Comments on: Good Children and Better Women: Lessons Learned from Nanny McPhee

By: I Read the Internets - 1/13/07

I Read the Internets - 1/13/07 — Sat, 13 Jan 2007 06:24:19 +0000

[...] It was a pretty good week on the internets for feminist analysis of film.Â Lake Desire had some things to say about Nanny McPhee on both the Official Shrub.com Blog and Feminist SF â€“ The Blog!: [...]

By: Katie

Katie — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 18:31:43 +0000

Maybe…over at Hathor, I should [write about the messages] the very same movies and shows give us about men.

Please do. Pretty, pretty, please! Give ‘em a special tag and a special image at the top to set them apart or something.

By: Becky

Becky — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 20:04:57 +0000

I haven’t seen Nanny McPhee, but I’m wondering how it and its lessons might compare with that other magical nanny movie - which I also haven’t watched in a long time, so I don’t really have any comments at this moment. The only thing I can think of offhand is your description of Nanny McPhee making the children sick opposed to “a spoonful of sugar.”

I wish that we could get over the trope of beauty as shorthand for good, ugly as shorthand for bad, fat as shorthand for sea monster. Also, it’s another example of an unrealistically beautiful actress being made up to look ugly, because we certainly couldn’t have a woman who isn’t young and beautiful on the screen.

By: mazaru

mazaru — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 14:33:45 +0000

The marriagability issue is mostly class-based, I think. I had this whole neat gender analysis going right up till Selma Quickly appeared on screen, and then all the thinking I’d done about gender got lost in the morass of class issues that suddenly became even more overpoweringly blatant. They intersect, though, in some really interesting ways: Selma gets punished for using marriage to gain social status, but Evangeline gets rewarded for using social status to gain marriage. Cedric’s only threatened with punishment for daring to deprive the children of a mother, because obviously the real issue in that family was the lack of a mother rather than ineffectual parenting on Cedric’s part…

I have a sudden and disconcerting urge to write an essay.

By: Lake Desire

Lake Desire — Sun, 07 Jan 2007 20:16:44 +0000

mazaru, I’d forgotten that line (I think I was playing my DS at that point of the movie). That does redeem Cedric a bit in my eyes, although it’s a shame it took external acceptance for him to finally acknowledge his feelings for Evangeline.

BetaCandy, I think you’ve listed plenty of reasons why men ought to be pissed about the messages about them in movies like this.

By: mazaru

mazaru — Sun, 07 Jan 2007 16:30:16 +0000

*delurks*

I watched this film last night, and wyhilst I agree with most of what you’ve written, I don’t think this is accurate:

Evangeline finally catches Cedricâ€™s eye once she is polite and beautiful, and is rewarded with a husband and financial stability for her change.

When Evangeline walks into the Brown house, Cedric is the only one who knows instantly who she is. The children think that she’s “a fairy princess”; Cedric tells them that it’s Evangeline. When they say “Are you sure? She looks different,” he responds, “She’s always looked like that.” To Cedric, she’s always been beautiful, but it’s only when she becomes beautiful in the eyes of the world that she becomes marriageable.

I thought the film was perhaps trying to comment on the ‘pretty=wanted’ trope as it prevails in society; Nanny McPhee and Evangeline become (or already are) beautiful in the eyes of those who love them, but socially they aren’t accepted until they are ‘objectively’ beautiful too. I don’t think that’s a reading that entirely holds up, though.

By: BetaCandy

BetaCandy — Sun, 07 Jan 2007 06:23:41 +0000

Maybe I’m going about it all wrong. Maybe instead of analyzing gender messages about women over at Hathor, I should stick to the ones the very same movies and shows give us about men. I.E., men can’t take care of themselves. Men can’t function without women. Men are horrible parents without women to guide them. Men are incapable of love unless women teach them. Men are so shallow, they can’t see inner beauty.

*goes off thinking evil thoughts*

By: Feminist SF - The Blog! » Blog Archive » Good Children and Better Women: Lessons Learned from Nanny McPhee

Sat, 06 Jan 2007 23:20:23 +0000

[...] Cross posted at The Official Shrub.com Blog. [...]

By: Lake Desire

Lake Desire — Sat, 06 Jan 2007 23:06:23 +0000

I think she’s choosing to make herself prettier to reward the children for behaving. Because obviously pretty women are wanted, she’s physically embodying the children’s feelings towards her.

By: tekanji

tekanji — Sat, 06 Jan 2007 22:54:04 +0000

It still creeps me out how she became progressively prettier as the lessons went on. I mean, aside from what you describe there is no logical reason for that to have happened…