Contentment vs fact

For lunch on Sunday, I made "Israeli Salad" (and the accompanying cocktail) from Zahav.  This was a deliberate choice on a number of levels: 1) it's summer, and tomatoes and cucumbers are in season, and delicious and 2) Saturday was mostly spent running around and all I could really manage to eat was potato chips, rice snacks, and a bowl of cereal, so I was feeling kind of carb-heavy.

Now, #2 is entirely silly.  Eating vegetables for lunch was kind of an act of "cleansing" which doesn't work.  The idea that some foods rid your body of other foods is entirely unscientific, except for the possible exception of insoluble fiber.  I know this is a nonsense idea.  But psychologically, it feels satisfying to eat vegetables to make up for eating lots of carbs.

And I am wondering if this psychological sense of contentment, of something that feels satisfying in the face of facts, is partly what is going on in this election season.  I mean, when majorities of Trump's supporters don't even believe half of what he is saying, facts are obviously not what is carrying the day.  It feels good (for them) to hear someone saying what he is saying.  It feels scary to know that black people, brown people, non-English-speaking people, and women are gaining power in society, power that had previously been reserved for white, English-native men.  Even if they have never actually seen these effects, they know they're out there.  It's not the actual disenfranchisement as much as the fear of it.

I'm not really sure what can be done about it, though.  In pastoral care and counseling classes, we are taught that feelings are neither right nor wrong, and that one of the first steps to dialogue is validating the other person's feelings, regardless of whether the other party thinks they are "valid" or "fair."  But when those feelings and emotions lead to real harm, to hatred and violence, validating them may not be the way to begin.  Where do you go when you've validated vitriolic hatred?  Not even that the hatred is valid, but that the person feeling it has good reason to.  That is what people are doing when they point to the hollowing of the middle class, wage stagnation, and the disappearance of jobs that don't demand a college education.  But for all the analysis of the validation, no solution is offered to get the people who are hating to stop hating.  Value systems aren't easily changed after generations.

And even educated, informed people can act contrary to fact and their own knowledge.

Swinging hips and feminism.

Taking a break from academic and theological reflections to engage in something I haven't done in a long time: film theory.  With Freud!

I spent last weekend with my sister, so she decided we must watch Frozen together.

I hadn't seen it since it was out in theatres, but of course I've read about it since then.  And there seems to be an undercurrent of frustrated feminism with the animation accompanying Elsa's "Let It Go" ballad.  A lot of that frustration hangs on Elsa's "makeover" in which her skin is suddenly revealed and she swings her hips when she changes her hair and dress.

I can understand that.  There's too much sexualisation of women's bodies out there, and it's depressing to see yet another woman get the "sexy treatment."  And yes, a lot of what is put forward as "expressing a woman's sexuality" is, in fact, expressing sexiness, that is, catering to male sexuality by becoming an object of desire, leaving the subjective gaze male.

But I think, ironically with the help of Sigmund Freud, that Elsa's makeover might not be as bad as it seems. 

"Let It Go" is undeniably a claim to power.  Elsa, catastrophically facing the fact that suppression is not control, gives in and really learns to control her ice powers for the first time by freeing and expressing them.  She is overjoyed to finally claim and use her power.  And let's not forget that this comes on her coronation day; she is not only claiming magical power, but also political power.  She is the Snow Queen.

In Freudian theory, female power is always sexual (ok, in Freudian theory, everything is sexual).  The womb, and even more so, the vagina, are tied to death, or the fear of death for men.  Male power is penetration.  When Elsa makes herself over, she is claiming her political power, her magical power, and her sexual power.  And here is the thing: she is claiming them for herself.  She has left everyone behind and wants to remain alone.  She is not remaking herself for a man.  Slightly later, one of her icicles very nearly penetrates a man who has come to kill her.  Elsa's new hair and dress are for her, and for her alone.  She even remains uncoupled at the end of the story.  I think it's also worth noting that she's striding forward aggressively when the makeover happens, not sitting back on a couch and winking in a come-hither manner.  And the men in the story are terrified of her.

Traditionally, the destabilizing, powerful, single female character is domesticated at the end of a story by marriage (or by death if it's a tragedy).  Having threatened the destruction of family and/or nation, she is reabsorbed into its structure and penetrated by her new husband (e.g. Kate in The Taming of the Shrew, or Eowyn in The Lord of the Rings). 

Yes, Frozen is a film.  Yes, Elsa remains on screen, a spectacle for the male gaze.  But in the context of the film itself, she is the opposite of the faux-feminist sexiness; she has claimed power for herself, she remains unpenetrated and uncoupled.  She does not need a man to make her happy or to perform for.  Instead of marriage, her instability is domesticated in the story by having her take up her proper position as queen, guided by a ruler's love for her people and country (this being traditional story conventions, Classical and Medieval "divine right of kings" stuff here,  not my personal opinion).

There's a debate over whether it's really appropriate to use Freudian theory to analyze texts, and I agree that sometimes it's used inappropriately.  But Elsa's song and makeover are just so perfectly explained by it and ironically rescued as indeed feminist by it that I just couldn't help myself.  Suppression, female power, female sexuality, male fear of death, penetration, it's all there. 

Now.  You can certainly debate the appropriateness of having an adult character with adult sexuality set as a role model for pre-pubescent girls.  But I think the message of Elsa's makeover isn't quite as anti-feminist or domesticating as it might seem.  In claiming her power, Elsa removes herself from male power and defies the male gaze.