Oh but the Yanks might not like it
Facebook told me Meryl Streep and the Pankhurst slogan is trending, so I took a look at the trending…and was embarrassed. It’s so creepily and narcissistically US-centric that it makes me cringe. Apparently everyone everywhere is supposed to be alert to what Americans Might Think About This and act accordingly. And that’s supposed to be a progressive view? Please.
This piece by Yohana Desta at Mashable for instance –
Some quotes are timeless. Others are ill-timed.
The hive mind behind the film Suffragette, a biopic about the women’s suffrage movement in England, is learning that lesson the hard way after a recent gaffe that shows the film’s stars wearing shirts with an ill-advised quote spoken by suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst in 1913. Meryl Streep plays Pankhurst in the film.
Cringe. It wasn’t an ill-advised quote for Pankhurst! And the film is about Pankhurst, and her context. It’s not about Americans and their contemporary context.
In a photo shoot for Time Out London, Streep, Carey Mulligan, Anne-Marie Duff and Romola Garai all sported shirts with the quote: “I’d rather be a rebel than a slave.”
…
While it’s safe to assume that British activist Pankhurst didn’t mean to evoke the American Confederacy —which adopted “rebel” as its descriptor of choice — her quote has unfortunate implications when read by U.S. audiences. It may have made sense in 1913, but that phrasing has a different connotation in 21st century America — and the quote also reads as though its speaker is implying that being a “slave” is somehow a choice.
So what? The movie is not about 21st century America, Time Out is not an American magazine – why is the whole world expected to worry about what the connotation might be in the 21st century United States? The US is just one country, it doesn’t get to veto what other countries say about their own history. Fucking hell – this is “social justice” as sheer narcissism.
To be fair, the film is thoroughly British and is catering to its home-turf audience; that may be why the quote didn’t initially raise any eyebrows across the pond. Still, it’s hard not to cringe when you see it splashed onto a shirt worn by arguably the most famous actress alive.
Not at all. On the contrary. The slogan resonates with other, similar slogans, such as La Pasionaria’s “It’s better to die on your feet than live on your knees.” It doesn’t even slightly suggest “the Confederacy.” The word “rebel” does not suggest that to the rest of the world, and it’s incredibly US-centric to assume that it does and should.
In an era where celebrities are quickly being called out every time they put their feet in their mouths (Matt Damon, for example), someone should have thought twice about that particular quote being singled out and emblazoned on a magazine cover.
Bullshit. It’s none of our business. In fact now I feel peeved that they didn’t get a UK actor to play Emmeline Pankhurst. Francesca Annis? Helen Mirren? Penelope Wilton?
It’s appropriation, that’s what it is.
Let me put forward an hypothesis.
When Emmeline Pankhurst originally said that phrase slavery had been ruled illegal in the UK over a century before and the US Civil War had been over for nearly fifty years. So it’s not unreasonable that she could use either term, literally or figuratively, as she chose, rebel to mean a wish to change the system under which she lived (check) and slave to mean being someone without civil and legal rights (check).
So it may be that the only people taking offence are those who have failed successfully to address the effects of their country’s particular experience of slavery and/or those who forget that their own country exists because of an armed rebellion against their de facto rulers. No?
I’m a bit amused, honestly…
It’s just so hilariously American. What, there are people on this universe who do not dwell endlessly upon our civil war? Is that even allowed?
I did live a few years in the US. I was a bit struck at the time by the ubiquity of the monuments. Seriously, when you people do Rorschach blots, do you have to do twice as many, just to get around the dozen or so that always come out ‘the civil war’?
Grr. On. In. Whatever.
Christ on an American saltine. The USers can be such solipsistic egotists the mind reels. I grew up there and spent most of my life there, but when I read “I’d rather be a rebel than a slave.” it didn’t even occur to me to think about the Confederacy. I can’t imagine how steeped in the culture, and how unaware, you have to be to make that mistake. But I guess there are thousands of twitsters who are.
you’re still a racist bint
And a dishonest one at that. Pankhurst knew exactly what she was saying and no the context was no different to the UK then as it is to the either the US or UK now. Pankhurst and her contemporaries did nothing to hide their racism. It’s why many suffragettes argued giving white women the vote would secure continued white dominance over black voters.
So the rebels in,e.g., Star Wars are actually symbolizing the confederation and emperor Palpatine is then standing for Lincoln?
Or is the word rebel only taboo if you use it together with “slave”?
A good point Sonderval.
It probably explains the poor showing be Jabba’s thugs during Leila’s rescue. They were obviously confused by which side was which when the rebels were trying to free a slave.
A question to the Americans here.
When I started reading Ophelia’s last post on this topic, with the quote “I’d rather be a rebel than a slave” almost at the beginning, I had no idea – not even a trace of an initial guess – what it’s going to be about, why the horror. No associations with the Confederacy sprang to my mind (more with our national anti-Russian uprisings); no immediate association with black slaves either (Spartacus, if anything).
But I’m not American. And my question to the Americans is: when you read something like that, are the Confederacy and the black slaves really your immediate associations? Quixote above gave a partial “no” answer, but maybe quixote is not typical?
Just to explain: I can see nothing wrong with the ‘yes’ answer. Some associations – including my own – are culturally ingrained and that’s it. I’m simply curious. Alright, one further motivation behind my question is that I started wondering whether all of this was not actually provoked by Streep’s refusal to describe herself as a feminist. Do you think it was a factor or not?
It’s not just that, either. It seems whenever the issue of witch trials come up, we are supposed to think about Salem (which had a small witch hunt toward the tail end of the much larger European witch hunts). It seems for every book about the much larger, more extensive witch hunts you find, there are at least a dozen about the small, late one in what was then a rather obscure part of the globe.
Ariel – No. I did not see that association. Typically when people here think of slave, I do think they think of black slaves in the South, but I for one see it as a broader term, with a lot longer implication and a lot more global spread than that. I saw the quote (before Ophelia explained how I’m SUPPOSED to see it) as saying what I believe – I would rather stand up against the crowd than be forced to submit to another’s will without my consent and not necessarily in my best interest.
The current trending idea is that Pankhurst was a, wait for it, racist! I mean, a white, middle-class woman from England in the late 19th/early 20th century was racist/said racist things?! Shut the front door! I’m gobsmacked.
Sigh. By our estimation, a lot of historical characters were racist. Hell, a lot of contemporary characters are racist, but I digress. Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, was a supporter of eugenics and racist. Google her. It’s the second hit you’ll get after her Wiki page. Who is surprised by that? Only people that don’t study history. But what are we going to do about it? We can stop using birth control and shutter Planned Parenthood or we can grow the fuck up and realize that very imperfect people can still have a positive net effect on the world and history (see also, Lincoln).
If we are going to reject every thing in history that is problematic, we’ll be left with nothing to stand on.
I’ve also read complaints that the movie failed to include the stories of women of colour but we are talking about a British story, not an American story. This movement and this story is about white women in a country that had a racially-visible population of approximately 2% at the time. The story of the suffrage movement in Britain is the story of white women. That this movie depicts women of different classes, working together to achieve the franchise is both accurate and encouraging. It’s a level of accuracy that is rarely depicted.
Now, I agree that there should be stories told about the experiences of women of colour. In particular, I’d like to see stories about the indigenous women of British colonies or the descendants of slaves transported to the Caribbean to work British, Dutch and French-owned plantations and the role of race and gender in their oppression. But that’s not this story. And, frankly, this story hasn’t even been told yet and it’s already being decried as “white-washing” history when it’s actually a more accurate depiction than the critics are calling for.
That. What iknlast said. I would see it as one more variation on a theme that goes back before the inventions of writing.
I say “would” because in this case I saw the fuss before I saw the T shirt, so I can’t say I did see it that way.
Also, I don’t buy the claim that “rebel”=the secessionist slave South, to all USians. Rebel Without a Cause, anyone? We do use both the noun and the verb in other contexts. In fact the Civil War usage seems pretty old-fashioned to me – both hokey and politically obnoxious. It’s a glory-word; it’s akin to the Confederate flag; it’s not a universal US word for Confederate (i.e. de facto pro-slavery) soldier.
It doesn’t matter what the slogan really meant, or its historical context, or anything else.
ONE, self appointed idiot made a free-association that reminded THEM of the Confederacy and American trans-Atlantic slavery. Once the pin has been pulled on that emotional hand-grenade, facts, meanings, truth, etc. are completely irrelevant.
‘I has a bad FEEEEELING! Make it go away!’
The purity police are banging on their highchairs one more time.
oh jeebusfuckonapogogstick, not the old claim that Sanger was racist. horseshit. And one of the premier figures of the British suffragette movement was non-white, and a close friend of Pankhurst. Much like the charge that Darwin was racist, gleaned from Creationist sites, these slanders are gleaned from anti-choice sites. In the context of the times, they were not racist.
I have to wonder how the people who feel free to be offended by their (mis-)interpretations of such statements distinguish their position from those who assert that statements that insult religion are unacceptable? Or perhaps they are themselves in favour of blasphemy laws?
At least some of them are, yes. In among Jason Thibeault’s verbose and disorganized rants against me (which were too verbose and disorganized for me to read all the way through) there was something about my wicked attitude to “the evil Muslims.” That was startling. I’d never had any clue he thought that. Not when I suggested we invite Maryam to join Freethought blogs, not when I suggested we invite Taslima, not when I suggested we invite Kaveh…
So the short of it is they demonise the “rebel” and think they’re revolutionaries.
Dunno if I’m reading too much into it (and haven’t read that much, yet, dunno if I’ve the stomach today), but I really think I’m getting a ‘oh, as if Streep of all people is really oppressed…’ vibe off some of this too…
Hope it’s not another subject/hope I’m not derailing, but I’m reminded again of certain not-at-all-closeted reactionaries grunting, dismissively, ‘silk stocking socialist’ at anyone at all wealthy who argues for anything at all progressive. As in: once the problem is not yours, personally, you have no business advocating for it at all…
Which seems to me to get to be a bit of Catch-22, coupled with Dear Muslima/only the most oppressed may complain. As, presumably, sure, there must be a most oppressed person on the planet, somewhere, who is presently allowed to speak (and they, and they only), but as they’re presumably semi-dismembered and in a prison or torture chamber somewhere, their speaking entirely for themselves may be a bit impractical.
No. Not at all.
If you ask me to free associate to the word “slave,” all by itself, the first image to come to my mind will probably be an African American slave in the antebellum South. Probably. But classical slavery–vague images of the slaves of the Greeks and Romans, jumbled together because my knowledge of ancient history is spotty, will also likely come to mind.
But that phrase? No, it didn’t even occur to me. And I never would have associated the word “rebel” in that quote with the Confederacy.
@SamBarge, there is a lot of nonsense being peddled around about Margaret Sanger. Don’t believe everything you find on the Google.
http://www.politifact.com/georgia/statements/2011/apr/08/herman-cain/cain-claims-planned-parenthood-founded-planned-gen/
A. J. Milne – I think that’s what’s happening. It’s a great way to shut up people saying uncomfortable things like, hey, Dawkins, you might have just a bit of privilege there, what? They read that as someone saying they don’t deserve to be where they are, and denying that they worked to get there, not understanding that it means they worked to get there, and other people worked harder to get to a point somewhere below where they got because they were held back. We’re not saying these people aren’t capable and contributing worthwhile things, but only that other people might be equally capable and contribute equally worthwhile things, but haven’t been allowed to.
As for Streep, she is one of the few women her age that is still known in Hollywood. There are very few meaty parts for older women and she gets most of them. Why is Streep favored over other actresses also very talented that couldn’t get parts after they lost their ingenue status? That may not actually have an answer; it may be luck, it may be hard work, it may be some sort of favoritism, but we don’t know. Still, it is hard for me to consider someone too privileged when they are in a field like that where it takes a woman so much just to keep her job, and continue working into middle age and beyond. So if people are implying that she has no idea about oppressed, I think I would disagree totally, even if she isn’t oppressed in the traditional form of the word.
I noticed Ophelia’s use of thethe term “USians”, I’m registering a protest against the term “American” for citizens of the US, it’s obviously cultural appropriation, not all Americans are from the US.
Some Americans become indignant when they’re referred to as ‘Yanks”, we foreigners don’t care whether it’s a ‘correct’ use of the term or not.
It’s also ahistorical to project the values and mores of 2015 onto past generations and naturally to find our ancestors deficient in many ways, future generations will see us in much the same way. So, by modern standards, some or all of the Suffragettes were racists, I’ll bet many of the abolitionists were as well,
Middle Kingdom USA.
@RJW #22:
Back before the turn of the century, when I was a Canadian university student in New England I had an agreement with a friend from North Carolina: I wouldn’t call him a Yank (which to me meant any American) and he wouldn’t call me a Yank (which to him meant anyone who was born north of the Mason-Dixon line).
There is slavery in the bible ffs, taking slave to necessarily mean US (i.e. black) slaves is … appropriation. As for rebel (re against + bellare to wage war) where do the complainers think it comes from? More and more, I’m coming to agree with Jimmy Carr (!) that offence is taken and not given.
Ré Streep: UK filmmakers like using at least one big-name US actor, with an eye to the much bigger US market.
@AJ Milne @18: There / they’re / their in one sentence and all of them used correctly: it almost made me cry. And I do feel for that single most oppressed person.
For Emmeline Pankhurst, in 1913 (ill from repeated imprisonment-hunger strike-release on licence-rearrest under the Cat and Mouse Act), slavery would likely be more associated with the then ongoing campaign against what was then known as the “white slave trade” (i.e forced prostitution), than anything to do with the US civil war. I think the same connotations would have been uppermost in the minds of her audience too.
Now now. Is it not an article of faith among the devotees of identity politics that it is the prerogative of the offence-taker to decide whether something is offensive, regardless of intent or context? Get with the programme, people! Or should I say, “program”…
Lady Mondegreen @ #20
I was a bit flippant in my post. Sanger is called racist for espousing (and I assume holding) beliefs that would be considered racist by 21st century standards. She supported eugenics and controlling the number of children born to poor (often racially-visible) women as a social good.
I have actually read a great deal about the history of eugnenics in Canada and the US. I understand its context and development. I also grasp 2 important things that a lot of people forget:
1. Practically everyone ascribed to eugenics at the time. It was a progressive position. Some conservative supported and those that didn’t withheld support for religious reasons (babies for God!) or because they didn’t want their money going to controlling births/maternal health of poor people. It wasn’t concern for the freedom and humanity of poor or racially-visible women. But modern day conservatives love to point out that your progressive heroes of the past all supported eugenics. Yeah. Well, almost everyone supported eugenics until we saw what state-sponsored eugenics looked like in WWII Germany. People forget that individual human rights weren’t a universal concept for much of the 20th century.
2. Eugenics is still with us. You still see it all the time. The continued insistence that the human race is “dumbing down” or “devolving” because women with university degrees (dog whistle: white, middle-class) aren’t having enough babies but uneducated women (dog whistle: black, Hispanic, poor) are. That’s eugenics, pure and simple. And it still resonates with people. Is it a bastardization of Darwin’s theories? Sure it is. Most people don’t actually understand evolutionary theory though.