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| This Is ‘Little Women’ for a New Era | This Is ‘Little Women’ for a New Era |
| (about 7 hours later) | |
| I’ve always sort of wondered what I wasn’t getting about “Little Women.” | I’ve always sort of wondered what I wasn’t getting about “Little Women.” |
| I’m pretty sure I read it in school, though I would be hard-pressed to recall a single scene. I know I saw at least part of the 1994 film — the one with Winona Ryder, Claire Danes and Christian Bale — but I remember walking out of the room midway through and never returning, much to my mother’s dismay. | I’m pretty sure I read it in school, though I would be hard-pressed to recall a single scene. I know I saw at least part of the 1994 film — the one with Winona Ryder, Claire Danes and Christian Bale — but I remember walking out of the room midway through and never returning, much to my mother’s dismay. |
| Nothing about the March sisters of Louisa May Alcott’s perennial best seller particularly stuck with me, and as an adult, annoyance overshadowed apathy as I tried to understand how the literary heroine of so many women I admired — the spunky, independent writer Jo March — would, by the end of the novel, relinquish her art for marriage, and then proclaim that she is the happiest she’d ever been. | Nothing about the March sisters of Louisa May Alcott’s perennial best seller particularly stuck with me, and as an adult, annoyance overshadowed apathy as I tried to understand how the literary heroine of so many women I admired — the spunky, independent writer Jo March — would, by the end of the novel, relinquish her art for marriage, and then proclaim that she is the happiest she’d ever been. |
| What was I missing? | What was I missing? |
| It appears that what I was missing was Greta Gerwig — along with the real-life story of Alcott, on whose life the book was based, with a few major differences. | It appears that what I was missing was Greta Gerwig — along with the real-life story of Alcott, on whose life the book was based, with a few major differences. |
| Of course, Gerwig isn’t the first to change the way “Little Women” gets told. People have been adapting, and then critiquing, and then adapting, and then critiquing it for decades — each iteration a kind of Rorschach test for how the world feels about women at the time. | Of course, Gerwig isn’t the first to change the way “Little Women” gets told. People have been adapting, and then critiquing, and then adapting, and then critiquing it for decades — each iteration a kind of Rorschach test for how the world feels about women at the time. |
| So is it any surprise that Gerwig’s “Little Women,” at the end of a decade in which we confronted female power in a whole new way, feels positively radical? | So is it any surprise that Gerwig’s “Little Women,” at the end of a decade in which we confronted female power in a whole new way, feels positively radical? |
| It still has the cozy fireplace scenes and the long dresses. But the characters question social mores (“I’m sick of being told that love is all a woman is fit for,” says Jo, played by Saoirse Ronan), deliver critical context about the structural barriers limiting women (the economics of marriage, for instance, in which a woman’s earnings became property of her husband) and are at times flat-out angry at a world that, as the book puts it, in the words of the youngest character, Amy, “is hard on ambitious girls.” (It still is.) | It still has the cozy fireplace scenes and the long dresses. But the characters question social mores (“I’m sick of being told that love is all a woman is fit for,” says Jo, played by Saoirse Ronan), deliver critical context about the structural barriers limiting women (the economics of marriage, for instance, in which a woman’s earnings became property of her husband) and are at times flat-out angry at a world that, as the book puts it, in the words of the youngest character, Amy, “is hard on ambitious girls.” (It still is.) |
| “I think ‘Little Women’ is always a secretly subversive story,” Amy Pascal, a producer on the film, said in an interview. | “I think ‘Little Women’ is always a secretly subversive story,” Amy Pascal, a producer on the film, said in an interview. |
| “Little Women” tells the story of the four March sisters, Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy, who live in Concord, Mass., during and after the Civil War. Depending on whom you ask (and when), it is a girls’ coming-of-age narrative, a New England family saga, a war story, a love story, a heartwarming Christmas tale, or a feminist text about women’s choices (or lack thereof). | “Little Women” tells the story of the four March sisters, Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy, who live in Concord, Mass., during and after the Civil War. Depending on whom you ask (and when), it is a girls’ coming-of-age narrative, a New England family saga, a war story, a love story, a heartwarming Christmas tale, or a feminist text about women’s choices (or lack thereof). |
| In Gerwig’s version, which opened on Christmas Day, it is also the story of Alcott, perhaps the real heroine of the Marches, who never married (“I’d rather be a free spinster and paddle my own canoe,” she said), built a fortune on the “Little Women” books, and on whose life and letters Gerwig said she relied upon as a guide. | In Gerwig’s version, which opened on Christmas Day, it is also the story of Alcott, perhaps the real heroine of the Marches, who never married (“I’d rather be a free spinster and paddle my own canoe,” she said), built a fortune on the “Little Women” books, and on whose life and letters Gerwig said she relied upon as a guide. |
| “As a child, my hero was Jo March,” Gerwig has said. “But as an adult, it’s Louisa May Alcott.” | “As a child, my hero was Jo March,” Gerwig has said. “But as an adult, it’s Louisa May Alcott.” |
| Alcott would write feverishly, locked in a room — she taught herself to be ambidextrous when her hand got tired — and was known for losing her temper. She was raised in a progressive family of Transcendentalists and became the first woman to register to vote in Concord, Mass., in 1879, years before the 19th amendment was passed. | Alcott would write feverishly, locked in a room — she taught herself to be ambidextrous when her hand got tired — and was known for losing her temper. She was raised in a progressive family of Transcendentalists and became the first woman to register to vote in Concord, Mass., in 1879, years before the 19th amendment was passed. |
| She hadn’t initially wanted to write a book for girls, but when the publisher asked, she obliged, basing it on her own life. Though she remained single — it was simply not realistic to want to be a writer and a wife and a mother at the time — she married off her literary heroine because her publisher and readers demanded it. As Alcott wrote in a letter to a friend: “Jo should have remained a literary spinster but so many enthusiastic young ladies wrote to me clamorously demanding that she should marry Laurie, or somebody, that I didn’t dare refuse & out of perversity went & made a funny match for her.” (That funny match was Professor Bhaer.) | She hadn’t initially wanted to write a book for girls, but when the publisher asked, she obliged, basing it on her own life. Though she remained single — it was simply not realistic to want to be a writer and a wife and a mother at the time — she married off her literary heroine because her publisher and readers demanded it. As Alcott wrote in a letter to a friend: “Jo should have remained a literary spinster but so many enthusiastic young ladies wrote to me clamorously demanding that she should marry Laurie, or somebody, that I didn’t dare refuse & out of perversity went & made a funny match for her.” (That funny match was Professor Bhaer.) |
| There have been a variety of iterations since then: two silent films, radio versions, plays, an opera, a 1933 film starring Katharine Hepburn as Jo and a Technicolor version with Elizabeth Taylor as Amy that proclaimed on its movie poster: “World’s greatest love story!” | There have been a variety of iterations since then: two silent films, radio versions, plays, an opera, a 1933 film starring Katharine Hepburn as Jo and a Technicolor version with Elizabeth Taylor as Amy that proclaimed on its movie poster: “World’s greatest love story!” |
| A BBC mini-series, which aired in 1970, should perhaps have been the first feminist adaptation, writes Anne Boyd Rioux, the author of “Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy: The Story of ‘Little Women’ and Why It Still Matters” — as it emerged amid the height of the second wave women’s movement. But its reception was the opposite: A 1973 review in The Times, “Does ‘Little Women’ Belittle Women?” noted that the story “might understandably strike a contemporary woman" as “a disgusting, banal and craven service to male supremacy” in which marriage is presented as the “sweetest chapter” and motherhood “the deepest and tenderest [experience] of a woman’s life.” | A BBC mini-series, which aired in 1970, should perhaps have been the first feminist adaptation, writes Anne Boyd Rioux, the author of “Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy: The Story of ‘Little Women’ and Why It Still Matters” — as it emerged amid the height of the second wave women’s movement. But its reception was the opposite: A 1973 review in The Times, “Does ‘Little Women’ Belittle Women?” noted that the story “might understandably strike a contemporary woman" as “a disgusting, banal and craven service to male supremacy” in which marriage is presented as the “sweetest chapter” and motherhood “the deepest and tenderest [experience] of a woman’s life.” |
| It was not until 1994 that “Little Women” got the woman treatment — the first adaptation by a female director (Gillian Armstrong), writer (Robin Swicord) and shepherded by Pascal, then a junior executive. This was the Winona Ryder “Little Women,” and the producers needed her to get the film greenlit — Pascal, who had been trying to get that film made for more than a decade, said that when she presented the script to Sony executives, one of them told her “he read it holding his nose.” | It was not until 1994 that “Little Women” got the woman treatment — the first adaptation by a female director (Gillian Armstrong), writer (Robin Swicord) and shepherded by Pascal, then a junior executive. This was the Winona Ryder “Little Women,” and the producers needed her to get the film greenlit — Pascal, who had been trying to get that film made for more than a decade, said that when she presented the script to Sony executives, one of them told her “he read it holding his nose.” |
| “People just weren’t that interested in a movie with a lot of women in it, especially women wearing long dresses,” Swicord said recently. (It was 15 men in suits who watched the rough cut.) | “People just weren’t that interested in a movie with a lot of women in it, especially women wearing long dresses,” Swicord said recently. (It was 15 men in suits who watched the rough cut.) |
| The film was a success, perhaps in part because of low expectations — but also because of Ryder, it-actress of the moment, who played Jo (and was nominated for an Oscar). But it was marketed as a family film, not one expressly for girls. Pascal, Swicord and Armstrong worried about it being portrayed as “feminist.” | The film was a success, perhaps in part because of low expectations — but also because of Ryder, it-actress of the moment, who played Jo (and was nominated for an Oscar). But it was marketed as a family film, not one expressly for girls. Pascal, Swicord and Armstrong worried about it being portrayed as “feminist.” |
| “This was the era of family values, remember?” Barbara Berg, a historian and author who grew up acting out scenes from Alcott’s book in her own “Little Women Club,” reminded me. She noted how Hillary Clinton, then first lady, had been vilified because she worked, wanted to keep her maiden name and refused to bake cookies. Two years prior, during his re-election campaign, then-Vice President Dan Quayle had chided Murphy Brown — the fictional character played on the CBS television series by Candice Bergen, who has a child outside of marriage — for contributing to America’s “poverty of values.” | |
| “When the ’94 film was made, there was so much backlash against the idea that women could be independent,” said Rioux, the “Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy” author, and an English professor at the University of New Orleans. “It was this all or nothing proposition — this idea that if they had careers, they would leave their families behind.” | “When the ’94 film was made, there was so much backlash against the idea that women could be independent,” said Rioux, the “Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy” author, and an English professor at the University of New Orleans. “It was this all or nothing proposition — this idea that if they had careers, they would leave their families behind.” |
| Which isn’t to say that the ’90s adaptation was entirely tame: Marmee, the girls’ mother, played by a Susan Sarandon fresh off “Thelma & Louise,” lectured on the negative health effects of corsets and the benefits of girls’ education. Jo made the case for women’s right to vote, which isn’t in the book. | Which isn’t to say that the ’90s adaptation was entirely tame: Marmee, the girls’ mother, played by a Susan Sarandon fresh off “Thelma & Louise,” lectured on the negative health effects of corsets and the benefits of girls’ education. Jo made the case for women’s right to vote, which isn’t in the book. |
| But the film still ends on the love scene, and it is Professor Bhaer, whom Jo ultimately marries, who takes her book to the publisher, not Jo herself — making him, not her, the instrument of her success, noted Rioux. The girls’ choices, in other words, are delivered as individual, not structural. | But the film still ends on the love scene, and it is Professor Bhaer, whom Jo ultimately marries, who takes her book to the publisher, not Jo herself — making him, not her, the instrument of her success, noted Rioux. The girls’ choices, in other words, are delivered as individual, not structural. |
| “I so wish I could give my girls a more just world, but I know you’ll make it a better place,” Marmee tells them. | “I so wish I could give my girls a more just world, but I know you’ll make it a better place,” Marmee tells them. |
| Twenty-five years later, that seeming resignation wouldn’t fly. And neither would the standard end to the story. | Twenty-five years later, that seeming resignation wouldn’t fly. And neither would the standard end to the story. |
| “One of the first things Greta said to me was, ‘You know we can’t actually have her marry Professor Bhaer,’” said Pascal. | “One of the first things Greta said to me was, ‘You know we can’t actually have her marry Professor Bhaer,’” said Pascal. |
| In this interpretation, the characters take on more dimensions. Meg’s story does not end when she gets married — her struggles continue as she raises twins and buys nice things she can’t afford. Beth, destined for death, is depicted as an artist in her own right. Amy, long viewed as the bratty younger sister, develops into a young woman whose clarity in her ambition is enviable. | In this interpretation, the characters take on more dimensions. Meg’s story does not end when she gets married — her struggles continue as she raises twins and buys nice things she can’t afford. Beth, destined for death, is depicted as an artist in her own right. Amy, long viewed as the bratty younger sister, develops into a young woman whose clarity in her ambition is enviable. |
| “I think the world has caught up in the sense that a girl or a woman who speaks her mind, whether we like what she says or not, is a character we can now cheer,” said Pascal. | “I think the world has caught up in the sense that a girl or a woman who speaks her mind, whether we like what she says or not, is a character we can now cheer,” said Pascal. |
| And Marmee is not simply “a downtrodden mother,” as Pascal put it, raising her girls while her husband is away. She is pissed off. | And Marmee is not simply “a downtrodden mother,” as Pascal put it, raising her girls while her husband is away. She is pissed off. |
| In one of the film’s most poignant scenes — one that was plucked from the book but has not made it into most previous adaptations — Jo confides her own anger to Marmee. | In one of the film’s most poignant scenes — one that was plucked from the book but has not made it into most previous adaptations — Jo confides her own anger to Marmee. |
| “You remind me of myself,” Marmee tells her. | “You remind me of myself,” Marmee tells her. |
| “But you’re never angry,” Jo replies. | “But you’re never angry,” Jo replies. |
| “I’m angry nearly every day of my life,” Marmee says. | “I’m angry nearly every day of my life,” Marmee says. |
| “You are?” Jo whispers back. | “You are?” Jo whispers back. |
| But it is the film’s ending, at least for me, that was the most satisfying. In it, the character Jo (or is it Alcott? Part of the brilliance of Gerwig’s interpretation is that she melds the two women) gets the satisfaction of watching her book be “born” — its pages bound and leather stamped by the printer. We also see her negotiate to retain the copyright to her work — something Alcott did in real life, allowing her to support her family for years to come. | But it is the film’s ending, at least for me, that was the most satisfying. In it, the character Jo (or is it Alcott? Part of the brilliance of Gerwig’s interpretation is that she melds the two women) gets the satisfaction of watching her book be “born” — its pages bound and leather stamped by the printer. We also see her negotiate to retain the copyright to her work — something Alcott did in real life, allowing her to support her family for years to come. |
| “What I was trying to reverse-engineer was this moment that Jo getting her book would make the audience feel like you usually feel when the heroine is chosen by the hero,” Gerwig said after a film screening in New York. “I wanted to see if I could create that feeling, but with a girl and her book.” | “What I was trying to reverse-engineer was this moment that Jo getting her book would make the audience feel like you usually feel when the heroine is chosen by the hero,” Gerwig said after a film screening in New York. “I wanted to see if I could create that feeling, but with a girl and her book.” |
| That’s an ending I wouldn’t walk out on. | That’s an ending I wouldn’t walk out on. |
| Correction: Jan. 6, 2020An earlier version of this article misstated when Dan Quayle commented on Murphy Brown. It was during his re-election campaign, not his campaign for president. | |
| Correction: Jan. 2, 2020An earlier version of this article misidentified the director of the 1994 adaptation of “Little Women.” It is Gillian Armstrong, not Gillian Anderson. In addition, Amy Pascal’s role in the 2019 adaptation was misstated. She is a producer, not the executive producer. | Correction: Jan. 2, 2020An earlier version of this article misidentified the director of the 1994 adaptation of “Little Women.” It is Gillian Armstrong, not Gillian Anderson. In addition, Amy Pascal’s role in the 2019 adaptation was misstated. She is a producer, not the executive producer. |
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