referring to the brilliant Barbara Creed's The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis, which I haven't actually read yet, but I'm sure it's amazing. According to the blurb, The Monstrous Feminine addresses the way that female monstrosity nearly always shares a bed with issues of fertility and mothering – ooo, rhymes with Othering – think the alien in Alien (Scott, 1979). So, like, all the baddies mentioned above don't have biological children, and seem to exist purely to make the younger, hotter, more fertile protagonists' lives a misery. Wait, this is sounding all too close to home... Anyways, I haven't even begun to address the question of why these women are portrayed in this way; though I have touched on it very briefly in my review of Snow White and the Huntsman. Maybe it's jealousy, or bitterness, over all the privileges Third Wavers have over the Firsties, or maybe society – us, again – deem older women as useless, due to their inability to reproduce and, cos they're so unattractive, they must be cast aside, to go live in caves. Again, not my views. Who knows; it's probably a combo of all those factors, plus a bunch more. Only time, and a whole lotta work, will tell. Although, if anyone does have an answer, please share! I'm not so attached to the idea of giving up my life [and sanity] to research this baby, that I wouldn't welcome any input.
Next, cue a big load of post-feminist argument – which I actually love picking apart – about the body beautiful, women doing it for themselves, Third Wave gals versus First Wave old cronies, and I have myself a very basic, yet not bad – even if I do say so myself – idea for a thesis.
By 'Other', I mean the process of 'us' versus 'them'; primarily associated with Said's 1978 book, Orientalism, where the creation of a society:
'[...] whether Orient or Occident, France or Britain… involves establishing opposites and otherness whose actuality is always subject to the continuous interpretation and reinterpretation of their differences from us‘. (1995:332)
My PhD thesis will [hopefully] be on a much smaller scale than continental politics, and the idea of the 'Other' will instead be used twofold. First, as a kind of play on words; not the heroin, the other one, and also Other with a capital O; the women that offer something different, oppose the 'norm', aren't seen as 'us'. This may be cos they aren't beautiful, aren't married, are childless or infertile, etc. Basically, anything that differentiates these women, such as Ursula, Maleficant, The Wicked Stepmother, from what we – us – deem socially acceptable, or traditionally conventional.
By 'Monstrous Femininity', I'm of course referring to the brilliant Barbara Creed's The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis, which I haven't actually read yet, but I'm sure it's amazing. According to the blurb, The Monstrous Feminine addresses the way that female monstrosity nearly always shares a bed with issues of fertility and mothering – ooo, rhymes with Othering – think the alien in Alien (Scott, 1979). So, like, all the baddies mentioned above don't have biological children, and seem to exist purely to make the younger, hotter, more fertile protagonists' lives a misery. Wait, this is sounding all too close to home... Anyways, I haven't even begun to address the question of why these women are portrayed in this way; though I have touched on it very briefly in my review of Snow White and the Huntsman. Maybe it's jealousy, or bitterness, over all the privileges Third Wavers have over the Firsties, or maybe society – us, again – deem older women as useless, due to their inability to reproduce and, cos they're so unattractive, they must be cast aside, to go live in caves. Again, not my views. Who knows; it's probably a combo of all those factors, plus a bunch more. Only time, and a whole lotta work, will tell. Although, if anyone does have an answer, please share! I'm not so attached to the idea of giving up my life [and sanity] to research this baby, that I wouldn't welcome any input.
Next, cue a big load of post-feminist argument – which I actually love picking apart – about the body beautiful, women doing it for themselves, Third Wave gals versus First Wave old cronies, and I have myself a very basic, yet not bad – even if I do say so myself – idea for a thesis.
That's where I'm at right now. I've done no reading, since researching my MA, and have watched maybe a tenth of the films that I need to. But I'm starting to think about it; progress.
KT xxx
KT xxx
