Bookish Women: Examining the Textual and Embodied Construction of Scholarly and Literary Women in American Musicals

BOOKISH WOMEN: EXAMINING THE TEXTUAL AND EMBODIED CONSTRUCTION OF SCHOLARLY AND LITERARY WOMEN IN AMERICAN MUSICALS

Rebecca K. Hammonds

A Dissertation

Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

August 2019

Committee:

Michael Ellison, Advisor

Andrew Pelletier Graduate Faculty Representative

Angela Ahlgren

Rebecca K. Hammonds

Michael Ellison, Advisor

Scholarly and literary women are some of the most beloved characters on the musical stage, yet the importance of these character’s intelligence and creativity has received virtually no scholarly attention. In this study I seek to understand how intelligent and creative heroines are constructed in American musicals and whether they are empowered feminist role models.

Relying on an understanding of women’s intellectual history and the slow and inconsistent growth of women’s broader acceptance as intellectual and creative experts, I strongly suggest that the reading, writing, teaching, and studying activities of bookish female characters in musicals offer us an opportunity to speak back to and re-envision our feminist and intellectual histories and oppressions. Furthermore, I argue that the musical form is uniquely suited to the representation of bookish women who empower themselves and others through their bookish activities. When bookish women are able to reveal their intellectual and creative inner life, we see more clearly how they exhibit attitudes and action whereby they claim power themselves and others.

Seven traits common in the construction of bookish women in musicals are also identified and deployed. These traits make legible the empowering use and effect of bookishness in the character’s personality and experience. These include 1) their adaptation from film and literature sources; 2) their heroine journeys of development or becoming (sometimes referred to as a bildungsroman(e); 3) their experience of marginalization in their community and/or expression of feelings of marginalization that are sometimes due to, or exacerbated by, their bookishness; 4) experience of prolonged singleness or expectations of prolonged singleness; 5) their comparison with non-bookish women; 6) their significant father/daughter relationships, iv often because of the absence of a mother; 7) and their resistance to racialized and gendered stereotypes. Using a variety of theoretical lenses, I examined the following bookish characters:

Jean Webster (Daddy Long Legs, 2015), Matilda Wormwood (Matilda 2013), Katherine

Plummer (Newsies, 2012), Elphaba (Wicked, 2004), Nina Rosario (In the Heights, 2008), Elle

Woods (Legally Blonde, 2007), and Nettie (The Color Purple, 2005). v

To my amazingly supportive friends and family vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would not be here without the support of so many people, but I will begin with my committee. My dissertation advisor, Dr. Michael Ellison, has understood me and guided my thinking and work in a way that has been both rigorous and lifegiving. His generosity of spirit has always encouraged me to think deeper and to clarify so that my voice and thoughts are communicated clearly. I am also supremely grateful for the support of Dr. Angela Ahlgren. She has served as a mentor since my first year at Bowling Green State University and I always trust her to guide my thinking about how to effectively navigate the world of academe. Dr. Cynthia

Baron, likewise, inspires my work and thinking by driving me to think specifically about how I am building my argument, and also how my research functions more broadly within my life and career. Her humility and passion have been an encouragement to me as a scholar and a teacher.

Dr. Andrew Pelletier, from the School of Music, has a blessing to me. His experience and insight into my project have been invaluable. I have enjoyed having a fourth member who can speak so specifically to my research area!

I am also extraordinarily grateful to my school and church friends here in Bowling Green,

Ohio. Dr. Quincy Thomas and Dr. Macaela Carder Whitaker have been incredible mentors as I have walked this path. My fellow graduate students showed tremendous restraint every time I would point out a connection between any subject and “bookish women.” As I wrestled with these concepts, and the construction of my argument, they have been supportive and encouraging. I am likewise appreciative of my Bowling Green Covenant Church family who have taken time to ask love me and invest in my life, providing me with a supportive family when mine lives so far away. I thank the Lord for you! vii Special thanks to Bob Maness and the California Regional Theatre community. It was there that I fell in love with musical theatre dramaturgy, and I will always be grateful for the time

I spent there. Also, to my grandparents Jack and Mitzi Hammonds and David and Shirley

Tuman: your support and encouragement over the years, and especially during my time in graduate school, have been so precious to me.

To my friend Natasha Cookman, who talked with me, read drafts, and encouraged me from so far away, thank you. Your presence in my life is beyond price.

To my parents Tom and Cindy Hammonds and my brothers Tim and Caleb Hammonds, thank you for your support and encouragement over all these years. This “bookish woman” would not be here without you. viii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

INTRODUCTION ...... 1

Special Terms and Definitions ...... 3

Bookish Women...... 3

Intertextual/Intersectional ...... 3

Empowerment Through Reading, Writing, Teaching, and Studying ...... 3

Theories and Methodologies ...... 7

Multicase Study ...... 7

Feminism and Women’s Intellectual History ...... 9

Musical Theatre ...... 12

Limitations and Parameters...... 14

Chapter Summaries ...... 15

CHAPTER I: “THE OLDEST ORPHAN IN THE JOHN GRIER HOME”: ADAPTING THE

BOOKISH WOMAN IN DADDY LONG LEGS (2015) ...... 17

Seven Common Traits...... 18

Adapted from Literature and/or Film ...... 18

Heroine Journeys ...... 19

Singleness ...... 21

Father/Daughter Relationships...... 21

Feelings of Marginalization ...... 22

Marginalized Romantic Partners ...... 23

Connections with Other Women/Girls...... 24 ix

Resisting Stereotype...... 24

Adapting Jerusha Abbott for the Musical Theatre Stage ...... 25

Jean Webster’s Novel ...... 25

John Caird and Paul Gordon’s Musical ...... 30

Adaptation ...... 30

Heroine Journey of Becoming (Bildungsromane) ...... 33

Father/Lover ...... 34

Romantic Partner ...... 37

“Like Other Girls”: More Than Just a “Spunky” and “Ambitious” Girl in a

Syrupy Romantic Comedy ...... 38

Conclusion ...... 40

CHAPTER II: “SOMETIMES YOU HAVE TO BE A LITTLE BIT NAUGHTY”:

CONSTRUCTING BOOKISH HEROINISM IN MATILDA (2013) ...... 41

A Gifted Girl ...... 41

Girls and Heroism ...... 42

Girl Studies and Using Books to Construct Gender Identity and Action ...... 42

The “Mythic Journey” Hero(ine) and the “Journey of Becoming/Development”

Hero(ine) ...... 43

Matilda Wormwood and Heroic Bookishness ...... 46

Family ...... 46

The Outcast ...... 47

Guides and Friends ...... 48

Obstacles and Enemies: Competing Femininities and Putting Things Right 51 x

Battle ...... 55

Reward ...... 57

Voice and Movement: Embodying a Bookish Heroine ...... 58

Conclusion ...... 68

CHAPTER III: “WATCH WHAT HAPPENS”: A BOOKISH FEMINIST HISTORY OF

BECOMING ...... 69

Introduction ...... 69

Disney’s Broadway Musical: Newsies (2012) ...... 70

Feminist and Bookish Woman Histories ...... 70

First Wave (1848-1920) ...... 70

Second Wave (1960-1992) ...... 73

Third Wave (1992-2008) ...... 75

Fourth Wave (2008-Present) ...... 78

Katherine Plummer: Performing Empowered and Empowering Feminism ...... 79

Constructing Katherine Through Speech and Song ...... 85

Speaking to Contemporary Women Through Scripted Accent and

Anachronistic Language ...... 85

Building Character Through Song ...... 87

Conclusion ...... 90

CHAPTER IV: MAKING GOOD AND BEING WICKED (OR IS IT THE OTHER WAY

AROUND?): SOCIAL ACTIVISM, LIMITATION, AND THE POWER OF A BOOKISH

WITCH...... 92

Introduction ...... 92

Adaptation ...... 92 xi

Heroine Journey ...... 95

Empowering Others Through Bookishness ...... 102

Father and Daughter ...... 104

“The Wizard and I” ...... 104

“I Am a Sentimental Man” ...... 106

“Defying Gravity” ...... 107

“Wonderful” ...... 109

Conclusion ...... 111

CHAPTER V: “I AM SOMEBODY”: COUNTERING STEREOTYPES AND EMBRACING

INTERSECTIONALITY AS A BOOKISH WOMAN ...... 113

Introduction ...... 113

The Intersectionality of Bookish Women as a Tool Against Stereotype ...... 113

In the Heights ...... 115

“When You’re Home”: Validation at the Intersection ...... 116

“Everything I Know”: The Bookish Woman’s Relationship with Other

Women and Knowledge ...... 119

Legally Blonde the Musical ...... 121

Performing Whiteness ...... 122

“What You Want”: Stereotypes, Labor, and Difference ...... 122

“What You Want”: Racial Stereotypes and Performing White Womanhood 123

“Blood in the Water,” “Love and War,” and “Positive”: Support, Competition,

and Fitting In ...... 125

“Chip on My Shoulder”: Friendship, Anger, and Intellectual Success...... 127 xii

Bookish Success...... 130

Emmett and Elle: Whiteness and Peer Mentorship...... 132

“Legally Blonde (Remix)”: Integrated Identity ...... 134

Is That What an Empowering Woman Looks Like? ...... 135

The Color Purple ...... 136

Resisting the Stereotypical Representations of Black Women ...... 136

Being a Black Girl Nerd in a Musical ...... 137

I Want: “Our Prayer” ...... 138

Resisting Black Stereotypes ...... 139

Teaching and Performances of Femaleness ...... 140

Nettie Joins the Refugees ...... 142

Black Girl Nerd Culture ...... 143

Performing Blackness: Education and Style Shifting ...... 144

Conclusion ...... 148

CONCLUSION ...... 149

WORKS CITED ...... 156 xiii

LIST OF FIGURES

1 Hero Journey Comparison ...... 44

2 Empowerment of Bookish Women ...... 151 xiv

LIST OF TABLES

Table Page

1 Bookish Women...... 2

2 Four Bookish Activities and Seven Common Traits ...... 6

3 Laban’s Movement Analysis ...... 62 Hammonds 1

INTRODUCTION

Musical theatre scholars have written about powerhouse belters, comic soubrettes,

queered performers, Cinderella heroines, witches, mothers, and the influence of Jewish

immigrant integration on the Broadway musical (Taylor and Symonds, Studying Musical

Theatre: Theory and Practice 140-141). In their book Studying Musical Theatre: Theory and

Practices, Millie Taylor and Dominic Symonds argue that much of America’s musical theatre canon presents women whose primary, or only power, “is the sexual power of their body” (140-

141). The spectacular nature of musical theatre as an entertainment form has largely dictated the way characters are created and performed and has guided the work of musical theatre scholars. In this study, I propose a different way of understanding some of musical theatre’s beloved heroines.

In the following pages of this study, I argue that characters who engage in reading, writing, teaching, and studying – characters I designate as “bookish women” – are valuable and complexly constructed characters who provide scholars, artists, and audiences valuable representations of empowered and supportive femininity. The richness of these characters can be seen in the diverse representations of bookishness they offer. From “Golden Age” musicals in the 1950s and 1960s to some of the most recent and influential productions of the 21st century,

scholarly and literary women inhabit the musicals America loves – and yet are rarely

acknowledged for their intellectual and creative importance. In Table 1 below, I offer a list of

women whose engagement in reading, writing, teaching, and studying are of significance to their

development or identity. While this list cannot be comprehensive, I suggest that the shows listed,

from The King and I (1951) to Hamilton (2015), point to the continued success of bookish

women within American musical theatre. Hammonds 2

Table 1 Bookish Women (compiled by R. Hammonds)

Anna Leonowens (The King and I, 1951) Ruth Sherwood (Wonderful Town, 1953) Marian Paroo (The Music Man, 1957) Amalia Balash (She Loves Me, 1963) Chava (Fiddler on the Roof, 1964) Milly Pontipee (Seven Brides for Seven Brothers 1982) Belle (Beauty and the Beast, 1994) Fosca Ricci (Passion, 1994) Jane Eyre (Jane Eyre, 2000) Elphaba (Wicked, 2004) Jo March (Little Women, 2005) Nettie (The Color Purple, 2005) Jane Porter (Tarzan, 2006) Elle Woods (Legally Blonde, 2007) Nina Rosario (In the Heights, 2008) Katherine Plummer (Newsies, 2012) Matilda Wormwood (Matilda, 2013) Alison Bechdel (Fun Home, 2013) Jerusha Abbott (Daddy Long Legs, 2015) Angelica Schuyler (Hamilton, 2015) Hammonds 3

Special Terms and Definitions

Bookish Women

I define “Bookish Women” as characters whose bookish traits become a significant means of (self)identification and/or influence the character’s developmental arc. The words

“women” and “woman” in this study (i.e. “bookish women”) are used because all of the characters are written and performed as cisgendered1.

Intertextual/Intersectional

In their 2014 book Studying Musical Theatre, Millie Taylor and Dominic Symonds draw attention to musical theatre’s complexity – a complexity that demands that we “reflect about the musical more seriously” (2). Furthermore, they argue that the “complexity of musical theatre’s combination of elements (singing, dancing, orchestration, design, global marketing) requires that students focus on particular aspects separately and with considerable clarity” (3; italics added).

In each chapter, Taylor and Symonds apply specific lenses of analysis to musical theatre including narrative theory, semiotics, cultural materialism, feminism and performance identity, intertextuality, and “pleasures of voice and body” to name a few. I adopt this multi-lens approach in my own study as I seek to dissect and understand the complex elements at work in the construction of bookish women on the musical stage, and how these characters participate in empowerment.

Empowerment Through Reading, Writing, Teaching, and Studying

Empowerment is a foundational concept in this study. When I first began to theorize

1 Oxford English Dictionary defines cisgender as “[d]enoting or relating to a person whose sense of personal identity and gender corresponds with their birth sex.” Hammonds 4

about the construction of bookish women characters in musicals, especially those that were adapted from literature, it became clear to me that bookishness and bookish activities were intimately connected with power. Characters who read, write, study, and teach grow in their ability to understand the world and share that understanding with others. With this understanding comes power and the ability to make change personally, communally, and politically. Below I will explore empowerment more fully and point to the ways that bookishness has historically been a tool of power for women. For the present, I will briefly state that in my study,

“empowerment” signifies the use of power by characters to facilitate and support the ability of

others to make choices for themselves and to ensure happiness on their own terms. “Self-

empowerment” is used to describe the way characters act to increase their ability to make

choices for themselves and have control over their own lives.

Reading is one of the most popular activities for bookish women. Characters such as

Amalia Balash (She Loves Me), Fosca (Passion), and Alison Bechdel (Fun Home) engage in

reading as a favorite pastime and, in the course of the stories, their reading habits facilitate the

development of the narrative. Amalia Balash bonds with her anonymous pen-pal, “Dear Friend”

(George), through discussions of books, music, and art; Fosca Ricci uses her love of reading to

have an honest conversation about her life with Captain Giorgio Bachetti (“Read”); and Alison

Bechdel bonds with her father through books and gains the confidence to come out as a lesbian

because of books she read at her college bookstore (“Thanks for the Care Package”). And yet,

more than almost any other bookish activity, reading poses a problem for musical theatre

performance. How do you portray a person doing such an internal static activity in a way that is

interesting? Not every character can read and walk simultaneously as Belle does in Beauty and

the Beast. In many cases, the reading habits of the bookish woman are discussed rather than, or Hammonds 5

in addition to, being shown. Depending on the production, Amalia Balash does not spend much

time actually reading on stage, but as previously mentioned, she and George write about the

books they have read. Matilda is one of the unique musicals that found a way to show the

bookish titular character reading in addition to having her reading practices discussed and

criticized (see Chapter Two).

Writing can take many forms as a bookish activity: for Josephine March (Little Women the Musical), it is writing novels and short stories, for Katherine Plummer (Newsies), it is

journalistic writing (see Chapter Two), for Nettie (The Color Purple), it is writing letters (see

Chapter Five). Writing offers characters the opportunity to explore the imagination, make

money, gain freedom, make a difference, and reach out to those they are desperate to

communicate with. As will be discussed in greater detail in Chapter Three, writing has,

historically, been an activity that women have used to form communities. The original Blue

Stocking societies in the 18th and 19th centuries in western Europe (Eger 1) and the communities

of Black women writers in the pre- and post- Civil War period (McHenry) are primary examples.

The development of feminism has been particularly significant to the lived experience and

presentation of this particular trait as the private and subversive uses of writing by women have

evolved and become more public and celebrated through such media as vines, magazines, and

blogs.

Teaching is the least frequently performed bookish trait, partly, I suggest, because

teaching is a more mature activity and most bookish women are young. However, characters

such as Anna Leonowens (The King and I) and Miss Honey (Matilda the Musical) engage in teaching both as a means of self-empowerment through employment, and as a means to empower Hammonds 6

others through education and personal support and mentorship.2

Studying, or spending time as a student, is a fairly common bookish character experience,

especially as part of a “coming of age narrative.” For Matilda Wormwood, Jerusha Abbott,

Elphaba, and Elle Woods, attending school opens bookish women to new knowledge, new

relationships, and new opportunities to empower others. It is within the school environment that

bookish students experience new moments of growth where they are able to overcome hardships

and utilize their capabilities. In some instances, as with Nina (In the Heights), school is a place of

disempowerment and exclusion compared to her acceptance at home, and returning is not

something the character initially desires, even though learning is important to her.

Table 2 Four Bookish Activities and Seven Common Traits  Bookish Activities – reading, writing, teaching, studying

 Common Traits – adapted, heroine journey, singleness, feelings of marginalization,

marginalized romantic partner, connections and comparisons with other women,

and their resistance of stereotypes

Along with the four bookish activities there are a number of, what I am calling, “common traits” present in the construction of bookish women. Bookish characters frequently exhibit one or more of the following traits and the specific deployment and interconnectedness of the traits contributes to the uniqueness of each character. I will introduce the traits here and explicate them more fully in Chapter One. The majority of bookish women: 1) are adapted from film and

2 The colonizing education in The King and I is not discussed in this project, but can be studied

in Christina Klein’s 2003 book Cold War Orientalism: Asia in the Middlebrow Imagination,

1945-1961. Hammonds 7

literature sources; 2) are the heroine of a journey of development or becoming narrative

(sometimes referred to as a bildungsroman(e); 3) experience a marginalized place in their

community and/or express feelings of marginalization that is sometimes due to, or exacerbated by, their bookishness; 4) experience prolonged singleness or expectations of prolonged singleness; 5) are compared with non-bookish women; 6) experience a unique father/daughter relationship, often because of the absence of a mother; 7) and resist racialized and gendered stereotypes. The presence of these traits in the construction of bookish women in musicals necessitates the application of various methodologies and theoretical lenses.

Theories and Methodologies

I rely on a number of methodologies and theoretical lenses to make my argument, namely: identity construction (via Judith Butler), multicase study, character studies, musical theatre studies, feminist theory, and the intellectual history of women’s epistemologies. These methodologies and thresholds help me illustrate how bookish women are constructed by composers, lyricists, and librettists (or book writers).

Multicase Study

Because the analysis of every character listed in Table 1 would take a project much longer than this one, I will utilize a multicase methodology3 and focus my attention on seven case studies: Jerusha Abbott (Daddy Long Legs 2015), Katherine Plummer (Newsies 2012),

Matilda Wormwood (Matilda 2010), Elphaba (Wicked 2004), Nina Rosario (In the Heights

2008), Elle Woods (Legally Blonde the Musical 2007), and Nettie (The Color Purple). The value

of the case study, as Robert Yin states in his book Case Study Research: Design and Methods, is

3 (Yin 2003; Stake 2006; Gerring 2007; Creswell 2007; Baxter and Jack 2008) Hammonds 8 that the case study is “a comprehensive research strategy” (14) and is able “to deal with a full variety of evidence” (8) to answer questions about “how” and “why” phenomena occur. In their synthesizing article about case study theories, Pamala Baxter and Susan Jack argue that the paradigm underlying case studies research is a Constructivist4 one which focuses on plurality

(545). The plurality of meaning and how that meaning is constructed is key to how my multicase study methodology functions in this project. By articulating the particularities of each case, I argue for the flexibility and applicability of “bookish women” as a concept that functions both at theoretical levels and at the practical level of performance.

To understand the construction of individual bookish women requires an analysis of the complex characterological elements that form their identity and journey. What changes have, or have not, been made between the original source and the musical? Using this Adaptation Studies approach brings into relief the specific characterological choices made by the writers and their significance becomes clearer. How is the gender performance of each bookish woman written in light of their age and the origin of their story? Through a feminist analysis, the specificity of the bookish woman’s femininity becomes clearer. Applying a feminist lens is important in this study because it resists simplifying the characters and hiding their differences rather than celebrating them. Characters such as Matilda Wormwood (Matilda), Elphaba (Wicked), and Elle Woods

(Legally Blonde) clearly utilize anger as a strategy for empowerment while Jerusha Abbott

(Daddy Long Legs) is written as a heroine whose political and personal activism does not utilize

4 Constructivism is an approach whereby individuals “develop subjective meanings” that are

“varied and multiple, leading the researcher to look for the complexity of views rather than narrow the meaning” (Creswell 20-21). Hammonds 9

this tool and so she might appear weaker and less significant. Yet each one performs feminism

on their own terms and in keeping with their character’s unique journey.

If the character is a heroine, as I am suggesting, what kind of heroine is she? Using

literary theories, the heroic accomplishments of the characters become clearer. If bookish women

resist negative racial and gender stereotypes, how do the writers convey the complexity of the

characters to musical theatre audiences in such a short time? Using close reading and a variety of

race, class, and gender sources I highlight the unique representations of intersectionality as they

were carefully constructed by the creative teams.

Feminism and Women’s Intellectual History

The feminist drive in my research and argument is well articulated by Jill Dolan when

she writes that “feminist criticism is pedagogical. Feminist critics should teach spectators how to

look at work for which they might not otherwise have a vocabulary” (13). By proposing the

identifiable presence of the bookish woman in musical theatre, I hope to make space for the

intelligent and creative models on the stage who stand along side the “firebrands” and

“powerhouses” who frequently get more attention. Yet what is the value in the bookish woman?

What is she offering in comparison with the powerhouses like “Momma Rose” (Gypsy) and the leggy bombshells such as Ulla Swanson (The Producers)? They offer us an opportunity to speak back to and re-envision our feminist and intellectual histories and oppressions. This is a history of women fighting for “a room of our own”5 and a right to voice our experiences, needs, and

desires.

Within the broader scope of women’s history is the field known as their intellectual

5 Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own (1929) Hammonds 10 history. In her book Toward an Intellectual History of Women (2017), Linda Kerber writes that women’s intellectual history has been “a continuing quest by determined women to claim access to books, instruction, and the opportunity to interpret” (225). Because women as a group have historically been separated from and denied access to spaces of learning and influence,

“[i]ndividual women had to struggle to clear a space for their own intellectual activity and to defend themselves against the charge that intellectual effort was inappropriate, even dangerous, when attempted by a woman” (Kerber 225-25). The conception that women’s intellectual activity was inappropriate and dangerous was partly due to the way “reason” functioned in western society during the last few centuries. As Genevive Lloyd has argued, reason was a factor in assessing character, personhood, and moral goodness (ix). And since upper and middle-class white men controlled the systems of power and learning, those who were not a part of that demographic were often considered unreasonable, bad, and not fully civilized and human. One need only remember how women of the Victorian era were labeled “hysterical” as a means of having them committed to mental institutions that were more like prisons to see the effect of such thinking. The situation was then further exacerbated when men in academia and storytelling professions represented women in ways that were unrecognizable to women themselves (Code ix-x). And how did these men often represent women? Not only as unreasonable beings, but as incapable of reason and intelligent thought and action.

Of course, small pockets of creative and influential women have arisen, one of which was the well-known “Bluestockings.” Though the term “bluestocking” has come to be used as a derogatory term for “nerdy” and unattractive girls in recent decades, the original Bluestockings were intelligent women of mid-18th to early 19th centuries who gathered to read, discuss, write, and study the best literature, scholarship, and art of the day (Eger 1, 116, 118). And while many Hammonds 11

women were restricted by domestic responsibilities or low-paying employment, by the mid-

1800s, a growing number of women were remaining single and participating in higher learning

(Jack 232). More and more women began attending college and now women in America are more likely than men to be educated at four-year universities and make up the majority of elementary school teachers (Evans, Born for Liberty 171; Loewus).

Yet the creative and intellectual contributions of women still bear the marks of the patriarchal system that values masculine “expertise” (Code 181). In her book What Can She

Know?: Feminist Theory and the Construction of Knowledge (1991), Lorraine Code reports that even as late as the early 1990s, “women [were] still largely invisible as moral and intellectual authorities” (187). And when women have gained inclusion, it was largely due to their association with male intellectual communities (Code 229).

It is with an understanding of the slow and inconsistent growth in women’s broader acceptance as intellectual and creative experts that I read the bookish characters in musicals.

Women have been libeled as undesirable, old maid, “bluestockings,” belittled for engaging in activities that are deemed overtly feminine and therefore less valid (Jack 1-2).

The difficult situation that some representations of bookish women find themselves in, however, is the attack of some radical feminists who also see these activities as too passive and steeped in the quite submissive behavior of women in the past. This is the accusation, for example, of a scholar like June Cummins who argues that Belle’s (Beauty and the Beast) reading of fiction that does not live up to the claims made about her role as an influential feminist role model for girls (16). Similar arguments have been made by feminist literary scholars about Jo

March (Little Women) who is likewise accused of ultimately “selling out” to patriarchy by

leaving her literary career behind in favor of marriage and domesticity (Lynda Zwigner 1993, Hammonds 12

James D. Wallace 1989). To be truly feminist, these scholars seem to say, requires a departure

from any and all masculine ties. And as I will argue, many bookish women gain influence

through their bookish ties to men, especially their fathers. However, I propose to view bookish

women as complex and intersectional characters who do not always stand as the exemplars of the

feminist vanguard, and yet continually seek to promote their own empowerment and/or the

empowerment of others.

Musical Theatre

A study about women in musical theatre will, of course, draw on the tools of musical theatre studies and construction. There are, in particular, a few points that deserve to be explicitly stated before moving forward into the body of this study. First, as authors David Walsh and Lenn

Platt argue in Musical Theatre and American Culture (2003), “Musicals, like all popular texts and forms of art, have an explicitly reflexive relationship with the societies from which they stem. As well as reflecting the historical and cultural character of societies, they voice society’s own sense of its life and values” (1). This reflexive relationship is responsible for my application of feminism and women’s intellectual history in this study. While the former has been frequently used by theatre scholars to understand (musical) theatre, the latter has not received as much recognition by scholars in theatre studies.

The reflexive relationship that musical theatre has with society also corresponds to the ubiquity of adaptation in theatre. In his dissertation “Recycled Culture: The Significance of

Intertextuality in Twentieth-Century Musicals” (2017), Adam Rush draws on Marvin Carlson’s argument that the “reuse of already familiar narrative material is a phenomenon seemingly as old as the theatre itself” (44). Rush suggests that it is “important to recognize, therefore, that musical theatre is an inherently intertextual art form which continually capitalizes on an audience’s ‘pre- Hammonds 13

sold familiarity’ with certain texts (Morley, 1996, 83)” (5). Many bookish women are adapted

from well loved sources and each adaptation relies on and responds to audience’s prior

knowledge and ability to read intertextually.

It is also important to have a clear understanding of some of musical theatre’s distinctive

generic traits – in particular, the presentational style of musical performance and the narrative

and characterological functions of its songs, especially the “I Am” and “I Want” songs. In the updated version of his Writing the Broadway Musical (2000), Aaron Frankel argues strongly that, in contrast to “straight dramas,” musical theatre breaks the fourth wall which “releases and expands, which serves the swift, telescopic method of musicals” rather than enclosing around the

“microscopic method of realism” (7). This, of course, is a comparison that elides more presentational kinds of theatre that are currently experiencing a time of tremendous growth. Yet the truth remains that musicals, with their movement in and out of song, dance, and dialogue, are frequently oriented toward the audience and cognizant of their presence.

This awareness is particularly strong toward the beginning of the show when the protagonist takes the stage and sings a song that tells the audience what the remainder of the show will be about. In his Secret Life of the American Musical (2016), Jack Viertel writes that

“The hero has to want something that’s hard to get, and go after it come what may. The sooner the audience understands this, the better” (53). It is during the “I Want” song that the hero(ine) conveys this information. In Wicked it is Elphaba’s desire for recognition in “The Wizard and I,” in Matilda it is Matilda Wormwood’s desire for fairness and justice in “Sometimes You Have To

Be a Little Bit Naughty.” In his book, Viertel references and exposits composer and lyricist

Stephen Sondheim’s explanation of the “I Want” song in musicals.

“Farces are express trains,” he writes. “Musicals are locals.” They keep stopping for Hammonds 14

songs, dances and set changes. If they’re not powered energetically right from the start,

the distractions take over completely, and the story gets lost, along with the audience.

[…] In the theatre, however, the show comes at the audience at the pace of the spoken (or

sung) word. Someone has to be gathering up the audience to take them on the journey

right from the start. Hence, the I Want. (56-57)

It is the hero(ine)’s responsibility, then, to “gather up the audience to take them on the journey.” Sometimes that includes a song that tells the audience not so much what the character wants, but who they are – the “I Am” song. At times this is the same song as the “I Want” song.

Other times, however, they are different. In the musical adaptation of Daddy Long Legs, the heroine comes out and the first thing she tells us is who she is: “The Oldest Orphan in the John

Grier Home.” Because “songs take over most of the main points of the plot,” my analysis of

Jerusha’s journey, as well as the other journeys in this study, will center on the songs that these characters sing about themselves or their experiences (Frankel 7). The creation of bookish women for musical theatre stages must be understood in light of these generic standards.

Limitations and Parameters

For the purposes of this study, I confine my investigation to the representation of bookish women in Broadway or Off-Broadway musicals, and those particular books and movies from which they have been adapted. While there is ample to study and write about regarding the creation, performance, and reception of bookish women in regional, educational, and international productions, it is beyond the scope of this particular work. Because the Broadway or Off-Broadway performance is traditionally the final culmination of the creative – that is, the act of creation – process, I take these productions and the work that lead up to them as my objects of analysis. Hammonds 15

Chapter Summaries

In Chapter 1, “‘The Oldest Orphan in the John Grier Home’: Adapting the Bookish

Woman in Daddy Long Legs (2015),” I introduce the four bookish activities and eight common traits that can be found among bookish women. I finish the chapter with a case study from John

Caird and Paul Gordon’s 2015 musical Daddy Long Legs to demonstrate how the common traits and bookish activities contribute to the construction of the bookish woman and her growing sense of personal agency.

In Chapter 2, “Sometimes You Have to Be A Little Bit Naughty”: Constructing Bookish

Heroism in Matilda (2013),” the empowering abilities of bookish women are brought into

dialogue with performances of femininity that transgress gender stereotypes and are therefore

interpreted as a threat to authority figures who abide by simplistic gender performances. Drawing

on Girl Studies, literary scholarship about mythic hero(ines) and the bildungsroman hero, and a

history of women’s quest for intellectual freedom, I situate Matilda as an active heroine whose

bookish traits contribute significantly to her dynamic character construction. As will be shown, it

is via books and storytelling that Matilda processes her world, and it is as a literary heroine that

she fulfills the stages of her journey. Moreover, the vocal and physical performances of the

Broadway cast situate Matilda as a heroine who vocally and physically rejects the stereotypical

means of female empowerment and mark her as an accessible role model.

In Chapter 3, ‘“Watch What Happens’: A Bookish Feminist History of Becoming,” I

draw on feminist history to situate the historical development of bookish women in the American

musical, ending in a case study focused on Katherine Plummer (Newsies the Musical 2012). I argue that Katherine uses writing in a way that embodies the writing practices of fourth-wave feminism for personal empowerment and grass-roots activism. Katherine’s construction is then Hammonds 16

examined through an analysis of her scripted and performed vocal expression and I argue that

her Standard American accent and contemporary expressions identify her with contemporary

feminist audiences.

In Chapter 4, “Making Good and Being Wicked (Or Is It the Other Way Around?): Social

Activism, Limitation, and the Power of a Bookish Witch” the heroine journey of Elphaba from

the megamusical Wicked is examined using the common traits and her use of magic is

understood in terms of her bookishness (studying and reading). The chapter ends by pointing to

the way Elphaba, though personally limited by social oppression, empowers Glinda to take up

the tools of bookishness by learning to read and use the Grimmerie, the magical book of spells.

Chapter 5, ‘“I Am Somebody’: Countering Stereotypes and Embracing Intersectionality

in Bookish Women” I argue that bookish women resist negative musical theatre and racial

stereotypes. Using In the Heights (2008), Legally Blonde (2007), and The Color Purple (2005) as case studies, I suggest that bookish women can frequently be seen giving and receiving support from their communities. This support helps to validate their experiences and strengthens their ability to live in the margins.

In the “Conclusion,” I argue that bookish women have been neglected in musical theatre scholarship and that their identity and construction offer a heroine that is very different from the

“powerhouse” and sexy women who are often the objects of analysis in musical theatre research.

I also suggest future areas for research inside and outside of musical theatre studies. Hammonds 17

CHAPTER I: “THE OLDEST ORPHAN IN THE JOHN GRIER HOME”: ADAPTING THE

BOOKISH WOMAN IN DADDY LONG LEGS (2015)

She has a brain. That’s what matters. A brain, and a wit,

and a fearless turn of phrase. This girl deserves her chance.

- Jervis Pendleton, Daddy Long Legs (John Caird and Paul Gordon)

In the “Introduction,” I suggested that while bookish women participated in the four bookish activities – reading, writing, teaching, and studying – their construction tended to exhibit one or more of seven common traits which help to clarify the uniqueness of each character’s construction. To be a reader does not always mean the same thing in each circumstance and the influence of the common traits offers scholars and artists a way of reading the character’s construction and understanding how she functions as a bookish woman. Limiting the common traits to seven also offers a useful recurring structure commonly used in multicase studies that help bring the varying thresholds and viewpoints into a coherent picture.

The second half of this first chapter is a close reading of the John Caird and Paul

Gordon’s 2015 musical adaptation of Jean Webster’s 1914 novel Daddy Long Legs. I begin with this musical because it offers clear examples of the common traits, but most particularly allows me to demonstrate the first trait – that bookish women are frequently adapted and are therefore open to adaptation studies analyses. Daddy Long Legs, in particular, offers a clear example of how the bookishness and intelligence of the heroine is adapted differently across time and I will point to the ways Caird and Gordon’s adaptation engages with postmodern adaptation concerns about fidelity, feminist studies concerns about the female voice, and my own concerns about how intelligence is brought onto the spectacle driven musical stage.

To perform “intelligence,” as scholar William Storm argues, “is a particular challenge” Hammonds 18

(107). To “depict the mind of a famed physicist,” Storm says, is very different from having to

dramatize it (107-108). The most effective and traditional way, Storm says, is to either have an

object that the character can actively pursue, thereby exhibiting his intelligence, or to have a

secondary character who becomes the recipient of the intelligence of the primary character (110).

It is not hard to understand that creating such characters in musicals is far less popular than the sexually powerful (Chicago), obsessively powerful (Gypsy), or simplistically desirable (Phantom of the Opera) female characters that fill the boards of musical theaters around the country. Yet

the creative and intelligent minds and actions of some heroines are created and performed for

musical theatre audiences. Below I propose seven common traits that can be seen in the construction of bookish women on the musical stage.

Seven Common Traits

Adapted from Literature and/or Film

Adaptations are prolific on the musical stage. It is not surprising, then, that bookish

women characters should also be adapted. What is important to point out, however, is the way

that the bookishness of the character is influenced by the adaptation process. When a story has

multiple prior adaptations (e.g. novel, films, etc), adaptors will frequently rely on one source

more than the other. John Caird and Paul Gordon’s Daddy Long Legs, for example, was adapted without any reference to the popular 1955 film starring Fred Astaire. In fact, in interviews, Caird

and Gordon are adamant that, whereas the film is a loose adaptation, they were dedicated to adapting Jean Webster’s novel with as much fidelity as possible. The 2007 musical adaptation of

Legally Blonde, on the other hand, relies exclusively on the popular film and does not return to

the book at all. In her influential book A Theory of Adaptation, Linda Hutcheon draws on

postmodernism to argue that “there are many and varied motives behind adaptation and few Hammonds 19

involve faithfulness” (xiii). She suggests, famously, that change and difference are to be

expected in adaptations because of their use of “repetition with variation” (4). The relationship

of sameness and difference “are part of the pleasure (and risk) of experiencing an

adaptation” (4).

Not all audiences will have the history to recognize which portions of a story are

repetitions of source materials and which are variations. Nevertheless, they enjoy the story and

characters because they are well wrought. For those exposed to the source(s), however,

knowledge of various versions of these stories functions as part of their Barthian “cultural

code,”6 guiding their experience and acceptance of adaptations. Young people less familiar with

the novel and film versions of The Wizard of Oz, for example, will accept Wicked on its own

terms more readily while at the same time missing some of the subtler references written into the musical (especially regarding Dorothy and her companions). Audience members familiar with Daddy Long Legs’s epistolary novel format will understand more clearly why the musical is structured as a series of letters from the heroine, Jerusha Abbott, to the anonymous benefactor she has lovely nicknamed Daddy Long Legs.

Heroine Journeys Bookish women are not only “protagonists” in their narratives, they are heroines. There

6 Roland Barthes, in his book S/Z (1974), proposes that audiences understand narrative elements partially because of their knowledge of the “cultural code” (19). This code is the body of knowledge (cultural, scientific, literary, historical, etc) that the play references and draws attention to without going so far as to actually express it (20). Mark Fortier, in Theory/Theatre

(2016), further describes the cultural code as the knowledge that the “culturally literate” audience is expected to recognize (21). Hammonds 20 are two heroic paths that are in evidence in the construction of bookish women: 1) the internal

Journey of Becoming or Development, and 2) the external Mythic Hero(ine) Journey. The

Journey of Becoming/Development, sometimes called the Bildungsroman, most often accompanies bookish women who study/attend school at some point in the show, though not always. These younger characters are on a quest of self-discovery and self-expression where they learn how to be themselves in a society that, for many of them, is dismissive or hostile. The empowerment that comes through this journey is often then turned for the betterment of others.

The Mythic Hero(ine) Journey on the other hand is not about the character figuring out who they are. They know. It is about claiming space for themselves and accomplishing tasks in order to take their place in society.

I cannot state strongly enough the suitability of musicals for the telling of the bookish heroine’s story. The use of song is particularly effective for revealing the bookish woman’s intellectual and creative inner life. It is an outlet for her to express the stages of her journey and her experience as a heroine. In the performance of a musical, milestones of struggle or empowerment are turned into song as they share their experience with the audience. For a

Journey of Becoming character such as Elle Woods (Legally Blonde), we can trace her internal development from the people-pleasing sorority president in “Omigod,” to the woman determined to reclaim pride in herself in “Chip On My Shoulder,” and ultimately to her place of personal and communal acceptance in “Legally Blonde Remix” and “Find My Way/Finale.”

On the other hand, bookish heroines who exhibit the Mythic Hero(ine) Journey, such as

Matilda (Matilda), Anna Leonowens (The King and I), and Nettie (The Color Purple) are confident in who they are and while they may learn things about themselves, their characters do not significantly change from the beginning of the story to the end, but rather work to claim Hammonds 21 space for themselves and make an impact on those around them. From the beginning of The

Color Purple, Nettie expresses her desire to be a teacher and to grow old with her sister.

Throughout her experience in Africa, teaching and caring for her niece and nephew are the primary motivators in her life. And at the end of the story, there she is, returned as an older woman to live with the sister she never stopped loving. Per the form of the mythic journey, she was sent out, she did battle, she conquered, and she returned home to be honored and rewarded.

Singleness

Many bookish women experience periods of, what their society would consider, prolonged singleness. Marian Paroo (The Music Man) is called an old maid by her young pupil,

Amaryllis. Amalia Balash’s (She Loves Me) age and singleness place her in danger of becoming one before she begins her anonymous letter-writing relationship. Belle (Beauty and the Beast) would rather stay with her elderly father than marry the town’s most desirable bachelor. Nettie

(The Color Purple) never marries in the musical, and Anna Leonowens (The King and I) is a widow who has the potential for a romantic relationship with the king, but remains unattached.

The effect of this singleness leads toward a feminist reading of these characters who, at least for a time, resist the hetero-matrimonial norm so embedded in the American musical (Knapp 10).

Yet the “marriage trope” described by Raymond Knapp in his books about musical theatre eventually wins out with most bookish women and they surrender to romance and marriage.

Father/Daughter Relationships

For certain bookish women, their connection to their father (or father-figure) is a particularly influential one. Whether positive (Belle and Maurice, Beauty and the Beast), negative (Matilda and Mr. Wormwood, Matilda the Musical), or just complicated (Alison and

Adam Bechdel, Fun Home), the influence and authority of fathers can serve as a catalyst for the Hammonds 22 bookish woman’s character development, as well as the development of the plot. The authorial power of fathers in the lives of their daughters becomes the authorial power of bookish daughters in their lives and literary or scholarly work (Fraiman 175). Not only do some bookish women literally become authors through writing, but the authority to create and manage is frequently learned and inherited from the father and applied to their lives. Matilda’s father is a creative con- artist who manipulates events to his own ends. Though used for better ends, Matilda likewise learns to manipulate her world and teaches others to do the same.

The father/daughter relationship can also have a particular impact on the gender performance of the bookish woman. In the case of a single father, or a particularly indulgent one

(e.g. Maurice, Tevye, Professor Porter), the gender performances within the home are more equitable and the father leaves space for the daughter to develop a strong sense of self and high level of agency. For some daughters, this develops even when a more domineering father is present (e.g. Katherine Plummer and Matilda), but in those cases the daughters seem to inherit the father’s authorial voice and powerful drive.

Feelings of Marginalization

The characters in this study, and the other bookish women that they typify, experience feelings of marginalization. This is not unique to bookish women, as many American musicals

(and films for that matter) tell the story of the little guy on the outside who overcomes all obstacles to make it. It is the story of America itself, as well as the people who have immigrated from all over the world to make American – and Broadway – what it is (see studies by Stuart

Hecht, 2014 and Andrea Most, 2004).

What is unique about the bookish woman’s feelings of marginalization is that their bookish activities are frequently a contributing factor to their marginalization or sense of being Hammonds 23

“different.” Belle, like many Disney heroines, feels like a fish out of water even in her own town.

The townspeople find it odd that a girl who is beautiful, who could have her pick of men, would prefer books, the society of her father, and dreaming about “far off places.” Jerusha Abbott

(Daddy Long Legs) feels ill-equipped to meet the academic and social requirements placed on her when she first arrives at school. As an orphan she was not exposed to the kinds of academic information that her schoolmates grew up knowing. Elle Woods (Legally Blonde the Musical), in an interesting irony, goes from the powerful position of sorority president at her California university to the ridiculed outsider who must prove her value and ability to succeed at Harvard. It is important to note that, because bookish women are heroines, their marginalization is an obstacle that is overcome to one degree or another. These characters either win over the normative community (for Elle, the Harvard faculty and students) or they locate themselves within a community where they feel a sense of belonging. For Disney heroines like Jane Porter

(Tarzan) and Belle (Beauty and the Beast), that means a relocation into the homespace of their romantic partners (i.e. the jungles of Africa and the castle).

Marginalized Romantic Partners

Bookish women often fall in love with men who, for one reason or another, also experience (feelings of) marginalization. Even when a more “suitable” choice is available, as in

Belle’s case, bookish women are frequently drawn to the more equitable relationship they experience with their marginalized romantic partners. This equitable relationship sometimes has its roots in the father/daughter relationship. As noted above, the father/daughter relationship can either encourage the more balanced gender performance of the daughter and model an equitable style of home-life, or it can drive the daughter to rebel against paternal mandates on gender performance and result in the bookish daughter locating a romantic partner who will accept her Hammonds 24 empowered performance of femininity, as is seen when Katherine falls for the newsie strike leader Jack Kelly.

Connections with Other Women/Girls

Bookish women are often surrounded by non-bookish women, contributing to our reading of these characters as “different.” In The Fiddler on the Roof, Chava’s sisters identify her love for books as a unique trait and it serves as the catalyst for her relationship with the non-Jewish

Fyedka. The women who surround the bookish woman can either encourage or discourage her activity, aiding or frustrating the bookish woman’s coming-of-age process of self-discovery and expression. In Matilda the Musical, Matilda’s mother criticizes Matilda for reading, calling her an idiot, but Miss Honey, Matilda’s teacher, encourages her reading and praises her intelligence.

Resisting Stereotype

In her book Images of Women in Literature, Anne Fergus writes that stereotype is a

“mental image” of characteristics belonging to some individuals which are then “assumed to apply to other individuals exhibiting several of the characteristics” (5). I argue that the independence of bookish women in musicals acts against, not only the common (negative) stereotypes common to musical theatre, but also the negative stereotypes associated with various racial and class groups. I suggest that the authors create characters who live liminally and intersectionally between home communities and the communities where their intellectual, creative, and life experiences take place. Bookish women often also feel the pressure to perform femininities appropriate to their background, and I will suggest that each of these characters draws together the knowledges of their past and present to empower the bookish woman as she moves forward. And yet while the representative arts can negatively deploy stereotype for audience consumption they can also help to build up a positive “imaginary” – that is, “those Hammonds 25

ready-made images and symbols through which we make sense of social bodies and which

determine, in part, their value, their status and what will be deemed their appropriate treatment”

(Gatens viii, italics added). Most bookish women are constructed by their writers, lyricists, and composers as characters who help audiences reimagine and rethink how individuals and communities behave and what is possible.

Adapting Jerusha Abbott for the Musical Theatre Stage

In the following pages I will use Jerusha Abbott as a case study to demonstrate how the bookish activities and common traits can work together in the construction of a bookish woman.

First, I will explore how Jean Webster, the author of Daddy Long Legs, created a bookish woman who exhibited many of the common traits outlined above. Last, I will elucidate the presence of the common traits and bookish activities within John Caird and Paul Gordon’s musical adaptation. I suggest that while Caird and Gordon maintain a high degree of fidelity to the text, faithfully honoring the female voices of the author and the heroine, they also honor the spirit of the script by modernizing certain elements in ways that resonate more clearly with contemporary audiences.

Jean Webster’s Novel

Daddy Long Legs was written by Jean Webster in the early years of the 1900s. In 1912 it was published serially in the well-known Ladies Home Journal Magazine (Curtis Publishing

Company) and as a book by the Century Company (Webster, Daddy Long Legs; Webster, Daddy

Long Legs: A College Girl's Letters to a Man She Didn't Know). The story begins with an expositional prose chapter about the life of Jerusha Abbott, “the oldest orphan in the John Grier

Home” (Webster 5). The matron of the orphanage informs Jerusha that one of the orphanage’s benefactors has decided to pay for her to attend a prestiguous women’s college so that she can Hammonds 26

become a writer. The benefactor’s instructions are that she write him a letter every month,

addressed to “Mr. Smith.” These letters will go unread and unanswered and he will never meet or

make contact with her. Jerusha, for her part, is only too happy to make up for her benefactor’s

communicative deficiencies and sends him far more letters than he requires. Having seen his tall

and spindly shadow once, and deciding that “Mr. Smith” is a thoroughly uninteresting name,

Jerusha addresses her letters to “Dear Daddy Long Legs.” The remainder of the book is

comprised of her letters to him, making hers the sole authorial voice. We never meet Daddy

Long Legs, or any of the other characters that appear in Jerusha’s letters, though we hear about her encounters with them – particularly her evolving romantic relationship with Jervis Pendleton.

Jerusha writes about her educational experience, about her love of reading, about sports and politics, about her time at Lock Willow Farm (where “Daddy” sends her during school vacations), about her friendships, and about her curiousity regarding Daddy’s appearance and activities. The final letter of the book takes place after she has finally met Daddy Long Legs who, it turns out, was none other than Jervis Pendleton. She writes an account of their meeting and expresses her excitement that they are engaged and will spend the rest of their lives together.

Like a handful of other bookish women’s stories that have been musicalized (e.g. Little

Women, Legally Blonde, Fun Home), Daddy Long Legs is based on the life experiences and values of its author (i.e. Jean Webster), a fact that has led many to designate it a Künstlerroman, or story that is based on the life of the artist (Showalter viii). Prefiguring Jerusha, Jean Webster attended Vassar College, took classes in Economics and Reform, was a fervent Fabian Socialist and suffragette, and enjoyed visiting an old farmhouse in the country where she was free to write. Jean Webster’s romantic life was complex. She fell in love with a married man, Glenn

Ford McKinney, and had a long love affair with him until they were eventually able to marry. In Hammonds 27 the “Introduction” to 2004 Penguin edition of Daddy Long Legs, Elaine Showalter suggests that the novel is in “one sense, about her affair with McKinney: dedicated ‘To You,’ it celebrates the epistolary romance” (xiii). In her book about Adelaide Crapsey, Webster’s best friend and muse,

Karen Alkaly-Gut suggests that Daddy Long Legs was the “ideal love story” for Webster: “a girl is brought by a distinguished man to absolute independence and is then in a position to have an equal relationship with him”(249). From the loss of her father from an overdose of drugs and the secret love affair she was having with McKinney, Webster created the character of Daddy Long

Legs. Over time the ambiguous age of the character and the metamorphosis of the paternal role into a romantic one has been described as “creepy,” “awkward,” and “weird.” For Webster, however, the combination of a man with wealth and independence and experience and wisdom was an extremely attractive one. Such an ally had much to offer in terms of security and when paired with Jervis’ saucy temperment and affectionate heart – he became a character that many readers and audiences loved.

In 1914 Jean Webster adapted her successful novel for the stage. The production had a successful run in Chicago before transferring to New York and launching a successful tour in

Minneapolis, Atlantic City, Washington, California and London (Showalter xiv). Webster’s stage version may help answer questions about the age difference and relationship between Jerusha

Abbott and Jervis Pendleton. First, the age and appearance of the actors in this production suggest a Jervis who is near middle-age, but who has the cynical wit of a younger man. When we first encounter Jervis, it is his first visit to the John Grier Home and he is playing ball off stage with one of the boys. After he enters, this description of his character is given:

JERVIS PENDLETON is a man-of-affairs, quiet and self-contained, but evidently used

to having his own way. He has a somewhat grim sense of humor and an air of Hammonds 28

nonchalance which in reality covers a keen penetration. His manners are courteously

deferential, but with a suggestion of indifference underneath, which he just politely

manages to suppress. (Webster 14)

Initially Jervis is completely uninterested in educating a girl from an orphanage. He argues that it would not be “charitable” to send a young woman into a situation she was not prepared for and to which she would have no hope of acclimating. Toward the end of the first scene, however,

Jerusha “commencing in [a] low, intense tone, gradually rising to a fever of rebellion” states that she has been enslaved at the John Grier home and would be happy to go anywhere else no matter how hard (32).

Like other bookish women, she earns the respect of her future amore, not because of her appearance, but because of her intelligence and tenacity. Following her long speech, the stage directions note that “Judy7 has won his admiration by her plucky stand.” He agrees to send her to college to “see if the girl really can pull it off!” In Act Two, Jervis visits the girls for tea with a number of other people. He jokes with his niece Julia that they do not need permission for him to be present because he is old, but then a few lines further down he declares to a friend that even though Jerusha thinks he is an old man, he is “not an old man” and “won’t be treated like an old man” (47-48). Over the next scenes, Jerusha gradually becomes more and more comfortable with

Jervis until the end of the play when she has fallen in love with him. In the final scene he declares “I have known [about your birth] always – always – since I first heard a child’s voice

7 In the novel, Jerusha renounces her full name and adopts the more youthful and modern nickname, “Judy.” This shortened version was used more frequently in subsequent adaptations than “Jerusha.” Hammonds 29 crying out for freedom. From the day a careless hand threw in her path a grain of hope—a grain which lodged in the richness of her soul and grew before his watchful eyes, into a wondrous flower…” (114). Jerusha quickly turns to him, cutting him off: “Then—you are--;” and Jervis exclaims “Oh, Judy, couldn’t you have guessed that I was Daddy Long Legs?” (italics original).

The stage directions describe her reaction. “JUDY slowly raises her eyes to his and reads the great meaning as JERVIS puts his arms around her and gathers her in embrace—as the curtain descends.” Such an ending might well fall short of our contemporary sense of romance, and reviews of the show find it the least interesting aspect to discuss. While critics do identify it as romantic, they are far more interested in describing the sweetness of Jean Webster’s script, and the “pathos” of the orphanage and Ruth Chatterton’s performance as Judy Abbott8 (Charm and

Humor in 'Daddy Long Legs'; Second Thoughts on First Nights; The Celluloid Critic).

The book was subsequently adapted for the screen starring Mary Pickford and Mahlon

Hamilton (1919), Janet Gaynore and Warner Baxter (1931), and Leslie Caron and Fred Astaire

(1955 musical film) (Showalter xvii). Across the adaptation history of Daddy Long Legs, the sweetness of Jerusha/Judy’s character has been paramount. She is irresistible to the older Jervis.

She becomes the object of his male gaze and the has little control over the events in her life. To adapt this story for contemporary audiences, therefore, would require the artists to very carefully highlight Jerusha’s strength and situate her, at least by the end of the narrative, as a heroine who is capable of making mature choices and falling in love with a man who has also won over the audience.

8 The concept of the male gaze was popularized by Laura Mulvey in her 1975 article “Visual

Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” Hammonds 30

While adaptations of Daddy Long Legs thrived in America, there was another cultural market that influenced the musical adaptation. Since the 1930s, Japanese audiences have enjoyed the story both as a novel and as a 1990s animated television series (Watashi no Ashinaga

Ojisan). The Japanese anime series was one of the first times that Jervis was written as a younger man. This may be due to the fact that Judy was also drawn as a younger character in the style of

Anne Shirley (Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables) or Pippi Longstocking (Lindgren, Pippi

Longstocking). It was Japanese actress Maoko Imai who steered Daddy Long Legs toward the musical stage. When she learned that her writer/director husband, John Caird, had never read the book, she insisted he do so – and he fell in love with it.

John Caird and Paul Gordon’s Musical

Adaptation

John Caird has specialized in adapting and directing literature adaptations, including the musical productions of Les Miserables (Boublil & Schönberg, 1987), Children of Eden

(Schwartz, 1991), Jane Eyre (Gordon, 1999), the Royal Shakespeare Company’s influential eight-hour adaptation of Nicholas Nickleby (adapted by David Edgar, co-directed by Trevor

Nunn, and starring Roger Rees), and Peter Pan (co-adapted with Trevor Nunn, 1983), to name just a small portion of Caird’s prolific work. After reading Jean Webster’s novel, John sent it to

Paul Gordon, his collaborator on Jane Eyre (1999). Within a month, Gordon had sent Caird sixteen songs. In an interview with StageBuddy, song writer Paul Gordon explained that with

Daddy Long Legs, “I opened the book, started reading and the words started jumping off the page as song lyrics -- I heard acoustic guitar in the score very early on and though there are some complex melodies and piano, there are also some simple strumming songs that echo my pop music roots. Daddy Long Legs is more of a hybrid between musical theatre and some of my pop Hammonds 31

folk sensibilities.”

But here there is a danger that 1) the strong female voices of Jean Webster and Jerusha

Abbot might be overshadowed by masculine interpretations, or 2) that too much fidelity to the

original book might reenact turn of the century patriarchal masculinities and frustrate modern

audiences. In a 2010 interview John Caird stated that when he and Gordon were writing the

musical, they referred to the book rather than the film adaptations for inspiration (La Mirada).

Applying the same technique that they used on Jane Eyre, Caird and Gordon adhered quite

closely to the source text, going so far as to quote lines and passages as originally written in

order to maintain Webster’s voice and vision. This is particularly clear in the way they honor

Jerusha’s bookish experiences.

Jerusha Abbott engages, to varying degrees, in all four bookish activities – reading,

teaching, studying, and writing – and they impact her life in significant ways. Jerusha evolves as

a writer of literature (novels, short stories, poems) and of letters. Writing impacts the form of the

musical and the outcome of the story. Unlike the previous adaptations of the story where Jerusha

catches Jervis’ eye because she is spunky and courageous, Caird and Gordon return to the

original novel’s plot. It is because of Jerusha’s writing that she gains the attention of her

mysterious benefactor and is sent to college. In the script, Jerusha reads aloud the letter that

Jervis, going by the alias “Mr. Smith,” has left.

JERUSHA. One. Owing to the exceptional talent that Miss Abbott has shown in her

original and amusing essays, Mr. Smith has decided to send her to college. Two.

It is Mr. Smith’s plan that Miss Abbott should educate herself to become a writer.

(Caird and Gordon 3-4; Act 1)

It is also because of Jerusha’s letter writing that Jervis becomes interested in her as a person and Hammonds 32 falls in love with her. In the final scene, he energetically confesses:

JERVIS. I never intended to pay the least attention to you. I said so in those perfectly

sensible instructions I laid down. But then you started sending me all those

ludicrously expressive letters, and my curiosity got the better of me. I had to see

who this impetuous, delightful creature was. (81; Act 2)

Jervis had discovered that Jerusha is a person with a vivid imagination and a love of reading and learning. Unlike other adaptations, however, in the musical we see Jerusha struggle to settle into her academic and social life in college. Caird and Gordon state in their interviews that one of the guiding themes for their adaptation was that both Jerusha and Jervis were experiencing “personal growth” (La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts). To use my terms, they both experience Journeys of Becoming and Development. According to John Caird, it is about “a girl who starts with nothing [and] is able to educate herself and grow to the point where she doesn’t need help and can stand on her own. It’s a rags-to-riches story and those have a universal appeal, I think” (La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts). Likewise, they created a

Jervis who has to learn “how to survive emotionally despite being given absolutely everything in life. And Jean Webster’s point is that it’s just as hard to make that journey as it is for Jerusha.”

Robert Adelman Hancock, the actor who originated the role of Jervis while the production was still being workshopped, explained that in the musical version, rather than Jervis simply falling in love with a charming young woman, he “doesn’t know what’s going on inside of him” and needs Jerusha to help bring it out. In this way, the relationship that is built in this musical is one that is both faithful to the original material, and also speaks to the ideal of equitable gender relationship between the romantic couple. Hammonds 33

Heroine Journey of Becoming (Bildungsromane)

Jerusha’s heroine journey of becoming and development relies heavily on her activities at school. While she was in the orphanage, Jerusha’s creative and intellectual capabilities were actively silenced while she was required to care for the orphans. When she arrived at college, her access to new knowledge and friendship put her on the path toward greater empowerment. Yet it was not initially an easy transition. As is common with bookish women, she feels marginalized,

“strange,” “foreign,” “different.” In the song “Like Other Girls,” she sings that she just wants to be like other girls who get dressed up, make pies, become scientists, socialists, valedictorians,

“or what else heaven knows” (Caird and Gordon 13). In “Things I Didn’t Know,” Jerusha confesses that she thought Michelangelo was an archangel and Florence Nightingale was a freshman (16-17). She doesn’t know elements of history, culture, and literature – that “Henry

VIII was married more than once,” “Lillian Russell triumphed on the stage,” or that George

Elliot was a woman (17-19).

In keeping with Caird’s theme of personal growth, we see Jerusha’s wounds from the

John Grier Home begin to heal and she turns her thoughts toward how she might best use her experience at college to help others – particularly the children at the John Grier Home. Her experience in “asylum keeping” fuels her interest in taking classes in Economics and Charity and

Reform (Caird and Gordon 49); and she plans her orphan’s lives “down to the slightest detail – their meals and clothes and lessons and punishments for even [her] superior orphans are sometimes bad” (56).

One of the greatest differences between Caird and Gordon’s musical and previous adaptations is Jerusha’s career as a writer. In the other versions it is entirely absent, but Caird and Gordon make it a central plot point in the character’s life. The first book that Jerusha writes Hammonds 34 is rejected by the publisher she sent it to. He condemns the characters, the humor, and the plot, and Jerusha cremates it in the school’s furnace. But the next day she allows her painful background and future hopes to flow through her into a book that we learn later is accepted and published for a thousand dollars. The finances from this book provide Jerusha with security so that, when Jervis proposes to her, she is under no obligation to accept him. She may accept or reject him as the independent woman who, in Jervis’ eyes, can never be “like other girls,” and who has helped him even more than he and his money could have helped her (37, 71).

Jerusha’s dedication to standing on her own feet and being independent is also seen when she decides to work as a tutor in the second act. She explains to “Daddy Long Legs” that rooming “with Sallie [McBride] and Julia [Pendleton] has been an awful strain on my stoical philosophy,” and “it’s time to start paying back my debt. So I shall teach French and Algebra this summer, and begin to support myself” (60). Jerusha’s pride (77) in herself guides her to resist powerful people and structures who seek to dictate how she should live – even her beloved benefactor. “No one can dictate to me but you, Daddy – and you can't always” (56). She also criticizes a minister who warns the college girls to “take care not to develop our intellects at the expense of our womanly natures,” and laments the fact that excellent women such as herself cannot vote (57).

Father/Lover

Caird and Gordon had to walk a delicate line between Jerusha’s strength as a single woman during the early 1900s and her relationship with authority figures, including Daddy Long

Legs. They allowed Jean Webster’s first wave female voice to speak clearly, and then wrote a

Jervis whose “father” role slips further and further out of his control as Jerusha gains strength and independence. Initially, Jervis is read by Jerusha as an old man because of his cynicism and Hammonds 35

wealth. As a child, he lost his mother and was sent away to be cared for by others. This early

emotional damage couples with his life as an educated and wealthy businessman who does not

understand love. This is a character element that Caird and Gordon clarify over time. Though it

did not exist in the original 2009 cast album, a song called “What Does She Mean By Love?”

was added to the second album in 2015. In the song, Jervis ponders Jerusha’s intentions when

she sends Daddy Long Legs her “love” in the post-script.

JERVIS. Isn't it amusing, I have read every last book

But I can't help feeling there's something I still overlook

So I search the page for what's hidden from view

What does she mean by love?

It's lost on me

I only wish I knew

I've read the works of Shakespeare

I can quote Lovelace and Gray

But maybe I don't understand what they're trying to say. (Caird and Gordon 22)

The mutual education of Jerusha and Jervis is what makes their father/daughter, bookish

woman/romantic partner dynamic so different. Father figures of bookish women are often key influences in their development. In a world where power and agency are predominantly masculine, bookish women inherit their power from their father figures. And certainly, Daddy

Long Legs begins that way. Jervis decides to rescue Jerusha from the orphanage. It is his decision to send her to college, specifically to be a writer. He also sets the parameters for their relationship. And yet Jerusha continually, and increasingly, pushes against his authority and claims it for herself. This includes her decision to rename him – an authorial move that utilizes Hammonds 36 the writing skills he instructed her to use and while simultaneously pushing against the authoritative hierarchy he has put in place.

Crucial to the climax and resolution of the story is Jerusha’s ability to complete her heroine journey by moving out from under the authority of her father figure and into a place of independence where she is free to join herself to her romantic companion. Jerusha’s ability to make this move is, likewise, necessary for Jervis if he is to move from “Daddy” to “husband.”

Beginning with songs such as “I Couldn’t Know Someone Less,” “Graduation Day,” and “I

Have Torn You From My Heart” in Act 2, Jerusha becomes increasingly disenchanted with her imaginary father figure and views him through less idealistic eyes.

JERUSHA. I imagined you so many ways.

You are kind, you are tall, you are old,

But in all those pondering days

I’d not imagined you heartless and cold.

I thought you cared, I confess.

I couldn’t know someone less. (“I Couldn’t Know Someone Les,” Caird and Gordon 51)

From “I don’t really know you,” Jerusha moves in “Graduation Day” to a condemnation of his physical and emotional distance, and finally ends in Jerusha decision to stop hoping that he will meet with her. He is not a father who loves her and never has been. Having thus severed the father/daughter relationship, in the very next scene Jerusha informs “Daddy” that she has sold her story for $1000 and is now an established author (74). Jerusha now stands as an individual with one obstacle left to her final happiness. She must overcome her shame about being an orphan raised in the John Grier Home. Hammonds 37

Romantic Partner

In a frantic letter, Jerusha appeals to Daddy Long Legs for advice and help. Jervis proposed and she turned him down because she was afraid of telling him about being an orphan at the John Grier Home. In the final scene, Jerusha faces a similarly shame-faced Jervis who admits, not only to knowing about her past and loving her regardless, but to being her benefactor.

When Jerusha finally learns the truth, John Caird and Paul Gordon give Jerusha an opportunity not seen in other versions, to get angry and criticizes Jervis for his subterfuge and deceit.

JERUSHA. You? You…read my letters? (JERVIS nods, agonized.) All my letters? The

ones about you? (Another nod, abject.) ([Jerusha] shocked, indignant) They were

private letters.

JERVIS. I know.

JERUSHA. They were letters to him. Not you.

JERVIS. I know.

JERUSHA. He would never have done such a thing. (JERVIS doesn’t know what to say.)

(80 italics original)

The power dynamic has completely shifted. The father figure with all of the power has been reduced to a young man who “doesn’t know what to say” in his own defense. He acknowledges the problematic situation he has placed Jerusha in and can only explain his own surprise at the way their relationship developed, then abide by her decision. Caird and Gordon’s heroine has the power of choice. She can author her own life rather than simply participating in a plot contrived by another. She is a successful author now. She can remain single if she so chooses. But, of course, once she understands all that has happened, she accepts him.

JERUSHA. So with all my heart

Racing as it soars Hammonds 38

I am most sincerely yours

Jerusha, who will keep her Jervie strong

And forgives her Daddy Long Legs

For not being old

JERVIS. Or gray

JERUSHA. Or bald

JERUSHA & JERVIS. And for hiding from her // So long. (82-83)

“Like Other Girls”: More Than Just a “Spunky” and “Ambitious” Girl in a Syrupy Romantic

Comedy

There is nothing wrong with romantic comedy. It speaks to a very common human need and audiences frequently attend the theatre to experience it. And certainly, Daddy Long Legs offers a great deal as a comic romance. I have one more piece of deconstructive character analysis to perform, however, that will show how Jerusha moves beyond the simple trope of a girl who blossoms into womanhood and learns to love.

After reading a variety of theatrical reviews, I suggest that the protofeminism, or

“instinctive feminism,” in the show is obscured by its “sweetness” (Billington; Soloski). Jerusha is described by reviewers as “plucky,” “spunky,” “naive,” “dutiful,” and “irreverent” while

Megan McGinnis, the role’s originator, is similarly described in dewy-eyed terms such as

“adorable,” “wide-eyed,” and “charming” (Billington; Green; Mandell; Seff; Snook; Soloski).

Several reviewers likened the show to stories such as She Loves Me, My Fair Lady, Little

Women, Anne of Green Gables, The Secret Garden, and Jane Eyre.9 Jesse Green puts his finger

9 Both Jerusha Abbott and Matilda Wormwood (see Chapter 2) include these last four stories in the list of books that they have read and enjoy. Hammonds 39

on the cause when he writes in his review that composers “seem to have a thing for ‘beloved’

novels about ambitious girls, usually orphans, making their way in an unwelcoming world.” It is

notable that many of the heroines in these stories are also bookish, engaging in reading, writing,

teaching and/or studying as well as the common traits discussed in this chapter.

I suggest, however, that Jerusha – in the novel as well as the musical – is distinctive in

the way she persistently considers how she will be able to leverage her educational and economic

advantages to help others. In the middle of the second act a flurry of planning for “orphan

asylum reforms” and the running of the John Grier Home arises in Jerusha’s mind as she

becomes a Fabian Socialist and takes a class in “Charity and Reform” (Caird and Gordon 56, 57,

59). Jerusha uses her educational opportunities to learn the most effective ways to change the

asylum to benefit the orphans living there. “It’s my favorite play at night before I go to sleep. I

plan my orphan’s lives down to the slightest detail” (57).

Jerusha is also interested in the success of her friends and, after receiving the proceeds from the sale of her book, Jerusha immediately turns her attention to helping one.

JERUSHA. My first duty as a new Trustee [of the John Grier Home] will be to reform the

asylum under new management. You will help me, won’t you? Mrs. Lippett must

be replaced by someone clever and strong and sweet-natured. Don’t you think

[my friend] Sallie McBride would be a wonderful choice? (Caird and Gordon 74)

Jerusha uses her growing position of privilege and agency to establish Sallie in the position for which she has been training in college. By so doing she also ensures that the orphans at the John

Grier home are cared for by a matron who will respect and care for them as individuals with Hammonds 40 value. Empowering peers is a trait seen again and again with bookish women (i.e. Matilda’s support of her classmates, Katherine Plummer’s support of the newsies, Elphaba’s support of the

Animals and Glinda, etc). Importantly for this study, the bookish heroine’s ability to empower others is directly related to their bookishness. Without her education and the sale of her book,

Jerusha will not be able to empower Sallie and the orphans as she plans to do.

Conclusion

In her article “Jane and Jerusha: Finding a Voice on the Musical Stage,” Annette

Thornton analyzes the way Paul Gordon and John Caird have supported the voices of Jane Eyre

(Jane Eyre the Musical) and Jerusha Abbott and specifically argues that “Gordon and Caird make the characters modern, passionate and relatable to twenty-first-century audiences by giving both Jane and Jerusha a strong voice on the musical stage” (83 italics added). It could be easy to say that because Jane and Jerusha are “forward-thinking, independent, free-willed and educated women” rather than belting powerhouses or spectacular dancing leading ladies that their voices are not strong, valuable, or modern (72). But, as Thornton states, the essence of these intelligent women, fighting for the right to be heard, to make choices, and to be active has resonated with audiences in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. In the next chapter, I draw on girl studies and theories about the hero(ine) journey to explore the construction of Matilda

Wormwood (Matilda). Just as Jerusha and Jane are independent, free-willed, and educated,

Matilda embodies the “Empowered Girl” by exhibiting a “belief in one’s ability to achieve one’s goals” (Brown and Horowitz 46), a belief that sometimes requires one to be “a little bit naughty”

(Kelly and Minchin 17). Hammonds 41

CHAPTER II: “SOMETIMES YOU HAVE TO BE A LITTLE BIT NAUGHTY”:

CONSTRUCTING BOOKISH HEROINISM IN MATILDA (2013)

Even if you’re little you can do a lot. You // mustn’t let a little thing like “little” stop you.

// If you sit around and let them get on top, you // might as well be saying you think that it’s

okay, // and that’s not right. // And if it’s not right, you have to put it right.

– Matilda, Matilda the Musical (Dennis Kelly and Tim Minchin)

In this chapter, the empowering abilities of bookish women are brought into dialogue with performances of femininity that transgress gender stereotypes and are therefore interpreted as a threat to authority figures who abide by simplistic gender performances. Drawing on Girl

Studies, literary scholarship about mythic hero(ines) and the bildungsroman hero, and a history of women’s quest for intellectual freedom, I situate Matilda as an active heroine whose bookish traits contribute significantly to her dynamic character construction. I will show that it is via books and storytelling that Matilda processes her world, and it is as a literary heroine that she fulfills the stages of her journey. Moreover, the vocal and physical performances of the

Broadway cast situate Matilda as a heroine who vocally and physically rejects the stereotypical means of female empowerment and mark her as an accessible role model to young audiences.

A Gifted Girl

MRS. WORMWOOD. Look at this. She’s reading a book. That’s not normal for a five-

year-old. I think she might be an idiot.

MATILDA. Listen to this: “It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. It was the

age of wisdom…”

(MRS. WORMWOOD screams again.)

MR. WORMWOOD. Stop scaring your mother with that book, boy. Hammonds 42

MATILDA. I’m a girl!

MRS. WORMWOOD. And she keeps trying to tell me stories, Harry. Stories. Who wants

stories? I mean, it’s just not normal for a girl to be all… “thinking” (Kelly and

Minchin 13-14; Act 1, scene 2)

From the time Matilda was born her parents did not like or want her. And the matter was not

helped when, by a very early age, she proved how intelligent she was. A genius. By five she was

reading Dickens and the Brontés along with The Secret Garden and The Cat and the Hat. She was a mathematical genius and had a fierce sense of what was just and right…and what was not.

As with most of Roald Dahl’s child heroes, Matilda is smarter than the oppressive adults who victimize and torment her. Her bookishness is unique among his works, however, and in the musical Matilda’s storytelling and reading become a source of empowerment for herself and her friends.

Girls and Heroism

Girl Studies and Using Books to Construct Gender Identity and Action

In (2013), scholars investigate the diverse ways reading and writing help girls construct their desired gender performance (Simmons x). In the “Forward,” Rachel Simmons contends that reading and writing allow “avenues of escape for girls” (x). They do this, first, by allowing girls to try on new desires and dreams and to work through personal challenges while also allowing them to learn from and imitate female characters who speak their minds (x). In the musical,

Matilda escapes into and learns from books. We see this clearly in her references to books in

“Naughty,” her “I Am” song where she lays out her life philosophy. The characters in some books come to bad ends because they “didn’t have a choice, they were written that way. Innocent victims of their story” (Kelly and Minchin 17). But people do have the agency to change events Hammonds 43 and “you don’t have to cry, you don’t have to shout,” you sometimes just have to be “a little bit naughty.” That is, sometimes you have to defy the social and hierarchical rules that would work against your ability to exert your own voice. We also see Matilda working through personal challenges when she imagines her story about the escapologist and acrobat. Through the practice of storytelling, Matilda lives out the frustrations she has with the emotional and physical abuse from her parents and headmistress and is able to process them in a productive way.

Matilda’s bookishness also helps her accomplish the six actions that empowered girls

(can) demonstrate, as outlined in Rosemary Horowitz and Joanne Brown’s chapter

“Empowerment, YA Immigration Literature, and Girls”: 1) acting purposefully, 2) thinking independently, 3) countering expectations, 4) exhibiting confidence, 5) questioning conventional wisdom, and 6) taking charge. By engaging in these actions, girls demonstrate their “self- efficacy” or the “belief in one’s ability to achieve one’s goals” (46). In the opening page of this chapter, we saw Matilda exhibiting these traits as an “empowered girl.” She reads and speaks independently, countering gender expectations and acting confidently in the face of paternal criticism. Matilda demonstrates these actions throughout her story, and they are significant contributors to her construction as a heroine in the mythic style. The remainder of this chapter will be given over to understanding how Matilda uses stories and reading to empower herself, and act as a hero(ine).

The “Mythic Journey” Hero(ine) and the “Journey of Becoming/Development” Hero(ine)

Reading and going to school do not seem very heroic. It is important, therefore, to clarify the distinct way bookish women perform as heroines. I have briefly argued that the construction of bookish women can be understood through either a mythic heroine journey or the heroine of a

“process of becoming” or “development” story (i.e. bildungsroman). Some scholars, writing Hammonds 44

about the “hero” do not distinguish between the classical hero on his epic quest and the modern individual setting out on a quest of self-discovery. For this study, however, it is a useful

distinction.

The classic mythic hero’s journey, written about so extensively by Joseph Campbell, is

described as an external quest that one undertakes as part of their maturation into society. A

quest is undertaken, enemies combated, and rewards are won as the hero claims his place and

identity. He has not experienced any great personal change of character or understanding of self.

Rather, he has claimed space for who he already understands himself to be. Conversely, the

bildung journey is a more modern conception whereby the hero matures psychologically. The bildungsroman journey of development is the internal growth of a young innocent man into a wiser and more mature man as he comes to understand himself as a whole and subjective self within society (Pearson and Pope 6). In short, the bildung hero experiences an internal journey of

discovery and victory.

Bildungsroman Hero Quest  Subjective individual  Leaves on a quest Task to accomplish process of becoming  Fights “dragons” Distance self from Father  Outcast/misfit  Inspired heterosexual Guides and companions  Education (academic, romance (the princess) Reward earned relational, social)  Having overcome the Outcast (women)  Revolutionary when an enemy, returns home outcast

Figure 1. Hero Journey Comparison (Compiled by R. Hammonds from Labovitz, Fuderer,

Bower, and Pearson and Pope) Hammonds 45

It can be easy to see how men, such as the lead characters in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of

the Rings or George Lucas’ Star Wars, could fit into these two columns and in the shared center.

Frodo must leave on a quest to fight the “dragon” Sauron. This is his task. He acquires guides

and friends and ultimately overcomes his enemy and returns. Aragorn must cease to be the

outsider, the ranger, and overcome all his enemies to gain the crown and marry the “princess.”

Heroes perform “significant actions” that are recognized by others and rewarded. On the other

hand, the young Anakin Skywalker experiences the bildungsroman. As a young man he feels

“different,” and is called “the chosen one;” he must be educated in the ways of the Jedi, learn

from his guides and companions, and do battle. He also marries. Yet his journey of becoming

and development separates him from his mother and ultimately leads to his turn toward evil. And

still his journey of becoming is not over. Luke expresses the fact that he senses good in Anakin

(e.g. Darth Vader), and in his last moments, Anakin continues to choose who he wants to be.

So how can women who read, write, study, and teach be heroes if being a hero is

described in such masculine terms? For centuries women have been asking that question and in

recent decades feminist scholars have articulated these questions in books and articles. In her

book Toward an Intellectual History of Women: Essays By Linda K Kerber (1997), Kerber

argues that “women had to struggle to clear a space for their own intellectual activity and to

defend themselves against the charge that intellectual effort was inappropriate, even dangerous,

when attempted by a woman” (225-25 italics added). Carol Pearson and Katherine Poe agree that

“Simply by being heroic, a woman defies the conditioning that insists she be a damsel in distress, and thus she implicitly challenges the status quo” (9). These women, by knowing who they are and claiming their own space, engage – not in the coming of age narrative – but in the mythic quest. Hammonds 46

I argue, therefore, that characters such as Matilda Wormwood and Katherine Plummer (in

the next chapter) essentially know themselves and progress on their quest as bookish women,

fighting the dragons of patriarchal oppression and abuse for the betterment of their community

and, in the end, gaining their reward. In the remaining pages of this chapter I will use Matilda as

an example of a bookish girl who, as a heroine on a mythic journey, empowers herself and

others.

Matilda Wormwood and Heroic Bookishness

Family

It starts with family and a home community. These are the people that have the greatest

influence on us, whether we agree with their desired influence or not. Children’s author Roald

Dahl (1916-1990) was well known for writing stories that focus on intelligent children’s

reactions against their moronic and abusive parents and superiors. In Matilda, Dahl creates a

highly intelligent heroine whose reading habits have, by five-years-old, resulted in a refinement

of mind and character devoted to the ideals and implementation of “fairness” and justice.

She knew it was wrong to hate her parents like this, but she was finding it very hard not

to do so. All the reading she had done had given her a view of life that they had never

seen. If only they would read a little Dickens or Kipling they would soon discover there

was more to life than cheating people and watching television. Another thing. She

resented being told constantly that she was ignorant and stupid when she knew she

wasn’t. (Dahl 28-29)

Because Dahl’s books are extravagant fairytales, “[n]egative qualities are frequently associated

with physical traits and behaviors, so that shallowness of mind is manifested in an almost entirely physical form” (Palkovich 4). Dahl describes Mr. Wormwood, Matilda’s father, as “a Hammonds 47

small ratty-looking man” with a “thin ratty moustache” and wearing “jackets with large brightly-

colored checks and he sported ties that were usually yellow or pale green” (Dahl 23). He is a

used car salesman who believes that customers are there to be swindled by such intelligent people as himself. He prides himself on his superior intelligence and, because he favors his son,

passes his knowledge on to him. Yet it is really Matilda who is the true “heir” to her father.10

Though they live in opposition to each other, their use of intelligence is coupled with a strong

desire to achieve their own ends. Mr. Wormwood wants money, Matilda wants acceptance and

justice.

The Outcast

Both Mythic and Bildung hero(ines) experience times when they feel like an outcast.

They can be outcasts in their own families and decide to leave it to claim a space for themselves

elsewhere, or they may stay in their homes as outcasts and experience a heroic journey within

the context of their native space(s). In Jane Eyre’s Sisters, Jody Bower argues that heroines

frequently experience their outcast status in this last sense (68). She argues that heroines who

remain in their home spaces as outcasts exhibit “a spark of individuality” that is resented by

family members. The heroine must therefore fight “for what she wants instead of accepting what

others think is best for her” (77). In the novel, Roald Dahl places the little girl in a family that is

10 Susan Fraiman draws the same conclusion about Elizabeth Bennet in the classic Jane Austen

novel Pride and Prejudice. “The entail notwithstanding, [Elizabeth] is in many respects [Mr.

Bennet’s] heir. To her he bequeaths his ironic distance from the world, his habit of studying and appraising those around him, the role of social critic…Mr. Bennet enables Elizabeth by sharing with her his authorial mandate” (171). Hammonds 48 stupid and uncomprehending in the face of their daughter’s genius and spunk. In the musical,

Matilda is an outcast in her home and school spaces primarily because of her bookishness (“you nasty little bookworm”), her gender (“I don’t suppose we could trade him in for a boy, could we?”), and her girlhood – that is, her age and small size (“she is a squib, a shrimp, an un-hatched tadpole”). Luckily for the young heroine, she has guides and friends who help her claim her space and express her thoughts and feelings.

Guides and Friends

Heroes and Heroines often have companions and guides as they travel their journeys and fulfill their quests (Bower 42). These companions and guides are crucial as objects of comparison to the “differentness” and heroism of the bookish woman (or girl). Matilda has two such guides/companions: Mrs. Phelps and Miss Honey. Mrs. Phelps, the librarian, guides

Matilda through the world of books and story-telling. In a world where authoritative adults tell her she is worthless and has nothing valuable to say, Mrs. Phelps encourages Matilda and gives her space to speak and share. Dennis Kelly, the book writer for the musical, argues that it is

Matilda’s story-telling that significantly counteracts the dangers of sedate bookish activities like reading and writing (Sierz 245). In an interview, the composer and lyricist Tim Minchin explained that when he finally wrote Matilda’s “I Am” song, “Naughty,” it opened up her thoughts and emotions to the audience and made her more active, not only through doing but through thinking about life (Schulman).

Just prior to her song, Matilda declares to her father that it is “not right” when he blames her for his frustrations and failures. Mr. Wormwood sends her to her room, and she climbs up onto her bookshelf and prepares to read as a means of escape. Reading guides and refines her thinking and Matilda climbs down from her perch and decides to take action and regain a sense Hammonds 49 of justice. She enters her parent’s bathroom and adds her mother’s hair dye to her father’s hair tonic. As she does so she sings that great deeds usually have small beginnings, and she is taking it into her own hands to start “a tiny revolt” (10). And though no one can change her story, it is through story that Matilda learns to overcome her life’s obstacles and enemies.

Throughout the show, Matilda tells Miss Phelps the story of a husband and wife and uses it to process the abuse she receives at home and at school. By imagining the couple as childless and desperate for a child to love, Matilda imaginatively performs what it might be like to live in a loving and supportive home. After going to school and meeting her large and frightening headmistress, Miss Trunchbull, Matilda imagines a large and frightening sister-in-law who puts the pregnant wife in danger. When Matilda’s father is verbally, emotionally, and mentally abusive, she imagines being the little girl whose father arrives home, discovers his little daughter’s abuse, promises to protect her, but disappears forever. As Mrs. Phelps listens to the various installments of this suspenseful and violent story pouring forth from the mind of the small girl, she is both completely engrossed in the narrative and very concerned about Matilda’s ability to imagine such cruelties. The librarian has limited opportunities to help Matilda other than to simply listen and support Matilda’s efforts at fictional and lived self-authorship. In the final scene, Mrs. Phelps, Matilda, and Miss Honey co-narrate the happy ending.

MRS. PHELPS. And they hardly noticed as the Wormwoods and Rudolpho sped away

into the distance.

MISS HONEY. Because they had found each other.

MATILDA. Yes, they found each other.

[Hand in hand, MISS HONEY and MATILDA walk downstage, before together doing a

playful cartwheel, and exiting.] (Kelly and Minchin 67; Act 2, scene 22) Hammonds 50

The “happy ending” that Matilda achieves with Miss Honey is “happy” because of the important role Miss Honey performs as a companion and guide to Matilda. As a bookish companion, Miss Honey stands side by side with Matilda, battling her enemies (Mrs. Wormwood and Miss Trunchbull) and partaking in the heroine’s reward, namely, the family they establish together. According to Tim Minchin, Dahl’s Miss Honey displays a certain degree of passivity and “undemonstrativeness” that was unsuitable for the stage (itis2I84u). By giving Miss Honey songs such as “Pathetic,” “This Little Girl,” and “My House,” Minchin provided opportunities for Miss Honey to actively express and perform her emotional and psychological drives.

Miss Honey fights against her fear throughout the show, not for herself, but for her students – and for Matilda especially. She is easily intimidated by Miss Trunchbull and Mrs.

Wormwood, each of whom insult her. When Miss Honey comes to Miss Trunchbull and tries to suggest that Matilda be promoted to the highest class (“Pathetic”), Miss Trunchbull accuses her of standing like a “wet tissue” (28). When she then attempts to convince Mrs. Wormwood that

Matilda is a genius and should be promoted, Mrs. Wormwood – and her dancing partner,

Rudolpho – sing an entire song (“Loud”) about Miss Honey’s inadequacies. Miss Honey’s intelligence and education are condemned because “People don’t like smarty-pants what go

‘round / Claiming that they know stuff we don’t know” (29). She is urged instead, to “learn to stand up and stick out from the crowd!” (29-30). She needs “A little less brains, a lot more hair! /

A little less head, a lot more derriere!” and ultimately to be “Loud”er. Following the song Miss

Honey leaves the house in defeat, admitting that she doesn’t have “the spine” to tackle this situation (31). “Just go back to school,” she tells herself. But a moment later she tenderly sings that “This little girl…this miracle…she seems not to know that she’s special at all. And what sort of teacher would I be if I let this little girl fall? I can see this little girl needs somebody strong to Hammonds 51 fight by her side…Instead she’s found me. Pathetic little me” (31).

Dennis Kelly’s libretto also provides Miss Honey opportunities to act as a guide to

Matilda. Because her requests to promote Matilda have been rejected, Miss Honey provides

Matilda with advanced textbooks to read in class while Miss Honey instructs the other children:

“and…well…if you have any questions, I shall do my best to answer them” (34). Matilda’s response is a significant indicator of her guide preference. Rather than imitating her “Loud” mother, Matilda wordlessly hugs Miss Honey so tightly that Miss Honey says Matilda will

“knock all the air out of” her. Matilda thus acknowledges Miss Honey as a suitable mentor.

Later, when Matilda begins to experience her telekinetic powers, it is Miss Honey who becomes

Matilda’s advisor. After successfully using her eyes to dump a glass of water onto Miss

Trunchbull, Matilda demonstrates her ability for Miss Honey and then asks multiple times if she is “strange” (55). Miss Honey answers that she thinks it has to do with Matilda’s “incredible mind,” and repeatedly encourages Matilda by reminding her that she is special. Matilda reciprocates this offer of friendship and guidance by respecting Miss Honey and fighting for her when she learns that Miss Honey, like herself, has been badly treated by enemies.

Obstacles and Enemies: Competing Femininities and Putting Things Right

Every hero(ine) must overcome obstacles on their journey. For Matilda, her greatest obstacle is her parents. They find her “disgusting” because she is a girl who likes to read and tell stories (Kelly and Minchin 12, 34). Mr. Wormwood finds Matilda’s very gender unacceptable, while Mrs. Wormwood finds her gender performance revolting. Dennis Kelly reinforces

Matilda’s inappropriate gender performance in the eyes of her parents through repetition. Four times Mr. Wormwood calls Matilda “boy” and she bellows back “I’m a girl!” (8, 9, 24, 46). Mrs.

Wormwood tells Miss Honey that they have tried to stop her reading because the mother is “not Hammonds 52

in favor of girls getting all…cleverpants, Miss Hussy…Girls should think about makeup and hairdye! Looks are more important than books! I mean…look at you, and look at me! You chose books, I chose looks!” (29). Matilda and Miss Honey are othered (i.e. marginalized) by the

Wormwoods and Miss Trunchbull whose conceptions of gender agree with stereotypical representations of gender.

With such obstacles in her early life, Matilda needed support and guidance that she did not have until she was old enough to go, alone, to the library and then later to school. It was

Matilda’s reading at an early age that guided her understanding of gender performance and helped her understand that she did not have to imitate her mother’s model of femininity. Her reading list is instructive of the kinds of gender performance that she might be modeling herself

after. She tells Miss Honey that some of her favorites are Tess of the D’Urbervilles, The Lord of

the Rings, Nicholas Nickleby, Jane Eyre, The Secret Garden, and Crime and Punishment. From

these books Matilda could learn that it is right to stand up for oneself and for others rather than

allowing injustice to continue. She also learns from these heroines and heroes that being somber

and unique is valuable. In fact, the confident heroine carries a sense of authority and dignity that

more demonstrative people lack – people like her parents. Matilda, therefore, enjoys quietly

reading, telling stories, sharing her thoughts, allowing others to speak for themselves, speaking

up in defense of others, walking demurely, standing tall and proud, claiming space for herself,

dishing out punishment, and forgiving wrongs. This confidence, and the ability to retreat into

stories, is her abiding tool for overcoming the obstacle of her parents. And in the end, she

overcomes in a very particular way. Mr. Wormwood finally recognized her, verbally, as his

“daughter,” and respectfully honored her request to stay with Miss Honey.

Hero(ines) must also overcome their ultimate enemy – “the dragon” – against whom they Hammonds 53 must prove their heroism. For Matilda, that character is Miss Agatha Trunchbull, former

Olympian hammer thrower, school headmistress, and terror to children. Miss Trunchbull despises both Matilda’s age and her gender. Miss Trunchbull fears and hates Matilda’s intelligence, gender performance, and agency specifically because she exhibits them as a child.

Miss Trunchull frequently quotes the school’s motto “Babinatum est Magitum” – children are maggots – and she finds it repugnant that a child should unfairly attain such abilities without having to work for them. In her mind it is not right. Miss Trunchbull can, therefore, be described as the evil or shadow version of Matilda. Like Matilda she has a sense of justice and fair-play, but it is distorted and harmful to others. “I am a winner – I play by the rules and I win. But if I play by the rules and … do not win, then something is wrong. Something is not working. If something is wrong, we have to put it right, even if it screams” (Kelly and Minchin 59). The use of the phrase “put it right” is a clear repetition of Matilda’s use of the phrase, connecting Miss

Trunchbull to Matilda. Things must be done the right way, and for Miss Trunchbull that means that children cannot be intelligent. They have not earned it. A girl Matilda’s age has no right to make choices or say no when an instruction has been given. Such a philosophy stands in complete opposition to Matilda’s experience and view of the world; and because both the heroine and her enemy are active characters who must put things “right,” the inevitable result is that their confrontations will build to a climax where one or the other must win.

In Dahl’s book, Miss Trunchbull is an ogre, a monster, a murderer with a twisted sense of humor that finds pleasure in the physical pain of others (e.g. throwing children out of windows, picking them up by their ears, putting the children in a spiked cupboard called “chokey”). She is a large woman who uses her size and position in the school to intimidate others. She is, in other words, fantastical and archetypal. Tim Minchin states in an interview that, in his opinion, no Hammonds 54 woman could play the character that is ultimately so masculine (Reynolds; cunytv75, Theater

Talk: Matilda, the Musical). I suggest that what Minchin is pointing to is a twofold reality: the

“monstrousness” of a woman who, not only does not care for or nurture children, but who goes out of her way to harm them (see Gilbert and Gubar below), and the character’s performance of toxic masculinity that seeks to subdue all around her through whatever means necessary so that her own position of power is never in question.

In their influential study Women, Culture, and Society, Louise Lamphere and Michelle

Zimbalist Rosaldo argue that social scientists (in the west) have most frequently accepted a male view of women that “sees the exercise of power by women as manipulative, disruptive, illegitimate, or unimportant” (21). Similarly, Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, in their iconic text

Madwoman in the Attic, argue that, “assertiveness, aggressiveness—all characteristics of a male life of ‘significant action’—are ‘monstrous’ in women precisely because [they are] ‘unfeminine’ and therefore unsuited to a gentle life of ‘contemplative purity’” (28). Later, they specifically define this life of female “significant action” as “a witch's life because it is so monstrous, so unnatural” (42). Here again we see Miss Trunchbull and Matilda standing as reflective opposites of one another. Where Miss Trunchbull’s unfeminine aggressiveness makes her, in some ways, witch-like and unnatural, Matilda actually develops powers that enable her to defeat her enemy.

And her enemy must be defeated for there is no compromise to be made with the toxic masculinity that Miss Trunchbull performs. We learn that it is so extreme that she has killed her brother in law, taking his house and wealth, and spending years abusing Miss Honey, her niece.

In the school her demand for absolute obedience is partnered with her love of inflicting pain on the small impotent children in her care – demanding that Bruce Bogtrotter eat an enormous Hammonds 55

chocolate cake and then throwing him into the “chokey”11 (“Bruce”), making the children do long

sessions of “Phys. Ed” (“Revolting”), and swinging Amanda Thripp by her pigtails and then

throwing her like a hammer in the Olympics. The young bookish heroine must battle and defeat

her enemy, but she does not do it alone. She is joined by the other children who, having watched

her example from the first day of school, have been emboldened to be empowered children too.

In this way, composer and lyricist Tim Minchin uses the double meaning of revolt(ing) in the

musical: first, as the term is used by Miss Trunchbull for the children (i.e. they are revolting little

maggots), and second, as the term is used by the children for themselves and their actions. They

claim her title for themselves and flip it as they also revolt against her tyranny and oppression.

Battle

I stated before that Matilda fulfills the requirements for an “empowered girl” described by Rosemary Horowitz and Joanne Brown: acting purposefully, thinking independently, countering expectations, exhibiting confidence, questioning conventional wisdom, taking charge, demonstrating self-efficacy, and belief in one’s ability to achieve one’s goals (46). She acts purposefully, punishing behavior she judges to be wrong. From the beginning she thinks independently, correcting her father when he calls her a boy or when he gleefully plans to trick customers into buying broken-down cars. She counters expectations every time she demonstrates her intelligence and knowledge, surprising Miss Honey on the first day of class or speaking fluent Russian in the denouement. Matilda exhibits confidence throughout the story, comfortable

11 The “chokey” is a narrow closet lined with sharp spikes and functions as an iron maiden

torture device. Children are sent there for solitary confinement and must stand very still or be

pierced by the spikes. Hammonds 56

in the knowledge that her judgements and behavior are well founded in her reading. Matilda

questions conventional wisdom by plainly debating with her parents about right and wrong or

questioning the claim that young people cannot do anything simply by virtue of their age and

size. Finally, Matilda takes charge of Miss Honey’s circumstances and drives Miss Trunchbull away, ensuring that Miss Honey will regain her family home and money and no longer be tyrannized by her aunt. Matilda’s powers temporarily aid her in these final actions, but it is her character, and the small actions, that truly mark her as an empowered girl.

Matilda’s greatest battle comes when she uses her telekinetic abilities to scare Miss

Trunchbull. A few scenes previous, as Miss Trunchbull hurls insults at Matilda, she sings what has been lauded as one of the creative team’s favorite moments in the show. Matilda’s anger begins to build and she “retreats deep into her thoughts, posing a series of Cartesian questions” as she tries to explain, through what she knows about relative perception, “that she thinks she might be different” (Schulman). She feels her anger has the power to become “light” and her eyes begin to burn and “suddenly everything is…quiet. Like silence, but not really silent” (89).

She poetically describes the comfort of the silence she experiences in that moment – it is like lying upside–down in your bed, the sound of a page being turned in a book, a walk in the woods.

Her confidence is rising until, at the end of the song, she focuses the power through her eyes and makes Miss Trunchull’s glass fall over, effectively ending the woman’s enraged tirade. In Dahl’s book, it is not until after she pushes the glass over with her powers that a “strange feeling of serenity and confidence was sweeping over her and all of a sudden she found that she was

frightened of nobody in the world” (162). In the musical, Kelly and Minchin make her

confidence the gatekeeper of her powers. And this confidence gives hope to the others in her

class and empowers her own actions. Hammonds 57

The climactic battle comes in Act Two, scene seven, as Miss Trunchbull gives the children a spelling test designed to humiliate them. As she prepares to punish the children,

Matilda begins to use her telekinetic powers to write on the board: “Agatha, this is Magnus. Give my Jenny back her house, then leave. Or I’ll get you like you got me! Run!” (Kelly and Minchin

70). Without uttering a word, Matilda finishes the story she began by writing a message from the escapologist, Magnus, to the aunt, Miss Trunchbull. Her weapons are story-telling, confidence, and genius-induced telekinetic power.

Reward

Matilda’s “happy ending,” unlike most of the others you will see in musical theatre, does not involve a heterosexual union, the promised romantic payoff of a two-hour romantic comedy.

Naturally her age removes this as the expected, or desired, resolution to her tale. However, it could easily be argued that the true desire of every bookish woman, in its purest sense, is to finish her journey and find a place of safety, acceptance, and love. For Jerusha Abbott (Daddy

Long Legs) and Katherine Plummer (Newsies), a romantic partner who also has experienced ostracism offers such a desirable ending. For Nettie in The Color Purple, a happy ending depends on the long-awaited reunion with her beloved sister, Celie. In Matilda the Musical, the

“happy ending” means that she can exchange her abusive parents for a parent who will support, encourage, and love her for who she is. And while their relationship literally is that of a parent and child, it can also be said that their union satisfies the hero’s marriage at the conclusion of his quest. If, by marriage is meant a partnership between two people who are, in some way, “made of the same stuff,” then Matilda has met her “match,” her home is complete and the ending certainly can be described as “happy.”

The relationship between Miss Honey and Matilda is naturally not the same as the Hammonds 58

romantic relationship between Jerusha and Jervis in the previous chapter or between Katherine and Jack in the succeeding one. However, as a “happy ending” partner, Miss Honey exhibits the same kinds of traits as the partners of many other bookish women. She experienced ostracization and abuse at the hands of Miss Trunchbull who has also become Matilda’s enemy. This experience of mutual oppression forms the foundation for the deep empathy that Matilda and

Miss Honey have for one another. Their love is one that is accepting, protective, and helpful.

Voice and Movement: Embodying a Bookish Heroine

An analysis of physical and vocal performances in the Broadway production of Matilda the

Musical further clarifies Matilda’s bookish heroine journey. The fantastical and archetypal style

of Dennis Kelly and Tim Minchin’s adaptation led director Matthew Warchas and choreographer

Peter Darling to use very presentational12 methods of performance that function semiotically

(large gestures, specific and controlled facial expressions, precisely choreographed movement sequences) to convey meaning and leave strong emotional impressions. The semiotic and presentational nature of the show led the creative team, initially, to consider using puppets or adults to play Matilda and the children (Sierz 255; Schulman). However, Matthew Warchas came to the conclusion that he wanted to cast children because they literally represent the emotions of childhood that adult actors must work to represent (Schulman). Minchin and Kelly’s

lyrics and dialogue were complex, however, so the young actors/esses had to be able to speak

12 Compared with “representational” theatre, which is most associated with realism,

“presentational” theatre is self-consciously theatrical in its style and calls on the audience to use

their imagination to participate in the creation of the stories and experiences on the stage.

(Gordon) Hammonds 59

very articulately and with a “clear speaking voice” (Donna). This was particularly true for

American audiences who might struggle to understand the thick British accents spoken by the

characters.13

Because accents function as potential markers of class, background, and personality in

British society and entertainment, the use of different British accents is specifically deployed in

Matilda the Musical to guide audience understanding of character. I will focus on the use of three specific British accents: Received Pronunciation (RP), General British (GB), and Cockney.

First, the Received Pronunciation (RP) accent is considered the most “posh,” and though it is only spoken by a small percentage of the population, they are frequently highly influential personas (BBC announcers, prime ministers, graduates of Oxford, etc). The RP accent is distinguished by its complete absence of regional influence (pronunciationstudio). Second, the

General British (GB) accent, unlike the RP accent, “can incorporate regional elements.” It is clear and articulate without sounding condescending. Finally, the Cockney accent is associated with East London and the lower classes, and is distinguished by ‘h’ dropping, glottal stops, and replacing the ‘th’ sound with ‘f’ and ‘v’ sounds (pronunciationstudio).

When the young American actresses Sophia Gennusa, Oona Laurence, Bailey Ryon, and

Milly Shapiro were taught to sound like Matilda, they were taught a “General British” accent with traces of Cockney. By moderating Matilda’s Cockney accent with a more articulate GB

13 A variety of video and audio recordings were analyzed for this section. These include, but are

not limited to, the Original Broadway Cast Recording and the August 9, 2013 performance

recording held in the Theatre on Film and Tape (TOFT) Archive at the New York Public

Library. Hammonds 60 accent, the creative team accomplished two goals at once. First, by speaking methodically and articulately using the GB accent, the actresses were more easily understood by audiences.

Second, the articulateness of the small girl signaled her intelligence, maturity, and difference within her Cockney home. In her 2015 article “Child Giftedness as Class Weaponry: The Case of

Roald Dahl’s Matilda,” Clementine Beauvais argues that Dahl’s “portrayal of the Wormwoods goes beyond archetypal villain, to constitute a specific class caricature, visible when the novel is considered within the British socioeconomic context of its time of publication” in 1988 (279).

Mr. Wormwood, in particular, represents a tasteless consumerism (280) compared to his daughter’s “always already middle class” status (282). Matilda’s GP accent moves her outside of the particularity of her familial situation and contributes to her ability to function as an every-girl heroine. At the same time, it signals her similarity and kinship with both her friend and guide,

Miss Honey, and her shadow enemy, Miss Trunchbull. Both of these characters speak the more recognizably “posh” RP accent that signals their position of power and influence due to the RP’s connection with educated and powerful men and women.

Matilda’s accent contributes to her construction as a heroine who must go on a journey where she can mark out space for herself as someone unique and special, while also standing in for all the girls (and boys) who watch Matilda and feel that they, too, are just a little bit different. In her article “Wish Fulfillment and Subversion: Roald Dahl’s Dickensian Fantasy Matilda (1992),

Dieter Petzold states that in “its narcissistic phase, every child sees itself as an exceptional child.

[…] Even though the details of the story will probably differ quite strikingly from the reader's own life, she or he will readily identify with the fictional hero, because [of] the ‘neglected-child fantasy’ (italics added, 188). The influence of her accent, therefore, is only one way of identifying with Matilda as a marginalized, yet empowered, bookish heroine. While the actresses Hammonds 61

use their voices to verbally claim space for themselves on stage, they also do so physically

through blocking and choreography.

The director’s hand in constructing the physical performance is clearly seen in productions of

Matilda the Musical. I will contrast Matilda’s physicality with the those of Miss Trunchbull,

Mrs. Wormwood, and Miss Honey as a means of differentiating and highlighting Matilda’s

difference and her construction as a heroine. I will be referring specifically to performances of

the original Broadway cast including Bertie Carvel as Miss Trunchbull, Lesli Margherita as Mrs.

Wormwood, Lauren Ward as Miss Honey, and Milly Shapiro, Sophia Gennusa, Oona Laurence,

and Bailey Ryon as Matilda. Large and small stylized gestures are used in a movement vocabulary throughout the show to distinguish the four different versions of female gender performance in the story: Mrs. Wormwood’s sexual power, Miss Honey’s meek and supportive presence, Miss Trunchbull’s neurosis and violence, and Matilda’s growing confidence. These movement vocabularies are exaggerated because of the heightened and fantastic nature of the show and may therefore be easily analyzed using Rudolf Laban’s system for Movement

Analysis. Laban categorizes movement based on three variables: “Weight” of movement (Strong or Light), “Time” or duration of movement (Sudden or Sustained), and “Spatial Intention” or direction (Direct or Indirect) (see Table 4). Each combination is given a name that provides artists and scholars a useful tool for describing the quality of an actor’s or dancer’s physicality

(e.g. “floating,” “gliding,” “flicking,” etc). Hammonds 62

Table 3 Laban's Movement Analysis (Bennet, Ward, et. al)

Movement Quality Weight Time Spatial Intention Floating Light Sustained Indirect Gliding Light Sustained Direct Flicking Light Sudden Indirect Dabbing Light Sudden Direct Wringing Strong Sustained Indirect Pressing Strong Sustained Direct Slashing Strong Sudden Indirect Punching Strong Sudden Direct Hammonds 63

The first member of Matilda’s family that the audience meets is Mrs. Wormwood, nine months pregnant and completely oblivious to the fact. Her Cockney accent marks her as a woman of low class and her large hair, bright heavy make-up, dangly earrings, and lack of basic sense and manners couple with her complete narcissism and lead the audience to understand that this is a woman we should not sympathize with. In recordings of Lesli Margherita’s performance of Mrs. Wormwood, she uses the strong, sudden and direct quality of movement Laban calls

“punching.” These movements are tightly connected to her obsession with dancing and literally making a spectacle of herself physically and vocally. She embodies the most garish kind of musical theatre woman and stereotypes the women of society who see their success come solely from their ability to take up space through their physical (i.e. sexual) and vocal performance in the world. It is no coincidence that Mrs. Wormwood’s big solo number is called “Loud.” During this song she sings quickly and loudly, dances with tremendous dexterity and athleticism, and mocks those – Miss Honey in particular – who do not follow her “spectacular” example. Mrs.

Wormwood’s strong, sudden, and direct movements are accompanied by strong and sustained direct movements identified by Laban as “pressing.” Like a lioness approaching her prey, Mrs.

Wormwood will slowly and directly approach Matilda as she verbally abuses her – calling her an idiot and her reading habits disgusting. As an example of femaleness, Mrs. Wormwood demonstrates for Matilda how direct and intentional physical presence conveys confidence. As will be discussed more fully below, Matilda learns this lesson, and incorporates it into her own bodily performance of confidence during her “I Am/I Want” song “Naughty.”

If Mrs. Wormwood embodies the “punch” and “press” movements in performance, Miss

Honey, performed by Lauren Ward, embodies the “gliding,” “flicking,” and “pressing” movements that convey her contrasting experiences of insecurity, shrinking courage, and calm Hammonds 64

fortitude. Among her students, Miss Honey’s physicality is light, sustained, and direct, but unlike

Mrs. Wormwood’s use of that movement type for intimidation, Miss Honey’s movements are

supportive and make space for others. As a bookish woman herself, Miss Honey is dedicated to

the success of others and works particularly hard to empower the young genius in her classroom

despite her lifelong fear of Miss Trunchbull – her abusive aunt. When in the presence of Miss

Trunchbull, Miss Honey’s “flicking” (light, sudden, and indirect) movements physicalize her

fear and make her expressions of courage on behalf of her students more heroic. Indeed, while

Miss Honey might not be the first character one thinks of when considering great heroic characters, Miss Honey’s ability to overcome her own fear and to stand up (shrinking, but

persistent) to the Wormwoods and Miss Trunchbull makes her a powerful ally for the young

bookish heroine. Matilda, with the quiet support of Miss Honey, is then able to go on and

vanquish their mutual foe. The physicality of Miss Honey, from their first meeting to their final

paired cartwheel, matches Matilda’s and signifies Miss Honey’s place as Matilda’s partner. Stacy

Wolf argues that when two voices sing together they form a couple, and that this also happens when two women sing together, they are placed “in collusion and coupledom” (27, 33). The coupling of Miss Honey and Matilda is not only vocal (as in the ending of “When I Grow Up”), but physical.

Bertie Carvel’s performance of the terrifying Miss Trunchbull is placed in stark contrast to the supportive physical and vocal performance of Miss Honey. During the workshop stage of the production composer/lyricist Tim Minchin, librettist Dennis Kelly, and director Matthew

Warchas agreed that the most effective way to give Miss Trunchbull the physical stature represented in Roald Dalh’s book was to cast a man. Moreover, the man had to have expert control over his physical performance in order to successfully perform the drag role and convey Hammonds 65

the menacing woman.14 Actor Bertie Carvel, trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts

(RADA), was hired because of his high level of physical and vocal precision (Theatre Talk). In

recordings of the show, Carvel performs a woman who sustains a degree of irascibility and

peevishness that make her extra-ordinary. To do this, Carvel, embodies the strong, sustained, and

indirect movement called “wringing” as well as it’s near cousin “slashing” (strong, sudden,

indirect). The indirect nature of Miss Trunchbull’s movement makes it dangerous when

motivated by her constant angry and complete authority. The sudden flashes of temper erupt

from what was previously a veiled countenance. In the scene, for example, when Miss

Trunchbull comes to accuse Matilda of eating her chocolate cake, Carvel enters Miss Honey’s

classroom yelling for Matilda and standing with her head cocked to the side like a bird of prey

eyeing a meal. With hands and wrists tensed like a vulture’s talons and arms flailing, she charges

down the row of desks, grabs Matilda by the arm, marches her up to one of the front desks,

tosses the child sitting there onto the floor and stands Matilda upon the desk in view of all. When

Miss Honey calmly points out that Matilda has been in class and therefore cannot be guilty, Miss

Trunchbull slowly twists around to look at her and replies, in a softer and more menacing voice,

“Standing up for the little spitball are you? Well this crime took place before school started!”

14 Drag performance adds an additional layer of signification and meaning making to the

character. As scholar Laurence Senelick has argued in his book The Changing Room: Sex, Drag,

and Theatre (2000), “Elements of masculine, feminine or androgyne observed in life become refracted through the theatrical presentation” (7). At the moment when audiences recognize and accept the performance of gender, they partake in an “alienating effect that is accomplished through the actor’s ability to control the messages their body is sending (7). Hammonds 66

(Kelly and Minchin 59) Carvel’s performance of Miss Trunchbull is heightened to the level of

the grotesque, as seen in Dahl’s book, and serves as a striking physical obstacle to Matilda who balances her performance of lighter movements like Miss Honey and stronger movements like

Miss Trunchbull and Mrs. Wormwood.

Matilda first appears at the end of the opening number, “Miracle,” holding a stack of library books that are tied together. Matilda takes center stage, facing the audience with a confident stillness that contrasts with the spectacle of “slashing,” “dabbing,” and “punching” physicalities that have dominated the movements of the other characters in the scene so far.

Matilda maintains her quality of stillness and quiet during her dramatic scenes. While singing or telling stories, however, her voice and movement grow in aural and kinesthetic volume. “Naughty,” Matilda’s “I Am” song, is the first time we get to see her break out of her stillness and become really expressive. Rushing into her room, she climbs onto her bed and then up onto her bookshelf next to a neat row of books with the description “Library Books” written across their spines. Opening a large book on beat with the music, she looks at it and begins to ruminate on the fact that poor Jack and Jill’s fall was “inevitable. They never stood a chance they were written that way. Innocent victims of their story” (17). Quickly putting that book down and grabbing another, she again opens the book with the strong, sudden, and direct “punching” movement. Romeo and Juliet’s “gory” conclusion draws from Matilda a “press” (strong, sustained, and direct) as she wrinkles her face in a wince and slowly holds the book further away from her. Dismounting her perch, she jumps onto the bed and from the bed to the floor. Leaning over with hands on knees, she rocks back and forth on her feet and shrugs her shoulders

(“Sometimes we have to be a little bit naughty”). She tentatively sneaks out of her room, pausing to check for creaky floorboards, looking quickly from side to side and touching the side of her Hammonds 67

head, arms and fingers outstretched on each side as she walks along an imaginary wall until she

finally arrives at her parent’s bathroom. Reaching up, she pulls down and the sound of a light

clicking on tells us that she has pulled the string down to give herself light to work. She wiggles

her fingers in contemplative anticipation, looking around for something she can do to punish her

father for his wrong-doing. Picking up her mother’s “platinum blonde hair dye, extra strong” and

her fathers “oil of violet hair tonic for men,” she considers them for a moment and with a “yep!”

she adds the hair dye to her father’s hair tonic. As she continues to add the hair dye, she looks at

the audience and sings about how revolts start small. After vigorously shaking the bottle of hair

tonic to incorporate the dye, she puts the bottles back, “turns off the light,” exits the bathroom,

and with legs bent uses karate arms to “punch” the air in several directions (“You don’t have to

cry, you don’t have to shout! Even if you’re little you can do a lot, you mustn’t let a little thing

like little stop you.”). She proceeds to actually punch and kick in a martial style, followed by

framing her face with her hands and arms and bobbing her head for emphasis. She does a

galloping skip stage left, dusting her hands as if to show the job is complete and strikes a power pose with hands on hips and face slightly up and directed at the audience. Backing up toward her room, she mimes rolling up her sleeves and blows on her fists before once again striking a power pose and nodding her head for emphasis to her words (“and if it’s not right”). She climbs back up onto her bed, wrapping her blanket around her and jumping and twirling the blanket before collapsing down into her bed for the night.

Throughout Matilda, the small girl navigates a gender performance that pulls from all areas of Laban’s chart – strong and light, sudden and sustained, direct and indirect – in addition to her use of simple stillness. The use of her clear British accent and broad gender performance work together to create a character who is heroic, but also very accessible. Hammonds 68

Conclusion

Matilda is constructed as an empowered girl and bookish heroine who acts purposefully, thinks independently, counters expectations, exhibits confidence, questions conventional wisdom, takes charge, demonstrates self-efficacy, and believes in her ability to achieve her goals

(Brown and Horowitz 46). In the next chapter, I expand this application of empowered girlhood and offer a very brief glimpse into the work that has been done by women in pursuit of gender equity during the various waves of feminism. Using the character of Katherine Plummer in

Disney’s musical Newsies, I suggested that the tools of the bookish woman are the tools of feminism and that within the American musical, bookish women can be seen using their personal empowerment, intelligence, and abilities to support and empower others. Hammonds 69

CHAPTER III: “WATCH WHAT HAPPENS”: A BOOKISH FEMINIST HISTORY OF

BECOMING

“Not only that, // there’s a story behind the story: // thousands of children, exploited, invisible, //

Speak up, take a stand, and there’s someone to write about it. // That’s how things get better.”

- Katherine Plummer, Newsies (Allen Menken and Jack Feldman)

Introduction

Thus far I have proposed that bookish women in musical theatre participate in reading, study, teaching, and writing and exhibit a number of common traits including being adapted, participating in hero(ine) journeys, displaying singleness, having a uniquely influential father/daughter relationship, experiencing (feelings of) marginalization, having romantic partners who experienced (feelings of) marginalization, having connections with other women who highlight their difference because of their bookishness, and their resistance to stereotype. In

Chapter One I demonstrated how Jerusha Abbott (Daddy Long Legs) serves as a prototype of how bookish women are constructed for the musical stage through adaptation. In Chapter Two I drew on girl studies and literary studies to argue that bookish women (and girls) are active heroines who fight for justice, for themselves and for others.

The present chapter will link the empowerment of bookish women in musical theatre with important advances in American culture and politics as a result of feminism. I will argue that Katherine Plummer, the young journalist in Disney’s 2012 Broadway musical Newsies demonstrates a construction of female gender performance that is built on the advances of feminism from the first wave up to the present and that her writing resonates with audiences because it is the tool that young feminists have historically used for consciousness raising and grass-roots activism. Writing is the tool they use to effect change and make a better future. Hammonds 70

Disney’s Broadway Musical: Newsies (2012)

The majority of bookish women, those included in this study and those beyond it, are the central heroines of their narrative, or, at least, they equitably share the spotlight with their romantic partner. There are a few, however, who, though they are heroines within their own lives, are not the central focus of the narrative. Instead, they weave in and out of the spotlight and support the dramaturgical and characterological needs of the leading character(s). Katherine

Plummer, the young woman journalist in Disney’s Broadway musical Newsies, is just such a character. Summaries of the musical, such as the one below, do not even mention her.

It’s time to carry the banner on your stage with Disney’s Newsies! Set in turn-of-the

century New York City, Newsies is the rousing tale of Jack Kelly, a charismatic newsboy

and leader of a band of teenaged “newsies.” When titans of publishing raise distribution

prices at the newsboys’ expense, Jack rallies newsies from across the city to strike against

the unfair conditions and fight for what’s right! (Newsies)

Short blurbs such as this one from Musical Theatre International’s leasing page for the show focus on the “newsboys” and their union. With so few words available in marketing abstracts, such a decision may be reasonable and natural. Yet Katherine’s presence and position in the musical are significant changes from the film source and her construction as an empowered and empowering bookish woman relies on developments in feminist and bookish women histories.

Feminist and Bookish Women Histories

First Wave (1848-1920)

Newsies is set during the first wave of American feminism when women were growing more and more adamant that they be granted full rights as citizens – specifically through voting. At the Hammonds 71

same time, social work and personal freedom through gainful employment became the hallmarks

of the modern young women of the 1890s known as “New Women” and “Working Girls” (S. M.

Evans, Born for Liberty 146-147). The college educated “new women,” driven by the rigor of their academic training, pursued the more idealistic world of social work and the single life.

These self-supporting women worked for “social reform” and to provide resources for the poor and immigrant populations in places such as New York City. At the same time the “working girl” was experiencing the freedom of employment and more public social encounters with men at dance halls and restaurants (161). For both the reformer and the employee, individual expression and choice were key.

Political and social justice, employment opportunities, and respect for their abilities were all ongoing aims of the first feminist wave, and for Harvey Feirstein, adaptor of the book for the new Newsies musical, women’s employment and opportunity were of particular interest,15 as was the life and work of one woman in particular – the young journalist Elizabeth Cochrane, also known as Nellie Bly (1864-1922).

Nellie Bly epitomizes the “new woman” and the “working girl” who arose during this period.

After Bly was forced to leave college due to family matters, she began writing for the Pittsburg

Dispatch newspaper in 1880 and then for Joseph Pulitzer’s paper the New York World in 1887

(Markel; Norwood). Her previous writing experiences – writing about women’s right to vote, the conditions of women and children working in a factory, and governmental corruption in the

15 “And I kept thinking of 1899…and I thought, ‘What could they have been looking for?’ And

one of the things was women didn’t have jobs” (cunytv75, Theatre Talk: Alan Menken and

Harvey Fierstein, Songs from Newsies). Hammonds 72

United States – caused many to regard her as a social justice advocate (Stevenson). Bly is best known for the time she spent investigating an insane asylum for women by having herself committed. The abuses of that establishment were documented in her report for the New York

World and later published as a book, Ten Days in a Mad-House. As one of the first women journalists, and a pioneer of undercover “investigative” journalism, Nellie Bly used her bookish talent for writing to combat injustice and empower the lives of those around her, and this is exactly how the creators of Newsies constructed Katherine Plummer.

Newsies centers around the 1899 newsies strike in New York City. The lead character,

“Captain” Jack Kelly, along with his more educated friend Davey, lead the newsies to stand up against Joseph Pulitzer, the owner of the newspapers they sell. Jack also argues that the newsie strike is not just about their own rights, but about the rights of children all over the city who are taken advantage of because they have no power to protect themselves. Into this scene comes

Katherine (Pulitzer) Plummer, the “working girl” daughter of Joseph Pulitzer. Katherine is trying to overcome the gender biases that restrict her ability to report the “hard” news. Not only are there no other reporters on the story, and thus no competition, but Katherine’s frustration with the restrictions of previous generations allies her with the newsies’ cause – a cause that naturally puts her in opposition to her father, the powerful Joseph Pulitzer. As Katherine and the newsies fight, she and the newsies’ leader Jack Kelly fall in love. Throughout the show Jack has idealized and dreamed of a life in the wide open spaces out west, especially in Santa Fe, New Mexico, yet in the wake of their successful strike against Pulitzer, and his love for Katherine, he decides to stay in New York City.

Like Nellie Bly, Katherine finds personal fulfillment through her job as a “working girl,” and applies her skill toward social justice and social reform like the “new woman.” This is achieved Hammonds 73

through specific choices made by the Newsies creative team16, most specifically in Act 1, scenes

six and seven – when Katherine begins her association with the newsies and begins to write their

story (“Watch What Happens”) – and in Act 2, scenes six and seven – when Katherine convinces

Jack that they should publish her article “The Children’s Crusade” as the final and decisive act of the strike (“Once and For All”) (discussed below).

Second Wave (1960-1992)

During the 1960s, feminism once again sparked a distinguishable flame that burned in many directions. Banding together under anthems such as “sisterhood is powerful” and “the personal is political,” women of the 1960s prepared the way for the radical and liberal feminisms of the 1970s and 1980s when women increasingly saw themselves as objects of study. Telling their own stories became one of the primary legacies of the second wave that has carried through into the present (Evans 169, Dicker 86). In the 1980s and 1990s, however, the growing

“depiction of second-wave feminists as humorless and anti-men” ignited a backlash from the cultural and political conservative forces, including the Reagan administration (Rivers 30; Dicker

104). The occupational success of women was credited, not to feminist politics (which were

“dead”), but to the individual woman’s abilities. Many women rejected the feminist label, dismissing the need for organized political action, and instead believing that individual rights were proven and gained by individual women.

Katherine exists largely within the masculinist story and does not engage with the other

16 Harvey Fierstein (book), Alan Menken (composer), and Jack Feldman (lyricist), Jeff Calhoun

(director), Christopher Gattelli (choreographer), Tobin Ost (scenic design), and Jess Goldstein

(costume design) Hammonds 74

female characters in Newsies. Her high society friends are the sons of other newspaper tycoons.

As a woman she has no sisterhood: no mother, no girlfriends, and no female role models. The

only other powerful woman in the show is Medda Larkin, the vaudeville performer. Both women

are individually powerful but deploy their agency specifically to nurture and aid Jack and the

newsies. Even when Katherine and Medda are in proximity to one another in Act 2, they never

speak to each other directly. They stand side by side as individuals connected, not by sisterhood,

but by their association with the newsies. 17

As a bookish woman Katherine’s difference is made visible through comparison with the

newsies,18 and the other women in the show (Medda, the Bowery Beauties singers, Pulitzer’s

secretary, etc). Medda is a plain-talking, buxom, vaudevillian who mothers Jack and the other

newsies. The Bowery Beauties are a singing act whose value lies primarily in their sex appeal.

Even Pulitzer’s secretary, with her New Jersey accent, is a pawn of the patriarchal system

compared to the revolutionary and modern Katherine and her clear Standard American English

17 Newsies is one of the few musicals that focuses on the performances of a large male cast and it is not my intention to discount the value of this story. What I do wish to emphasize, are the

artistic choices made to Katherine’s feminism by Fierstein, Menken, and Feldman.

18 Katherine’s uniqueness is also highlighted through direct reference, especially by Jack. During

their second meeting, he expresses the fact that “girls are nice, once or twice, ‘til I find someone

new,” but he never met or could plan for someone like Katherine (Fierstein, Feldman and

Menken 30-31). He found someone he can “believe in,” who even scares him a little bit, but who

makes him feel safe (“Someone to Believe In”). Hammonds 75 accent.

Katherine and Medda bear an additional similarity to second wave feminists, and that is in their ability to clearly articulate their desires. In a musical that spends so much time addressing the needs and desires of the newsies via the strike, it is significant that Katherine frequently expresses what she wants and then takes action to achieve them. When Katherine sees an opportunity to do “hard news” by reporting on the newsie strike, she invades their space and convinces them to give her an exclusive. Katherine is also given an “I Want” song, “Watch What

Happens,” to clearly express her thoughts and desires to the audience.

Third Wave (1992-2008)

As the third wave began to take hold in the 1990s, feminism seemed to fork into two primary paths. The first was the rising diversification of voices within feminism due to the greater understanding of intersectional identities and the unique needs and oppressions of communities of color and queer sexualities. The diversity of voices is one of the defining features of feminism at this time (Mann and Huffman 64-65). In their 2005 article “The

Decentering of Second Wave Feminism and the Rise of the Third Wave,” Susan Mann and

Douglas Huffman argue that the third wave was heavily influenced by the poststructuralist, postmodernist, postcolonial, and intersectional approaches to life and epistemology in the 1990s and that it drove the “agenda of the new generation of younger feminists” (57). These feminists, especially the feminists of color like Audre Lorde, viewed themselves as “‘outsiders’ within the feminist movement” and called for “polyvocality and more localized mini-narratives” as a means of promoting the “importance of marginalized voices” (64-65). While Katherine Plummer does not have a sisterhood of women to support, she does honor the experience of “marginalized voices” and uses her agency and bookish skills to make a difference in their lives. As a Hammonds 76

journalist, Katherine specifically uses narrative and storytelling to impress on her readers the

urgency of the newsie strike and the children’s crusade.

The second path of Third Wave feminism in the 1990s was the continuation and

expansion of “individualist” feminisms (postfeminism, neofeminism, girly feminism, DIY19

feminism, etc). In the 2008 book Chick Flicks: Contemporary Women at the Movies, Suzanne

Ferriss and Mallory Young suggest that postfeminism forwards individualism when it: 1)

replaces agenda with attitude, 2) rejects anger against the patriarchy, 3) prizes the choice of the

individual, 4) values and encourages femininity and sexuality, and 5) encourages the enjoyment

of consumerism and popular culture (3-4). Alternatively, in her book Neo-Feminist Cinema:

Girly Films, Chick Flicks and Consumer Culture, Hilary Radner argues that it is neo-feminism,

rather than postfeminism, that is marked by “the tendency in feminine culture to evoke choice

and the development of individual agency as the defining tenets of feminine identity” (6 italics

added). Neofeminism is particularly associated with consumer culture and women are

19 “Do It Yourself” feminism was a recognition of individualistically motivated feminisms in the

1990s. In their article “The Decentering of Second Wave Feminism and the Rise of the Third

Wave,” Susan Mann and Douglas Huffman quote Marcelle Karp who summarized the

movement: We’ve entered an era of DIY feminism — sistah, do-it-yourself — and we have

all kinds of names for ourselves: lipstick lesbians, do-me feminists, even postfeminism. […] Your feminism is what you want it to be and what you make of it. Define your agenda. (1999, 310–311)” (74). Mann and Huffman argue that DIY feminism is “politically regressive,” marks a dividing line between the second and third waves of feminism, and “empties feminism of any core set of values and politics” (74). Hammonds 77

“encouraged to achieve self-fulfillment by purchasing, adorning or surrounding herself with the

goods that this culture can offer” as a sign of power and agency (6). Furthermore, Radner uses

the term “girly” to draw attention to the ways in which sexual availability and representations of

women as “girls” were claimed by women for empowerment rather than oppression or

subjugation by men (7). And though many feminist scholars dispute this brand of feminism as

lacking in the kind of cohesion that drives women’s movements for political change, its cultural

force has been a significant.

Understanding the nature of individualistic feminism’s influence on bookish women’s

construction is important in light of 1) the tendency for bookish women to be individualist and

feminist in orientation and 2) the drastic increase in Broadway musicals that feature these

characters during the third wave. Elle Woods, the heroine from Legally Blonde the Musical who

will be discussed in the final chapter, is a poster-girl for neofeminism. She has ample money to

spend on anything she wishes, freely expresses her sexual availability, desires, and desirability,

and is surrounded by women who support her emotionally, but are unnecessary for any kind of

challenge to systemic oppressions. These she overcomes all by herself – or so she claims.

Jerusha Abbott is also drawn toward individualist and girly neofeminism for a time in Daddy

Long Legs. Having been an orphan, she delights in her new life where material items and

expensive experiences are available. In Act 2, however, she tells Daddy Long Legs that rooming

“with Sallie [McBride] and Julia [Pendleton] has been an awful strain on my stoical philosophy,” and “it’s time to start paying back my debt. So I shall teach French and Algebra this summer, and begin to support myself” (Caird and Gordon 60). Jerusha returns to her liberal socialist politics and concern for “orphan welfare reform” as well as her duty to the man who has supported her.

Katherine Plummer (Newsies) exhibits a much simpler version of feminism that is socially and Hammonds 78 political conscious. Katherine is not concerned with her sexual or economic power, nor does she exhibit overt anger against the patriarchy, as such. Katherine is dedicated to equality and stands against those, including her own father, who perpetuate inequity.

Fourth Wave (2008-Present)

While it is still a little early to tell what wave of feminism we are currently in (post, neo-, third) and some scholars and activists refute the use of the “wave” analogy altogether (Dicker

141 & Rivers 31), recent scholars and cultural theorists are beginning to sense that feminism is in a fourth wave identified, most particularly, by the use of social media for communal activism

(Grady). Vox.com journalist Constance Grady traces voices that “feel” the presence of the fourth wave and identify its primary features: “namely, that fourth wave feminism is queer, sex- positive, trans-inclusive, body-positive, and digitally driven.” Grady loosely positions the beginning of the fourth wave in 2008 when social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube were in common use and the hashtag provided a way for online and in-the-street activism and consciousness raising were drawing attention to, most commonly, sexual abuses and violence (e.g. #MeToo, the Women’s March, #NoMore, Carry That Weight, etc).

Furthermore, as with the third wave, the rise of feminist activism in the fourth wave arises from and within the zeitgeist created by racial activism and progress most clearly seen in the election of Barak Obama in November 2008. The black president with his young family and message of

“change” came to leadership and further encouraged the acceptance and celebration of different identity groups and, as will be shown below, presided over a time of flourishing in the representation of bookish women of varied identities (Latina, child, queer, Black, blonde, etc).

In her chapter “bell hooks and Consciousness-Raising: Argument for a Fourth Wave of

Feminism” (2018), Katie Blevins echoes the belief that “the first key aspect to this emerging Hammonds 79

nexus of community, activism, and feminism in online spaces is the reemergence of

consciousness-raising groups” (92). Through online communities and communication, Blevins

argues, “grassroots consciousness-raising groups” are overcoming divisions that previously

barred women from understanding, joining, and supporting one another (93). In Newsies,

Katherine expands her sense of empowerment beyond herself and her own desires and uses her writing and proximity to Pulitzer to fight for the rights of the newsies and the children of New

York City.

Katherine Plummer: Performing Empowered and Empowering Feminism

Like Matilda, Katherine Plummer begins as a woman who uses her bookishness primarily

for self-empowerment. In this, Katherine is significantly influenced by her father’s negative

example. Both Mr. Wormwood and Joseph Pulitzer traffic in misogynistic conceptions of gender

performance, and Pulitzer mercilessly accrues as much political, cultural, and economic capital

as he can. This stockpile of power and influence is then deployed, through “the power of the

press,” to steer public and political opinion in ways that serve himself. He is a prime example of

toxic masculinity. Control over others and self-indulgence characterize the selfish newspaper

tycoon.

Though Pulitzer offers his daughter “a life of wealth and leisure” (Fierstein et al. 82), she

follows in his wake – seeking independence and an influential voice through journalism (47-48,

52). In Act 1, scene 6, Katherine disrupts the newsies’ plans for the strike and begins

interviewing them.

KATHERINE. A rag-tag gang of ragamuffins wants to take on the kingmakers of New

York. Think you have a chance?

JACK. Shouldn’t you be at the ballet? Hammonds 80

KATHERINE. Question too difficult? I’ll rephrase, will the richest and most powerful

men in New York give the time of day to a gang of kids who haven’t got a nickel

to their name?

CRUTCHIE. You don’t got to be insulting. I got a nickel.

KATHERINE. So I guess you’d say you’re a couple of Davids looking to take on

Goliath?

DAVEY. We never said that.

KATHERINE. You didn’t have to. I did. (47)

Katherine has learned from her father well. She has a deep understanding of “the power of the press” and her own authorial voice - if given the change to use it. She discovers, however, that unlike her father, she cannot simply push her will onto the newsies. She must undergo a process of proving herself trustworthy and gain their acceptance. To do this, she must humble herself and admit her need, aligning her female oppression with their class oppression.

DAVEY. I say we save any exclusive for a real reporter.

KATHERINE. You see somebody else giving you the time of day? (desperate) All right,

so I’m just busting out of the social pages. But you give me the exclusive, let me

run with the story, and I promise I’ll get you the space.

CRUTCHIE. You really think we could be in the papes20?

KATHERINE. Shut down a paper like the World and you’re going to make the front

page.

JACK. You want a story? Be in front of the circulation gate tomorrow morning and

20 “Papes” is the word newsies use for newspapers. Hammonds 81

you’ll get one. And bring a camera. You’re gonna wanna snap a picture of dis.

(48; Act 1, scene 6)

Jack and Katherine, thus far, have had a bantering relationship but now they are allies in a cause.

As Katherine is about to leave and write her story, Jack solemnly enjoins her to “write it good.

We both got a lot riding on you” (51).

Jack leaves and Katherine is given the stage to process the anticipation she feels at the opportunity to write her first story, and the pressure to do the story – and the newsies – justice.

“Watch What Happens,” a patter song21 that musically expresses Katherine’s cognitive journey,

beings with her expressions of self-doubt.

KATHERINE. Write what you know, so they say

All I know is I don’t know what to write

Or the right way to write it

This is big lady, don’t screw it up

This is not some little vaudeville I’m reviewing

‘Poor little kids versus rich greedy sourpusses’.

Ha! It’s a cinch! It can practically write itself

And let’s pray it does. ‘Cause as I may have mentioned

I have no clue what I’m doing. (52)

But her thoughts soon turn to the needs of the newsies and she is inspired to write something that

truly matters: “Speak up, take a stand, and there’s someone to write about it. That’s how things

21 “a comic song depending for its humorous effect on rapid enunciation of the words” (Patter

Song). Hammonds 82

get better” (52). It is their mutual youth and frustration with the “old ways” that eventually

becomes the bridge between Katherine and the newsies. While she cannot identify with their

poverty, she understands the frustration of the young who want to make the world better than

their parents did.

KATHERINE. Just look around

At the world we’re inheriting

And think of the one we’ll create

Their mistake is they got old

That is not a mistake we’ll be making

No sir, we’ll stay young forever

Give those kids and me

The brand new century

And watch what happens (53-54)

Katherine has had her own drives and desires, but her abilities explode when partnered

with something/one she can “believe in” (93). Until she meets and proves herself to Jack and the

newsies, the only examples of masculinity that we see in Katherine’s life are the toxic

masculinity of her father and the juvenile privileged sons of the other newspaper tycoons. Her courage and desire to live beyond the scope of the “angel in the house,”22 as described by Sandra

Gilbert and Susan Gubar, are not accepted and given space until she and the newsies, led by

22 The “angel in the house” metaphor is used to describe “the ideal woman that male authors

dream of” (Gilbert and Gubar 20). She is pure, selfless, moral, thinks only of others, smiling, a listener, submissive, sacrificial, devoted, silent, effortless, and bound to the home (21-25). Hammonds 83

Jack, become mutual allies (20). Pulitzer grudgingly allows Katherine to write for the women’s

social pages, but when she writes in support of the newsies, he retracts his tentative permission

(82). Her disobedience and disloyalty are unacceptable to him.

Conversely, Katherine’s gender performance finds acceptance and encouragement among the newsies. In fact, her confidence and intellect are placed in direct comparison with the emotional and nurturing Jack on the one hand, and Jack’s educated and even-tempered friend,

Davey. In Act 2 scene 3, Katherine and Davey go in search of Jack after the Newsies were beaten and Crutchie was arrested. They tell him that the newsies are going to have a large rally for all the newsies of New York and they want him there to help fight for the cause again. Jack is sad, angry, and frustrated and refuses to put the newsies in danger, but Davey uses calm reason with his friend (“Watch What Happens Reprise”) (77-78).

DAVEY. Why did he send for the goons? An entire army?

Dozens of goons, plus the cops and –

JACK. You know, you may be right…

DAVEY. Thank you, God!

JACK. If he wasn’t afraid…

DAVEY. Exactly!

JACK. Huh

JACK, DAVEY. He knows we’re winning! (78)

Similarly, in Act 2 scene 6, when Jack is accusing Katherine of being a liar and betraying them to her father, she calmly reasons with him.

JACK. I don’t think you’re anyone to talk about turning on folks.

KATHERINE. I never turned on you or anyone else. Hammonds 84

JACK. No. You just double crossed us to your father. Your father!!

KATHERINE. My father has eyes on every corner of this city. He doesn’t need me

spying for him. And I never lied. I didn’t tell you everything...

JACK. If you weren’t a girl you’d be trying to talk with a fist in your mouth.

KATHERINE. I said that I worked for the Sun, and I did. I told you my professional

name was Plummer, and it is. You never asked for my real one. (90-91)

A few lines later, Katherine again uses calm reason to suggest that the newsies use her

“Children’s Crusade” article to deal the deathblow to Pulitzer’s resistance.

JACK. No matter how many days we strike, he ain’t givin’ up. I don’t know what else we

can do.

KATHERINE. Ah. But I do.

JACK. Oh, come on…

KATHERINE. Really, Jack? Really? Only you can have a good idea? Or is it because

I’m a girl?

JACK. I didn’t say nothin’…

KATHERINE. This would be a good time to shut up. Being boss doesn’t mean you have

all the answers. Just the brains to recognize the right one when you hear it.

JACK. I’m listening.

KATHERINE. Good for you. The strike was your idea. The ralley was Davey’s. And

now my plan will take us to the finish line. Deal with it. (91-92)

And what is her plan? To extend the strike to all the children of New York City and shut down

all the businesses that rely on their labor until their voices are heard. Hammonds 85

Constructing Katherine Through Speech and Song

The accessibility of bookish women in performance is crucial; and as was seen with

Matilda, they are constructed to appeal to broad audiences. This is accomplished, in part, through their verbal and musical performances – that is, through their speech and their singing. In their musical theatre textbook for actors, Joe Deer and Rocco Dal Vera argue that singers should study the lyrics they are singing and “notice how the sounds make [them] feel” because the writers

“don’t pick those notes by accident. The choices of vowels is a window into the lyricist’s imagination and the character’s world” (86). An understanding of this construction can be gleaned, first, by closely reading the way the character’s lines and music are written in the script and, second, by considering Kara Lindsay’s Broadway performance on the 2017 digital video recording (Calhoun and Sullivan). Through close analysis of these mediums, one can gain a clearer understanding of how Katherine, as a first wave feminist, is written to appeal to third and fourth wave feminists in the 2010s.

Speaking to Contemporary Women Through Scripted Accent and Anachronistic Language

Broadway veteran Harvey Fierstein utilizes accents and dialects throughout Newsies to convey class differences, educational backgrounds, and to position Katherine as a third and fourth wave feminist who uses her privileged position and bookishness to empower herself and others. In the first few lines of the show, we get a sense of who the newsies are when they say that the “morning bell ain’t rung yet” and “I don’t want anyone should see; I ain’t been walkin’ so good” (Fierstein, Feldman and Menken 1). The working class New York accent spoken by the newsies is contrasted with Davey’s educated speech about the “auspicious” launching of their strike and the General, or Standard, American accents used by Medda Larkin, Joseph Pulitzer, and Katherine. Katherine’s speech does not utilize contractions such as “ain’t,” “papes” (for Hammonds 86

“papers”), gotta, or “dis” (for “this”); nor does her speech rearrange word orders and phrasing such as when Jack asks “Want I should lock the door?” (29) or the earlier example “I don’t want anyone should see” (1). Rather, Katherine’s speech adhere’s to standard grammatical rules unless they are specifically transgressed to contemporize her character and heighten her appeal to the audience. Librettist Harvey Fierstein accomplishes this with the addition of contemporary “girl power” values and youth expressions such as “Really, Jack? Really? Only you can have a good idea? Or is it because I’m a girl?” (91), “now would be the time to shut up,” (91), “deal with it,”

(92) and other expressions of authority and dominance designed to “burn” the hearer. Like

Matilda, Katherine’s verbal expressions convey her intelligence, confidence, and drive, but they also tie her to contemporary feminist movements and position her as a role model for empowered young women who claim their space and use their voice.

In performance, actress Kara Lindsay utilizes the wide, forward, and articulate

General/Standard American accent. Amy Walker, founder and owner of the international company 21 Accents, distinguishes the Standard American Accent from other kinds of American dialects (New York, southern, California Valley Girl, etc) in a number of ways that are helpful in understanding Kara Lindsay’s performance of Katherine. Walker suggests that the feeling of the

Standard American Accent is “straightforward, assertive, comfortable, confident, informal, and warm” (9). It is placed in the center of the mouth and nearly all sounds are articulated crisply.

The use of this accent is placed in comparison to the New York and New Jersey accents of Jack and the newsies.23 This comparison has characterological significance within the context

23 The New York accent tends to 1) thicken the “u” vowel into an “oo” sound, 2) thicken the “a” vowel in words like small to sound like “smawl,” 3) drop the r at the end of words so that Hammonds 87

of the story because it allies Katherine’s hopes and drives with revolutionary and forward-

thinking communities and movements that leave the old ways behind and claim power and

agency for younger generations. Katherine incarnates the openness and possibility that Jack

dreams of experiencing out west in Santa Fe (“Santa Fe”).24

Building Character Through Song

The words are only one mode of expression for Katherine to display her bookish character, however. Deer and Dal Vera argue that the “musical style and qualities of a musical moment tell you something about what is going on inside the character” and what kind of character they are (124). It is telling, for example, that Medda Larkin’s big “I Am/ I Want” song,

“That’s Rich,” is a vaudeville number performed for her audience. She sings it as a self-assured indictment against those who want to look down at her and say she’s worthless, all while she is actually a wealthy and sought-after woman. The song takes on, not only classed but raced implications because the actress who played Medda on Broadway was black actress Capathia

Jenkins (and later by Aisha De Haas).25

“where” becomes “whea,” and 4) the “t” vowel is spoken with an “s” so that “pet” becomes

“pet/s” (Ivan Borodin; 21 Accents).

24 In the original film, Jack’s nickname was “Cowboy” because of his desire to go to Santa Fe. In

the musical, “Cowboy” is replaced with “Captain,” though used sparingly.

25 Medda’s casting and character were significantly altered between their out-of-town run at

Paper Mill Playhouse (New Jersey), where she was performed by white actress Helen Anker

singing “Don’t Come a-Knockin,” and New York. Hammonds 88

Katherine’s “I Am/I Want” song is the quickly worded patter song26 “Watch What

Happens.” It uses the strict rhythm of the verses and the expansive fullness of the chorus to convey Katherine’s internal processing (cunytv75, Theatre Talk: Alan Menken et. al.). She has gained the opportunity she was fighting for, the right to use her voice, but she is also uncertain.

Tentative strings mark the steady beat of the verses, but as she turns her thoughts toward the hopeful future, bright strokes of the triangle and visionary strains from the trumpets come in and herald a time when she and the newsies will have the opportunity to live without oppressive authority figures (Lindsay).

Originally, Menken and Feldman wrote “Then I See You Again” as the love ballad between Jack and Katherine. Musically, it is sweetly romantic, having its roots in the West Side

Story ballad “One Hand, One Heart” (American Theatre Wing). Balancing the sweetness is the honest conversation that takes place between the two characters. Katherine laments that “most things just are what they are, and not what you wish they could be,” and that she is often tempted to “give in and let go,” but when she sees Jack, she is able to have hope in the future

(MusicalElsa). The future she sees with Jack is filled with light, and he casts a picture where “a new world starts spinning.” Throughout the entire show, we feel Katherine strain against the old ways and reach forward for the freedom and justice that is not yet available – to her as a woman or to the children as laborers. In this song, Jack is a new political and social hope.

For Jack, Katherine is a safe home marked by connectedness.

JACK. I never said this out loud

But sometimes I just, // I get scared

26 87 beats per minute (Fierstein, Feldman and Menken 157). Hammonds 89

And then I see you again

And it’s like I’m protected.

Seems unreal // you don’t know

Seeing me in your eyes is a prize I ain’t never expected.

Makes me feel // what’s the word?

…Connected.

Most things they are what they are

So why don’t I pick up and go?

And then I see you again // and I know. (MusicalElsa)

In this version of the love song, Jack’s performance of masculinity makes space for honest

confessions of fear and his experience of Katherine as a protector and validator. He also states that Katherine helps him feel connected. Such a statement reveals that, despite his relationships

with the other newsies, his role as “leader” has left him feeling lonely and disconnected until he is around Katherine again.

“Then I See You Again” was ultimately rejected in favor of “Something to Believe In.”

Both Menken and Feldman felt that “Then I See You Again” was too “talky” and “cerebral”

(American Theatre Wing). “Something to Believe In” has a lighter tone and simpler lyric.

Katherine thought she knew what love was until she met someone who gave her something to believe in. Love and hope are intimately connected for Katherine’s character. She is not satisfied with simple declarations of romantic affection. She is drawn to Jack because of his passion for others and her respect for him. As in “Then I See You Again,” Jack views Katherine as “an angel come to save me, who didn’t even know she gave me something to believe in” (Feldman and

Menken). Jack respects Katherine because she is intelligent, quick witted, beautiful, kind, and Hammonds 90

brave. She stands up to him as a fellow soldier in his cause. While Jack’s love interest in the film

becomes an escape from the fight, in the stage musical Katherine becomes one of the leaders and

pushes Jack to be better.

As a bookish woman, this leadership role is especially interesting for Katherine because

the opponent is her father. As with other bookish women (and Disney in general), Katherine’s

mother is not seen or spoken of and therefore she has a very particular relationship with her

father. He gives her a start in journalism but expects her to still meet the expectations of her

social station – the station he gave her through his intelligence and hard work. And yet she joins

with newsies and the heirs of other newspaper tycoons to put a stop to their father’s abuses.

Katherine bears a striking resemblance to literary heroines such as Elizabeth Bennet

(Pride and Prejudice) and Josephine March (Little Women). In Unbecoming Women: British

Women Writers and the Novel of Development (1993), Susan Fraiman uses psychoanalytic theory to argue that spunky, clever, and intelligent daughters are the heir of their father’s personality and preferences. They become the heirs of their father’s power, and select partners for themselves who, bearing similarities of temperament with their fathers, will replace him as primary masculine influence. In the mind of the father character, the clever daughter is deserving of respect, unlike other girls who have become “silly” and “shallow” through prolonged exposure to the influences of other women (Fraiman 171). The authorial prerogative that exists for Pulitzer is permitted in Katherine, and she claims authorship both as a career and as a journey of self-becoming.

Conclusion

Jack’s passion for the strike and the rights of the newsies is matched by Katherine who points to the ways each of them places their abilities at the disposal of the group. Like Matilda, Hammonds 91

Katherine becomes not the sole warrior heroine, but a member of a communal uprising demanding change. The themes of revolt, being naughty to change your story, the overthrow of tyranny, and the demand for justice are also seen here as Katherine and the newsies work to bring the hope of the future into the present.

The importance of third-wave polyvocality and intersectionality is seen in the musical’s shift in focus from the newsie strike to a city-wide strike for the rights of all the working children of

New York City. In her Children’s Crusade article, Katherine quotes Jack, ‘“For the sake of all the kids in every sweatshop, factory, and slaughter house in New York, I beg you…join us.’

With those words, the strike stopped being just about the newsies. You challenged our whole generation to stand up and demand a place at the table” (92). As a bookish woman of the fourth wave, Katherine magnifies the voices of others through her writing and fans grass-roots activism into flame. She understands that just as her needs were met by allying herself to the needs of the newsies, the newsies’ needs would be met by allying with all the children who faced similar oppressions and obstacles. The importance of allyship becomes even more clear in the construction of Elphaba’s character in the 2004 megamusical Wicked. Hammonds 92

CHAPTER IV: MAKING GOOD AND BEING WICKED (OR IS IT THE OTHER WAY

AROUND?): SOCIAL ACTIVISM, LIMITATION, AND THE POWER OF A BOOKISH

WITCH

Introduction

Allyship is one of the hallmarks of many bookish women in musical theatre. As has been shown with Matilda and Katherine, their bookish traits are used to support and empower those around them (i.e. overthrowing the tyrannical Trunchbull and ending the unfair employment practices of Joseph Pulitzer). In this chapter I examine the creation and construction of Elphaba from the Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman’s hit musical Wicked (2004). I structure the chapter using the common traits and argue that Elphaba’s performance of bookishness provides a unique threshold from which to understand how bookish women engage in cultural representation and appeal to their audiences. That is, Elphaba’s marginalization, heroine journey, and “race” have a universality while at the same time eliding simple claims that she “represents all of us.”

Adaptation

The story of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz has a long history dating back to L. Frank

Baum’s children’s book in 1900. The story is familiar to most. A girl named Dorothy and her dog Toto get swept away by a tornado and deposited in a strange land with small people called

Munchkins, a good witch named Glinda, a road made of gold, a Wizard who can help her get home, and a wicked witch who wants to kill her. Along the way she makes friends with a strawman, a tinman, and a lion who help her on her way. After Dorothy has triumphed over the wicked witch by dousing her in water, Dorothy has many other adventures until she is finally Hammonds 93 able to return to Kansas with the help of her magical silver shoes.27

Subsequent versions of the story severely edit down the narrative to simply include

Dorothy’s quest, leaving out the adventures that took place after she defeats the wicked witch.

These adaptations include the 1939 film musical starring Judy Garland, the 1975 Broadway musical The Wiz, the 1978 film of that Broadway musical with Diana Ross and Michael Jackson, the 1987 stage adaptation of the film (developed by the Royal Shakespeare Company), and

Gregory Maguire’s book Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (1995-

2011).

It was this last iteration which inspired Stephen Schwartz, Winnie Holzman, and their creative and producing team to write a musical about the Wicked Witch of the West. Gregory

Maguire’s book is dark, political, and satiric, inspired by the presidential scandals, the Gulf War, and the vilification of Saddam Hussein by the British press in the 1990s. Maguire used L. Frank

Baum’s narrative to ask if people’s morality can change, and if so what causes that change (Cote

20). After the book came out in 1995, the film rights were purchased by Demi Moore under

Universal Studios and a script was in process. Around that same time, composer and lyricist

Stephen Schwartz28 and writer Winnie Holzman29 both encountered the book and sought the rights for it. Then in 1997, Schwartz approached Universal Studios president Marc Platt about making Wicked into a Broadway musical. Platt, who had a background in musical theatre and has

27 In the technicolor film with Judy Garland the silver shoes become ruby “slippers.”

28 Also known for Godspell (1970), Pippin (1972), Children of Eden (1991), The Hunchback of

Notre Dame (2015), etc

29 Also known for thirtysomething (1989), My So-Called Life (1994-1995) Hammonds 94 since gone on to produce Grease Live! (2016), La La Land (2016), and Jesus Christ Superstar

Live in Concert (2018), was immediately excited about the idea.

From the time he became president of Universal Studios and read the Wicked film script being written for the Wicked film, Platt felt that it was too dense and did not explore Glinda and

Elphaba’s relationship sufficiently. Platt felt that it was crucial that the script convey the internal thoughts of the characters, and the film script was struggling to do so. When Stephen Schwartz proposed a musical adaptation, it solved three difficulties for Platt: 1) in musicals, characters

“can literally turn to the audience and sing about what he or she is feeling,” 2) as a musical it would complement the general public’s conception of Oz as a musical world because of the 1939 film, and 3) music could complement the heightened nature of the fantasy world of Oz (Cote 21).

Given the complexity of Gregory Maguire’s story, Platt was adamant that the story should focus on the relationship between Elphaba and G(a)linda,30 a relationship that, in the novel, effectively ended when Elphaba left college (Cote 20). 31 Winnie Holzman also wanted to incorporate a more explicit love triangle between Elphaba, G(a)linda, and the handsome prince

Fiyero (22). Stephen Schwartz was invested in creating a tightly structured show that embodied

Maguire’s representation of the Wicked Witch’s experience. For Schwartz, the show was able to

30 Galinda changes the spelling of her name in honor of her professor, Doctor Dillamond, who always pronounced in Glinda. Going forward, I will spell her name either with the a or without it to reflect the character’s progression through the story (i.e. Galinda or Glinda).

31 The full title of the musical is Wicked: The Untold Story of the Witches of Oz, a slight variation from the novel’s title Wicked: The Story of the Wicked Witch of the West. This change in subtitle reflects the creators’ interest in examining the story of both women and not Elphaba alone. Hammonds 95

optimize musical theatre’s structural and thematic norms and traditions to focus on Elphaba’s

developing identity and position in society. The concise hero journey so prevalent in musical

theatre made it an ideal form within which to distill the complex “Untold Story of the Witches of

Oz.”

Heroine Journey

In Chapter 3, I introduced the two kinds of heroine journeys experienced by bookish

women – the mythic heroine journey that is experienced externally and the heroine journey of

becoming/development (also known as the bildungsromane)32 that is experienced internally as

well as externally. In that chapter, I suggested that Matilda experiences the mythic journey of

heroism. In this chapter, I argue that Elphaba experiences internal and external heroine journeys

of becoming/development and that her various engagements with bookish activities influence the development of her story and character arc.

One of the elements of traditional bildungsroman plots is the growth that occurs in the life of the hero(ine) when they leave home for the first time to attend school. The academic education of the bildung prepares them for their experiential and social education that leads to their final social location and identity. Elphaba arrives at school after living almost two decades at home with a father who hates her, and a wheel-chair bound sister who depends on her. The circumstances of Elphaba’s birth, and the cause of her green skin, are not entirely known to her, but it seems that something terrible occurred and she always felt her father’s shame and disappointment. So ashamed was he that he forced his wife to take medicine during her second

32 Bildungsromane refers to women’s journeys of development while bildungsroman refers to the

traditional masculine journey. Hammonds 96 pregnancy, resulting in the baby’s lameness. Nessarose, however, was always sweet and the apple of her father’s eye – while Elphaba was under constant scrutiny and made to attend to her sister’s needs. It was only when “Nessa” was ready to attend Shiz University that Elphaba is allowed to attend as well and look after her.

Within minutes of her arrival, Elphaba frightens most of the students with her appearance and searing sarcasm and explodes in anger when the headmistress, Madam Morrible, assumes responsibility for Nessa and begins to wheel her away.

ELPHABA. LET HER GO!!!

(And suddenly the wheelchair pulls itself out of MORRIBLE’s grasp. The students gasp,

the chair spins, rises into the air, and then lands gently in front of ELPHABA.

MORRIBLE stares at ELPHABA. The other students and faculty stare, dumbfounded,

then buzz amongst themselves.)

MORRIBLE. How did you do that? […]

NESSAROSE. Elphaba, you promised things would be different here!

MORRIBLE. (Leaning closer) You mean this has happened before?

ELPHABA. Well, something just comes over me sometimes, it’s something I can’t

describe. I’ll try to control myself. I am so sorry, Nessa.

MORRIBLE. What?! Never apologize for talent! Talent is a gift! And that is my special

talent, encouraging talent! (studies her closely) Have you ever considered a career

in sorcery? (Holzman and Schwartz 14; Act 1, scene 2).

From this passage we understand that when Elphaba gets angry (or at least experiences strong emotion) power emanates from her to address the cause of her anger. She cannot control it, but it is directed. Her power does not, for example, throw everyone around her to the floor and Hammonds 97 break things. I draw here on Michael Lewis’ argument that anger is a natural emotion intent on accomplishing a task, while rage is a defuse emotional experience resulting from a sense of shame (177-178). Up until this moment, Elphaba has experienced a great deal of frustration and a sense of powerlessness. Like Matilda, this powerlessness has streamed out in supernatural ways to effect the change that the heroine does not feel able to accomplish. And like Matilda,

Elphaba does not know exactly how it is happening or how to control it. At school, however, there is an individual who sees, understands, and appreciates the uniqueness of the heroine and becomes a guide in her journey. Madam Morrible, despite her greedy and ambitious motives and actions throughout the remainder of the story, becomes a positive force in Elphaba’s life – helping her to wield her powers with purpose.

However, it is Doctor Dillamond, Elphaba’s history teacher, not Madam Morrible, who provides Elphaba with a purpose for her life. As an Animal, that is a sentient talking being with the body of an animal (a goat), Doctor Dillamond’s life at the university and in society more broadly comes under attack. His difference is mocked and Elphaba, with her green skin, feels a kinship to him. Moreover, he explains how all the Animals in Oz are facing virulent oppression.

They are blamed for the drought and food shortages and used as scape-goats. As she prepares to go to her sorcery tutorial, and remembering Madam Morrible’s expectation the Elphaba will one day work for the Wizard, Elphaba suggests that perhaps the Wizard (and she) may be able to right the situation. In other words, Elphaba is already thinking about how she can use her bookish abilities to help other marginalized populations. With the knowledge she gains at school, she will be able to control and direct her powers more effectively for their benefit.

It is Elphaba’s growing activism and dedication to allyship, even more than her green skin, makes her different and marginal. While Elphaba’s greenness presents an initial obstacle to Hammonds 98

her success, it is soon overlooked in light of her magical difference. Her difference is made

abundantly clear in the musical through comparison: green, sarcastic, intelligent, loyal, and

active Elphaba with the blonde, bubbly, ditzy, shallow, privileged, vain, and popular G(a)linda.

When the students first arrive at Shiz University, Galinda attempts to impress Madam Morrible

by discussing her entrance essay “Magic Wands: Need They Have a Point” and reminding her that Galinda applied to be in Morrible’s sorcery seminar. Morrible counters that she only teaches the seminar “if someone special were to come along,” and Glinda beams and responds self- confidently, “Exactly” (Holzman and Schwartz 12). Attempting to be bookish, she fails

completely and is superseded by Elphaba. Their feud begins and is only ended when Galinda

unconsciously does something kind for Nessa, which prompts Elphaba to ask Madam Morrible

to accept Galinda into their sorcery class (“Dancing Through Life”). Galinda, in response to this

kindness decides to befriend Elphaba and help her gain greater popularity through a physical and

behavioral makeover (“Popular”). Elphaba learns to perform the socially dictated acts of

femininity (wearing more feminine clothes, wearing her hair down rather than in a severe braid,

wearing make-up, learning to flirt) and when Elphaba is given the chance to go see the Wizard,

she invites Glinda to come with her. During their “One Short Day” in the Emerald City, where

the Wizard lives, the two young women feel that they’ve found a place where they can both live

happily, and Elphaba expects to successfully convince the Wizard to help the Animals and

support their rights.

Upon meeting them, the Wizard quickly agrees to do anything they ask after Elphaba has

proven herself. She must successfully cast a levitation spell on his monkey servant so that the

monkey will be able to fly. Madam Morrible, who now works for the Wizard as his Press

Secretary, brings out the Grimmerie, “The Ancient Book of Thaumaturgy and Enchantments” Hammonds 99

which is nearly impossible to read and use. As the book is presented to Elphaba, Glinda

reverently asks if she can touch it and receives a curt “no” from Madam Morrible (Holzman and

Schwartz 62). Once again, Elphaba is designated as the suitable person to engage in magical

bookishness rather than Glinda. Elphaba successfully casts the spell, but it causes the monkey

pain as wings grow out from his back and he is unable to speak. Soon it is revealed that the

Wizard and Madam Morrible have used Elphaba’s abilities, not to help the Animal cause, but to create flying spies that will escalate their oppression. Elphaba is horrified and runs away with the

Grimmerie to keep it out of their hands.

It is at this moment, when Elphaba’s anger rises once again, that she takes control of her power and uses it to accomplish a goal – to fly away from the Wizard and work against his

abusive political actions against the Animals (“Defying Gravity”). There is a fundamental shift in

her character, as she herself realizes when she sings, “Something has changed within me.

Something is not the same. I’m through with playing by the rules of someone else’s game”

(Holzman and Schwartz 68). While the Wizard’s soldiers beat on the door to the attic where

Elphaba and Glinda are hiding, Elphaba casts a spell on a broom and once again asks her friend

to accompany her: “Unlimited // Together we’re unlimited. Together we’ll be the greatest team

there’s ever been” (69). For a few moments it seems that the couple33 will continue on together,

but Glinda cannot do it. Afraid of the unpredictability of the magic and of turning against the

powerful Wizard and the safety of her normal life, Glinda provides her friend with a cloak to

33 In her 2011 book Changed for Good: A Feminist History of the Broadway Musical, Stacy

Wolf reads Elphaba and G(a)linda as a couple who perform many of the plot points traditionally

given to the lead romantic couple. Hammonds 100 keep her warm and hopes that she’ll be happy with her choice and not “live to regret it” (71). The

Ozian guards break through and attempt to arrest Elphaba, but with the Grimmerie in her bag, she “flies” away defiantly singing that they will never bring her down and stop her from fighting against the Wizard.

Elphaba’s marginalization from this point forward is not merely a reaction to her physical appearance, it is a reaction to her choice to work against the Wizard in a specifically bookish way. Several scholars have debated the influence of Elphaba’s potential racialization and how her oppression represents an experience of color. In The Subaltern Status of Elphaba in Wicked:

The Untold Story of the Witches of Oz, Yoyo Chuang argues that Elphaba is a subaltern woman of color who “is not allowed to represent herself,” but is instead represented through the normative white woman’s narration of events (1). By setting Glinda’s normative whiteness against Elphaba’s green skin, she equates her skin with experiences of race, specifically the subaltern experience of voicelessness in the face of overwhelming white (colonizing) power. On the other hand, both Stacy Wolf in Changed for Good (2011) and Alissa Burger in From “The

Wizard of Oz” to “Wicked”: Trajectory of American Myth (2009) argue against Elphaba’s specifically racial difference and understand her to represent difference more broadly. Race, they argue, is culturally specific and Elphaba’s greenness is not. In other words, she is not part of an unliked group of green people. Elphaba’s difference is the individual difference that the writers of the show encourage audiences to personally identify with.

I agree with Wolf and Burger and wish to add an additional argument to those presented here. That is, that unlike the prejudice experienced by the Animals, Elphaba’s physical appearance does not initially bar her from access to opportunity and progress. Madam Morrible accepts her on the basis of her individual talent and has great hopes for her. It is not until later, Hammonds 101

when Elphaba chooses to apply her talent to help the oppressed Animal population, that Morrible

begins her libeling campaign and attempts to destroy Elphaba. In other words, like many women

throughout history, it was the application of bookish knowledge that was considered dangerous.

While women were content to abide by the rules dictated by their (patriarchal) society, they were

accepted and celebrated as Glinda is, but once they learn of injustice and feel capable of tackling

it, they are feared and attacked. It is perhaps unsurprising that in a study conducted by Barbara

Risman and Tiffany Taylor, they found that educated women report a high frequency of anger.

“Education,” the scholars hypothesized, “seems to liberate women from patriarchy enough to get

mad at inequity” (74).

At the same time, after her break with the Wizard and Madam Morrible, Elphaba goes on

to represent a particular experience that has been described by race, class, and feminist scholars –

encountering insurmountable systemic obstacles. During the first half of the musical, Elphaba’s

anger is significantly lessened as she is honored and supported; but during the second half of the

musical, the Wizard’s political machine has been turned entirely against Elphaba and she

expresses her feelings of limitation in the face of such overwhelming restriction and vilification.

To be clear, the kind of systemic oppression I am pointing to here is being experienced by an

individual and therefore is not the same as that experienced by generations of people due to their race, class, and gender. I wish to point to it, however, as one of the elements of Elphaba’s character that lead many to identify with her and that specifically leads to her use of the

Grimmerie as an activist tool against systemic oppression.

In the song “No Good Deed,” Elphaba’s anger has grown to rage because of her frustration and shame. In that song, Elphaba frantically attempts to save her romantic partner

Fiyero and cries out in exasperation that “no good deed goes unpunished. No act of charity goes Hammonds 102

unresented. […] My road of good intentions led where such road always lead” (108). She then

reflects back on her failed attempts to help her sister Nessa, her teacher Doctor Dillamond, and

now Fiyero. Because her attempts to help others not only fail, but cause worse problems for

herself and those she is helping, Elphaba decides to stop trying altogether.

Empowering Others Through Bookishness

Toward the end of the show, Glinda has realized she is complicit in Elphaba’s oppression

and goes to warn her that a mob of Ozians is coming to destroy her. Though the exchange is

laced with humor (“Let the little girl go. And that poor little dog – Dodo. Elphaba – I’m sorry, but somebody has to say it: You are out of control! I mean, come on. They’re just shoes!”),

Glinda is determined to save Elphaba (Holzman and Schwartz 112). She swears to tell all of Oz what has truly happened and clear Elphaba’s name. When Elphaba refuses, Glinda insists that she doesn’t understand and Elphaba finally admits to her

ELPHABA. (singing) I’m limited. Just look at me – I’m limited.

And just look at you – you can do all I couldn’t do, Glinda…

She signals to Chistery,34 and he brings the Book of Spells. Elphaba holds the Book out to

Glinda.

ELPHABA. Here. (Glinda stares at the Book, stunned) Go on. Take it.

GLINDA. Elphie…you know I can’t read this.

ELPHABA. Well, then—you’ll have to learn. (sings) Because now it’s up to you. For

both of us. Now it’s up to you. (114-115; Act 2, scene 8)

34 The monkey that Elphaba first enabled to fly. He, as well as the other monkeys, are now her

workers. Hammonds 103

There are a number of meaningful events happening in this exchange. First, Elphaba is pronouncing her resignation from the battle, relinquishing the fight. For the final time, she admits her limitation, but she does so not out of anger or rage, but by making space for another.

She bequeaths her bookishness – as well as the Book – to Glinda, the blonde who has been told that she is unworthy to interact with the Book and serious power throughout the entire show.

Second, until this moment, Glinda’s access to bookishness (taking classes in sorcery, touching or using the Grimmerie, etc) has been negated and led to a hesitancy on her part. Glinda’s ability to successfully engage in bookishness has been doubted almost until this moment and, like Elle

Woods (Legally Blonde) in the next chapter, it is after bookishness is encouraged in her, and married to her experiences of privilege, that she accomplishes her greatest successes. As Elphaba warns, however, it will not be without effort. While Elphaba seemed to have an innate ability,

Glinda will have to learn to read the Grimmerie and work to use the spells.

After Elphaba is “melted,” Glinda returns to the Wizard and confronts him. She reveals that Elphaba was his daughter and banishes him. Madam Morrible is sent to prison and Glinda, grasping the Grimmerie climbs into her bubble to go and speak to the citizens of Oz, a return to the moment at the beginning of the show.

GLINDA. Fellow Ozians. Friends… We have been through a frightening time. And there

will be other times, and other things that frighten us. But if you’ll let me, I’d like

to try – to help. I’d like to try to be – Glinda the Good. (Holzman and Schwartz

121)

Elphaba has changed Glinda and empowered her to take up the tools of bookishness and use the

Grimmerie. Rather than the shallow and vain girl who always needed to be popular and get her own way, Glinda is able to have compassion and serve others. Hammonds 104

Father and Daughter

Key to the storyline, and to Elphaba’s ability to read the Grimmerie and be bookish, is the truth about Elphaba’s father. In the opening scenes of the musical we see Elphaba’s mother have an affair with a mysterious man who drinks a “green elixir” and has her do the same. The implied suggestion is that this green elixir is the cause of Elphaba’s green skin, though it is never stated. Elphaba is raised by her mother and her mother’s husband, the Mayor of Munchkin land, but never feels at rest there. She is always at odds with her “father,” the man who raised her, yet

Elphaba clings to a small green bottle that belonged to her mother – a souvenir from the affair

that resulted in her birth. It is not until after Elphaba’s presumed death that the puzzle pieces are

brought together for the characters and the audience – and the truth about Elphaba’s paternity is

known for certain. “So that’s it. That’s why she had such power! She was a child of – both

worlds”35 cries Madam Morrible when it is revealed that the Wizard is Elphaba’s father (119).

As a child of an Ozian mother and Earthly father, Elphaba has the power to perform magic and

decipher the ancient language of the Grimmerie. But how does the relationship between Elphaba

and her real father, the Wizard, shape her experience as a bookish woman? Is it only through her

genetics that he impacts her character? No. Throughout her heroine journey Elphaba’s

experience is influenced by her personal relationship with the Wizard. This can be seen clearly

by analyzing four songs that connect them: “The Wizard and I,” “I Am a Sentimental Man,”

“Defying Gravity,” and “Wonderful.”

“The Wizard and I”

In their books about the structure of Broadway musicals, Aaron Frankel and Jack Viertel

35 That is, Elphaba is the child of a woman from Oz, and a man from Earth. Hammonds 105

state the importance of the “I Want,” and to a lesser extent the “I Am,” song. “The hero has to

want something that’s hard to get” writes Viertel in his Secret Life of the American Musical (53).

“The I want, more than the I am, turns the character out and relates them to the world,” argues

Frankel in his Writing the Broadway Musical (95-96). In Wicked, “The Wizard and I” is

Elphaba’s “I Want” song. Coming on the heels of Madam Morrible’s declaration that Elphaba has a bright future as a witch and might even work for the Wizard himself, Elphaba sings about her desire to meet the Wizard and have a lasting relationship with him.

ELPHABA. When I meet the wizard

Once I prove my worth,

And then I meet the wizard

What I’ve waited for since – since birth!

And with all his wizard wisdom by my looks, he won’t be blinded.

Do you think the wizard is dumb? Or like munchkins, so small-minded?

No! He’ll say to me: “I see who you truly are

A girl on whom I can rely!”

And that’s how we’ll begin the wizard and I. (Holzman and Schwartz 16)

Two things are important in this verse. First, that Elphaba has been longing to meet the

Wizard since she was small. Like any child with a famous role model, Elphaba has dreamed of meeting the Wizard and being accepted by him – acceptance she never received from the father who raised her. Second, Elphaba does not expect the Wizard’s “I see who you truly are, a girl on whom I can rely,” to come without having first proven her worth. Now that she understands her talents, she will lay them at his feet in exchange for his approval and adoption. He will mentor her. He will have the power to, as she sings later, “de-greenify” her – a power she does not Hammonds 106 possess herself. The bookish heroine is looking for the ultimate guide.

It is with these possibilities in mind that Elphaba first imagines herself to be “unlimited”

(Holzman and Schwartz 17). She sees visions of celebrations, imagines herself so happy she could “melt,” held in high esteem by everyone, and wanting nothing else until her dying day.

This is her “I Want.” She wants the acceptance of a distinguished guide and the adoration of privileged social stakeholders; and her desires do not, at that point in the show, seem impossible.

“I Am a Sentimental Man”

When Elphaba is finally able to meet the Wizard, she is excited and shy.

ELPHABA. (shyly) I’m so happy to meet you.

WIZARD. Well, that’s good – cuz that’s what I love best – making people happy.

(Sings) I am a sentimental man // who always longed to be a father

That’s why I do the best I can // to treat each citizen of Oz as son –

(beams at Elphaba) Or daughter.

And Elphaba, I’d like to raise you high

‘Cuz I think ev’ryone deserves the chance to fly // and helping you with your ascent al-

lows me to feel so parental // for I am a sentimental man … (Holzman and Schwartz 60)

That is the entire song. He is willing to take her on and raise her high. He wants to be a father- figure. It is everything she hoped for. Stepping forward boldly, therefore, she begins to explain the reason she has come – to protect the Animals from those forces that are harming them. The

Wizard quickly cuts her off, promising to help her with whatever she needs, if she can prove herself. This is what she anticipated in her “I Want” song. She is not taken by surprise; she calmly waits to be told what to do. He asks her to read the Grimmerie and make his monkey servant Chistery fly. She does so, but as Chistery cries out in pain she realizes she has done Hammonds 107

something terrible and the spell cannot be undone. Worse, the Wizard planned it all along.

ELPHABA. So it’s you? You’re behind it all?

WIZARD. Elphaba – When I first got here, there was discord and discontent. And where

I come from, everyone knows: the best way to bring folks together, is to give

them a really good enemy.

ELPHABA. (the realization is growing) You can’t read this book at all, can you? That’s

why you need an enemy. And spies. And cages. You have no real power!

WIZARD. Exactly. And that’s why I need you! (enthusiastically) Don’cha see – the

world’s your oyster now! You have so many opportunities ahead of you! (to

Glinda) You both do.

GLINDA Oh, thank you, you’re Ozness!

WIZARD. (sings) The two of you, it’s time I raised you high yes, the time has come for

you to have the chance to —

ELPHABA. No! (And with the book of spells still clutched in her hands she runs out of

the room...) (64-65)

Her father figure, the man she has been waiting to guide her bookish growth and magical talent,

turns out to be, not only unable to guide her, but the perpetuator of the oppressions she has come

there to protest. She runs away from him, taking his book.

“Defying Gravity”

In his seminal book The Hero with a Thousand Faces (2004), Joseph Campbell states that, as a part of their journey, the hero experiences a rivalry with his powerful father figure

(125). In order to break away and claim a place of self-governance, the authority of the father must be overcome. Elphaba, more than most bookish heroines, experiences this severe break Hammonds 108

with her father-figure. And at the same time, as Carol Pearson and Katherine Pope argue in The

Female Hero in American and British Literature (1981), the “dragon” that many women heroes have to overcome is fear: “fear of what other people might think; fear of being different; fear of being isolated” (17). Elphaba navigates these two powerful experiences until they culminate in

“Defying Gravity.”

As they barricade themselves against the Wizard’s soldiers and Madam Morrible’s declaration that Elphaba is “evil,” “responsible for the mutilation of these poor innocent monkeys” and a “Wicked Witch,” Glinda comforts Elphaba. “Don’t be afraid,” she says. The greatest “dragon” for the heroine is at the door, and Elphaba rises to do battle.

ELPHABA. (a discovery) I’m not. It’s the Wizard who should be afraid. Of me.

(Holzman and Schwartz 68; Act 1, scene 14)

It is in this moment that Elphaba accepts that her “I Want” song will never be. And because the

“I Want” song tells us who the character is, Elphaba must redefine the kind of heroine she is going to be. Glinda understands that this is the essential question when she counsels her friend.

GLINDA. Elphie, listen to me. Just say you’re sorry. Before it’s too late… (sings) You

can still be with the Wizard. What you’ve worked and waited for.

You can have all you ever wanted… (68; Act 1, scene 14)

But Elphaba refuses to back down. She will overcome her fear and stand as the rival to her father figure.

ELPHABA. I know – (Singing) But I don’t want it. No – I can’t want it anymore… (68,

italics original)

She must want something else.

In the succeeding verses and chorus Elphaba, despite Glinda’s accusations that she is Hammonds 109

“having delusions of grandeur,” decides that rather than trying to please everyone and obey the

rules that Ozian society has dictated, she will defy them and embrace her outsider status (69).

This is in keeping with Pearson and Pope’s argument that the “hero who is an outsider because

she is female, black, or poor is almost always a revolutionary. Simply by being heroic, a woman defies the conditioning that insists she be a damsel in distress, and thus she implicitly challenges the status quo” (9, italics added). Once again, Elphaba sees herself as “unlimited,” and uses the

Grimmerie to cast a levitation spell that enables her to fly on the broom they had used to barricade the door. From this moment forward, Elphaba will use her bookish abilities against the

Wizard rather than for him. He flew to Oz in an air-balloon and claimed that “everyone deserves a chance to fly” (Holzman and Schwartz 60). Elphaba will do so, but on her own terms. He wanted her to prove herself by using the Grimmerie, and now she will prove herself by using it against him. As with any hero(ine) however, there is usually a temptation to abandon the journey and give up the battle, and Elphaba experiences this temptation in a particularly bookish way during Act Two, scene three with the song “Wonderful.”

“Wonderful”

Elphaba has returned to the Wizard’s chambers to free the winged monkeys when she encounters the Wizard himself. He professes that he never meant to harm her and croons that she must be as lonely as he is.

WIZARD. (seeing this chink in her armor) Elphaba…you’ve been so strong through all

this. Aren’t you tired of being the strong one? Wouldn’t you like someone to take

care of you? (She is completely nonplussed) Please – can’t we start again?

ELPHABA. Don’t you think I wish I could? I would give anything to turn back the

clocks! Go back to that time when I actually believed—that you were wonderful. Hammonds 110

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz! (Holzman and Schwartz 89, italics original; Act 2,

scene 3)

Elphaba wishes she could go back to her original “I Want,” but her “I Am” resists. The Wizard

appeals to her old desire for recognition and praise when he describes how he, “one of your dime

a dozen mediocrities,” became the Wonderful Wizard (89). “They called me ‘Wonderful,’ so I

said ‘wonderful—if you insist I will be wonderful—and they said ‘wonderful.’ Believe me it’s

hard to resist” (89).

Elphaba accuses him of lying to the citizens and he counters by saying they were lies the

people wanted to hear. “Where I’m from, we believe all sorts of things that aren’t true. We call it

– ‘history’” (Holzman and Schwartz 90). The bookish heroine’s father figure first tempts her by

appealing to her intelligence: “A man’s called a traitor – or liberator. A rich man’s a thief – or

philanthropist. Is one a crusader – or ruthless invader? It’s all in which label is able to persist”36

(90). He then quickly follows this up with an appeal to her moral stance: “There are precious few at ease with moral ambiguities, so we act as though they don’t exist” (90). The Wizard then finishes off with a final appeal to her ego – her sense of “I Am”: “At long, long last receive your due – long overdue. Elphaba – the most celebrated are the rehabilitated. There’ll be such a whoop-de-doo. A celebration throughout Oz that’s all to do with you” (90). In this final line the

Wizard actually reprises Elphaba’s “I Want” song “The Wizard and I.” He attacks her knowledge, her morals, and her pride. Why should she, he is asking, hold herself to a different

36 There is an echo here to Newsies and Joseph Pulitzer’s philosophy about the power of the

press; that is, that unless an event is reported in the papers it “never happened” (Fierstein,

Feldman, and Menken 82). Hammonds 111

standard than everyone else? She could rejoin the normative group and enjoy the privilege of power, and Elphaba gives in – “It does sound wonderful” (Holzman and Schwartz 91) – with the condition that the Wizard set the monkeys free. “Done!” he cries as he does so.

Elphaba’s relationship with her father would have, perhaps, ended here if it were not for one small obstacle – “One figure, trembling under a blanket” (91). It is Doctor Dillamond. Her history teacher from Shiz University who first radicalized her and inspired her to fight for

Animal rights. Compared to the Wizard’s revisionist history lesson, Doctor Dillamond had presented history as it was – including the experiences of the oppressed and unrepresented

groups. Compared to the Wizard’s relativistic and selfish morality, Doctor Dillamond had

represented a self-sacrificing morality that was loyal to those in need of representation, who

lacked power and privilege. He was the first person Elphaba had ever met who could be a role model for her as a marginalized person – both because of her body and because of her intelligence and abilities. In this moment, Elphaba must choose which father-figure she wants to follow and which she will renounce. Turning to the Wizard “with growing fury” she says, “You and I have nothing in common. I’m nothing like you and I will never be. And I’ll fight you till the day I die!” (92). Here we see Elphaba renew the “I Want” she began with “Defying Gravity”

– to defeat the Wizard.

Conclusion

Elphaba’s character travels from an experience of being loathed from birth, to feeling unlimited and valuable, to expressions of defiance against tyrannical authority, to accepting the label of “wicked,” to an acceptance that she cannot accomplish her goals, and finally to an appreciation for the changes she sees in herself as a result of her relationships and experiences. I suggest, however, that Elphaba’s story is not fully accomplished without Glinda. Elphaba cannot Hammonds 112 accomplish her objective because of her limited position in Ozian society. When Elphaba hands the Grimmerie off to Glinda, she is, in effect, entrusting her with Elphaba’s own story and legacy. Glinda must defeat the Wizard for Elphaba. The girl who, when they first met, loathed and mocked her (“What Is This Feeling?”), must now defend and avenge her. In this way

Elphaba maintains and continues the bookish woman’s habit of empowering others, especially women, to do far more than was expected or imagined in the beginning. We saw this with

Matilda and her classmates, with Katherine and the newsies and working children, and we will see it in the final chapter with Nettie (The Color Purple), and Elle Woods (Legally Blonde). Hammonds 113

CHAPTER V: “I AM SOMEBODY”: COUNTERING STEREOTYPES AND EMBRACING

INTERSECTIONALITY AS BOOKISH WOMAN

“I am somebody.”

- Nettie, The Color Purple (Stephen Bray, Allee Willis, and Brenda Russell)

Introduction

In this chapter, I argue that the bookish women in In the Heights, Legally Blonde the

Musical, and The Color Purple act against not only the (negative) stereotypes common to musical theatre, but also the negative stereotypes associated with various racial and class groups.

In these shows, the authors create characters who live liminally and intersectionally between home communities and the communities where their intellectual, creative, and life experiences take place. I will further seek to address the pressure bookish women feel to perform femininities appropriate to their background, and will argue that each character’s scholarly mind – the drive for knowledge and understanding – draws together the knowledges of their past and present to empower the bookish woman as she moves forward.

The Intersectionality of Bookish Women as a Tool Against Stereotype

In his chapter “The Role of Stereotype,” race scholar Richard Dyer argues that 1) stereotypes are used by societies as an organizational and hierarchical tool, 2) such organization necessarily implicates “the power relations in that society,” and 3) this power uses stereotype to mark those who are “in” and those who are “out,” making visible and marking those who do not belong so that they cannot “creep up” and infiltrate the boundary (12-16). The power of whiteness’ normativity in the history and culture of the United States has, thus, resulted in white culture marking nonwhite bodies and cultures through the use of stereotype. Theatre has been a means of propagating racial stereotype through black, brown, and yellowface representations of Hammonds 114

Black American, Native American, Mexican, Caribbean, and South and South East Asian

characters. Within U.S. culture, Spanish speaking women are stereotyped as harlots and vixens, clowns, cool and distant “dark ladies,” or struggling immigrants (Berg 70-76; Román 39-40).

Black women have been reduced to subservient Mammies, angry Sapphires, sexual Jezebels, or never-tiring Superwomen (Thomas et. al. 428). Among white women there are stereotypes to preserve hierarchies of privilege where the blond valley girl, the wall flower, the klutz, the overweight, the queer or the differently abled are marked as outsiders and lacking.

And yet while the representative arts can negatively deploy stereotype for audience

consumption, they can also help to build up a positive “imaginary” – that is, “those ready-made

images and symbols through which we make sense of social bodies and which determine, in part,

their value, their status and what will be deemed their appropriate treatment” (Gatens viii, italics

added). Nina Rosario (In the Heights), Elle Woods (Legally Blonde), and Nettie (The Color

Purple) are all constructed by their writers, lyricists, and composers as characters who help

audiences reimagine and rethink how individuals and communities behave and what is possible.

Moreover, these characters call on the empathy and sympathy of audiences to understand the

struggles that are experienced at the intersections of identity as the bookish women learn to move

beyond their community into the world and yet still maintain the knowledge they have gained as

a member of their original community. The knowledge gained from books is one facet of their

knowledge as well as one means to empower others, and they embody for the audience the

difficult path that many experience on the journey to integrate different kinds of knowledge. The

difficulty of this path is seen most clearly in Nina Rosario’s experience of the Ivy League in the

2008 musical In the Heights by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Quiara Hudes. Hammonds 115

In the Heights

Nina Rosario is the first person in her family to go to college. She is the only daughter of

Puerto Rican immigrants who have established a successful taxi business in the diverse, though majority Spanish-speaking, neighborhood of Washington Heights in New York City. It is an economically depressed area, but she and her family have worked hard to fund her first year at

Stanford. From the time she was young, Nina was dedicated to learning, choosing to read while other children played, and attending Advanced Placement (AP) classes while others around her socialized. In his song “Inútil,” Nina’s father, Kevin, describes how he was always so proud of her because she was “so much smarter,” worked “so much harder,” and would go “so much farther” than he (Hudes and Miranda 38).

Yet, a few minutes into the show, after we have met everyone else and heard about Nina second hand, we meet her and learn that her time at Stanford has been a disaster. Usnavi, Nina’s childhood friend and the narrator of the show, confidently asks her if she “kick[ed] some college ass,” but Nina confesses that she got hers handed to her “on a silver platter” (15-16). Unlike the other bookish women in this study, Nina’s “I Am/I Want” song (“Breath”) relates, not an empowered sense of self looking to past or future accomplishments, but her personal sense of disappointment and failure and a fear that she will betray the confidence her community has placed in her.

NINA. They’re not worried about me. […]

They’re all counting on me to succeed.

I am the one who made it out. The one who always made the grade.

But maybe I should have just stayed home…

When I was a child I stayed wide awake Hammonds 116

Climbed to the highest place, on every fire escape, restless to climb…

I got every scholarship, saved every dollar

The first to go to college

How do I tell them why I’m coming home? (19)

Rather than being a traditional “I Want/I Am” song that provides the heroine with a happy stasis that the drama of the narrative may disrupt, Nina’s experience is more like

Elphaba’s Act 2 expression that she is “limited” and cannot complete her mission. Because Nina had to work to afford her books and daily expenses, her classwork suffered and she lost her scholarship. Losing her scholarship led her to drop out of school. The news that their “star” has failed is a shock to the community. The ladies in the salon, who pride themselves on knowing everything (“No Me Diga”) are completely astonished that Nina would fail. Nina’s parents are equally confused and her father feels responsible for not having enough money to provide for his daughter (“Inútil”) (36-37). Simultaneously, Nina feels the responsibility to provide for herself rather than straining her parents already limited resources. However, as Stacy Wolf suggests in

Changed for Good, even in this emotionally low “I Am” song, there is a prediction that “Nina won’t be contained here,” and her absence from the ensemble opening makes sense “thematically because she is the outsider-insider” (192-193, italics added).

“When You’re Home”: Validation at the Intersection

Nina is the “outsider-insider”: the intersectional, liminal, marginal bookish woman who serves the “imaginary” and pushes our boundaries of understanding. Yet her own understanding of herself and place needs the support and validation of others. The writers give this role to

Benny, a young black man who works for Nina’s parents who experiences a marginalized identity in the pan-Latin community of Washington Heights. Nina confesses to Benny, her love Hammonds 117

interest and friend, that she struggles because she does not feel at home in Stanford, in New

York, or even in her Americanized skin. The sense of alienation takes on both cultural and economic dimensions when Nina is at Stanford. It is not her intelligence or ability to do the

work, but her background and identity that marginalize her.

NINA. They spoke a different kind of English at Stanford.

BENNY. Really?

NINA. ‘Weekend.’ Verb. To go skiing at your cabin on Lake Tahoe. ‘Cabin.’ Noun. A

blasé word for mansion.

BENNY. Well, did you teach them a few words from home?

NINA. Of course. “Would you like some fries with that?”

BENNY. (Like a toast) To not speaking the language. (Hudes and Miranda 65-66; Act 1,

scene 9)

Benny is one of the few people in Washington Heights who can understand her feeling of

alienation.

In the song “When You’re Home,” Benny tries to cheer Nina up as they walk through

Washington Heights fondly remembering the past. When she was young, Nina says, her home was the top of the world and everything else was just as abstract as the subway map that pointed to her house (Hudes and Miranda 66). Having gone away to Stanford and returned, Nina asks

Benny to please remind her what it was like “at the top of the world” (66). Benny cheerfully

reminds Nina of their happy youth and reignites her identity with her community. When Benny

reminds Nina how the neighborhood cheers for her, she vehemently cuts him off

NINA. Don’t say that!

When I was younger Hammonds 118

I’d imagine what would happen if my parents had stayed in Puerto Rico.

Who would I be if I had never seen Manhattan

If I had lived in Puerto Rico with my people. My people? (69-70)

Despite growing up in this diverse pan-Latino community, Nina struggles with what it means to be a Puerto Rican American, and as a child she turned her mind to understanding the world around her to try and solve this question.

NINA. I feel like all my life I’ve tried to find the answer.

Working harder, learning Spanish, learning all I can.

I thought I might find the answers out at Stanford, but I’d stare out at the sea thinking

Where’m I supposed to be?

So please don’t say you’re proud of me, when I’ve lost my way. (Hudes and Miranda 70)

Unlike Vanessa, another young woman in the neighborhood who wants to get out of Washington

Heights and live in downtown Manhattan, Nina works hard in a specifically intellectual way to understand her place in the world. Ultimately, she tries to find “the answers out at Stanford,” but the intellectual life there is hedged around by wealthy and privileged white people who do not make space for her. She is marginalized and her intelligence and breadth of knowledge find no home there.

Not only that, but she feels that she has “lost [her] way” and does not believe she will successfully navigate the heroine journey that the authors have put her on. The enemies and obstacles seem insurmountable and she has no guides or friends to help her at Stanford. Benny softly and encouragingly validates her feelings and gives her hope for the future. “Now listen to me! // That may be how you perceive it, // but Nina please believe that when you find your way again // you’re gonna change the world and then // we’re all gonna brag and say we knew her Hammonds 119

when!” (Hudes and Miranda 70). Nina then repeatedly sings out in relief that she is “home” when he is there with her. Benny’s friendship as a fellow marginalized person offers Nina a foothold in her liminal experience. It is her adoptive grandmother, however, and the memory of their relationship, that finally gives Nina the guidance and confidence she needs to accept the money her parents have promised to sacrifice and return to school.

“Everything I Know”: The Bookish Woman’s Relationship with Other Women and Knowledge

The cultural specificity in the show is due to the personal experiences of Quiara Hudes,

the Puerto Rican American playwright responsible for helping to shape the script, and Lin

Manuel Miranda, the composer and lyricist who first conceptualized the show. Hudes was a first- generation college student who attended an ivy league university (Yale) (Hudes and Miranda ix).

Lin Manuel Miranda’s parents are educators and he grew up in New York. Among the studies

conducted about Latino families (Villenas and Deyhle 1999; Li 2010), including Puerto Rican

families living in New York City (Mercado 2005), scholars have noted the challenge that

Spanish-speaking families face as the children toggle between English speaking schools and

Spanish-speaking or bilingual homes. In her article “Race, Class, and Schooling: Multicultural

Families Doing the Hard Work of Home Literacy in America’s Inner City,” Guofang Li

describes the bilingual and multicultural experience as a “fracturing” (152). This fracturing is

brought on by the “increasing demands from school and the larger society that […] children

embrace English literacy at the cost of their own heritage languages” (152). Not only does the

use of language itself contribute to the feeling of “fracture,” but, as Carmen Mercado writes in

her chapter “Seeing What’s There: Language and Literacy Funds of Knowledge in New York

Puerto Rican Homes,” there is a “wide range of local knowledge” that takes place within the homes of Puerto Rican families (134). Parents encourage their children to excel in their academic Hammonds 120

education, but as Sofia Villenas and Donna Deyhle describe in their 1999 study, educacion for

the Latino family is as much about character building and the instilling of morals as it is about

history and math (423). Family elders engage in consejos – “advice-laden conversations”

(Mercado 142) – about life and, though they may not be able to read or help with homework, they supervise and encourage (Li 153). This generational mentorship is the experience that Nina looks back on with fondness during the song “Everything I Know,” in the middle of Act 2.

NINA. Every afternoon I came. She’d make sure I did my homework.

She could barely write her name, but even so…

She would stare at the paper and tell me,

NINA/USNAVI. “Bueno, let’s review,

NINA. Why don’t you tell me everything you know?” (Hudes and Miranda 132)

The bookishness of this Latina woman stands in direct contrast to the narrow sexualized stereotypes of Latina women and offers a boundary-crossing representation of how Latino families support education and anticipate success. There is an ongoing drive for communal and generational betterment that allows space for Nina’s desire to think and live on a larger scale.

In the second verse of the song, Nina identifies with Claudia’s experience of immigrating as a small child, and then in the third verse recognizes the way in which Claudia created and claimed family and support systems that would validate her. Nina takes courage from Claudia’s example and the memory of her love.

NINA. Hold tight, Abuela, if you’re up there.

I’ll make you proud of everything I know!

Thank you, for everything I know. (Hudes and Miranda 133)

Nina decides to go back to Stanford but recognizes the price her parents are paying. Her father is Hammonds 121 selling his business but tells her that he “always had a mind for investments,” and on the day she graduates they will “call it even” (134).

In the “Introduction” to the Applause script of In the Heights, producer Jill Furman wrote that the show “depicted Latino culture in a positive and realistic light, whereas the few previous theatrical examples were, unfortunately, more stereotypical and negative” (xi). The specific intersectionality of Nina’s character construction as a Latina bookish woman of intelligence, contributed to the show’s depiction of “Latino culture in a positive and realistic light.” In a similarly unique way, Legally Blonde was written as a musical to combat the stereotypical notion that beautiful, sexy, perky girls are incapable of being serious heroines engaging in significant action.

Legally Blonde the Musical

By the time In the Heights opened on Broadway 9 March 2008, Legally Blonde the

Musical, a very different bookish woman’s story had already been playing for almost a year

(opening 29 April 2007). Elle Woods, the heroine of Legally Blonde, faced many of the obstacles seen in Nina’s journey – being judged for one’s background, experiencing alienation and a sense of failure, feeling invalidated. Elle, however, is specifically judged as a white, rich, nice, pretty girl whose mind and seriousness are doubted and mocked. Unlike most other bookish women,

Elle’s sexual availability works against her ability to access intellectual empowerment through reading and study and eventually leads to her identification as an “underdog” who supports and empowers other underdogs who are judged and alienated. The meaningfulness of this message, however, is counterbalanced by the “fun” pastiche music and large musical theatre numbers

(hoorayformusicals). Hammonds 122

Performing Whiteness

Throughout the show, Elle learns to perform a number of femininities in order to achieve her goals. When the show opens, Elle Woods, as the daughter of wealthy Malibu parents, has experienced none of the economic struggles seen in Nina Rosario’s story. Elle bears a greater resemblance to the wealthy Stanford students whose families “weekend” in their “cabin” mansions in Lake Tahoe (Hudes and Miranda 65-66).

The first time we see Elle (“Omigod You Guys”) she is buying an expensive dress for a date that she thinks will conclude with a marriage proposal from her boyfriend Warner. In performance, Elle ascends through the floor with her back to the audience and her long blonde hair serves metonymically for her youth, privilege, and “pur[ity] of intention and heart”

(Larocca). Though she is in the final semester of college pursuing a degree in “fashion merchandizing,” Elle is not a serious student, preferring to read Elle magazine or have her hair and nails done at the salon. Everything seems perfect37 until Warner dumps her during his boy- band style pop song, “Serious.” If he is going to be a senator by the time he’s 30, he argues, he needs a “classy” Jackie Kennedy and not a “tacky” Marilyn Monroe (Hach et al. 11). For the first time, Elle discovers that her performance of white womanhood is not enough. Being attractive and agreeable will not get her what she wants, so she decides to become the thing that Warner desires – a serious and intelligent woman (“What You Want”).

“What You Want”: Stereotypes, Labor, and Difference

Looking in a magazine, Elle sees a picture of the woman engaged to Warner’s brother.

37 The moment everything is in balance is, of course, exactly when writers will introduce a piece of plot that throws everything off balance and propels the rest of the show. Hammonds 123

Elle’s attempt to reach across the divide and connect with this mysterious woman lands squarely in the realm of a strange kind of exoticism and stereotyping that reduces her to the list of characteristics Warner wants: “someone serious, someone lawyerly, someone who wears black when nobody’s dead!” (Hach et al. 14). Elle is only able to understand in rough terms what being

“serious” means and the labor that is involved. She makes this clear in her “I Want” song, cunningly named “What You Want.”

ELLE. Well it’s plain, Warner, in a diff’rent setting,

You will see you’re getting all of this plus a brain!

I’ll meet you there at Harvard with a book in my hand.

Big sturdy book. Big wordy book. Full of words I’ll understand. (15)

She needs a “big wordy book” and assumes that she’ll be able to understand it. Much like

Galinda when she first arrives at Shiz University, Elle initially has an inflated view of her own ability and an expectation that she will easily accomplish this goal like all others in her life. She dutifully proposes a three part plan – get accepted to Harvard Law along with Warner, win him back, get married – and appeals to her father for finances. He initially rejects her idea, saying that

“Law school is for boring, ugly, serious people. And you, Button, are none of those things”

(Hach et al. 17). Rather than refute his argument, she relies on her tested performance of femininity and declares that she is doing it for love. Her performance works and he agrees to pay her fees if she can “get in” (18).

“What You Want”: Racial Stereotypes and Performing White Womanhood

With the guidance and urging of her Delta Nu sorority sister Kate, Elle studies for her

LSAT exam and prepares her application materials. Her intellectual work faces a rival, however, as the Delta Nu’s enjoy their Jamaican themed “spring fling beer-bash extreme” with the Hammonds 124

fraternity guys. The distinctly racialized party continues the show’s practice of using stereotype

when the leader of the frat guys, “Grandmaster Chad,” sings a reggae style song to Elle. He

repeatedly questions the subject of her “I Want” song and her method for pursuing it.

GRANDMASTER CHAD. What u want, you wanna be study stuck inside ya dorm?

What u want, you wanna be party with us all night long?

What u want, you wanna be strong! […]

What u want, you wanna be provin’ sumpin,’ and ta whom? […]

What u want, you wanna be chasin’ him and he don’ care? […]

What u want, you wanna say “sorry, gotta hit me books…” (19-20)

Here the temptation to settle into mediocrity is directly tied to the consumption and embodiment of Caribbean speech, music, movement, and anti-intellectualism. While not performed in actual

blackface, Chad (who was performed by a white actor in the original production) embodies a

slippery kind of blackness through his vocal and physical performance (as seen in the MTV recording of the show). Because we never encounter Chad again, it is really the performance of blackness that juxtaposes with Elle’s whiteness in “What You Want.” Interestingly, Chad also poses insightful questions about what Elle really wants out of life, what it means to “be strong,” what it is she has to prove, and why she is chasing a man who “don’ care.” Like her Delta Nu sisters, Chad pulls Elle “backwards” toward the “tacky” kind of blonde white privilege that

Warner has condemned. Instead, Elle must choose a new kind of whiteness that is more proper, sober, serious, meritorious, and individual (Ullucci and Battey 1200).

During her “personal essay” dance at the end of “What You Want,” Elle’s own connection to non-white bodies and performances of color is immediately condemned by the admissions officer. The oldest member of the committee, Winthrop, yells for Elle and her team Hammonds 125

of UCLA cheerleaders to stop dancing, bellowing: “You can’t just barge in here with singing and

dancing and…ethnic movement!” (22, italics added). The “ethnic movement” described by

Winthrop is not described in the script. However, by watching recordings of the performance,

such as the 2014 performance for MTV audiences, one can see that “ethnic movement” is, of

course, a reference to sexual dance moves used by Elle and her cheer team (Jeroen van Delft).

By drawing such a direct correlation between sexuality and ethnic stereotype, the writers draw on cultural tropes, assumptions, and stereotype for comedic purposes – a tactic they will continue throughout the production. Winthrop judges Elle’s gender performance in this moment specifically because it is not “white” enough. Elle understands and dials back her “sexy” (read

“ethnic”) dancing and imploringly asks Winthrop if he’s ever been in love. By returning to this traditional performance of white femininity Elle uses traditional gender norms, rather than intellectual standards, as her argument for acceptance into the school.

“Blood in the Water,” “Love and War,” and “Positive”: Support, Competition, and Fitting In

Over the next few songs, Elle continues to wrestle with her performance of identity.

While her sorority sisters and family had always been supportive, her law professor, Callahan, urges his students to be like violent sharks who smell “blood in the water” and mercilessly prey on the weak. The clueless Elle is expelled from class when a fellow student, Vivian, condemns her ignorance of campus etiquette – an experience that echoes Jerusha Abbott’s embarrassment

when she began school and Nina Rosario’s invalidation within her Ivy League environment.

Elle’s invalidation takes an additional hit in the scene immediately following her class expulsion when she learns that cool and judgmental Vivian is now Warner’s girlfriend.

The Delta Nu sorority sisters appear to Elle’s imagination as a “Greek chorus” because the situation classifies as a “tragedy” (Hach et al. 36). In early productions of the show, the girls Hammonds 126

sang a song called “Love and War,” set in a minor key using vaguely Egyptian sounding musical

themes. Elle’s imaginary sorority sisters counsel her that “all is fair in love and war” and she

should slap Vivian’s smug face, “introduce her to the floor,” “ninja-kick her through a door,”

“pull her hair and call her ‘whore’” and win Warner back by “shaking her junk” and dancing

evocatively like they did at sorority parties (37-40). Two elements are at work in their proposal.

First, the sorority sisters propose the use of anger as a tool. The use of anger at this point in the

narrative was ultimately rejected in favor of the more upbeat message in the replacement song

“Positive,” but returns later in the show during “Chip on My Shoulder.” I will discuss the use of

anger more thoroughly below, but it is important to see how the creators intentionally chose to

postpone it and deploy the Delta Nus as agents of positive support rather than catty violence. In

“Love and War,” Elle realizes that their approach, so reminiscent of the “tacky Marilyn Monroe”

style that Warner rejected, will not work. As agents of her thought process, the group begins to

analyze the possible cause of Vivian’s allure. Repeating the simplistic analysis she used when

examining the “serious” woman in the magazine, Elle looks at exteriors and falls again into a

practice of stereotyping.

ELLE. What about her don’t I get?

SERENA. She’s a beast but she fits in? // ELLE. Right!

MARGOT. Maybe that’s the way to win? // ELLE. Right!

PILAR. Be her shadow! // ELLE. …be her twin. (40 italics added)

Elle decides that in order to win Warner, she must learn to fit in to the Harvard crowd. Elle’s extreme focus on externals leads her to try to become Vivan’s physical twin rather than understanding and imitating her bookish work ethic. The new song, “Positive,” ends in the same way, and Elle decides, against the advice of her imaginary friends, to go to the hair salon and dye Hammonds 127

her hair brunette.

Elle’s decision to dye her hair betrays a belief that such a physical change will result in

real social change as well. In her book Do Gentlemen Really Prefer Blondes?: Bodies, Behavior,

and Brains—The Science Behind Sex, Love, and Attraction, Jena Pincott writes that “thanks to

the media, blond hair is associated with glamour and sex appeal. The blonde is feminine, sexy,

carefree, seductive, and capable of having more fun. She’s Marilyn Monroe, Barbie, Paris

Hilton, Scarlett Johansson, and also Beyoncé and Mary J. Blige” (84). Elle attempts to rid herself

of these associations by dying her hair, but is talked out of it by a new friend – Paulette the salon

owner.

“Chip on My Shoulder”: Friendship, Anger, and Intellectual Success

Elle’s repeated attempts to fit in to the competitive intellectual world of Harvard

repeatedly fail because she cannot think beyond the externals and stereotyping. Even in moments

– such as Elle’s unexpectedly informed use of Gloria Steinem’s “feminist manifesto” “I Was a

Playboy Bunny” to reprimand her opponents – Elle seems unable to fully emerge from the

Malibu conception that appearance is everything. It isn’t until she befriends Emmett Forest, a

compassionate straight-talking graduate law student, that she begins to see past the image and

into her own potential in the bookish world. Emmett becomes the guide on her heroine journey

(“Chip on My Shoulder”). He models the thought and life style of one who does not give up

when faced with obstacles and introduces a work ethic that does not assume guaranteed success.

Emmett is from a poor working-class background in New Jersey. He lived in a rough neighborhood, had a single mom, worked multiple jobs to put himself through law school, and is transitioning from his post-grad time into his full career as a lawyer. When Elle suggests that he has a negative attitude and a chip on his shoulder, Emmett agrees. Hammonds 128

EMMETT. There’s a chip on my shoulder, // and it’s big as a boulder.

With the chance I’ve been given, // I’m gonna be driven as hell!

I’m so close I can taste it, // so I’m not gonna waste it.

Yeah, there’s a chip on my shoulder… // You might want to get one as well. (Hach et al

51)

“When you weren’t born into privilege, you gotta work twice as hard” he tells her and begins to help Elle arrange her life and thoughts for success (52; Act 1, scene 8). Her dorm room is reclaimed for studying purposes rather than hair care, books are taken out of their packaging so they can be used, and he challenges her to take the chance she’s been given and be “driven as hell” (54).

Emmett sees that Elle has energy and passion and encourages her to take ownership, not only of her self-image, but her thoughts and actions rather than allowing Warner to dictate it. He points this out to Elle in the middle section of the song.

EMMETT. I don’t know if you’ve noticed before

But each time Warner walks through the door

Your I.Q. goes down to forty. 38 Maybe less.

Though it’s hardly my business to say, could it be the real thing in your way

Is the very guy you’re trying to impress?” (Hach et al. 58).

Emmett engages in consciousness raising in this moment. Elle has been guilty of participating in

38 Standard intelligence is associated with a score between 90 and 110. Scores below 70 are

“usually further assessed to determine if a diagnosis of mental retardation is warranted” (Skinner and Watson 167). Hammonds 129 stereotyping, both as an object and a subject. That is, Elle has stereotyped others and reduced their complexity, but she has also allowed others to do the same to her. In the presence of the misogynistic Warner, Elle turned into a comatose image of beauty and privilege. Now she sees how she can become the active heroine in her story and gain her reward using the bookish tools available to her at Harvard.

ELLE. Yes! I’ve been smiling ‘n sweet’n thoroughly beaten, blowing my chance.

Let’s not chase him away, let’s face him and say ‘hey, punk, let’s dance!’

This chip on my shoulder makes me smarter and bolder.

No more whining or blaming, I am re-claiming my pride!

Grab that book and let’s do this – Instead of doodling hearts all through this

Now there there’s a chip on my shoulder” (Hach 59).

In his 2016 study of the show, Matthew Ballistreri argues that this moment in “Chip On

Your Shoulder” is the turning point in the musical (13). “Emmett’s line wakes Elle up to the controlling idea of the musical, and changes her from a lovesick schoolgirl to a serious law student” (15). He does this by conveying the value of anger as a motivator. (The importance of anger at this moment is also the reason, I suggest, that “Love and War” was changed to

“Positive.”) Rather than passively accepting Warner’s narrative that casts Elle as a woman incapable of significant (heroic) action, he encourages Elle 1) to recognize her own potential for heroism and 2) to use the dismissal of others as fuel for her journey. Emmet identifies “getting angry” as the best way for the “nice,” perky, sweet Elle Woods to activate and begin her process of development.

Like Matilda and Elphaba, Elle Woods discovers that when wedded with her educational experience and growing body of knowledge, anger becomes a valuable tool for empowerment. Hammonds 130

The use of anger by these bookish women is not monolithic, however. The marginalization and

oppression inflicted on Elphaba and the Animals by the entire Ozian society leads to her use of

anger, as Michalinos Zambylas argues, “in political terms” (1). The outward focus also exhibits

Talia Master’s argument that “anger focused on activity” is superior to that which is primarily

personal and internal (27). Elle’s marginalization is specific to her Harvard Law School

community and her relationship with Warner. Her focus is not broadly political, but rather

personal and interpersonal. She is too generally “positive” to follow in the steps of the Wicked

Witch and their journeys are too divergent. The writers specifically deploy anger in this moment

of the show in order move Elle’s “I Want” from Warner and love, to personal fulfillment through

action and self-expression. 39 They do this by empowering Elle’s study habits and ability to

master the intellectual material in class.

Bookish Success

Elle’s clearest performances of bookishness occur in scenes eight and nine in the show’s

first Act. In these scenes Elle actively studies with the help of her friends, successfully argues her

39 In the 2019 article “Listening to the Girls of Generation Z: Using Ethnographic Dramaturgy in

Laura Schellhardt’s Digging Up Dessa,” dramaturg Grace Overbeke describes conversations she

and playwright Laura Schellhardt had with high school and early college age girls as a means of research before writing the play Digging Up Dessa. The interviewees discussed the divide between the expectations other have of their gender performance and what they experience as women. They specifically addressed the fact that they see “anger as a strategy rather than a nicety” (34). That is, they recognize the utility value in channeling their anger “to achieve their objectives” rather than experiencing it primarily as an emotion (34). Hammonds 131

“case” in class, utilizes laws to help Paulette regain custody of her dog, and gains one of the coveted internships working alongside Professor Callahan on a murder case. At each point, her sense of fulfillment grows and her ability to think of herself as an intelligent woman capable of meaningful action grows as well. In heroic terms, she is not the reward for the hero at the end of the story, she is the heroine herself.

In scene 8, the end of “Chip on My Shoulder,” Elle is still fighting to enjoy studying law, but begins to make progress. First, she is helped by her guide, Emmett.

ELLE. “Malum prohibitum” is…

EMMETT. (prompting) An act prohibited by…

ELLE. Prohibited by law! Like jaywalking! Or chewing gum in Singapore.

EMMETT. Therefore “Malum in se” means:

ELLE. An action that’s evil in itself! Assault, murder, white shoes after Labor Day…

EMMETT. Good. (Hach et al. 55; Act 1, scene 8)

Later, Elle’s friend Paulette joins in supporting Elle’s journey through academia:

PAULETTE. Okay, focus, Elle, focus! The case of “Russell v. Sullivan”…

ELLE. – determined that Russell was legally the child’s father even though he was just a

sperm donor.

PAULETTE. Gold star. (57)

Then, later in class, Elle successfully argues against Warner in class and gains her first major victory.

ELLE. Well, unless the defendant attempted to contact every sexual encounter to find if a

child resulted from those unions, he has no parental claim over this child

whatsoever. Why now, why this sperm? Hammonds 132

CALLAHAN. I see your point.

ELLE. …And by Mr. Huntington’s standard, all masturbatory emissions where the

sperm was clearly not seeking an egg could be called reckless abandonment.

CALLAHAN. Ms. Woods, you just won your case. (60; Act 1, scene 8)

In light of her success in class, Callahan invites Elle to apply for the internship, and later, when Elle sees the published list of interns, it becomes the grand Act 1 finale “So Much Better.”

Seeing her name “upon that list” “in black and white” makes Elle feel validated and she takes a great deal of satisfaction in telling Warner and watching his reaction.

ELLE. Oh, Warner? // Sorry I’ve been a pest,

but I guess my best // was not working with you.

But looks like I found a cure, // and I so look forward to // working with you!

WARNER. What? Workin’ with who? (Hach et. al 67)

Elle sings that being on the list, and having the skills that such an honor signifies, is more satisfying than all of her sexual and romantic encounters with Warner. In this moment Elle revels in her rebellion against the restriction of stereotype and feels empowered by her growing mastery of the law.

Emmett and Elle: Whiteness and Peer Mentorship

While many other bookish women have a more innate drive to help others and fight oppressions, this is largely a behavior and ability that Elle learns from the bookish Emmett in the musical adaptation of the story. Sheltered by her privileges (race, class, ability, and attractiveness), Elle has not developed a sensitivity to the real needs of others or an ability to fight injustice and inequity. Like most bookish heroines, however, Elle gains a guide who helps her reach a place of empowerment through bookish means. Elle learns from Emmett not only to Hammonds 133 empower herself though study, but also to use her power for others.

It is worth noting, however, that such a close mentoring relationship did not exist in the film and it has led some to critique the show’s feminism (Popcorn Talk). Such a critique, I suggest, points to a particular intersection of whiteness and feminism that is worth exploring here before proceeding. I have argued above that Nina needed the help and support of her community in order to succeed in her bookish journey. I also argued that such communal bookishness, teaching and learning, is a natural part of Latino cultures and therefore the success of individuals is the success of the community. Nina is not judged as a woman because she relies on her friends and family for support. Whiteness and white feminism, however, place different expectations on their communities. In their study on colorblind and color-conscious ideologies in education, Dan

Battey and Karren Ullucci argue that two of the primary tenets of colorblindness that stem from whiteness’ normativity are “merit” and “individuality” (1200). When Ally Nasta argues that the

2001 film with Reese Witherspoon is more feminist because Elle does not receive or require

Emmett’s help, she is drawing on the ideologies of whiteness that primarily value each person for working as individuals and receiving their rewards based on the success of their individual merit.

The ideologies of merit and individuality also raise their head in the final scenes of the show. After successfully winning the murder trial, Elle sings to her old boyfriend Warner, “Look how far I’ve come without anyone holding my hand // I had to find my way” (Hach et al. 123).

Such a statement from Elle late in the show belies the bookish mentorship that has proceeded it and was acknowledged by Elle herself.

Following the “Chip on My Shoulder” song, at the end of which Elle successfully argues her point in class and gains the praise of Professor Callahan, Elle and Emmett go with Paulette to Hammonds 134

and help her regain custody of her dog. After Paulette mentions that she and her old boyfriend had lived together for ten years, Emmett reminds Elle of the law about common-law marriages and Elle is able to successfully use that information to acquire the dog. Elle responds “Wait - was that LAW? Is this the point of law? // I’m feeling kind of...high... […] This is why we all study and slog: // To help the underdog! I so identify!” (Hach et al. 165). Elle’s ability to use the law for people and causes she believes in is an epic realization to her and she turns to Emmett for

verification and validation. His generosity and “nice nerd guy” (Popcorn Talk) personality

contribute to the equitability of the relationship and later Elle is able to do him a favor in turn

that helps to solidify their relationship.

After Professor Callahan criticizes Emmett’s shabby appearance, due to his economic

back ground, Elle uses her economic agency and her growing confidence in helping others to

take Emmett shopping for a new suit in the song “Take It Like a Man.” Having learned from

Emmett to use her intellectual knowledge for others, she teaches him to use appearance for

personal empowerment. As Emmett tries on clothes, Elle exclaims “Here you’ll become what

you’re supposed to be […] Think of the guy you want most to be: Here’s your chance to make it,

so take it like a man!” and “Look at you striking a pose, your confidence grows! You bloom like

a rose!” (83) At the same time, she qualifies the purpose of the clothes. This is not an attempt to

stereotype and make Emmett less complex. Rather, to Elle the clothes reflect who he really is,

and is simply a “payment in kind, // ‘cause you saw beyond all the blond to my mind” (84).

Emmett and Elle support one another’s ability to look past appearances and support individuals

through their troubles.

“Legally Blonde Remix”: Integrated Identity

Ultimately, however, it is not Emmett who convinces Elle that she can succeed as a Hammonds 135 lawyer, it is her rival, Vivian. Elle had given up and decided to return home after Professor

Callahan makes sexual advances and Warner accuses her of sleeping her way to the top (Hach et al. 104-105). While the men continue in their simplistic stereotyping of Elle as a sexual object,

Vivian acknowledges a woman who has proven her intellectual capacities and skill as a lawyer.

In the song “Legally Blonde (Remix),” Vivian validates Elle in a manner reminiscent of Benny in “When You’re Home” “I see no end to what you’ll achieve... // That’s only if you don’t turn and run. // You proved it to me, now show everyone // what you can do” (109, underline original). The validation, importantly, is a complete acceptance of Elle’s integrated personality as a bookish lawyer and as a woman of fashion. Vivian takes the mocking nickname Callahan had given to Elle, Legally Blonde, and makes it a proud trade mark: “But I see a star, // you’re my new muse; // You’ve got the best frickin’ shoes! // And you lit a fuse, // so go show’em who’s // Legally Blonde!” (110, underline original).

Is That What an Empowering Woman Looks Like?

Elle Wood’s character is beloved by many and her journey as the underdog is accessible to many audiences. Despite her specifically privileged background, audience members who have felt marginalized and judged because of their appearance identify with the character. In an interview with director/choreographer Jerry Mitchell, Broadway performer N’kenge (Motown the

Musical) confessed to being a “big Legally Blonde fan” [13:57], but then stroked her dark skin and said half-jokingly: “if only I was blonde” (divankenge). The performance of Elle Woods by a dark skinned woman is exactly what took place in Seattle, Washington when Alexandria

Henderson, a black actress, played the role of Elle Woods in their diversely cast production of

Legally Blonde the Musical. Ensemble members of the production said that the show is full of strong and powerful women portrayed in a multidimensional way and that the heroine is able to Hammonds 136 be both serious and bubbly, rather than giving up who she is (Showtunes Theatre). The vloggers of Popcorn Talks – Briana Phipps, Jacque Borowski, Carla Renata, and Ally Nasta – similarly argue that a primary lesson of the musical is that being pretty and smart are not mutually exclusive and all little girls can “leave the theatre saying, ‘I can be a lawyer too!’” (Popcorn

Talks). Elle Woods’ bookishness is empowering for herself, the other characters, and the audience. The writers created a character who stands against stereotype, a trait also seen in the character construction of Nettie in The Color Purple.

The Color Purple

Resisting the Stereotypical Representations of Black Women

Representations of black women have been notoriously stereotyped as asexual, overly sexual, angry, and selfless. Scholars such as Anita Jones Thomas, Karen Witherspoon, and

Suzette Speight have outlined the form and function of these harmful character types. In their article “Toward the Development of the Stereotypic Roles for Black Women Scale” (2004),

Thomas, Witherspoon, and Speight write

Due to the legacy of slavery, particularly the requirements for heavy labor and sexual

victimization, societal images of African American women differ from white women

(Bell, 1992; Fordham, 1993; Greene, 1997; West, 1995). The societal images and

expectations of African American women are that they are dominant, aggressive,

sexually promiscuous, rebellious, rude, and loud. (428)

Thomas, Witherspoon, and Speight also argue that there “are three stereotypes of African

American women derived from slavery—Mammy, Sapphire, and Jezebel—that are relevant in contemporary times” (428). The Mammy is a self-sacrificing, de-sexed, and rotund woman; the

Sapphire an arrogant, “controlling, loud, hostile, [and] obnoxious” woman who is “never Hammonds 137 satisfied;” the Jezebel the overly sexual black woman who uses her sexuality to manipulate others; and finally, the addition of the Superwoman – the black woman who “appears strong, tough, resilient, and self-sufficient” and “impervious to hardship” (429-430).

Representations of intelligent, creative, and bookish black women in the mainstream media have been lamentably slow; and while it is beyond any doubt that the black community has historically valued orality, or the spoken word, as a means of expression (Melton 39), the representation of bookish black woman is a valuable alternative to the negative racial stereotypes of the Mammy, Sapphire, Jezebel, and Superwoman. Indeed, as David Gillota argues in his article “Black Nerds: New Directions in African American Humor,” performances of black nerd identities challenge “the traditional tropes of blackness” and represent the experience of “large portions of the ‘black community’ — most notably the well-educated black middle class” that have been “missing in media representations of black culture” (18). Gillota also cites Richard H.

King and Ytasha Womack to argue that the new generation of highly educated men and women of color are represented sparingly in media and pass largely unnoticed (18).

Being a Black Girl Nerd in a Musical

So how does one incorporate a black bookish woman into a musical and what is her function to be? With only so much time in a musical, every character and every plot point must be planned meticulously. The Color Purple is often described as the triumphant and/or redemptive story of the lead character, Celie, as she navigates the abuse of her step-father and husband, her experience as a lesbian with her lover Shug Avery, and her friendship with her daughter-law Sophia. Her sister, Nettie, is present at the beginning of the story and returns at the end having travelled to Africa with a missionary family and lived with them among the fictional

Olinka tribe. In Alice Walker’s novel, which is written in an epistolary format similar to Daddy Hammonds 138

Long Legs, a significant portion of the book is dedicated to the letters that Nettie writes to Celie from Africa; but this portion of the book was heavily criticized by reviewers as awkward, unnecessary, and slightly narcissistic on the part of Walker who, they say, was simply exhibiting a knowledge of African history (Melton 6, Harris 157).

So why include Nettie’s experience in Africa in the musical? First, producer Scott

Sanders, when he was courting Alice Walker for her approval to adapt the novel into the musical, promised that if they could not do the whole story justice, they simply would not make it

(Funderberg 11, 31). Second, Nettie, like Katherine Plummer (Newsies), is a bookish woman who functions within the plot as a source of support for the primary characters. Nettie serves this purpose for Celie to such an extent that even when Celie has not heard from her for decades, the thought and remembrance of Nettie is still Celie’s greatest source of strength and encouragement. And finally, Nettie also has a heroine journey shaped by her bookish, raced, and gendered desires and performance.

I Want: “Our Prayer”

The importance of Nettie’s character to the overall structure of the musical is guaranteed by her participation in “Our Prayer,” the “I Want” song in the first act. The “I Want” song will ultimately be the tool audiences use to judge the conclusion of the production. The “I Want” determines the essential conflict of the musical and drives the through action. Therefore, the fact that Nettie, who spends relatively little time on stage compared to the other women (e.g. Shug

Avery, Sofia, etc) sings the “I Want” with Celie means that we should track her progress with interest.

Leading up to “Our Prayer,” Celie and Nettie are talking about marriage and having babies. When asked if she wants to get married, Nettie counters with a different dream. She Hammonds 139 wants to “know how the world goes,” be a college educated school teacher, and grow old with her sister (Funderburg 119). Celie wants to “sit and do nothing,” make clothes for Nettie, have a garden, and be able to raise the children that were taken from her (119).

NETTIE & CELIE. And one day // our children will sing –

When I lay me down to sleep // I will say my prayer

That God love me so deep // He will promise our souls to keep

Together // I say a prayer. (121)

Much like Matilda and Miss Honey, the “happy ending” that Celie and Nettie foresee as their reward is not matrimonial or romantic, but familial. The two sisters will raise “their” children, growing old together and living in houses with swings in the trees. This is the reward for which they must battle on their respective heroine journeys. This desired end is endangered when Nettie must run away first from her lustful step-father, who impregnated Celie twice, and second from

Celie’s new husband, who expels her from their home because she resists his sexual advances.

Resisting Black Stereotypes

By subjecting Nettie to potential sexual encounters, the musical’s writers (Stephen Bray,

Brenda Russell, Allee Willis, and Marsha Norman) have made it clear that Nettie is not a sexual

Jezebel or as an asexual, undesirable Mammy. Her continued intellectual idealism and generosity also make clear that she is not an angry Sapphire or an impervious black “Superwoman.” She is bookish; and it is through her bookish letter writing that Nettie maintains her connection with

Celie when, having refused the stereotypes created by white racist culture, the authors take Nettie to Africa and place her in proximity to a fictional African tribe called the Olinka. In her chapter

“The Purple Color of Walker Women: Their Journey from Slavery to Liberation,” Om P. Juneja writes that “Nettie’s letters, in fact, not only tell the hidden story of her life, they broaden her Hammonds 140

vision by projecting the problems of the Black American on the wider horizon of European

colonialism”; and “Nettie’s African experience again brings the question of [the] roots of the

Black American into sharp focus” (85). Like Jean Webster’s 1912 novel Daddy Long Legs, Alice

Walker’s original 1984 novel is written in an epistolary format. Letters are written by Celie and

Nettie and their strong authorial voices convey their “thoughts, emotions, and desires,” reveal individual personality and independent thought, and grant credence to the speakers (Talif and

Sedehi 426). In short, the act of writing empowers the writers within her own story and also as an agent who tells her own story.

Teaching and Performances of Femaleness

Nettie’s bookishness is not restricted to letter writing, however. At the close of the first act, Celie has discovered where Mister, her husband, has been hiding Nettie’s letters and begins to read them. Nettie reveals that she has joined a married couple who have gone to Africa as missionaries, and that their two children are in fact Celie’s children, Adam and Olivia. In Africa,

Nettie puts into action her desire to be a teacher and tries to teach the Olinka girls to read.40

“[G]irls have never been taught to read here. Girls have never been taught anything at all” (153).

To her frustration, the women of the village, not only resist her, but look down on her.

40 According to librettist Marsha Norman, “[o]ne of the hardest things that we had to struggle

with was how to incorporate Celie into the Africa story” (Funderburg 30). The wording here is

telling. It wasn’t that Nettie was being incorporated into the Celie story. Celie had to be brought

into “the Africa story.” The scene Norman is describing takes place during the second act opening song “African Homeland.” Hammonds 141

NETTIE. I don’t understand everything [the women are] saying, but what it sounds like

to me is:

WOMEN. What this mess you been preachin’? // Why you tryin’ to change us?

NETTIE. They think I should be married.

WOMEN. Whoop! // Girl ain’t nothin’ with no man // Why you makin’ a big fuss?

Need a husband and children // Or you’re gonna be nothing

NETTIE. I am no nobody’s mother // But I am somebody

WOMEN. Girl’s don’t need education

NETTIE. Sound like the white folks back home

WOMEN. Best be knowing your station

CELIE and NETTIE. But not my Olivia. (Bray et al. 153-156)

In this quote Nettie’s blackness is overlooked as a significant point of similarity with the

Olinka and her behavior is read by the women as western and colonizing. Why is she coming

into their lives and trying to make them more like the white people? Nettie counters by reading the behavior and attitudes of the Olinka women as exactly that of the “white folk back home,” who racialize the educational system and say that black children in general “don’t need education” and best know their “station.” Both Celie and Nettie reject the idea that their Olivia will grow up according to the gender and/or racial rules of the Olinka women or the American whites. Instead, they seek to empower Olivia as a literary and scholarly woman who can understand the world and work to make it a better place for her people.

Nettie’s place in the African culture is similarly troubled by her lack of husband and Hammonds 142

children.41 Nettie is one of the few bookish women who maintains her singleness throughout the character’s life while continuing her goal to educate herself and anyone else who will learn from her. Her declaration that she is “somebody,” despite being single and childless, also contributes to her standing as a mythic heroine who knows herself and claims space within society. Unlike

Celie who experiences a journey of development until the hair-raising moment when she can

proudly sing out “I’m beautiful and I’m here,” Nettie has always been here. Not only for her

sister, but for the Olinka people when they become colonized refugees.

Nettie Joins the Refugees

At the end of “African Homeland,” the Olinka are attacked and forced to leave their

home and Nettie describes the experience as the missionaries travel along with the refugees

NETTIE. We walk away from this ravaged land

With courage deep in our hearts

To face the unknown

Together // We'll find a place where we can be

Where spirit rise and soul is free

Our people, my people” (Bray et al. 157).

41 In the book this is an even bigger problem because Nettie did not know that the children were

Celie’s until much later, but everyone saw the resemblance. This led the Olinka, at first, to

believe that they were hers and that she was Samuel’s second wife. Polygamy was common

practice in their tribe and they thought it odd that Nettie was not Samuel’s wife. His real wife,

Corrine, grew to believe that Samuel had been having an affair with Nettie who birthed the

children that they had adopted as their own. Hammonds 143

In the musical, we are not told what happens to Nettie between the end of this letter and the next,

announcing that she is being held in immigration as she, Adam, and Olivia try to reenter the

United States. By the end of the show, Celie and Nettie have been restored to one another and

Celie’s community of love and support is made complete. Their “I Want” song has been

achieved, though not as they had imagined.

Black Girl Nerd Culture

The impact of Nettie’s black bookish construction benefits from a greater understanding

of how she represents an early 20th century black nerd identity (Flowers 170).42 In his chapter

“How Is It Okay to be a Black Nerd?” Charles Flowers, asserts that the “nerd girl” image offers

white women “an alternative to the pressures of white femininity” but uniquely offers black

women “the possibility for resisting controlling images” that demand that they conform to the

essentializing notions of womanhood seen in the stereotypes described above (Mammy, Jezebel,

and Sapphire) (186). Citing “Black Girl Nerd” Jamie Broadnax,43 Flowers argues that “nerdiness

42 I take to heart Charles Flowers’ caution that most scholarship about nerdy women has focused on white women and that “it cannot be assumed that the ways in which white women take up

their nerd identities can be applied seamlessly to black women” and therefore “any analysis of

the nerd identity that takes the experience of white women as central will miss the ways in which

race affects the performance of a nerd identity” (185).

43 Brodnax created the “Black Girl Nerds” blog, Facebook page, and podcast in 2012 and has

been recognized by the Black Weblog Wards, MSNBC, and various other news and media

outlets. Her website “Black Girl Nerds” offers resources on books, film, television, black history

(“Empowerment”), “Community,” “Entertainment,” and a store where merchandise can be Hammonds 144 is not a monolith,” but rather allows for a fluidity in behavior that permits individual expression and “personal authenticity” (187). Broadnax points to the individuality of the black nerd girl when she writes: “We cannot be placed inside of a box with a label slapped on the outside of it

[…] We are innovators, designers, creators, executives, leaders, thinkers, and masters in our crafts” (Broadnax qtd Flowers 187).

The construction of Nettie’s bookishness fits well within the fluidity of the black woman nerd identity. She resists the stereotypes identified in the other characters – Celie’s long- suffering Mammy, Shug’s overly sexualized Jezebel, Sofia’s angry and powerful Sapphire – and encourages those around her to find their unique voice, as she has. The writers make her a character who is unafraid to fight against the cultural norms that press on her, whether in Georgia or Africa; and while she has certain privileges because she is protected, pretty, and smart, Nettie makes use of all of these privileges to resist black stereotypes for herself and for others.

Performing Blackness: Education and Style Shifting

Nettie’s success as an empowered and empowering bookish woman is made intelligible by the writers through her dedication to education and ability to successfully modulate her performance of blackness.44 In his chapter “Boojie! A Question of Authenticity,” Bryan Keith

Alexander describes the process that black individuals in the upper and middle classes frequently undergo to gain the “dexterity of performative accomplishment to transcend location and circumstance” without “forgetting the meaningfulness of home and the substance of black

purchased.

44 Within black society and culture, there is a divide between the lower and upper/middle classes that frequently centers on education and advancement (Johnson xiv). Hammonds 145

character” (310). This dexterity is more commonly known as code switching or “style shifting”

(Carpenter 201).45 The person is able to fluidly perform a more educated and “general” linguistic

and physical performance that does not tie them to a particular economic or geographical

location; yet the person is also able to reintegrate into the local mannerisms and colloquialisms

of their native group. Such fluidity allows the individual to retain “authenticity” and loyalty to

the group while gaining opportunities from outside the group. According to Houston A. Baker,

Jr., at its best, such a relationship is “genuinely about resources, cooperative businesses, relevant

group-oriented education for class advancement, and collective ownership. It creates and sustains

public spheres that challenge old regimes of power and knowledge” (45-46).

Understanding Nettie’s performance of blackness enriches and complicates her specific construction as a black bookish woman who operates within black American and African

communities. Nettie grows out of her local context in the United States, but always maintains her roots in that space. Though she travels, she maintains her “affiliation” and works for “relevant group-oriented education for class advancement” (Baker 46).

In her book Coloring Whiteness: Acts of Critique in Black Performance, Faedra Chatard

Carpenter introduces a vocabulary for discussing the ways bodies of color intentionally and

unintentionally inhabit whiteness in order to modulate beyond their specific black context.

Particularly significant to this study is Carpenter’s description of Presumed Aural Whiteface;

which is characterized as “speech that is assumed to emanate from white (versus nonwhite)

45 Faedra Carpenter defines style shifting as “a speaker’s ability and/or tendency to shift between

different styles of speech within a single language […] style shifting demonstrates an acute

awareness of a speaker’s audience, as well as the nature of the performative event” (201). Hammonds 146 bodies,” and “is typified by its association with ‘sounding white’” (24-25). According to E.

Patrick Johnson, “signifiers of whiteness” include speaking in a Standard American accent, exhibiting Christian morals and values, and embracing Victorian etiquette (xvi). To say that any

Black person participating in these performances or beliefs is “whitening up” is extreme, but given the musical’s use of social types and generalities, this list is helpful as an analytical tool to track Nettie’s modulations throughout the show as she performs her black bookish woman identity.

The writers first introduce Nettie and Celie through song. The show opens and the two characters, still just girls, are singing:

CELIE. Hey, sista, watcha gon do…

NETTIE. Goin’ down by the river // Gonna play with you

CELIE. Papa don’t like no screamin’ round here

NETTIE. No lip from da woman when they chug dat beer

NETTIE and CELIE. Sho nuf sun gon shine / Gonna be grown ladies of da marryin’ kind

Sho nuf moon gon rise / Like a huckleberry pie / In da middle of the sky

Gon be alright // Gon be alright … (Bray et al. 113)

When Brenda Russell, Allee Willis, and Stephen Bray wrote “Huckleberry Pie,” they drew on traditional black music (Funderberg 40) and explicitly wrote the lyrics to the song using “black folk English” (McDowell 169) or “African American Vernacular English” (Carpenter 197).

Traditions such as the “call-and-response” (back and forth song style) and gospel traditions are in evidence here (Southern 188, 465), as is the use of “body-rhythm” percussion, where clapping, stomping, and swaying, are used to mark the syncopated beats. Celie and Nettie play a girl’s hand clapping game to the rhythm of the song. Thus, Nettie’s physical and vocal construction Hammonds 147 and performance at the beginning of the show associate her strongly with her black roots.

Nettie’s speech uses the “black folk English” structure and vocabulary, but less so. “Well,

I wish I could stay and help you, but I got to get to school. […] But when I get back, I’m gonna read you a story, while you sit in a chair” (Bray et al. 124). 46 Later, in Nettie’s letter from

Africa, her language and diction are completely expressed through Standard American English.

In the following quote, few contractions are used and verb and subject tenses and number are in agreement. “Our village was destroyed by the soldiers, so now we have walked with so many other refugees to a tent camp across the border. I do not know how I will mail this letter” (Bray et al. 157).

I suggest that the change in Nettie’s speech pattern is primarily due to the education she receives from the college educated black missionaries, Samuel and Corrine, with whom she lives and works. Such an experience of linguistic diversification through education is echoed by

Carpenter when she writes about the (false) premise that

speaking in a clear, articulate, and well-educated manner is talking white. Thus, if a black

person is described as talking white, even by the most well-meaning and admiring

observer, the underlying assertion is that being well-educated and/or articulate is

fundamentally contrary to blackness or black identity. (198)

In the finale, Nettie reappears and sings a portion of “Huckleberry Pie,” reorienting her identity with her family and home community. Yet this shift is slippery as she toggles between

Standard American English lines (“Celie, these are your children, Olivia and Adam”) and more

46 This promise comes to pass later in the “African Homeland” song discussed previously where

Nettie tells Celie about Africa while Celie sits in a chair – a fact that draws Mister’s notice. Hammonds 148

African American Vernacular English lines (“Shug come to Ellis Island to speak for us. We love

Shug.”) (Bray et al. 177). Through such toggling, Nettie continues to resist easy stereotyping and continues to stand in the liminal subject position she claimed for herself when she wrote that she is “somebody.” Having successfully aided in the rearing and education of Celie’s children, she has brought them home and achieved the resolution the two sisters declared in their “I Want” song “Our Prayer.” She was a teacher, learned “how the world goes” and will grow old with her sister surrounded by “their children.” All of this was achieved by the supportive bookish sister.

Conclusion

It is central to the empowering work of bookish women in musicals that their intersectionality be understood. Without an examination and understanding of the complexity of the character’s construction the negative influences of stereotypes more easily take hold of productions and the representations of these characters. In this chapter I have sought to expose the value of the bookish intersectionality of Nina Rosario, Elle Woods, and Nettie through a close analysis of the characters’ racial and cultural backgrounds and performances, their positions as heroines within their own narratives, and the importance of community and support for each character. I have also sought to highlight the value of each character’s lived knowledge in addition to the intellectual/academic knowledge they were learning. Holding this balanced approach is, I suggest, central to the construction and interpretation of bookish women characters because it is also the (desired) lived experience of audiences. Hammonds 149

CONCLUSION

In her book Changed for Good: A Feminist History of the Broadway Musical (2011),

Stacy Wolf claims space for her study about the centrality of women in musical theatre – women

“as friends, sisters, girlfriends, and wives, as journalists, mission workers, students, and maids, and as singers and dancers” (4). Wolf’s well-known study has been a foundational model for my thinking and writing process as I explored the construction of bookish women in musicals. I specifically argue that women who engage in reading, teaching, study, and writing are frequently both empowered by their activities and empower others. Through a greater breadth of knowledge gained through reading and study, bookish women characters, such as Matilda Wormwood and

Elle Woods, are better prepared to understand the world in which they live. This knowledge enables these heroines to make choices that will further their own happiness. On the other hand, characters such as Katherine and Nettie use their writing and teaching to support their communities and empower others to make choices that will secure their own happiness.

Bookish women heroines stand in opposition to the conventional female stereotypes that appear in most musicals. In their musical theatre acting book, Joe Deer and Rocco Dal Vera identify a number of common stereotypes and archetypes in musicals, among them the ingénue, soubrette (comedienne who is often the friend of the ingenue), Cinderella, and tomboy (125).

While bookish women may participate in some of these narrative tropes, they do not settle in any of them, resisting simplistic representations and setting before the audience a character who is a relatable role model. Bookish women say to their audiences that we do not have to be defined by one simple description. To be a woman can look many different ways even in a musical.

Most of all, the bookish woman is a representative of audience members who feel marginalized because of their intellectual, scholarly, and creative interests. Their romantic Hammonds 150

relationships, familial relationships, and sororal47 relationships all reflect the bookish woman’s

feeling of being a pariah. The men they grow to love are outsiders or “others” in some way

(nerds, poor, rich, of a different race or ethnicity, etc). The women that surround them highlight

their bookishness by being antagonistic or supportive of the bookish women’s activities and/or

by being completely unbookish themselves. Their gender performance, likewise, is frequently criticized by family and community members – most frequently as a critique that they are not appropriately feminine.

Balanced with their feeling and experience of marginalization, however, is the significant use of bookishness for empowerment of self and others. This empowerment is present not only in the case studies included in this study, but in the bookish women one sees in other musicals.

When I first began this study, I created an inverted triangle diagram (see figure 1) as a means of exploring the question, is there a correlation between the activities of bookish women and empowerment. The process was necessarily subjective as I contemplated the characters I had

identified as bookish (Table 1). First, I hypothesized that the women’s bookishness was used in three ways (Figure 2): to empower others, to empower themselves, or for escapist pleasure. It was immediately clear that many of the characters experience (or could experience) a combination of these elements, and I therefore oriented them within the diagram’s triangular field, taking into account the heroine’s entire journey (including times of personal empowerment and escapist pleasure, times of personal empowerment and the empowerment of others, etc).

Each character does, of course, move about within the diagram over the course of her journey, but for my purposes, I sought to represent their cumulative experience.

47 “of, or relating to, or characteristic of a sister: sisterly” (“Sororal”). Hammonds 151

Figure 2. Empowerment of Bookish Women. Characters in bold are included in this study. (Created by R.

Hammonds) Hammonds 152

What I discovered was that women who participated in reading and study tended to

exhibit attitudes and actions of self-empowerment while those engaged in writing and teaching

exhibited attitudes and actions that helped to empower others. What was even more interesting,

was the large percentage of characters that lived near the center of the diagram. It seemed then, as has been born out through closer analysis, that most bookish women characters are constructed and deployed as examples of women who live within the nebulous balance between giving to others and gathering to oneself. Defying the stereotypes of victim, manipulative bitch, unsexed old maid, and the sexualized female body so often seen on the musical theatre stage – not to mention in popular culture – bookish women stand as role models to audiences. Their engagement with knowledge and creative expression is partnered with the challenges of daily living as they navigate abusive relationships (Matilda Wormwood), financial stability (Jerusha

Abbott), self-expression and independence (Katherine Plummer, Elphaba, and Nina Rosario), and community expectations (Nina Rosario, Elle Woods, and Nettie).

At the same time, I have been aware that there are bookish characters that simply enjoy reading for its own sake, or as a means of escapism. A character such as Fosca Ricci from

Stephen Sondheim’s 1994 musical Passion explicitly states that this is so. In the song “I Read,”

Fosca tells the young military captain that she does not read to think, learn, or search for truth; rather she reads “to live in other people’s lives” and escape the torture of her own sickly and forlorn existence (Sondheim). Characters such as Chava (Fiddler on the Roof) and Amalia

Balash (She Loves Me) also engage in reading for pleasure, and in each case their reading serves as a catalyst for their romantic connections with Fyedka and George Novak, respectively, who also enjoy reading.

The pleasure of reading is easily written off when compared with the argument that Hammonds 153 bookish women are empowered and empowering of others. Yet reading in this way should not be lightly written off (no pun intended). In a 2018 publication, Education Leader’s Guide to

Reading Growth, the authors reported that children who are personally motivated to read: 1) read more difficult books, 2) read 35% more minutes per day, 3) experience higher reading achievement gains, and 4) achieved greater growth (Johnson 45). All of this reading, the study states, causes students to be “more likely to have higher levels of college and career readiness”

(39). Access to better education, training, employment, and different sources of knowledge is lacking in the American educational system. Conversely, we live in a time when guns in schools and the #MeToo movement have shone a bright spotlight on violence, trauma, and the need for empathy, understanding, and healing.

Students who feel trapped and anxious need role models to inspire them to pursue a different kind of life. Role models like Elle Woods seem to say, “Nobody expected that I could do this. And at first I was not even interested. But I learned that education gave me a greater sense of pride and a new sense of identity. It gave me tools to help the people I care about. And I didn’t have to completely abandon who I am to do it. I did it in my style.” Katherine Plummer and Jerusha Abbott model an experience that shows young audiences that they have stories to tell and valuable things to say. They urge them to write from their experience and not be afraid to fail. “We all learn to speak more clearly over time,” they argue. “Create stories, report the news, try to inform and convince people. Your voice may be the only time they hear about that subject.” Young Matilda’s story exhorts the other brilliant young people not to give up just because other people doubt and ridicule them, as if to say: “You know what you are capable of.

Don’t let other people decide how you are going to spend your life! USE your brain power, be creative, work hard, and make the life you want. Be revolting!” Hammonds 154

Performances and studies of bookish women are valuable because they speak to our society. In an age when questions of representation have come so strongly to the fore, how valuable might it be to see more frequent representations of bookish women of different races, ethnicities, nationalities, and abilities? Michelle Obama’s 2015 “Let Girls Learn” initiative highlighted and supported the USAID mission to make education accessible and equitable to girls around the globe. According to USAID.com, “Equal access to quality education has been shown to create pathways for greater economic growth, improved health outcomes, sustained democratic governance, and more peaceful and resilient societies.” Nevertheless, over a half- billion school-age girls around the world are not in school. In America, first-generation college students – that is, students who are the first in their family to attend college – face obstacles such as financial constraints, the presence of dependents in their homes, English as a second language, and lower college readiness than their peers (First-Generation Students). Musicals such as In the

Heights and The Color Purple offer glimpses into these experiences but ought not be the sole representations of bookish women of color on the Broadway stage.

In this study, I have argued that characters who engage in reading, writing, teaching, and studying – characters I designate as “bookish women” – are valuable and complexly constructed characters who proffer scholars, artists, and audiences valuable representations of empowered and supportive femininity. By applying a variety of lenses, I highlighted the complexity and richness exhibited by these characters and the diversity they offer.

Future scholarly and creative work in this area will, I believe, broaden and further complicate the examination I have begun here, answering questions I have raised about the kinds of representation that is possible and the value of those representations for American and international audiences. Interesting questions arise, for example, when looking at the Hammonds 155

representation and reception of bookish women in productions of American, or western, musicals

around the world, whether they are performed by American actors on tour or actors from a

specific country. How do individual cultural understandings of literary and scholarly work

intersect with gender around the world and influence the reception of Western conceptions of

bookish women. Moving outside of the musical theatre genre to dramatic works, how are literary

and scholarly bookish women written without music in traditional forms of drama (e.g. Lauren

Gunderson’s Silent Sky, The Book of Will, and Ada and the Engine, Ayad Akhtar’s The Who and

the What, José Rivera’s School of the Americas, Leah Napolin’s Yentl, and Laura Schellhardt's

Digging Up Dessa). Without the highly collaborative musical theatre environment and the

musical structure, do characters exhibit the same kinds of traits or is there greater diversity?

Without the use of music, how are the internal thoughts of bookish characters conveyed? Are representations empowering of women who read, write, study, and teach or are they dismissive and stereotypical? How are representations of bookishness, regardless of gender, used to encourage youth audiences? These questions do not take into account even more specific questions of race, ability, religion, theatre history, and film. The knowledges of many scholars with diverse perspectives will, I hope, contribute to our collective understanding of representations of bookishness. Hammonds 156

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