Brain Dump On Jo March (as Someone Who

Brain dump on Jo March (as someone who

doesn’t study english or film 🫶🫶)

Jo March as a character, as a literary character, as a protagonist, as a fictional figure needs to be studied because she is very relatable in the sense that she misses childhood.

For me the best thing about Little Women 2019 was the way Gerwig represented sibling…..sibling hood? Can you say that? The way siblings were represented was a breath of fresh air compared to the Disney channel stuff you usually get. It was scarily accurate. Like for me personally my older sister is a screenwriter and my little sister does art and the way they both act exactly like Jo and Amy is fucking weird. This depiction of sibling hood relates back to Jo March’s character as everyone can relate to wanting to go back to childhood, the days where you and your siblings used to play. That’s why I can’t stand it when people just wrote Little Women off as a ‘women’ film as an excuse not to go watch it because yes it is technically but damn like everyone can relate to nostalgia, this longing that makes Jo March such a relatable character. Also, Gerwig’s simple choice as a filmmaker to create the parallels between childhood and adulthood using flashbacks, was such a smart choice to structure the film!!!

I think it’s interesting because if you put it in the lens of being a women it’s like ‘I want to go back to childhood because I don’t want to grow up and become what society is going to tell me what I have to become’ (a very confusing sentence, I know). I feel like Jo spends so long unconsciously fighting it because she believes that’s not what she’s fit for. Some people may call it childish; her inability to ‘grow up’ and start forming romantic relationships but really if you were to remove the label of feminism and the clear aro coding, there is just this longing to keep what is good, good

If we were to look at the scene that everyone knows, Jo’s monologue, I find it very interesting because she says ‘I’m sick and tired of being told that love is all a woman is fit for’. One of the reasons I love Jo as a character is her deep appreciation for all types of love, specifically platonic and familial love. So I find it kind of ironic that she says ‘love is not all that a woman is fit for’ because in my opinion she loves the best out of all the characters, just not in the way society wants her to. Not in a way where she serves her husband and spends all her time cooking and cleaning and taking care of the kids. Jo March won’t sign up for a life where she just keeps giving and giving until she feels empty inside. They say she has a quick temper but she’s just passionate.

It’s her love for writing that made her angry when Amy burned her stuff. It’s her love for her sisters that made her start to feel lonely when they start to grow up and do things without her. It’s her love for adventure and freedom that makes her feel slighted when Amy gets to go to Europe instead of her. Her love for / attachment to these things often leaves her on the outside and she’s been on the outside for so long that when she says ‘I care more to be loved than to love’ it’s clear that she means she wants to be understood and accepted as she is than to fit into the mould of the woman who just happily gives and gives and gives.

Let’s remember that this monologue was spurred on by her trying to sort out her feelings for Laurie.

THE LOVE TRIANGLE BETWEEN JO, LAURIE AND AMY IS JUST SO CHEFS KISS BECAUSE IT DOESN’T HAVE THE SAME OBJECTIVE AS LOVE TRIANGLES IN OTHER PEICES OF MEDIA. That is to say unlike Miraculous which will stretch that love square within an inch of its life, the love triangle in Little Women serves to just highlight the parallels between Jo and Amy, and further Jo’s character arc. The parallels between Amy and Jo are like a plot device (??? even I know in my heart that plot device is not the term I am looking for). You see it in moments such as when

Amy says ‘I want to be the best artist in the world!’

and Beth says ‘Isn’t that what you want Jo?’

and Jo says ‘yes but it sounds so crass when she says it.’

This is all to say Jo and Amy have overlapping ambitions but because Amy’s align more with the modern woman she gets everything Jo wants, and because Jo is an older sister she has to concede when Amy ‘takes’ these things from her. She has to forgive Amy when Amy burns her writing, she has to be at peace when Amy goes to Europe instead of her and she has to be happy for Amy when Amy gets with Laurie!!

This furthers Jo’s character development because unlike what society tells her she is - an angry girl (?? sounds so wierd) - she clearly knows how to manage her anger AS SHE HAS BEEN DOING IT HER WHOLE LIFE!! I asked my screenwriter older sister for her opinion on the BIG THING that Jo has to learn to be at peace with, thing thing that ‘finishes’ her character arc. I like her response - her childhood ending. She copes with that by pouring her love for her childhood into her book.

And so we have come to the end. Now we can see how everything about Jo March is so subtly intertwined to make this believable, relatable character that stands the test of time, which is why I believe Jo March as a character should be studied.

Brain Dump On Jo March (as Someone Who

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