In Defense of the Wicked Queen
One of the benefits of age (yes, there are some) is that as you gain more experience, and you have an open mind, you might look back on events, stories or whatever with new eyes from a new perspective.
Last year the musically expansive Reid family added to my CD collection by giving me the "Ghosts That Haunt Me" CD from Crash Test Dummies. I actually started listening to them because I just loved how Brad Roberts voice had such an affect (duh), especially on "Superman's Song" and "Androgynous".
As I was reading the liner notes (do they still call them that) I noticed the name Ellen Reid. Hey, interesting coincidence, the Reids gave me the CD, Ellen has the same last name. Cool.
So like any good child of the internet age, I googled Ellen Reid and found her website.
So why am I telling you this? Well besides a couple of goofey/cute pictures of her kissing puppets, blowing kisses (see above), she has MP3s available for download for FREE. Gotta love free. Especially when the stuff is good stuff. This brings me to the title of this entry, In Defense of the Wicked Queen.
Download this song. It has become one of my favorites, because it takes an alternative look at the Queen in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs as a woman who chose to take care of herself rather than take the traditional path. And, how she is villanized for it by a society that sees women only as good when they are happy homemakers with no more ambition than to cook and clean and sew.
I find it funny because despite my best efforts to be an advocate for the women in my life, I still overlook what children's stories really say about women and how pervasive society's attitude is about a "woman's place."
I know . . . duh again! But look, I feel stupid enough, alright.
Anyway, I wanted to share this song. And maybe signpost my gradual enlightenment.
posted by (jim) Bo Ba Log at 12:04 PM
2 Comments:
this song depresses me, though it's almost deceptively beautiful. she did chose "the road less traveled" but i feel like the song is alomst a lament? i can just feel the lonliness in her voice. it's like you're damned if you do either way you go.
don't get me wrong, i don't think life for a woman (or marriage for that matter) is as bad as all that. but i DO believe that we have tough choices and that we CANNOT have everything (despite what our generation of women were taught to believe).
Yes, it is a lament, but I do not believe of the choices made, but rather how her choices are percieved. Our society tends to villify women with ambition, (Hillary, Martha) even if they are happy sacrificing what we think every good woman should want."
In the song, I think the Queen understands how she is percieved and saddened by how how simplistic the perception is, that there is "more at work here than vanity."
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