The Lumberjanes focus on issues of gender
identity. Throughout the series the characters, a groups of five girls and
their leaders in a summer camp, buck the system when it comes to expectations
of people of a certain gender. Beyond this, the phrases, exclamations, and
framing for the stories also bucks the system.
In the first chapter of the story, the passage
I will examine for the purpose of this reflection, the action is loosely
related to Little Red Riding Hood. Instead of telling about a little girl who
is lured into the woods and eaten by a wolf and ultimately saved by a male
woodsman, the action surrounds a group of five female bunkmates who fight and
win against a group of mutant wolves. The restructuring of the story itself
fights gender norms. The girls do not shy away from the conflict, in fact they
fight when the plan was to not fight,
and they are not frightened. One of the girls says they were by the river
earlier and they left because there were many spiders. She describes the
spiders as “boring” not gross, creepy, etc.
During times of extreme emotion the girls
often use exclamations. The author of the story employs a clever device in
these moments, allowing the girls to shout “Joan Jett!” or “Oh my Bessie
Coleman” and invoking the spirits of powerful women who went against the grain
as rockstars and aviators.
The head of the camp is Rosie and she is the
incarnation of Rosie the Riveter. She wears a red bandana, she is curvy, she
has tattoos, and she does NOT condemn the curiosity of the scouts. Instead of
assuming the role of a schoolmarm or the like she listens to the campers and
wants to hear more about what they saw while explaining that the woods hold
mystery and danger of which they should be aware – and chopping a piece of wood
on her desk.
Lumberjanes has so far proven to be an
excellent read that reframes society for something more inclusive to female
readers, leaving typical male-centric language and situations behind.
Hi Alexis,
ReplyDeleteYou bring up a lot of good points in this post. I would probably recommend only focusing on one of these three main points in a post of this length, because you could really say more about all of them. The revisionist version of Red Riding Hood is so fun but also so revealing of our usual assumptions about girls' vulnerability. The nod to feminist icons, including the camp leader's evocation of Rosie the Riveter, frame the text in feminine language and references, as you aptly point out. I agree with you that the end result is a more inclusive and welcoming read for a female audience.