Little Women Movie - Tumblr Posts
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.
Maturing is realising you’re not any of the March sisters, you’re just Laurie
these movies 💋💋
Things I think about with frequency
Amy March
How we deserved to see Amy and Laurie's wedding, and them falling in love, and just more of them
How Amy March is hated by many because LMA based the characters off her own sisters, and Amy was obviously written with some bias (as were all the sisters), which shines through and makes us feel similarly about Amy that "Jo" felt about her younger sister.
That line where Amy says "I've been second to Jo my whole life" hits A LOT harder when you realize that Louisa's (Jo) middle name is May, and her younger sister, who she based Amy off, is named May, after LMA's middle name.
I think that people see Amy as this vapid little bitch because she always knew she wanted to be a wife, and she knew she wanted to be rich. But what people fail to consider is that a lot of the time the youngest is the one that sees all the flaws in their family’s lives and feels responsible for taking care of them, even if its not expressly stated. Jo was a wild card. She was free to do as she wanted and nothing could stop her and God love Marmee for never trying. Meg was docile and almost polar opposite of Jo, and as the eldest sister she felt the same burden but lessened because yes she had typical Eldest Sister Syndrome where she had the need to take care of the family, but she also was the first, and therefore had no pre-set markers and expectations that she needed to meet or surpass. She wanted to marry and all that, but it didn't super matter about finances to her. Beth was unable to do "better" than her sisters "mistakes" flat out. And its not through any fault of her own, its just the way it was.
Speaking from experience, its always been clear to me that as the youngest of 3, I would have to do better. My half brother got a girl pregnant on his gap year when he was 18, so I was never allowed to take one, even though it would have probably helped in the long run. My half sister has always been mean to my parents, and won't let my dad see his only biological grandkid, which rips my dad apart, so of course I feel the pressure to have a child to give my dad a bio grandkid to dote on like he does with his non-bio grandkids, even though he's never outwardly expressed to anyone ever that he feels any disconnect from my niece because they aren't related, or that he wants me to have kids for any reason other than he wants them.
Anyways, my point is that Amy felt that pressure from a young age, hence always saying this or that about marrying rich. Add onto that when Aunt March tells her she's her family’s only hope of not being in the lower class/lower middle class for the rest of their lives. And just because that's the only time we see it, but that doesn't mean that there weren't other similar conversations had. Do you really think Aunt March never made her snide comments about the family and their status in front of Amy?
Amy's entire character revolves around this point, she's focused on being a proper lady, being delicate and pretty, in hopes of one day being able to bag someone rich, for her family.
Obviously, she falls into infatuation with Laurie when she meets him at the ripe age of 12??? She idolizes Jo, and Laurie is basically just the boy version (with some exceptions). He's also rich, young, handsome, and charming, and adores the family for who they are, including all their flaws. He's exactly what Amy had been saying she would marry, with the added bonus of him loving Jo the way she is, the exact opposite of Amy, proving that there are rich lovely men out there who will love you even if you aren't perfect, even if you falter. He's proof she can have the life she knows she needs to have for her family, and also still enjoy it and not be stressed all the time about being perfect.
Of course Laurie loves Jo first, for very similar reasons that Amy is infatuated with him. At 15, his whole life has been spent at dinner parties with girls the exact opposite of Jo, all proper and lovely and so so similar to one another, being told he'll marry one of them, everyone expecting him to be polished and well spoken and everything that no 15 year old boy wants to be. So then in comes this whirlwind girl who is completely different, a breath of fresh air that never wants to marry and can't ballroom dance for shit and laughs too loud, and shows him that life can be the Something Different he so desperately craves.
And of course, he ends up with Amy. He was Jo's best friend, so for 6 years all he knew of her was the way she was presented through Jo's eyes. A bratty little girl, who was the same as the other vapid girls he knew, that wasn't worth a thought. And he never paid her any mind because he spent 6 years thinking Jo loved him back, so why would he think of other girls? Then, at 21, he is essentially dumped by the love of his life, and travels abroad to find who he is without her. He meets Amy again, the girl who was always happy to see him. Of course he's going to spend time with her, she's familiar enough to feel like home, but different enough from Jo that it doesn't hurt. And there's the added validation of her liking him, which sometimes you need after your heart has been ripped apart. Plus, she's the only one he really knows in Paris. So they spend time together, and in that time he learns that she's not at all the way he's seen her over the last 6 years. Where he always saw someone not very bright, with a dim personality, that didn't stand up for anything or really rock the boat unless seriously provoked, who would do anything for him, he now finds a strong, funny, kind, beautiful girl, who is very intelligent and has a deep understanding of how cruel the world is (maybe ((definitely)) moreso than her sister) and knows how to manipulate said world in such a way that she can come out close to on top, who cares about her family enough to put everything else aside in order to become the person they need her to be in order to support them, who would still do anything for him but will absolutely call him on his shit and put him in his place when necessary. And how could he not love that?
She's not all that much like Jo, sure, but she is so much more. And she deserves so much more than people calling her his second choice.
Also I think that its criminal that most people don't see that obviously Jo loved her family but she loved herself more. Her sense of duty was to herself, and finding the place that would make her happy. She was also kind of a brat? Things didn't go her way? Editor is a dick? Boy critisizes her writing? Tantrum.
Whereas Amy loved her family more than herself. She was willing to put aside her dreams in order to support her family, and growing up was very rarely bitter about it. She decided, on her own, that her family was her number one priority, and that regardless of the fact that she could be happier doing other things, she wanted to do what she could to provide for her family. She knew how the world treated women, and she learned how to take that, and general criticism, on the chin.
Personally, I think that Amy is a way better character, and I'll die on this hill
Amy March