Little Women Podcast: 150 Year Laurie Problem

Hello,

I am Emily.

I am also known as Emma Lloyd.

I run a Booktube channel by the same name and I am also a big fan of Little Women the novel and also a great fan of discussing the adaptations as well.

I am Nina,

Hello everyone and I am a blogger on YouTube and I have a channel called Small Umbrella in the Rain.

I do gender studies on Little Women and being lately focusing mostly on the male characters.

Great!

Yeah,

And also I am kind of well known for,

Relatively,

As well as well known relatively for my channel for a review I did on the newest Little Women adaptation.

Which was a really good review.

To say the least,

Openly critical of the film and Nina reached out to me because we had a lot of the same perspectives on the book and the films.

So I am very honoured,

I really flattered because you asked me because I had literally found your blog when I was preparing for my video.

It is so nice because it was really a big surprise for me how many people reach out after I published it.

You just learn new things when people reach out to you like that they share their views.

So it has been a pleasure.

Yeah,

No,

I,

Because I had a lot of people reaching out to me and being like wow I am so grateful that you have reflected my views on this film and it seems like they finally got represented.

And before I even knew you I remember thinking about your blog post and being like wow would this person agree with me because I mean you really love Professor Bear and this film did not have Professor Bear in it and pretty much they didn't have like you know all of Professor Bear in it.

Yeah,

Where is Professor Bear?

Yeah,

Where is this beautiful relationship?

Well today you wanted to discuss Laurie.

Among other things,

Yeah.

Yes,

Among other things.

So we are going to do one video on this channel,

On Nina's channel and then one video for my channel where we will be discussing Jill and Professor Bear but you will probably find that our discussions will be,

Will kind of go on different channels.

Yeah,

Very likely.

We have a lot of feelings on these dramatic cases.

Alright,

Well how about we start out talking about the Laurie model.

So I guess,

By the way I literally just watched the 2017 series last night.

Oh you did?

I think I agreed with a lot of what you said about it.

I think you know I like what they expanded on but the ending is very rushed.

It is.

I felt like the writer should have had four episodes to do it properly.

Yeah,

Yeah,

Yeah.

It somehow like they managed to expand on some things but somehow the ending was just,

The booboo was just really rushed.

I was so surprised at the end.

Yeah and it didn't build enough for the two couples.

That really bothered me.

Yeah and they didn't even really talk through the whole process for Jill and Professor Bear and suddenly the school is established and they don't build up to them.

Yeah it was a bit weird.

You sent me a bunch of articles and blog posts before about the subject and you clearly have done a very deep dive into this character.

I think my biggest problem with the Laurie presentations in the films is that it never follows the book's narrative.

This is something that really reflects the way people read the film and I find it very problematic to say the least.

Yeah,

I remember you said that basically Laurie kind of has to go through a whole growth process in the book because he's actually,

Well I guess we should preface it by saying a lot of the adaptations idealize him.

Yeah.

Which you do say in your blog posts because he's kind of this young pretty guy who's in love with Jill and we're supposed to feel bad for him but then what the adaptations leave out is how immature he really is and actually how horrible he is sometimes.

One of my blog readers,

She wrote a very eye-opening review about Little Women How,

Jo and Laurie,

The ideas that they feed to each other,

They actually end up harming each other in the long run with them and that is something that people must really ignore.

Yeah.

Yeah,

No and I think something else was,

I think a big example is remember when Laurie's like,

Oh I don't want to go to university and join a way together and you don't have to go to uni and then Meg's like,

No,

No,

Don't go to university,

What do you mean?

No,

You need to do it.

Yeah and at that point I was like,

Wow,

These are not good influences on each other at all.

Laurie was that kind of character that he always did what he was told to do,

He always is wanting to do what he's told not to do and he has this constant conflict because of it.

Yeah,

But that's true because he kind of reminds me a bit of me in that I don't think he really appreciated a lot of the privilege at the start because he's just kind of like,

Oh,

I don't want to do it because he was sort of expected to fit this certain mold in society that he doesn't really,

You know,

Properly appreciate and he sort of is just a party boy in college and messes around and everything and he doesn't really know how to be a productive member of society,

He doesn't really understand what that means.

And when Joe gets older,

It really starts to bother her that he doesn't take responsibility of himself.

She's like a little mother for him,

Like she's always taking care of him and it's quite sad the way Joe feels bad that he has all these privileges that she doesn't have.

Yeah,

He kind of represents a lot of the things that she can't have,

But really takes for granted.

I think you might have pointed this out in your blog post,

But Joe is very much kind of taking care of him because he's really looking for a mother,

Right?

So he kind of really falls in love with her,

Well,

Or he thinks really because he's just kind of looking for this character who's going to marry him.

Yeah,

And people forget that Lower is an orphan.

He doesn't really have a stable parental figure until Joe arrives.

Yeah,

He's always envying that really idyllic view of the March family,

Like oh my,

All the sisters and the relationship with Marnie.

And Marnie essentially becomes his kind of second-generation mother in a way.

I think you also pointed out,

Despite having,

You know,

Craving this maternal figure in his life,

He and Joe like to make fun of these very feminine girls.

They don't really,

They have really mutually negative reinforcing views on femininity and masculinity as well.

I was surprised when I rewrote the book and I was like,

Wow,

Joe was actually,

I don't have to swear on your channel.

Go ahead.

He's a fuckboy.

Yeah,

Indeed.

Yeah,

He's really,

He's a fuckboy,

But then he turns around and then like talks bad about these girls to Joe and I'm like,

Wow,

This is exactly the kind of guy I would have tried to avoid back in the day.

He is quite misogynistic.

So I'm wondering what you think.

Okay,

Because you pointed out that Joe is disappointed with Laurie,

But I think also Amy is as well.

I think Amy,

Even if she doesn't have that same kind of relationship with Laurie,

Also really steps in and is the one to say,

Hey,

Like you're really not being productive person and you have done,

You're really idle and she,

You know,

She taps his hand,

She's like,

You know,

Your,

Your hands,

They've never done like a day's work.

And I'm wondering if you could talk more about your view on Joe and how,

Why,

How Joe is these kind of his mother,

But isn't able to kind of form that relationship to be,

But like Amy is somehow able to come out,

Give him the same kind of talk,

But then also,

But then doesn't replace his mother is actually able to eat.

There is a theory that Amy already had a crush on Laurie when she was 12.

But when I read the book like that,

It makes sense because there's the scene where Laurie goes to cheer her up when she's staying at March and all that.

And I always liked that chapter.

When I read a little last time,

What I noticed is that Laurie always behaves a lot better with Amy than he does with Meg or with Joe.

Like with Joe or with Meg,

He always has this idea that he's somehow more above them,

But doesn't really happen with Amy.

It's really interesting.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well,

I do think it's because they are both the younger siblings of Joe and Meg and they kind of are able to reach some sort of equal footing that way.

They're just very different people.

There's that chapter where Laurie forges the letters in the name of Jones and then he's catfishing Meg.

And then Joe is like,

She wants Meg and Laurie to get together,

Keep Laurie in the family.

She doesn't really see how harmful that is for Meg's reputation.

And Laurie doesn't see any kind of harmful elements in his actions.

Yeah,

She's just kind of making fun,

But it really is a very mean joke to play with everybody.

Especially one of them involves his teacher.

He really does not appreciate enough.

Yeah,

He really takes Mr.

Brooke for granted.

And I think I read in your blog and it just really resonated with me.

He is also quite toxic towards Joe,

Especially when he wants to be in a relationship with her.

When he's saying,

Oh,

I'm going to kill myself,

You know,

Over you.

Yeah,

There's lots of kind of mental blackmailing and it's hard to read sometimes even.

Yeah,

It is.

It is.

Because I,

And when I think you quoted somebody who said,

You know,

Laurie's a nice guy,

So called,

Because he is one of those nice guys who expects to get what he wants because he's so nice to that person.

Yeah,

He doesn't really see Joe as an actual person in that point.

He wants to marry her because he's expected to marry someone.

That's when there's the time period when he's in Vienna and he's trying to compose.

It's like he doesn't really care who he is going to marry or who is this romantic woman that he's composing these operas for.

Like,

It doesn't really matter at that point because he just has this idea that this is what the man's supposed to be like.

Yeah,

I think he writes about how she has this phantom of a woman in his mind.

It's not really vague.

He's not really thinking about like Joe's characteristics or anything like that.

He just like has this sort of Gertie-ant idea of a woman,

Which we know doesn't resemble Joe at all.

Like,

He's not fit into it at all.

Like,

Joe would- It's this kind of phantom princess who's waiting for a prince to arrive,

Like from an opera or ballet.

It's really not Joe March.

And it's really not Amy either.

But when he starts to have more deeper feelings for Amy,

It is phantom.

It starts to look more and more like Amy.

It's one of those things that is never adapted in the adaptation.

I'm surprised.

You're absolutely correct.

No one gives Laurie this arc.

Nobody jumps into his feelings about the Marth girls.

And even like,

I think people even cut out that kind of toxic behavior that he has.

Yeah,

It's really weird.

Very odd.

Yeah.

And I'm surprised now.

You know how these days we're talking about,

Oh,

Twilight,

Twilight is so toxic because Edward is so,

Like,

Stalks Bella and is so possessive.

And I'm just like,

Well,

Here's this nice guy who is very toxic towards the person that he wants to be with.

And it's no better.

And it really boggles my mind that even a grown-up reader could go back to this character and be like,

Oh,

Laurie should have put him as a journalist.

And I don't know if you saw,

But I think they're even coming out with a book called Jill and Laurie.

Yeah,

I heard about it.

I'm not going to read it.

It's going to make me angry.

So yeah.

I know better.

Yeah.

I don't want to read it either.

If you want to write fan fiction,

Fine.

But I can't believe people are actually publishing this stuff and trying to push this narrative about them that they should have been together.

I really can't believe it.

When it comes to Louisa,

The whole premise of Little Woman was to write a book for girls about how to marry someone you can actually live for the rest of your life.

And she really does this very well when you think about it,

Because she especially crafted Felix's character to fit for Joe.

And then he's based on men who Louisa was in love with.

So as we've pointed out before,

We don't have a lot of full characterization of Laurie in the films.

I'm wondering,

Did you expect the 29th film to do any better with this character?

I read the very early interviews of Greta Gerwig,

Who talk about the way Joe and Laurie have this relationship that is not romantic.

And that gave me hope.

But then I read the movie guide for the new film,

And then she kind of goes back with it.

I think she's like a John and Laurie shipper,

Which is why Laurie doesn't have an arc.

What I've seen in the Little Woman circles with a lot of the people who I talk with and interviewed for my articles is that there are a lot of people now who think that Laurie is very immature in that adaptation,

And that they're glad that Joe ended up with the professor.

So it's some kind of improvement,

But he's still a million times more idealized in the movie that he's in the book.

Yeah,

They're really dreamy and good for showing it.

He doesn't have a character arc.

They did very good job with Amy in that movie.

Yes,

Yes.

But it doesn't work without Laurie's arc.

So that's the problem.

Yeah,

That's very true.

Yeah,

I was hoping to discuss this with you because I think despite my very critical review of the new film,

I think they were doing okay with Amy and Laurie for up until the year apart because I think setting up their relationship is pretty good.

Like I think I said before in my review,

I didn't like how they contrived that with Amy's painting being set up for that because I think that's actually a very long,

Awful scene that's supposed to be a scene of righteous anger,

And I didn't like that it was supposed to be comical.

But of course I liked that they did some work on establishing their relationship beforehand.

I'd be okay with this,

And in Europe they have that discussion.

I think Amy gives them a talk and then Amy also doesn't work in place and then they go to Joe.

I was like,

Okay,

This is fine.

But then you notice that Laurie never has to do any work for Amy.

Yeah,

That's true.

I always found this a very crucial part of their arc,

Right?

Because Amy even encourages him in the film to be a productive member of society,

But then he never does any of that.

That aspect of their story is left hanging and just incomplete.

And it's like,

Back to death,

Instead of the relationship,

Instead of him actually putting work in,

Which really sat badly with me.

Yeah,

That's something that really bothered me in the film,

And it kind of reflected Joe's character because she's not given a character arc either.

Yeah,

No,

She's not.

I said in my reviews,

Her arc is flat.

Yeah.

With Professor Barrett.

Like,

If we compare that to the 1994 film,

Joe has a full arc there.

Yeah,

She is.

That's the way it goes in the book.

Despite Laurie not having much of a characterisation,

Maybe not much more in the 1994 film,

I think I liked that they actually acknowledged that he went away to actually better himself before coming back to Amy.

That's true.

It doesn't really speed up their relationship as much as the 2019 film,

But Laurie has some sort of an arc in that movie.

Yeah,

I think so.

I guess now that we're talking about 1994,

I think he doesn't have,

I think in setting your blog post,

We don't get a sense of his temper and how he would clash with Joe,

Which is why we don't always buy that they would kill each other.

Yeah,

That's the same with all adaptations,

Really.

Yeah,

That is true.

Yeah,

I mean,

Louisa makes a very big effort in the book,

Like she describes that Laurie has a temper and that he has these violent outbursts sometimes,

And Joe has them as well.

You get the sense that Laurie is very subservient to Joe,

Which she kind of is,

But he also clashes with her in other ways,

But they never really represent that.

No.

And I think in 1994,

Christian Bale is really wonderful for the character that they wrote.

But I guess a lot of people have accused the film of making that relationship with Amy creepy,

Which was underdeveloped maybe,

But I never found it creepy particularly.

I think it's because Amy is like 12 in the first book and Laurie is 16,

But it's just four years difference and they are not romantically together in that way.

But then people also say that Frederick are creepy,

But Joe is like 24 when they meet.

I never saw that creepy.

And it was written in the 19th century.

Most marriages were marriages with age gaps and Louisa had a thing for other guys.

Yeah,

That really,

It was super common.

For most people,

There was an age gap in the marriages or in relationships in general.

Yeah,

Because families generally wanted their daughters to marry established gentlemen,

Right,

Who already had a living.

And generally it would take time for a guy to actually establish his career and stuff and at that point he would marry somebody.

So it's not shocking at all that you would have age gaps like that.

If you think about some of the recent films,

For example,

The new Emma,

In the original Jane Austen's Emma,

The Knightley and Emma age difference is 19 years.

In the new film,

The actor is much younger looking.

Yes.

Yeah,

They do that nowadays.

Male ladies hired to be young looking guy,

Even if they're actually a bit older.

It's funny because in the 2019 film they did that with Professor Bear,

Right?

Even though they weren't going to do the proper arc anyway,

But they made him much younger too.

The actor is actually 36,

So his age is really close to the book Fritz,

But he looks much younger.

It's just Hollywood the way it does it,

But then if I think about Amy and Laurie,

The 1994 film,

I don't think it's creepy,

But if you think about how people could actually avoid that,

Why can't they actually hire a 16-year-old guy to play Laurie in the first part of the book?

But people complain about everything.

It doesn't matter who we are going to cast,

Play Laurie.

In the 2019 film,

I felt like they had a bit of an issue with Florence Pugh looking older in all of her scenes,

Whereas Laurie just looked young in all of his scenes.

And the actors,

They are the same age.

Yeah,

They are the same age.

It's just that you could not quite buy Amy or Florence Pugh as a child,

And you could never buy Timothee Chalamet as an adult.

Whatever their real-life age is,

It just doesn't work in terms of that visual contrast between them.

And people have pointed out to me that Christian Bale was only 20 when he played Laurie,

But he's able to transition from being a teenager into an adult.

Yeah,

Sometimes even if the real age matches,

That's the thing about casting.

You really need these people to pass off.

You need a certain person to pass on at different ages.

And it's weird because I haven't seen the 1933 film,

But I noticed that both the 1949 and 1994 don't pay that much attention to Amy and Laurie's arc.

I think the 1949 less so.

It's not even there.

No.

There's this scene before Laurie goes to propose Joe,

And Amy's looking at Laurie with a sad expression on her face.

I think that's the only scene with them together.

And then there's the end when they end up together.

That's their arc in that movie.

Laurie's proposal is extremely romanticised in this film,

And it's really romanticised in the 1933 film and 1994 film.

2019 film did better,

But then it completely erased three fixed characters,

So it kind of sucks.

Laurie in the 1949 film,

I recall his proposal being pretty angry,

And I think that was the only time we could ever buy into his character.

Having a temper.

It's the same in the 1933 film.

Laurie has a bit of a temper in it.

But I have to tell you,

It's just really flat in the next adaptation.

I watched the proposal scene in the 1933 with Katharine Hepburn,

And I think at least she has that sort of line,

Like,

I can't love you like you want.

But I don't think Joe.

.

.

Joe in 1949 was probably my lead favourite.

She never really handles scenes like that with much sensitivity.

I don't recall her handling it,

Or being very in-depth about why she can't.

My problem with the 1949 film is that they have no balls to do a lot of things.

Like,

Amy's cleaning,

They don't even.

.

.

They kind of come up right against it and then back down from it.

Do you remember that?

When she gets her hand beaten for having to.

.

.

Oh yeah.

And so they have the teacher almost hit her hand and then he doesn't do it.

Oh yeah.

I really like Elizabeth Taylor's Amy.

But the problem with that movie is that they kind of make her the joke.

And I don't like that because that's not something that the book does.

So it kind of makes this Amy against Joe position again there.

Because it shouldn't be there.

It romanticises Laurie the same way as it does with Mr.

Bear's character.

So it becomes this Laurie versus Fritz,

And then Amy versus Joe.

And it's just not the way the book goes.

Yeah.

Yeah,

Because the book makes very clear that Amy is really perfect for Laurie and Fritz is perfect for Joe.

I still haven't seen an adaptation that does it the way the book does.

Yeah,

That's true.

I think they did Professor Bear pretty well in the 1949 film.

Yeah,

They actually beat up that relationship pretty well.

Yeah,

I appreciate it.

He's Italian,

But I'm going to overlook that.

Yeah,

We should probably save this for the Professor Bear video.

But yeah,

No,

I liked that the.

.

.

I like it when adaptations develop that relationship.

I guess some people will argue and say,

Oh,

Well,

You can't really develop some of these scenes because of runtime,

Right?

Because there isn't really time to do these things.

But I feel like there's not really an excuse.

Sometimes when you try to leave parts,

Like when you kind of have really incomplete parts for everybody,

It's kind of like how the 2019 film tried to do this Meg arc,

Dealing with poverty in her marriage.

But then they just kind of slapped on a happy ending for that.

And then they're just like,

We're not going to explore it.

We're not going to have any sort of.

.

.

Yeah,

It was left half developed.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But I think that happens a lot with Meg's character.

In the beginning,

I liked that they were trying to do something.

They ended up not really properly dealing with her in the way that I was like.

Because first of all,

Emma Watson,

As we've discussed,

Can't carry off that kind of quiet strength that Meg has.

When you bring in something like a marital issue,

Like a series marital issue,

I don't think you should just be like,

Oh,

I'm just going to sell it.

That's it.

You didn't make the issue that way.

Yeah.

There was a version of the script,

One of the older version,

Where her meltdown was included.

But then it was added into the movie.

And I heard that was because of Emma Watson's performance and that James Norton had to carry out many of the scenes.

It goes back to the casting,

I guess.

Yeah,

I know.

I think we've discussed this before,

But I think the casting of Emma Watson is very much based on her accomplishments outside of her actual accomplishments.

Yes,

Very true.

Because she plays the same character in every film that she's in.

I do admire her as an activist.

I have not been impressed with her since Harry Potter.

Having recently watched the 2017 film,

Oh,

Not film,

Series,

Did you think they did any better with the Laurie arc?

Or no,

Because I don't think he really put in much work either.

But what did you think?

I think he was very idealized in the version,

Once again.

He's a very melancholic character there.

Laurie,

The books,

He can be very uplifting and very funny sometimes.

I guess his interactions with Amy,

They were able to build up that relationship a bit more.

Well,

They acknowledged the musical side of him.

Yeah,

That was nice.

Which is an improvement.

I think they tried to get in some of his clashes with Joe,

When their characters kind of build up to him sometimes.

I think they do a bit of that,

But when he meets up with Amy,

It's kind of like their relationship comes together,

They come together.

But we don't see Amy getting him to put his life in order.

Because I feel,

Again,

That is such an important part of their story.

I think that Amy is the one who can get him to be a productive person.

Yeah,

Amy's portrayal in the series,

It's a real villainization.

It was once again putting Amy against Joe.

For once they adapted my favorite chapter,

Which is calls.

Amy gets to go to Europe and Joe doesn't get to go to Europe.

Because Joe is actually really rude towards Aunt Marge.

Yeah,

Absolutely.

And in that particular version,

It was framed so that we should admire Joe for being rude to Aunt Marge.

And Joe is like a feminist hero because of that.

And then Amy actually,

She's quite happy that Joe doesn't get to go.

But then in the book,

It's the opposite.

Amy's really horrified by Joe's actions and she feels ashamed by it.

It's not something that she's secretly glad about.

And then when she finds out that she's chosen and Joe is not chosen,

She's really sad for Joe.

She really feels bad for her.

I think 2019 film had that part done much better.

Yeah,

So with the Jill and Amy rivalry,

The problems I had with 2017,

I had similar issues with 2019.

Where I felt like Amy and Joe were somehow in competition over Marge,

Which I don't like that dichotomy.

And that doesn't happen in the book because Joe never wants to be with Laurie romantically.

She's very clear about it since the beginning.

Yeah.

The only reason she would ever consider accepting Laurie is if Laurie accepted her again and just because she was lonely.

That was literally the only reason.

I think in 2017,

When I told her,

Joe was just like,

She's engaged to Laurie?

What?

I was like,

No,

They're not supposed to be in competition over this guy.

Amy expects that,

But not how it works.

It really has to do a lot with the script writer and how they feel about the characters.

Because I read an interview from Heidi Thomas who wrote that show and she was not a big fan of Amy.

So you can really see how that reflects in the film.

Like Joe doesn't really have an arc and Amy doesn't really have an arc.

It's all just a mess.

I did feel some of the weaknesses in the writing.

I don't know if the issue is that actress would please Joe,

But sometimes she can't always pass off Joe's lines in a believable way.

I liked other aspects of that series.

At the Civil War,

They included a lot of elements of that which I appreciated.

There's a lot more of Marmee and their father.

That was something that I really liked about it.

They developed the characters a bit more.

It was a new take,

So it's refreshing.

I think I'm always a fan of a strong Marmee.

Marmee has to deal with so much.

She has to mother the four girls.

She's kind of a secondary mother to Laurie.

She actually has to give him a dressing down at some point.

She has to run a household that's financially struggling.

You need a very substantial Marmee.

I love what they did with her in that miniseries.

That's an issue I had with her in 2019.

She's so overly happy about everything.

It was a bit strange.

They didn't really put that much effort to show the struggles that they were going on.

The opening of the film was a quote from Louise.

I write happy stories because of my tragic life.

You don't really see any of that tragic life in there.

That was something that bothered me.

You see that in Little Women in the book itself.

The whole point of Little Women was people getting over their struggles and to find the happiness despite the unhappiness.

That's why I don't like the framing device of the 2019 film.

The childhood was so simple and warm and happy and now this dark time was an adult that was so complicated.

I'm just like,

No,

It was more that happy even when they were kids.

They were poor and they had to struggle.

They had to work really hard from a young age.

It was not that simple.

It's very pessimistic too because the whole point is that you're supposed to build up into adulthood and find your happiness there as well.

That thematic bent on it.

I did not agree with it at all.

When it comes to Amy's character and her relationship with Laurie,

The dilemma against Amy's character is that some people say she's really vain or she marries for money.

But then if you actually read the book,

She says that she wants to marry this.

.

.

What's the name of the rich guy she was dating?

Fred Wong.

Fred Wong because she wants to provide a good life for her family.

So she's basically thinking it's some kind of a sacrifice that she must make that she's not going to marry for love but marry convenience.

I don't think she loves the idea of marrying for money.

She always has her family nearby.

I think the book burning incident sets a lot of people at that time.

I think that incident always makes Amy seem like an anti-dome in a way.

But she's also a kid at that point.

And later on we're supposed to see her become this really mature person and eventually is able to set the guy she marries straight.

And eventually she does marry for love even if it works out really well for her.

Yeah,

She's an incredibly mature character.

She has a sense of social grace.

She actually really cares about Joe.

No,

She doesn't.

And the 2019 film really keeps setting up Amy and Joe even in terms of their artistic pursuits.

You notice that?

Like being like,

Oh,

I'm always in the shadow of Joe.

Implying that even artistically she's always in competition with her.

If you read the first part of Little Woman before the whole book burning accident,

Joe is really making fun of Amy constantly and she's bullying her.

There's this whole episode how she's being mean,

Mean big sister.

It's pretty normal when it comes to siblings that you fight with them,

Especially when you're younger.

And they both have high tempers.

But it's when Amy wants to become a lady,

She starts to work on her flaws.

She starts to control herself.

Like she sees that she can be better.

And then the whole promise of Little Woman is that all the sisters,

They want to improve themselves somehow.

Like we Joe her because this shoe is her anger and she's very aware of that.

And Amy thinks that it's her vanity that is the problem.

If you actually read the book,

She's not really a vain person.

It's like it's in her head.

That's the whole idea.

The vanity is more about her desire to fit in certain circles of society.

They are a very poor family.

And then Meg has the same problem that she wants to fit to the society,

The world of the young girls.

Then she thinks it's a pain for her wanting to do that because she comes from a different social class.

But the Marches,

They used to be part of a higher social class and then they fall down.

Then Meg is the one who still remembers what it was like.

It really hits harder for her because she remembers the days when her family was still feeling comfortably.

It's not wrong for her wanting to be that again.

But she kind of makes it a big deal for herself and that's quite sad.

I think it also has a lot to do with the 19th century Christian morals and all that.

So we can't really fully understand that because we live in 2020.

Yeah,

Well it's hard for us now to really identify with that really Christian perspective that the novel really has.

Because when I read it this time around,

I'm like wow,

There's a lot of Christianity in this book.

They structured their entire lives around these ideals.

Of course I can understand why they would try and tone it down in adaptations.

But I'm not really a fan of how they totally washed that out because that played such a big part in how they do their labor in life.

Yeah,

And it also explains a lot of the things that people struggle nowadays to understand in Little Women.

It would be important to talk about it more.

I think so.

I think the Christianity,

Transcendentalism aspect of the story is very important.

And I like that the 1994 film actually acknowledged that.

That's one of my favorite things about that film.

They've got a lot of nice historical context in that film and the philosophical discussion.

I love it.

But definitely Christianity is such a huge thing.

And why Little Women is also such a fundamentally American novel is that ideal of you work hard and then things can be okay.

Yeah,

That's a very important part of American literature in general.

You can really understand our current ideals about personal responsibility,

Personal improvement when you really delve into this book.

And it plays out with all of the characters about being able to grow up and become productive and give back.

I think people are always so upset about Jo not becoming a famous writer.

It's like,

Well,

She finds Joanna being productive.

And she does become a famous writer,

But people just don't read sequels.

Like she's really famous in Jo's voice.

Like she's so famous,

She's really annoyed by her fame.

When do we get Jo's voice adapted?

I confess to not reading Jo's voice,

But I have read a lot of summaries of those books.

And people are like,

Oh,

She doesn't become famous.

I'm like,

She does become famous.

The clue is a long time to become a famous writer.

It's the same with Jo.

It doesn't happen in one night.

It takes work.

Yeah,

It does.

Art is work.

Jo had to go through a lot of failures and pain failures and want to get to that point.

Art is hard.

No,

That's right,

Jo.

I feel like we're very important to Jo's discussion now.

Okay,

Back to Laurie.

Back to Laurie,

Yeah.

In the book,

When he's in Vienna,

He really goes through that process of self discovery and self growth and self understanding.

I have this thing when I read Little Woman,

I always get really frustrated by Laurie because I don't understand his character,

His actions.

And it's not until there's that chapter when he's in Vienna,

I start to understand who he actually is.

It's really interesting.

And it happens after Amy's lecture.

She's the first one he actually listens.

And I think the difference between Amy and Jo is that Laurie took Jo for granted.

He doesn't take Amy for granted.

I don't think Laurie was even in love with Jo.

He was in love with the idea of being in love.

Yeah.

He was afraid to grow as a person.

So he's like clinging on to Jo so that he doesn't need to grow and he doesn't need to take responsibility of his life.

Amy actually tells Laurie the truth.

This is the way it is and you need to do something about it.

In a way,

Amy's character is similar to Fredrik in that sense.

Fredrik tells Jo the truth.

You know,

This is the way it is.

You can improve yourself or you can stay at the same level you have been.

This is what is missing in the adaptations,

That whole sequence of Laurie in Vienna and the way he actually decides to be useful for the society.

Do a favour for himself.

And he's like 24 at that point or something.

He's been living this bubble most of his life.

This very privileged,

Young aristocrat life.

I just love seeing where Amy and Laurie are,

You know,

Rowing the boat together and that's never been that bad either.

I feel like it's so important to this story because I think,

You know,

Lots of young people could probably identify with him now.

Because I think a lot of people come from that kind of privileged circle and they kind of have these dreams that brought me to love my briskest parts.

I'm just like,

Oh,

I'm just going to be an artist,

You know?

I'm just going to be like,

You know,

This kind of have this bohemian life.

And then it's like,

Oh,

Well,

I didn't really,

Like,

Contribute anything.

These are all just fantasy and actually just going to get to work now.

It's funny in our culture because I don't know if I'm wrong but I feel like a lot of us really want that idea of like,

Oh,

No,

Be an artist.

Follow your dreams.

For some people it's really tough and what they really need to do is just get a job.

He doesn't really know even how to be an artist because he hasn't really done that,

You know,

That working process that it takes to get into that level that he wants to be.

He hasn't worked on his art the same way even Jo has.

Because Jo gets that it's work.

It's the same with Amy when she comes to the realization that she's not going to be a great artist.

She continues doing art but then at the same time she combines that with her other passions like charity work and supporting young artists.

She just finds a different way to approach her passions.

Yeah,

I found out,

Like a recent YouTuber who reviewed the new film was like,

Oh,

I didn't like that in the book but everyone is just married.

And I'm like,

Well,

No,

Married is just a reality.

I'm not married at the exclusion of everything else.

I mean,

Sometimes it's just a reality for people.

Sometimes they can't make it and so sometimes they need to channel their passions in different ways.

That's a reality of life.

And that's what the Yeah.

That's what I like about Little Woman is that you can have it all.

You can have the good career and you can have a relationship with the person that respects you.

It's just a win-win situation really.

I cannot for the like of me understand why people find that unsatisfactory.

It's even a promise for people who don't even feel like they could find someone that they could marry.

It's like,

Well,

You know,

Even if you feel that you couldn't be with anyone,

Then you could find somebody.

It's something that I don't think the 2015 film really understood.

I think they really wanted to push that whole independent woman narrative.

And I just really don't like what that film seems to misunderstand about that book.

They at least did a nice job with Amy and her speech about marriage being an economic proposition.

I think that's a pretty good scene actually.

It's a scene I didn't have.

Yeah.

And in the 19th century,

It was an economical proposition.

What's really interesting when I did my research on Louisa,

Especially on Freibich's character,

Was that she was part of the movement where it became more important that love and romance was part of marriage and not just money.

That is something that Louisa is promoting in all of her novels.

I think that's something that people,

They are not aware these days.

We don't like to bother ourselves with the historical facts about the authors.

There's lots of misunderstandings about Louisa as a person that are reflected in the way we read Little Women.

It's been really interesting to do research about her.

Yeah,

Yeah.

She is a real feminist in a lot of ways.

And I see people have these really contradictory ideas about her.

And I don't know it's because Little Women has been around so long that our interpretations are kind of changeable in a lot of ways.

Because we are like,

Oh she was a feminist.

I think they kind of understand that but then they are like,

Oh no,

Louisa would have been on board with these other notions now.

It's like she didn't really want marriage.

She was forced into it or she forced her characters into it.

They want to force Little Women to kind of conform to their own modern narrative when you really cannot do that.

Yeah,

Yeah.

You have no problem with your adaptation if you do that.

This idea of Louisa being forced to marry her characters,

It's really the opposite.

She puts a lot of work on explaining why these marriages work and why it should be this way.

Those relationships,

Because it's not really about romance or marriage,

It's about build up how to get there.

And these character arcs,

They are really beautifully crafted in the book.

And the way these characters,

They complement each other really well.

And it's really the same in all of her novels.

I've been reading quite many of Louisa's novels recently and Louisa is really surprised how she does that.

It's something that she's really into.

Joe's story ultimately really doesn't work.

I mean,

None of them really work essentially with their partnerships,

Not because they're nothing without their partnerships,

But because being able to share a life with somebody,

I think she saw as being able to achieve harmony in your life,

Being able to form your own circle,

Your own family.

And in many ways that fits with the transcendentalist idea of romance.

Yes.

And there's this quote from Louisa,

Not quote,

But something that she had highlighted in one of her books,

How the character evolves.

She's very fond of this idea that a person transcends to another person.

It's also a very Christian idea.

You form a union with the person that you marry.

It's not that you are not your own person,

It's just that you build something better with another person that is bigger than both of you.

I think that was something that was a very radical idea in the 19th century.

And nowadays we take that for granted.

It's a real shame that so much of Little Women has been warped over time by our modernizing world.

Like I said before,

We seem to have the desire to pull Little Women into our modern world and our modern ideals when really we're just distorting the work.

It makes difficult to understand Little Women if we don't know the historical context of it.

That's very true.

I really admire adaptations that try to put the story in its historical context.

I think that context is everything.

You might have heard me criticize the costuming in the new film for instance.

They're like,

We're trying to make it pseudo-modern and we're trying to make it relatable.

We're trying to do this and that to make it more relatable for the audience.

Are you saying that you need to strip away that context in order to make it relatable?

Are you saying we can't relate to the civil war or anything in that era?

Is that what you're saying?

That seems very condescending.

Yeah,

It takes away from the story itself when we are being distracted by the modernism in a way,

Or post-modernism in this case,

Or the post-modern ideas which are not part of the story itself.

We touched a bit already on Amy's rivalry with Joe.

You felt that they had a kind of a villainization of Amy in the 2017 show.

They kind of expanded on her character a bit more in 2019.

How do you feel about how they expanded on Amy's character and that rivalry?

Because I think they really leaned into it.

Remember when Joe was flashing back to Amy falling in the lake and she burned the book.

Amy finds a way to get out of an easy situation,

Get out of a hard situation.

It took me a backward because I was like,

No,

She just had,

She was called onto a train in an ant march,

She was travelling with an ant march and in that other situation I'd say she was very ashamed of what she did and she almost died.

I don't understand where you're coming from when you say she gets out of situations like Scott Freight.

That's a really weird way to look at Amy.

In the book she feels humiliation,

She really regrets of the things that she does.

Joe also regrets the things that she has said to Amy.

Joe also regrets some of her behaviour patterns.

I think that 2019 film did okay.

In that sense it showed that Joe and Amy were sides of the same coin.

They are very similar and when they realise that they are actually very similar they become much closer.

That's an improvement when it comes to Joe and Amy and understanding their relationship.

One of the biggest problems in the adaptation is really idolising Joe a lot and not really seeing her as a full character.

Really as a human being actually does regret sometimes the things that she says and things that she does.

She's very flawed.

Yeah,

She's very aware that she's flawed.

We live in this culture where we are supposed to idealise people who are adamant and don't want to change or are rude or aggressive.

That's just not the way Little Woman is written to be.

Joe sees that her actions are harming other people and that's one of the reasons why she doesn't want to be with Laurie or hang out with him in the second part because she sees that they are feeding each other with these toxic ideas.

I don't know how much young adult fiction you read but I think a lot of.

.

.

It's a common trend that you have this female protagonist.

You can even see that in Star Wars.

You have this female character who can do no wrong,

Who is very spooky and very.

.

.

And can mess off and we're supposed to admire that.

And I think our culture has become a bit averse to what we were trying to get at in Little Woman which is that Joe is supposed to soften out.

She's supposed to not harm people with her behaviour.

And it's a good thing for her because she becomes a more compassionate person.

That's what becoming more tender means.

That's how her father puts it.

She does become a more tender person because she is just a more compassionate individual.

And that's also what happens with Amy as well.

She also wants to be a productive person.

She also gets to understand that all these things you get in life,

You have to work for them as well.

She's a very kind person.

I really like that in the books.

She cares about other people.

I think Amy was really the one in the family who really loved Aunt March.

They really ruined Aunt March for me,

The 2019 adaptation,

Because she was way too kind in it.

It's really Amy who actually makes her a bit softer in the book.

Mary Streep is great,

Don't get me wrong,

But Aunt March is a tough person to get along with.

She's lived alone for a while,

Her husband died,

She's gotten a little bit bitter over the years,

You can't really blame her.

And Joe is just like,

I'm so done with this game,

I'm going to read it to this lady.

I think Amy is the only one who is really able to properly connect to Aunt March.

Because Aunt March in her heart,

She loves these girls.

She loves her nephew as well,

But she's not impressed by his way of being.

Sometimes when she's like,

You made these awful decisions,

I can't believe it.

Sometimes I feel that way about other people in my life.

I can't believe you did this in your life.

What are you doing?

She's quite relatable in the end.

Yeah,

She is relatable.

Is that what adulthood is,

Like eventually relating to Aunt March?

The part of her losing her child,

I didn't realize that until last time I read the book.

Somehow it had slipped off.

I had a talk about it in Luisa May Alcott group in Facebook with some people.

We were all thinking,

What was the back story of Aunt March and this child and her husband?

That would make a really interesting story for someone to write.

It seems that they had a very loving relationship with the book.

It must have made her bitter to lose it.

Somebody writes an Aunt March book.

She's the sort of person,

You need to come to her level.

When you do,

She'll be nice to you.

She will do things for you.

Only Amy is capable of doing that.

She doesn't even take Aunt March's belongings for a gift.

Aunt March gives her a turquoise ring.

She's like,

I'm not going to always wear it.

It wasn't just for the material possessions that I worked hard.

I think they wasted Meryl Streep in 2019.

They did not do enough with her at all.

I think her job was to be like,

Well,

As a woman,

You're supposed to have Meryl and that was it.

That was her character.

There's a lot more dimensionality to her.

I like it.

I like it in other adaptations to add that on.

I love her in the 1994 film.

She's one of my favorite characters.

Very much like in the book.

You have to have that element of toughness and that nuance of uniqueness as well.

I love Angela Lansbury as her in the 2017 film.

She was very good.

I like the way that version developed her relationship with Jo.

It didn't really do that well with Amy that much.

There's always something that seems to be missing.

It's so hard to adapt.

There are elements that I like in all adaptations and there are things that I don't like in all the adaptations.

I'm so critical of 2019.

There are things I like in it.

People like comments on my video.

They're like,

You didn't know why you wanted to do this.

I did like this aspect of the film.

I didn't like these 10 other things.

We're talking about a book that was written 150 years ago.

We are allowed to be critical about the adaptations and we are allowed to talk about the things that are missing there like Larry's are.

Things don't move forward if we don't talk about these things and the way we approach the book.

I'm not sure why I didn't like it until I saw your video.

So many people were so up in arms against me when I criticized it.

I'm just like,

If you're really that upset with me,

Then go find these other people to talk to.

I appreciate it when people talk about aspects of the 1984 film that don't work as well.

I also acknowledge there are some things that you're adapting a 500 plus page book,

You're not going to get it.

I get that Laurie in a relationship isn't that developed and I would have liked it if Meg had more screen time after she got married.

I do appreciate those things.

Laurie is connected to all of this.

When I started doing my research on Laurie's character specifically,

I began to understand him better when I started to pay more attention to the way he has this emotional turmoil because when I was younger,

I used to be very much the same.

I wish that we would see that more in the adaptations because that's the part that is always missing and people misunderstand it because they see it as something romantic.

We don't see Laurie's struggles.

It's really a creep sometimes.

If we would see that we wouldn't have team Bear,

Team Laurie debate,

Especially if you are hardcore team Bear like you and I are.

And then if you really like Amy as well,

Then you actually have read the book many,

Many,

Many times.

It just puzzles my mind how people can misunderstand the book so horribly.

Because I feel like even fans of the book who have also read it many times still have this view on Laurie and these characters which really still feels like such a surface level interpretation of the book.

It feels like they haven't really paid that much attention to what they have read.

That's all in the book and they don't seem to understand it.

So that's one of the reasons why I wanted to do an in-depth study on Laurie and Frederick as well.

It really surprised me that it was really difficult to find any kind of unbiased views on Laurie that were about Joe or Amy but about Laurie himself as a character and his actions and his behaviour.

In a sense we are kind of no better than when people first read Goethe.

People just kind of looked at Goethe and were like oh my god we should all die of suicide from love.

And I think Goethe would have just been like no don't do that.

This is not good.

Yeah he was criticising himself and his own behaviour as a young person.

For those of you who are new here,

Louisa based Laurie's character arc to young Goethe which is Goethe's book from the 18th century Germany.

It's a little side note.

And critic is based on Goethe on one level but we will get into that.

Yeah in the other video.

I read Goethe in German.

It's a lovely read but you also kind of see some of the ridiculousness of that kind of romantic vision because he really relates to these big storms right?

These thunderstorms that signify these emotional events.

That book really makes fun of that.

People at the time didn't get that and people also don't seem to get that now.

It's very harmful when suicide is being romanticised in general.

Trying to blackmail someone for romantic reasons.

That's really really harmful and it's something that's still not recognised fully enough.

Like I said before,

If we're criticising that behaviour in books now,

In fiction that is coming out now,

Then why can't we change the way that we see his character?

I wonder if people kind of decide how they see him because of the films?

I've been thinking about the films,

They tend to include the same scenes.

Then there are those scenes that are being dismissed.

With Laurie he's idealised and romanticised and his thoughts are downgraded and with Amy it is the opposite.

So which is why so many people get angry when they get together.

You're missing all of that nice context.

I think really Little Women needs a proper show,

Not even just a miniseries,

Maybe even a show.

Otherwise you don't pick up on all these really great scenes that add dimension to these characters.

I really liked that exploration you did based on the character of the kids.

I hadn't really seen that character that way before.

More discussions likely need to happen.

I just love this,

It's great.

Yeah,

I'm having a lot of fun.

The next people who are going to adapt Little Women have a good listen on these talks that we are having.

I hope so.

Yeah,

Definitely.

Both me and Emily are definitely available to be consultants on these matters and we know people who can help you more.

Yay!

Yeah,

Hollywood needs to hit us up.

So that's our discussion on Laurie and Amy,

Also on different films as well.

Of course we went on different tangents about different characters of course because all of these themes are connected.

We hope you enjoyed our discussion of Laurie.

Thank you for listening guys.

Thank you.