'Never ask for what ought to be offered'
Oct. 22nd, 2014 03:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dolorosa_12Day Twelve: Favorite female character in a movie
Ree (Winter's Bone)
Looking back at all the entries I've written for this meme so far, I think I have a type, or at least a few types of character that always appeal. Ree shares several qualities with my other favourites, most notably a very specific kind of bravery. It's a passive bravery: she endures, rather than acts, and she carries the burdens of those around her because others can't bear to. Her father is a drug dealer who's long since vanished from the scene, her mother is suffering from untreated mental illness, and her community has closed its doors to her. Ree is the only person trying to keep things together for her younger brother and sister. When it looks as if her family will lose their house unless she can find her father, Ree refuses to give up, and she embarks on an emotionally harrowing quest to bring him home.
I spoke in my entry on Peaky Blinders that it was a show about trauma, and male violence, and the way the women in the community tried to manage that violence. Winter's Bone explores similar themes, although Ree is too worn down, too cut off to have the power to direct and manipulate male violence in the way the women of Peaky Blinders do. Rather, she seeks to contain this violence in the hopes of keeping it from her door. As she continues her search for her father, she is exposed to greater and greater danger and ever increasing violence, as it leads her into corners the community would prefer to keep hidden.
The whole film has a sort of mythic quality. It deliberately emphasises the elements of katabasis in its story, as Ree's search for the truth takes her further and further away from light and hope. There's a fabulous scene towards the end of the film in which a group of women take her in a small boat on a river in the middle of the night, like some kind of Appalachian Persephone or Inanna. The river is inky, Ree is fearful, the women are stern and offer no comfort, and the whole thing is shot like a journey to the underworld.
Winter's Bone is not a very hopeful film, and you get the sense that the when the credits roll, Ree has succeeded only in keeping the storm at bay for a little longer, not that her life has much chance of improving. She should be able to endure all the torments the world throws at her, but she shouldn't have to.
Day Thirteen: Favorite female character in a book
Day Fourteen: Favorite older female character
Day Fifteen: Favorite female character growth arc
Day Sixteen: Favorite mother character
Day Seventeen: Favorite warrior female character
Day Eighteen: Favorite non-warrior female character
Day Nineteen: Favorite non-human female character
Day Twenty: Favorite female antagonist
Day Twenty-One: Favorite female character screwed over by canon
Day Twenty-Two: Favorite female character you love but everyone else hates
Day Twenty-Three: Favorite female platonic relationship
Day Twenty-Four: Favorite female romantic relationship
Day Twenty-Five: Favorite mother/daughter and/or sister relationship
Day Twenty-Six: Favorite classical female character (from pre-20th century literature or mythology or the like)
Day Twenty-Seven: A female character you have extensive personal canon for
Day Twenty-Eight: Favorite female writer (television, books, movies, etc.)
Day Twenty-Nine: A female-centric fic rec
Day Thirty: Whatever you’d like!
Ree (Winter's Bone)
Looking back at all the entries I've written for this meme so far, I think I have a type, or at least a few types of character that always appeal. Ree shares several qualities with my other favourites, most notably a very specific kind of bravery. It's a passive bravery: she endures, rather than acts, and she carries the burdens of those around her because others can't bear to. Her father is a drug dealer who's long since vanished from the scene, her mother is suffering from untreated mental illness, and her community has closed its doors to her. Ree is the only person trying to keep things together for her younger brother and sister. When it looks as if her family will lose their house unless she can find her father, Ree refuses to give up, and she embarks on an emotionally harrowing quest to bring him home.
I spoke in my entry on Peaky Blinders that it was a show about trauma, and male violence, and the way the women in the community tried to manage that violence. Winter's Bone explores similar themes, although Ree is too worn down, too cut off to have the power to direct and manipulate male violence in the way the women of Peaky Blinders do. Rather, she seeks to contain this violence in the hopes of keeping it from her door. As she continues her search for her father, she is exposed to greater and greater danger and ever increasing violence, as it leads her into corners the community would prefer to keep hidden.
The whole film has a sort of mythic quality. It deliberately emphasises the elements of katabasis in its story, as Ree's search for the truth takes her further and further away from light and hope. There's a fabulous scene towards the end of the film in which a group of women take her in a small boat on a river in the middle of the night, like some kind of Appalachian Persephone or Inanna. The river is inky, Ree is fearful, the women are stern and offer no comfort, and the whole thing is shot like a journey to the underworld.
Winter's Bone is not a very hopeful film, and you get the sense that the when the credits roll, Ree has succeeded only in keeping the storm at bay for a little longer, not that her life has much chance of improving. She should be able to endure all the torments the world throws at her, but she shouldn't have to.
Day Thirteen: Favorite female character in a book
Day Fourteen: Favorite older female character
Day Fifteen: Favorite female character growth arc
Day Sixteen: Favorite mother character
Day Seventeen: Favorite warrior female character
Day Eighteen: Favorite non-warrior female character
Day Nineteen: Favorite non-human female character
Day Twenty: Favorite female antagonist
Day Twenty-One: Favorite female character screwed over by canon
Day Twenty-Two: Favorite female character you love but everyone else hates
Day Twenty-Three: Favorite female platonic relationship
Day Twenty-Four: Favorite female romantic relationship
Day Twenty-Five: Favorite mother/daughter and/or sister relationship
Day Twenty-Six: Favorite classical female character (from pre-20th century literature or mythology or the like)
Day Twenty-Seven: A female character you have extensive personal canon for
Day Twenty-Eight: Favorite female writer (television, books, movies, etc.)
Day Twenty-Nine: A female-centric fic rec
Day Thirty: Whatever you’d like!