#emma meta

[marleyssongbook]

something perennially frustrating and fascinating about glee is that however many things it gets Right with a social issue it’s trying to explore (on some level — it’s also a musical comedy/dramedy so i don’t expect the same level of gravity as i might from other genres, but at the end of the day, the show did still focus on these issues), it gets at least as many Wrong.

like — i’m all for acknowledging the fact that a show positively portraying the concept of sex ed that wasn’t just abstinence-only rhetoric, especially at the time, was a good thing!

and the fact that they discuss the fact that gay kids don’t have the same level of access to sex education or the same resources, and even explicitly acknowledging that different ‘mechanics’ (to use their term) might be involved and that means different resources are needed was a Big Deal. frankly, i think it’s still a big deal now! and the fact that the two major subplots of this ep focused on santana and brittang and kurt and blaine, as the two main gay pairings at this point — important!

the episode does just kinda feel like an excuse to have holly holliday come back and sing sexy songs loosely related to sex education on the barest level (being related to sex), but again, it’s a musical comedy in network television. i get they’re not going to go into much more specifics than “always use protection bc you can get pregnant and also stds” exist. that’s still a pretty good lesson, even if i could have done without the shamey body-count rhetoric of “when you sleep with someone you’re sleeping with every person they’ve slept with”.

but i think my overall frustration with this episode and the show’s general approach to discussion of sex has a lot to do with emma.

the show is SO shaming of emma not having sex by thirty. because god forbid. and i know this storyline is supposed to be like, her ocd is holding her back from it, but tbh, the show is inconsistent with her reasoning for not wanting to have sex. that’s probably supposed to be down to her coming up with other reasons to justify it to herself/others, but the show does NOT make that explicit or care about her enough as a character for that to come through clearly. so it’s very easy to read this as her just getting shamed for it repeatedly throughout the show when she doesn’t really want to and eventually just getting worn down by society’s pressures. (NONE of this is helped by the fact that the time we DO see the implication of her first time with will, it’s more or less treated as a narrative reward for will and the club winning nationals. which. gross.)

and also, to be frank: even if it IS just down to her ocd… at the end of the day, she still has the right to not have sex if she doesn’t ever feel comfortable. yes, if it’s being caused by distress and it’s something she wants, then it’s worth trying to figure out what could make it work for her. but there is something to be said for not infantilizing her or not affording the agency to decide it may just not be a priority/not feel worth it to her if it will more than likely be triggering and distressing.

the fact of the matter is: you do not have to have sex at all. ever, point-blank—it is not a requirement in life. you do not need it to survive.

and the show is very willing to spread the message that it’s okay to wait until your ready—up until a certain point. it’s less willing to convey the message that it’s okay to never be ready at all, for whatever reason. if you turn thirty, suddenly it’s a crime against nature that you haven’t and may never have sex.

and i get this kind of rhetoric wasn’t unique to the show, and still isn’t. that just doesn’t make it any less frustrating a watch.

also: i do think carl, as her husband, as a right to be frustrated and have his own needs and ultimately decide this relationship doesn’t work for him because their needs don’t align (and bc of will but that’s a whole other thing) but like… dude. YOU chose to marry her, like, really quickly. i know that’s what everyone does in this show but you weren’t even engaged! you just eloped! and you did that knowing she had these issues! so like… not all on her, you know?

[amyltia]

Emma and her mirrors (Jane Austen)

Emma and her mirrors or vanity and doubles in Emma of Jane Austen

I recently read Emma and I loved it ! I probablly is basics in Emma studies but I was amazed by the number of doubles in it, all enlighnting the character of Emma herself and showing from the beginning of the novel how afraid (?) or at least far from love Emma tries to keep herself.

Harriet : Emma’s inferior and uninentional victim

In Emma you can’t live romance indirectly, or it backfires to you, that whas Emma first lesson. Through Harriet, Emma can display her interest in romance (that’s what matchmaking is about : living romances without actually living them, so it’s safier because she doesn’t need to live her own romances). She repeats that she won’t mary but this matchmaking actually shows that she does have a big interest in romance but doesn’t want to get too near this side of herself (until the end of the novel when she has to face it).

That’s why she feels so much guilt toward Harriet : she used her. When it doesn’t hurt Harriet it is ok but this game of Emma ends up hurting Harriet and it is Emma fault on many levels : she put ideas in her head but more than that she used Harriet as a shield, living romances through a window, only the window got hurt and it showed Emma how unfairly and selfishly she treated Harriet, her tho unintentional, victim however. The catharsis backfired and it hurts with guilt.

More than in romance, Emma makes Harriet and sees her as a double of herself : she educates her and make her feel and think like her. But Emma sees her as a inferioir double of herself : Harriet must set for someone she Emma wouldn’t care for, Mr Elton or Mr Churchill once she Emma is certain that she doesn’t love him - that’s why Harriet saying she loves Mr Knightley is such a shock for Emma, because he is on Emma’s level, not Harriet’s.

Jane Fairfax : Emma’s superior and rival as a heroine

She is Emma’s rival from infancy : compared from their childhood at Emma’s disadvantage in accomplishments. We then learn that Emma always considered Jane as a rival of her unconfessed love for Mr Knightley.

But she is more than that : she is her rival as a heroine. It’s Jane who has all the characteristics of a fairy tale heroine : she is beautiful, kind, talented but poor, her birth circumstances are complicated and she is an orphan (lost her parents and raised by a kind benefactor), just like Cinderella. Indeed, she ends up engaged to the rich and handsome prince (or beast if we go for the Beauty and the Beast pattern) that elevates her status and save her from misery. She is also the one whose love story is told (even secretly) during the most part of the novel, it is to her that most of the things happens directly (note : Emma has a very interesting statut : she chooses to remain a side-character of the romances around her but also by being at the crossroads of all of them and influencing them she is the main protagonist of the novel) ; the final revelation of the long last engagment is very novel-like. This Jane would be deserving and could compete for a fairy tale heroine role, much like Fanny Price’s in Mansflied Park.

Mrs Elton : the worse in Emma

Towards Mrs Elton, Emma feels nothing but disgust. She is an anti-role model for her and a warning of Emma’s own faults. Emma and Mrs Elton have one big point in common : they love to be first. Emma can’t stand Mrs Elton because they want the same thing (this is the scene when Mrs Weston tells Emma that she has to let Mrs Elton lead the dance, instead of Emma - to Emma’s disappointment) and Emma condemns in Mrs Elton what she would condemn in herself too if she saw it, that’s why Emma’s disgust in Mrs Elton is so ironic and funny. Her own pride is speaking because it makes them “rivals” but it also shows that Emma has enough judgment to condmen this fault, at least in others, and knowing her application in imporving herself it shows Emma in a good light too, while also allowing Jane Austen to condemn it indirectly in Emma herself.

Another one is that they love to have protegees : what Emma does with Harriet is not so different than what Mrs Elton does with Jane. They help them and care for them, but with or withtout realizing it, they use their little friend in a very selfish way : to make themselves feel like always the superior and powerful one, in other words because they like to be first. It’s not manipulation because they really do what they think best for their friends and tho a mistake it doesn’t erase the kindness in the act (at least on Emma side). Both Emma and Mrs Elton by insisting on controling Harriet and Jane are not helping at all and it is then all more funny and ironic to see Emma pity Jane who has to endure the constant “help” of Mrs Elton, while this is exactly what Emma herself does with Harriet.

Addendum - When Emma of Jane Austen meets french author La Bruyere and his Characters :

Chapter XII. OF OPINIONS

(72.) The same faults which are dull and unbearable in others are in their right place when we have them; they do not weigh us down, and are hardly felt. One man, speaking of another, draws a terrible likeness of him, and does not in the least imagine that at the same time he is painting himself.

If we could see the faults in other people, and could be brought to acknowledge that we possess the same faults, we would more readily amend them; it is when we are at a right distance from them, and when they appear what they really are, that we dislike them as much as they deserve.

From La Bruyere, The Characters, 1688 - quoted from this translation

Dear Emma is he talking about you ? Though completely unrelated of course, when I read this from La Bruyere I thought of Emma and Mrs Elton. Emma despises Mrs Elton but she doesn’t see that they have a lot in common, and the faults she easily sees in Mrs Elton, she doesn’t see them in herself. NB. I think this quote from La Bruyere could apply to many Jane Austen characters : if I remember Lizzie and Darcy at some point admit that they have some faults in common.

Frank Churchill : the exact double of Emma

He is her true double. They have the same character (open, warm, playful) and the same faults (inconsideration and a little selfishness, but they are aware of it and want to improve themselves) and the same fate (marrying people, I think Emma says it at the end, “better than themselves” and able to guide them in the right path). The two couples, Emma/Mr Knightley and Jane/Frank are exact double with Emma = Frank and Jane = Mr Knightley. (Note : Making Jane a double of Emma and also of Mr Knightley...that’s why even tho mirrors play no part in the novel I called this little essay Emma and her mirrors, because the reflection mecanism gets pretty interwined). Emma herself tells Frank about the “likeness” between them, so Jane Austen emphatizes this mirror relation between the two couples at the end of the novel.

Conclusion v.1

Why so many mirrors ? It’s a real question. We don’t see so many doubles in all the others Austen novels, so why does Jane Austen use so many diffferent mirrors to portray Emma ? It’s the first Jane Austen novel that has me wonder so much about it structure and writing.

I realize it may allow to condemn Emma without actually be condamning her but why ? Also it may be because she isn’t a very active character, she is very peaceful actually, so it allows Jane Austen to keep her out of troubles and make her a homie girl, while showing the contours/edges of her character by using more novel-like characters. Because it seems to me that while she speaks and think in a very novel-like way (she “fancies” a loot, like with the gypsies/Harriet/Frank) she is not the most novel-like character of Jane Austen : not much happens directly to her (it is arguable because some things do, like Mr Elton proposal, and Mr Knightey’s but during the whole Frank Churhill arc she is really a side-character in his secret and untold story - it’s like there is a hidden novel in the novel, and this configuration makes me wonder about Emma’s statut as a heroine). [to complete]

Please if I said something absolutely wrong do not hesitate to tell me

[sebastianshaw]

@badmusesdoitwell - Honestly, I’m not opposed to the idea of Emma having internalized misogyny, because it makes a lot of sense----it’s something any and every woman is going to struggle with, and given the environment she grew up in (competition with her sisters for affection from father) and then had to strive to succeed in (male-dominated business world while being a young, attractive woman) of course she’d get steeped in it, to say nothing of the cutthroat politics of the Hellfire Club. So I’d actually kinda LOVE to see stories that explore that and acknowledge it and have Emma making some kind of progress on it now that she’s in an environment where women CAN BE FRIENDS... ...but every time, it seems like writers aren’t thinking this deep, they just think  “Emma is the catty mean bitchy one so of course she makes remarks about other women lawl” :/ you know?

[pirateherokillian]

I'm really happy to see you enjoyed the episode. I kind of hated it myself. Or at least the Emma parts. Im disappointed in her writing, and I was wondering how you see it?

The way I see it is Emma has a long history with abandonment. Like an entire life’s worth of it. And the one person she’s finally certain would never abandon her suddenly ups and leaves? After she told him to basically go until he could be who she needed him to be? It’s her ugly history of ‘not being worthy for anyone’ rearing it’s ugly head... and what’s interesting is Gideon was ready for this. He literally used Emma’s biggest weakness against her (while exploiting Killian’s last episode).

You know how even the littlest, seemingly innocuous things can set off someone’s long history with trauma (and abandonment is a trauma - one I know all too well, honestly. A big portion of my own emotional problems stem from that)? The argument between Captain Swan might not has seemed like much, but we know it upset Emma and then Killian’s just gone afterwards? No indication of where he was going, with multiple people having seen him at the docks ready to leave? That’s gonna trigger Emma’s abandonment issues. That’s gonna bring her walls right up.

You wanna know what I think was a perfect indication that she was projecting all these feelings onto this one seemingly ‘minor’ fight they had? The instant she heard Killian’s voice, her walls came down. She didn’t doubt what he was saying. She trusted him right off the start that he hadn’t meant to leave and that he never would. Because she knows that. Only her lifetime of being left behind and not being good enough clouded that and made her react in a way that might have seemed unfair to Killian. Trauma and a long history of something causing you to feel lesser than good enough is insidious. 

That’s how I look at Emma all this episode and why her reaction to the situation didn’t bother me... I hope my explanation helps a little? I’m sorry you were disappointed with how she was portrayed.

[marleyssongbook]

can i also humbly admit that i kinda hate carl lol.

like to be clear, i don’t actually think he’s a bad guy (especially relative to his narrative counterpart in will). so i guess the ‘hate’ is less about him and more about his narrative framing/function.

like a) — so bored with the repeated love triangles and relationships obstacles keeping apart this pairing i don’t even like or care about to begin with. # free emma

b) it’s also just kinda frustrating to me that carl sweeps in as this seemingly perfect guy and starts to “make her better”. and like yes, your meaningful relationships and people in your life can be (and often are!) a positive and important factor in any kind of recovery. but the framing feels awfully close to the idea that he could ‘fix’ her if she’d just get over her feelings for will and be committed to him, which… i don’t like and is not how anything works. (and i don’t like it any better when they have will sing fix you to her later on!)

and i also find him to be? kind of self-righteous and not as above everything as he thinks? or maybe it’s just the narrative frames him as righteous and emma as the sole problem in their relationship and i don’t agree with that.

because like, yes, one the one hand, she (for some fucking reason) still has feelings for will, and doesn’t fully know what she wants, which is not very fair to carl, especially once they get married.

but again: He Knew This. it seems like she told him about her previous (barely jump-started, but still) relationship with will and he knew that was recent and still something she was working through when they started going out. emma also tries to set boundaries with will, and tells carl right away when something inappropriate happens. she’s not perfect but she Is trying. and again: he chose to elope with her knowing all this!

but in that scene with him and emma he gets to be framed as the good guy who gets her flowers and does nice dinners so therefore he’s the ultimate victim of this situation in this scene where’s getting shamed for not having sex, explicitly by holly and lowkey implicitly by him because she was just confronted with the fact that she still has feelings for will, even though she says she’s confused and she really doesn’t seem to WANT to have those feelings.

it’s kinda the same frustration i have with her relationship with coach ken tanaka and the framing of that? they’re sort of opposite ends of the same spectrum—ken is treated as the down-on-his-luck nice (even though at multiple points he is actually not all that nice to her) guy she’s settling for and should just be grateful wants to be with her bc he’s Someone, whereas carl is treated this perfect ideal of a man and she’s ungrateful for not being content with him see the pattern here?

and like, i didn’t talk about it in season 1, but: the narrative re: their relationship concludes with the idea that emma was the one in the wrong for their relationship and that ken was, again, the ultimate victim. and yeah; i don’t think she should have agreed to marry him when it’s clear she didn’t want to.

but we learn early on he’s asked her out several times and she’s turned him down several times. and like yeah, sure, it’s not Great she’s pining after a married guy, but she still has no responsibility to go out with some guy she clearly doesn’t like in that way. at one point he reacts by vindictively trying to trigger her ocd because she told him she liked someone else! that’s fucked!

and you know, he ALSO knew about her feelings for will and told himself (and told will) that he could accept that because he “loved her so much” (realistically i think he just didn’t wanna be alone either but w/e).

but she more or less falls into this relationship because she doesn’t want to be alone and society and most of the people in her life clearly keep telling her to settle. and yeah, that’s not healthy, and it’s good he ultimately realized he couldn’t handle that before they actually got married. but once again: not entirely on her.

and like, i don’t think emma’s passivity or her susceptibility to that kind of pressure is a good thing; they’re clearly flaws, but they’re also the flaws of someone pretty vulnerable, who the show kind of at once idealizes and yet also treats as the Most wrong party in any relationship that’s not with will.

and like… at the end of the day, why is she, in the narrative, treated as More wrong for these relationships going wrong when these guys clearly did not set themselves up for success either? why is she more wrong for being susceptible to pressure than other people are for pressuring her?

and while i ultimately probably hate her relationship with will the Most, one thing that’s at least true about them is that will is at least usually treated as Just As if not More wrong for how things are between them. the show flat-out acknowledges he didn’t “discourage” emma and more implicitly, especially in season 2, frames him negatively for having led her on and straying the second it became inconvenient. it’s still awful to watch her get stuck in this relationship i DO actually think, based on what we see, he’s the problem in like, most of their relationship. maybe that’ll change, but i literally can’t think of an instance (maybe other than in season 1 when they’re clearly flirting, and he’s the one in a relationship so that’s not great but is still More on him) where she’s the one causing problems.

(she does, however, still get repeatedly narratively punished for her feelings for will) (which is odd for a relationship we’re apparently supposed to root for)

[sebastianshaw]

I held off saying this because I didn’t want it to seem like I was just salty about how Shaw was written in “X-Men Black: Emma Frost” and because TUMBLR but: I am used to Emma Frost doing shitty /shady sex-related things and it not being questioned because she’s a sexy evil lady, and I love Emma Frost as a character and I accept this as part of her characterization, but it bothered me in this issue A LOT. Because this issue is very clearly about the issue of men in power using it to sexually abuse others, written by a woman who says Shaw represents toxic masculinity. So we know this author understands stuff about power dynamics and consent and all that, I imagine she has feminist beliefs, etc. She clearly, clearly had good intentions, at the least. Yet Emma uses her powers to make everyone in a room “make out” so she can walk by without being stopped. She used her powers to FORCE PEOPLE TO KISS WITHOUT THEIR CONSENT. This is not treated as being sexual assault on her part in the slightest, or even as skeevy. It’s passing and comical. This is written by a woman who is obviously trying to make a statement about sexual assault and predators being punished, but has the heroine of this story force other people to passionately kiss on her way to deliver justice to said predator (whose own wrongness is delivered with the subtlety of a sledgehammer, so I don’t think there’s a chance that Emma is supposed to be wrong too and it’s just delivered so subtle that I’m missing it). And this is not treated, that I can tell, as a symptom of Emma’s own trauma or a hypocrisy or anything like that.   Look, I’m all for female characters doing shitty, awful things. Women should be allowed to be as shitty as men in fiction, because we’re human beings and that includes human shittiness. If anything, there needs to be more acknowledgement in comics that woman can be sexual assailants, because as it is that’s not a thing taken seriously in real life or comics as it is now (ffs are we ever gonna recognize Kurt was raped by deception by Amanda Sefton? Or how many times Mystique has committed rape by deception?) But what I am saying is that when they do a shitty awful thing, it should be treated the same way as if a male character had done it, and it’s especially fucking tone-deaf to give it a pass in an issue trying to ADDRESS sexual predation ffs. Also, this is not JUST a problem with Emma or this issue or this writer, this is an overarching issue in general. But it happening in an issue with such an obvious anti-predator theme, and Emma as the deliverer of justice while casually getting away with the very crime she’s supposed to be punishing, is just an especially egregious instance. 

[pirateherokillian]

You know what struck me this morning?? The way Regina (and Snow) tried to help Emma is exactly what Killian would do.... the drinking, the attempts to get her to open up by bringing her walls down... it was all Killian’s tactics with Emma. Of course Killian wasn’t ever pushy about it and always let Emma move at her own pace, which is probably one of the reason why it initially wasn’t working with Regina and Snow. Another is they aren’t Killian, so they’re not gonna understand her the way he does. They don’t know her hurt because they weren’t ever truly lost children like her and Killian were. 

But it’s interesting to realize that the tactics were actually the same, in a lot of ways. Poorly executed and never going to work like it did with him... but still, interesting.

[pirateherokillian]

Loved your recap on Emma! I agree with you. Her mind was clouded and she was facing her biggest demons. If she truly didn't love Killian, she wouldn't have forgiven him that quickly. If she was truly mad at Killian and believed he actually just upped and left her, she wouldn't have understood and trusted his reasoning that easily. It might have seemed OOC to some, but I don't think it was. Just like Killian faced his demons last episode, Emma had to face hers this time around.

It’s that scene at the end that really, really showed me that this wasn’t about her trust and faith in Killian, but her own personal struggles with abandonment. Because when you’re truly mad at someone and truly blame them for what happens, you don’t react the way Emma did to hearing his voice. You don’t have her calling out to him desperately when the communication cut off. This was a lost girl desperately trying to convince the world and herself that he had left and it was on him and she just needed to move on, while quietly hoping and praying for some sign it wasn’t true. And as soon as she got that sign, all those walls she had hastily erected to protect herself came crashing down because goddamn, she loves Killian Jones and she knows deep down that he’d never leave her willingly. But fuck it if her mind and her instinct to put on that armor would let her believe that!

You’re exactly right that this was Emma’s episode to face her demons in the way last week’s was Killian’s. Always kindred spirits, these two - doing everything so similar even when it seems like they’re worlds apart (sometimes literally).