Oh I mean The Princess Bride. Ooops. Sorry about that.
I know I could get hate mail (haha!) for this, but I am going to write it anyway: The Princess Bride is one screwed-up book. I mean, I know everyone likes the movie. It’s truly truly witty, I’m sure. However. Have any of you read the book? I am arguing (as a feminist) that the book should be read and the movie watched with a healthy dose of honest criticism.
Let’s start with the beginning. Buttercup is both stupid and vain, treating Westley like crap and being idiotic all over the place. When Westley rescues her and they are arguing just before entering the Fire Swamp, he asks her:
“When was the last time you read a book? The truth now. And picture books don’t count – I mean something with print in it.”
Buttercup then pouts, gets angry, threatens to leave, and immediately changes her mind. Westley, of course graciously forgives all her shortcomings.
Perhaps the most offensive portion of the book comes close to the end. Buttercup has just been “married” to the evil Prince and she is waiting in stupidity for Westley to come and rescue her. Wandering back to her room after the wedding, Buttercup muses calmly over her eminent suicide:
“She had never seriously contemplated suicide before. Oh, of course she’d thought about it; every girl does from time to time. But never seriously. To her quiet surprise, she found it was going to be the easiest thing in the world.”
EXCUSE ME?!?! I have no words for this. Really. So awful I can’t even discuss it.
When Westley comes to rescue the poor useless Buttercup he tells her to tie up the evil Prince.
“‘You’d do it so much better,’ Buttercup replied. ‘I’ll get the sashes, but I really think you should do the actual tying.’
‘Woman,’ Westley roared, ‘you are the property of the Dread Pirate Roberts and you . . . do . . . what . . . you’re . . . told!’” [Westley is the Dread Pirate Roberts in case you didn't know.]
Again… EXCUSE ME?!?!
Top these awful bits off with the repeated women-bashing during William Goldman’s author-asides (he bashes his wife, talks about how he wants to seduce the family representative, etc. etc. etc.) and it all amounts to the grand sum of one male-chauvinist piece of work.
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December 12, 2007 at 3:18 am
Allan
Oh please. I found the movie insipid and the book inspired. For all your rantings you sound like a humorless troll. The book sounds a lot like _real-life relationships_ which contain a tremendous amount of inconsistency, humor, vagueness, frivolity, “objectionable elements” and everything else all rolled into one mass effect. The book captures that sense perfectly. Your argument results from the “straw man” fallacy, and has just as much intellectual rigor supporting it.
So there. lol
December 12, 2007 at 4:14 am
amanda
spoken like a man, eh!
December 12, 2007 at 4:17 am
amanda
in real life i suppose the man is the only one capable of anything productive, reasonable, brave, trustworthy, diligent, heroic, and honest, right? in most relationships the women never possess any of those qualities, huh? so yeah, maybe you’re right… he really does capture real-life. we women DO tend to always just stand by and brush our hair… waiting to be rescued…
December 16, 2007 at 5:23 pm
re:patrick
this makes me laugh a little. i never read the book due to the fact that i grew to dislike the movie so intensely. i think buttercup is supposed to be funny-but i find her ineptitude and idiocy annoying. princess bride was one of the few “clean” movies we could watch in the fundamentalist culture–so i watched it back in the day enough to hate it.
December 17, 2007 at 2:41 am
amanda
I think it COMPLETELY proves my point that Princess Bride was one of the movies you were allowed to watch! Of course there won’t be any strong female leadership in a BJ-approved film.
December 18, 2007 at 5:00 am
Allan
well, I had an atheistic radical feminist assign this book to me in college; point negated. I think we can all agree that professorial taste is no recognition of greatness.
but back to the book: again with the straw man – your argument sounds like you haven’t read the whole book. The book builds and then destroys stereotypes of ALL characters, not just the girl. So yes, the girl gets stereotyped, as does the guy, the kingdom, the epic adventure, the bad guy, etc, but then all the stereotypes get inverted and ham-hocked. Research Goldman’s background and related works and you’ll see that he is ultimately making a point about the humanity of his characters separate from their stereotyped slots. Don’t we all just want to be recognized for our own innate selves and not the labels society has already decided to slap on us? If so, then you Goldman’s full support.
December 20, 2007 at 1:55 am
amanda
THIS is an argument I can get behind. A good bit more eloquent than your first.