Gender, Continued
Yesterday Erin and I threw out a set of questions to chew on after class: does Reed's sexism subvert his postmodern intentions? That is, does the overwhelming masculinity in Mumbo Jumbo limit its postmodern deconstructions and criticisms of Western society? Does your interpretation of Mumbo Jumbo change when you consider the gender politics of the novel?
They're purposefully confusing and hard to answer questions. I will admit right now that I myself can't answer them, and I read the article they came from/were inspired by. So this blog post is less of an answer and more of a speculative journey you may accompany me on, if you so choose.
To some extent, it seems that Reed's sexism, misogyny, and lack of women in Mumbo Jumbo doesn't matter. There's already so much going in this book that you might skip right over it and never see it. I definitely didn't notice the glaring lack of female characters in Mumbo Jumbo until Erin and I found our article for the panel presentation and said, "Huh, I guess Charlotte and Earline really were the only women in that book." Because I never noticed Reed's sexism, it didn't affect my understanding of his broader point about Western society and its multitude of problems. So you can definitely get through Mumbo Jumbo and get the main message without being affected by the lack of women and domination of men.
But when you notice Reed's problems with women, does it change your view and understanding of the novel? At first I thought that Reed was simply focusing his message on a specific section of minority groups and that he still sympathized with women. But that idea quickly went out the window with his representations of the few women in Mumbo Jumbo in the first place. Zuzu is literally thrown on the floor in the first chapter, setting a precedent for how women are treated throughout the book. And when Earline is possessed, she presents a threatening sexual side to masculinity, which is the dominant force in the novel. Clearly Reed doesn't sympathize all that much with women.
There's no real way to defend Reed's depictions of women. Based on the rest of Mumbo Jumbo, Reed is clearly providing commentary on Western society. He's not afraid to get out there with his criticisms, so I don't think he'd just leave in a problematic aspect without mocking it in some way. And he doesn't mock Western society's attitudes towards women. Patriarchy is very Western, especially this form that Reed is showcasing. You'd expect a critique of it out of him, but he provides nothing.
It's that lack of a critique that makes me hesitate on the rest of Reed's commentary. Yes, he's got a lot of valid and good points in his postmodernist fun fest, but part of me doesn't feel like I can take them as seriously knowing that he's not entirely critiquing Western society. He's fallen into the patriarchal aspect of Western society, which undermines the rest of his critique. Nothing he says seems nearly as legitimate knowing that some part of him is still deeply entrenched in Western society. It's not that it's not legitimate, it's just that something is now slightly off and doesn't feel right about his commentary.
Not to mention, he's excluding an important aspect of women in the 1920s: flappers. They were certainly going against the status quo and would have made the Wallflower Order flip out, which is basically what defines the things Reed likes. Mumbo Jumbo turns out very biased and all about men, which isn't an accurate representation of any part of history. But it's an especially poor representation of the 20s, when flappers would have tied in perfectly with the rest of Reed's commentary.
So yeah, I'm not totally sure what to make of all of it. Most of me leans towards not trusting Reed or taking his commentary entirely seriously. But at the same time, I know his takes are right and I agree with most of them. Where do I finally settle on the issue? I don't know. Perhaps the answer is come back to the book in 20 years when I'm older and wiser.
They're purposefully confusing and hard to answer questions. I will admit right now that I myself can't answer them, and I read the article they came from/were inspired by. So this blog post is less of an answer and more of a speculative journey you may accompany me on, if you so choose.
To some extent, it seems that Reed's sexism, misogyny, and lack of women in Mumbo Jumbo doesn't matter. There's already so much going in this book that you might skip right over it and never see it. I definitely didn't notice the glaring lack of female characters in Mumbo Jumbo until Erin and I found our article for the panel presentation and said, "Huh, I guess Charlotte and Earline really were the only women in that book." Because I never noticed Reed's sexism, it didn't affect my understanding of his broader point about Western society and its multitude of problems. So you can definitely get through Mumbo Jumbo and get the main message without being affected by the lack of women and domination of men.
But when you notice Reed's problems with women, does it change your view and understanding of the novel? At first I thought that Reed was simply focusing his message on a specific section of minority groups and that he still sympathized with women. But that idea quickly went out the window with his representations of the few women in Mumbo Jumbo in the first place. Zuzu is literally thrown on the floor in the first chapter, setting a precedent for how women are treated throughout the book. And when Earline is possessed, she presents a threatening sexual side to masculinity, which is the dominant force in the novel. Clearly Reed doesn't sympathize all that much with women.
There's no real way to defend Reed's depictions of women. Based on the rest of Mumbo Jumbo, Reed is clearly providing commentary on Western society. He's not afraid to get out there with his criticisms, so I don't think he'd just leave in a problematic aspect without mocking it in some way. And he doesn't mock Western society's attitudes towards women. Patriarchy is very Western, especially this form that Reed is showcasing. You'd expect a critique of it out of him, but he provides nothing.
It's that lack of a critique that makes me hesitate on the rest of Reed's commentary. Yes, he's got a lot of valid and good points in his postmodernist fun fest, but part of me doesn't feel like I can take them as seriously knowing that he's not entirely critiquing Western society. He's fallen into the patriarchal aspect of Western society, which undermines the rest of his critique. Nothing he says seems nearly as legitimate knowing that some part of him is still deeply entrenched in Western society. It's not that it's not legitimate, it's just that something is now slightly off and doesn't feel right about his commentary.
Not to mention, he's excluding an important aspect of women in the 1920s: flappers. They were certainly going against the status quo and would have made the Wallflower Order flip out, which is basically what defines the things Reed likes. Mumbo Jumbo turns out very biased and all about men, which isn't an accurate representation of any part of history. But it's an especially poor representation of the 20s, when flappers would have tied in perfectly with the rest of Reed's commentary.
So yeah, I'm not totally sure what to make of all of it. Most of me leans towards not trusting Reed or taking his commentary entirely seriously. But at the same time, I know his takes are right and I agree with most of them. Where do I finally settle on the issue? I don't know. Perhaps the answer is come back to the book in 20 years when I'm older and wiser.
I also didn't notice Reed's depiction of women in this novel until this discussion. As you said, there is so much else that's going on within the book that it's easy to glide over it. At first, I considered that maybe there was no space for the discussion of gender within this book. I thought that maybe he wanted to just focus on the issue of race. However, the more I think about it, I think that Reed was intentional in the way that he depicts women and in the way that he avoids bringing up the topic of feminism and the role of women in Voodoo culture. This definitely changes the way I look at this novel because now it seems like there's almost a hole missing where Reed should've brought up gender.
ReplyDeleteI personally am not sure how aware Reed was about how he was depicting the women in the novel, and I'm guessing we'll never know for sure what his actual thoughts are. But I would agree with you that no matter what, it does kind of undermine the message of the book. In his effort to completely expose Western culture for being all-pervasive and entrenched in everything we think of, Reed kind of fell into his own trap. Whether intentionally or by accident, he deployed the Western ideas of patriarchy, and it shows. It kind of feels like one of those anime moments where the bad guy (Reed) has all of the tricks and all of his bases covered, but then the hero (us? idk this isn't well thought out) uses the villain's own tactics against them. Reed created something so academically complex and encompassing that not even he himself could come out on top.
ReplyDelete