Tim Burton’s Alice In Female-Eunuch-Land

I recently re-watched the Tim Burton directed version of ‘Alice in Wonderland’ after seeing it for the first time sometime last year. However much its world design looks amazing, it never really wowed me as an experience. It’s not bad enough to be adorably inept either, though, so it’s all the more painful for reasons of simple mediocrity. More specifically, something about Alice’s character always irked me from my very first viewing. What bothered me the first time was Alice’s character not matching her period in history; being made into a sort of proto-feminist role-model, apparently independent and outspoken before such things would have actually been allowed for her. Like some sort of hipster girl who could write a slogan that read, “I was a feminist before feminism was invented.” It’s the old codger history buff in me, perhaps, for not liking this movie to pretend that 1800’s England was anything like this for women. However, I understand that not many people want to see an adventure film with a main character that’s a man-handled and socio-politically restricted young woman. Also, given that it’s a movie with a female lead and has Johnny Depp playing a prominent role, it was a foregone conclusion that hordes of girls were going to see this thing, and it’s nice for them to be able to see something where a woman isn’t a whore, or simply the main character’s girlfriend, and who might be made into a warrior instead. For that, I was willing to let the issue go.

But it wasn’t until my second viewing that I realise what my problem with it really is and why this movie bugged me more than a little. What bugs me is that Alice isn't really warrior enough. Not in the way she should be. She isn't supposed to be a proto-feminist role model, out of sync with her own time period, she's a girl who's trying to make sense of nonsense! In the books (and the original animated Disney film of the story) she’s actually much more of a feminist because she challenged beliefs that didn't make sense. In Burton's version, she's simply going along with everything and insisting they've all got the wrong girl even as she consistently proves them right. The wrap-up at the end of the film is pretty pathetic as well. Her character didn't change that much and really wasn’t given any reason to. Alice doesn’t fight the Jabberwock for herself, so why on earth would she have been altered by the experience? She fought it only because others wanted her to - not a very feminist idea. And then, because of that, we’re supposed to imagine that she suddenly has strength where she didn’t before? The “feminism” is all superficial lip-service, as it is for so many films, amounting to not much more than advertising buzz-words like “edgy,” “young” and “in-your-face” without much care for what the character’s actually do or believe.

Pictured (from left to right): The Hatter, Alice, The White Queen

Absent: Feminism

The Hatter doing his “futterwacken” at the end of the battle is also probably one the most asinine things I’ve ever seen.

On The Origin of Andrew Chalker By Means of Historical Hitchhiking

Sir Isaac Newton once famously wrote, of his own scientific endeavours and discoveries, in comparison to those of others’, “If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.” Given the use of the fingers on both of my hands and fifteen seconds to do it in, I could readily list a dozen or more names of people that I – for one reason or another – feel a deep intellectual and/or emotional kinship with and gratitude for; people without whom I would not have developed the qualities that I value most in myself. The twist? Many of them are people I have never met. Some were even dead before I was born. These names would include philosophers, musicians, writers, scientists and comedians (among other things). Having been born late in the previous century, many of the events, people or concepts that are so significant to me come from generations other than my own. This has created a certain experience of looking at existence in a rear view mirror as a newly picked up hitchhiker; seeing the sights passed by without having driven through them yourself. Perhaps the best way to describe it would be a kind of “lostalgia”: nostalgia for something gone that you didn’t discover until it was too late to have. How many times have I read a book, fallen in love with it, researched the author and discovered that he or she died ten or more years ago? And, worse, that this small sample of their abilities is all I, and the world, will ever have from now on. The train has finished its journey and all you can do is stand by its rusted remains, enjoying thoughts of what it must have been and could have achieved if it was still working alongside you. In memory of some of the people I’ve witnessed in my hitchhiking that give me this feeling, I will litter my writing with some of their words.

He who lives as children live — who does not struggle for his bread and does not believe that his actions possess any ultimate significance — remains childlike. - Friedrich Nietzsche

Certain examples are met easily and don’t require much adjustment. John Lennon’s murder three years before my birth, for example, is a prominent piece of mental furniture in our pop culture. Like a couch you’ve walked passed every day since you were an infant. These are the John Keats’, the Vincent Van Goghs, the Sylvia Plaths and the James Deans of our history and, along with their influential talents, their status as dead people was always part of their fame (from my birth onwards, at least). In fact, in the case of people like Van Gogh, had I been alive in his time, it’s likely I wouldn’t have known who he was at all and it’s only my living so long after his death that allows me to witness his work so readily. What do require adjustments are the George Harrisons, the Katharine Hepburns, the George Carlins and the Hunter S. Thompsons. Those whom were witnessed, in real time, making the transition from reassuring world presence to nonexistence.

I find that by putting things in writing I can understand them and see them a little more objectively ... For words are merely tools and if you use the right ones you can actually put even your life in order, if you don't lie to yourself and use the wrong words. - Hunter S. Thompson

To take Hunter’s case specifically: I was already a young man, in my early twenties, by the time of his death in 2005. I had only seriously investigated him and his writing a year or two beforehand, though, so my time of being consciously aware of sharing planet Earth with this frenzied maniac of truth and passion, who spoke in a slurred baritone of word chunks, seemed so criminally brief. What I learned very quickly from this man was that rebellion and speaking out are valuable actions and skills. But you’d better do it with intelligence, you better be well informed and you better do it with integrity and heart. I had only just barely fallen in love with his prose, entering into a state of wanting to take Australian law by the throat and forcing it to allow me to be legally married to a piece of literature, or even just a paragraph for a few years, before I was staring not at the talents of a fellow primate but of a dead new mentor. I still frequently reread his work and watch interview clips he did to this day. Part of me rejoices in the lessons he keeps giving, while another part always mourns the loss of an intellectual comrade.

I had ambitions to set out and find, like, an odyssey or going home somewhere … This home that I’d left a while back and couldn’t remember exactly where it was but I was on my way there. And encountering what I encountered on the way was how I envisioned it all. I didn’t really have any ambition at all. I was born very far from where I’m supposed to be and, so, I’m on my way home, you know? - Bob Dylan

Consider three names: David Attenborough, Stephen Fry and Carrie Fisher. Assuming I live long enough to meet the average Australian life expectancy rate, I will live to see a world without those three people. I could repeatedly read and/or watch Youtube content about any of them and the world will literally change around me, moving from a day where I’m watching a piece of the decades-spanning work of a living world figure to the very next day where I’m watching an excerpt from the life of someone who used to be alive. All of these people can be very distinctly defined as singularities. There will be no replacement for them. If I were born a hundred years ahead of when I was, hitchhiking in an era beyond their deaths, would I still discover and be affected by them so thoroughly, as I have been?

There is no other species on the Earth that does science. It is, so far, entirely a human invention, evolved by natural selection in the cerebral cortex for one simple reason: it works. It is not perfect. It can be misused. It is only a tool. But it is by far the best tool we have; self-correcting, ongoing, applicable to everything. It has two rules. First: there are no sacred truths; all assumptions must be critically examined; arguments from authority are worthless. Second: whatever is inconsistent with the facts must be discarded or revised. We must understand the Cosmos as it is and not confuse how it is with how we wish it to be. - Carl Sagan

More recently, I’ve come to be influenced by the words and work of English-born American journalist Christopher Hitchens, a man famous for his intellect, his love of aggressive debate and, for some, simply as one of the most well-known and outspoken atheists today. It’s probably convenient that I would come to discover him now, over any other time in my life. Given the man’s far reaching vocabulary and experiences it’s likely that, however much I might have enjoyed pieces of his ideas when I was younger, I would not have understood half of his cultural or poetic references before now. Christopher’s literary and political knowledge encompasses a gargantuan amount of information, the consumption of which would possibly match the twelve labours of Hercules. His outspoken nature and passion for information makes him something of a next generation Hunter S. Thompson for me. This, sadly, is strengthened by the fact that Hitchens is suffering from oesophageal cancer, likely bringing the death of what could have been a long education alongside an also still developing human mind.

I don't feel that it is necessary to know exactly what I am. The main interest in life and work is to become someone else that you were not in the beginning. If you knew when you began a book what you would say at the end, do you think that you would have the courage to write it? What is true for writing and for a love relationship is true also for life. The game is worthwhile insofar as we don't know what will be the end. - Michel Foucault

Even having never met these people, I will still mourn on the days they each die and on all subsequent days, when I remember all I’ve learned from them and all that I might have continued to learn, given more time in the world with them. Knowledge, for its own sake, is important to me. Regardless of whether the studying you do will contribute to things like your chances of employment and income, or not, acquiring the information in itself is inherently valuable and meaningful. I am the person I am right now just as much because of the people – the famous dead or dying figures – that I have named here as much as from any formal, face-to-face schooling from teachers in buildings I’ve received. I’m constantly trying to learn; to extend and build upon whatever I am at any given point and, sometimes, it works. As mentioned, there are qualities that I hold in myself that I treasure significantly. However, if I have any wisdom, any courage, any generosity or any honesty, I assure you, it’s because I was hitchhiking in the wake of giants.

Keep Pynchon Me

Welcome to the new space. Come in, spread out, dig the minimalist décor. White; like a wedding dress of fresh union, a virgin’s proverbial clean mind and just like a real life A4 page. I’m always doing a lot of reading but, lately, I’ve mostly been flicking through odd chapters in books that I already know very well, picking out select moments or passages that I always enjoy (or currently feel like) reading. I was looking forward to sinking into my new – and first – Thomas Pynchon purchase in the last week. I’ve had a fairly persistent head cold, though, and I was reluctant to start anything as thick and complex as Gravity’s Rainbow without the full command of my attention. So, unfortunately, I’ve only read about 7 pages, so far, of this 900 page beast but what I will say about this is, despite the hype of intellectual intimidation that surrounds books such as this, I’m actually really looking forward to the whole piece already.



Wikipedia has this to say about it: 'Frequently digressive, the novel subverts many of the traditional elements of plot and character development, traverses detailed, specialist knowledge drawn from a wide range of disciplines, and has earned a reputation as a "difficult" book.'

And a little further down the page: 'The plot of the novel is complex, containing over 400 characters and involving many different threads of narrative which intersect and weave around one another.'

Wow. Tell me that doesn’t make you just want to gamble your entire future on this novel. When the intellectual, literary community readily labels something as a difficult book to read, you know it’s going to be a piece of work that tests your mental capacity and patience. Honestly, I’m really jazzed about it. You know why? Because I don’t know what’s going to happen or how. It’s occurred to me that, however many authors I’ve read, it’s been rare for me to be completely immersed solely in the characters or plot of a novel. As a fellow writer I tut and niggle at lines, phrases or rhythms. I’m aware of the machinery behind the style and sometimes – even in a first reading – I can’t help but “correct” the odd word/metaphor/poetic device to my liking. I’ve done it with elite class writers and I’ve done it to riffraff class writers and that shouldn’t be happening anywhere. I might be aware of stylistic choices but I shouldn’t be able to take time to fixate on them. As a reader, I should be made to want to desperately know what happens. Characters and plot should be my mind’s focus. I should be swept along.

I like a lot of great writers and I adore their work for various reasons but I now realise that it’s been extremely rare for me to read anything without any preconceived ideas or desires. I might be busy making stylistic judgements/adjustments in my head, I might foresee the plot’s direction and decide what I expect or want, I might understand the book’s genre or the writer’s intentions and start predicting/second-guessing based on those, I might wait/look for certain content based on what I’ve heard/read or know is there, etc. I can’t do any of that in Gravity’s Rainbow. I’ve got 400 characters to look forward to meeting; themes of nuclear apocalypse, nature, psychology, sexuality to pick out; as well as technological references, historical references, war-time pop culture references, mathematical references and literary references to try to understand. I don’t even know if Gravity’s Rainbow even technically has a genre to name; you know, other than, “Read This: It’ll Make You Trip Balls.”

I’m impressed that, for the length of this book, I’m only a reader and not a writer. For perhaps the first time truly in my adult life, I’m beginning to read a book like I first did as a child. I put my mind completely in Thomas Pynchon’s arms, allow him to throw me around, spin me, drop me, confuse me, lead me, manipulate me – whatever he wishes – and just trust that, in the end, I’ll be fine and it’ll be a great ride.

Now, having said that, my enjoyment and lack of fear about this book so far may be significant; maybe my hubris-laden arse is setting itself up to be another soul for the mighty Gravity’s Rainbow demon to conquer.