What Les Miserables Reveals about Modern Women
There is a story about Les Miserables that approaches legend in the Ortberg family. We saw stage productions of Les Mis several times when we lived in Los Angeles and then, when we moved to Chicago, we saw it again every time it came through town. I'm pretty sure my younger brother is still scarred by how many times he had to wear long pants and suit jackets in order to attend.
One time, after seeing Les Mis early in their marriage, my parents got into an argument. My mom, you see, loved the line that Fantine and Jean Valjean sing at the end, as Valjean is about to die: "Remember the truth that once was spoken / To love another person is to see the face of God!" She loved it so much that she wanted it added to the Bible. She got angry with God that, in his infinite wisdom, he hadn't thought to include that sentiment. Dad thought this was a touch blasphemous, but he had the last laugh when he brought Genesis 33:10 to her attention: When Jacob and his brother Esau are reunited in the desert after Jacob's betrayal, Jacob says this to Esau: "For to see your face is like seeing the face of God."
The film version of Les Miserables, released to the second-largest Christmas Day opening of all time, has equal emotional resonance. Even before its release, a great deal of Oscar buzz surrounded the cast—Hugh Jackman! Anne Hathaway! Russell Crowe!—and the critics can't stay silent. Many have praised the "Persistent Greatness of Victor Hugo's Les Miserables," while others have panned it on all manner of grounds from cinematic to political to feminist.
In her Washington Post review, Stacy Wolf writes, "Les Miserables should have feminists like me up in arms." The women in the film, she says, "exist not to drive the plot but to sacrifice for the men, the real stars of the show."
I won't argue with that. But as a feminist myself, I went as quickly as I could to see Les Mis. At its heart—both the book and its various adaptations—is the promise made by one man to one woman to care for another woman. It's true that the protagonist is a man, and that most people advancing the action during the French Revolution were men as well. But acknowledging former cultural realities is entirely different from writing with a misogynistic agenda.
In her article, Wolf cites characters from Bridesmaids and The Hunger Games and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo as signs of how far female protagonists have come. She is right, to a point. Those characters have been given prominence largely by appropriating culturally male behavior—making poop jokes, displaying proficiency in violent tactics, able to live a largely solitary life in isolation from relationships.
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Comments
Nancy Lee
Fantine's plight is exactly the same as that of many women today. I serve in a ministry to women who work in our city's sex industry, and Fantine's story is their story. Many of them are not there by any kind of free choice -- overwhelmingly, they have abuse in their pasts, do not have a diploma, and they are working there only because it's the sole way to earn enough money to support their children. They, too, have been abandoned by their kids' fathers. This isn't a misogynistic film -- rather it is one that tells the truth, and honors women who have very few choices open to them. That is the crime -- the lack of choices that lands women in the sex industry in the first place. I'd like to see more conversation among feminists about how to help our sisters who find themselves in that situation, and more focus on prevention.
Missy Indeedy
Laura, this line here resonated with why so many modern-day feminists that I know are balking at this film's supposed message: "But acknowledging former cultural realities is entirely different from writing with a misogynistic agenda.". It's a shame that so many are unable to separate the two. This was a fantastic piece on Les Mis and I, for one, hope it reminds us all that there is hope - even in the bleakest of circumstances. And even if that hope doesn't manifest itself fully until we've left this earth.
Christian Lawyer
Fantine and Valjean are parallel characters. Both are strong. Both are willing to do whatever it takes to provide for their family. Both sacrificed. Both need rescue. Both receive unexpected grace from one who could have judged them harshly. Valjean's grace was a second chance. Fantine's was knowing Cosette would be saved. Her death, though, isn't a misogynistic sacrifice, or to show women are doomed without good men. Fantine's death, and Javert's arrest of the wrong man, teach Valjean that his grace was meant for more than his own salvation. His indifference to his foreman's predations had led to Fantine's death. Indifference to the prisoner would let him rot in jail. Valjean realized his grace demanded to be multiplied. So, he risked freedom to save the prisoner and God gave him a third chance. He rescued Cosette and, with strength and tenderness, he, like Fantine, became both father and mother to her, and then to Marius. And grace would lead them both home.
Grady Walton
"Making poop jokes?" Ah, well, such is the reputation of my gender. Anyhow, I loved this article. Les Mis demonstrates how much Satan hates God's creation, of both genders. It's tragic that men have been abandoning their social contract with women since that unfortunate event in the Garden.
Marshall Shelley
Well put, Laura. Well put.
Hannah Anderson
I agree Tim. The wonder of Les Mis is how perfectly is captures the human experience, regardless of class, gender, or century. Some may believe that Hugo's portrayal of women is misogynistic, but to me it reads as an accurate rendering of how necessary both women AND men are to human flourishing. Fantine found herself in a desperate situation because men failed to hold up their end of the social contract. Her lover shouldn't have abandoned his child and the foreman shouldn't have unjustly dismissed her because she wouldn't capitulate to his desires. The issue isn't that Hugo believed that she wasn't equal to men--she is a very strong character--but that men were not acting responsibly within society. So when Valjean steps in, he is not "rescuing" her in a pejorative sense, but fulfilling the roles that her lover and the foreman should have. He is a foil to them, not her.
Kathi Vande Guchte
I cringed at the list of modern movies that feminists supposedly hold up as examples of women's "growth"; "Bridesmaids"? REALLY? Gross. We have so much available to us today, but we've also cut off our noses to spite our faces.
Gina Dalfonzo
That was a wonderful piece, Laura. Very true and very moving.
Tim Fall
The title suggests that Les Mis reveals something about modern women. I think your excellent article, Laura, shows that what Hugo's story reveals is that modern women are the same as women have always been. The same could be said about modern men. We're not all that different today from the way people were centuries ago. Ecclesiastes 1:9 comes to mind - "What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun." Cheers, Tim P.S. Not a fan of this new format. I found a bunch of great blogs that I now subscribe to by clicking on the commenters' names, and some of those bloggers have become my blog world friends. Can we please go back to being able to link?
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