Abstract
This paper will consider three medievalist children’s television programmes, Jane and the Dragon, Sir Gadabout and Maid Marian and Her Merry Men, each of which grant knightly roles to their central female characters. Given the cultural power attached to representations of the past, such rewritings of the Middle Ages can offer a retrospective authorisation for active female participation in today’s society. The ‘girl power’ messages embedded in these programmes are, however, mediated by notions of caste and destiny, and by the portrayal of female heroism as an exception to ‘normal’ female behaviour. Consequently, a discernable ambivalence can be found in these programmes’ challenges to traditional gendered roles.
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Fairy story, myth, and different constructions of the medieval past are clearly staples for children’s entertainment and instruction. Given the endurance and familiarity of medieval tropes, television programmes that draw upon such imagery are easily accessible to a young audience. Conceptions of the medieval period possess affective appeal and imaginative potential with their access to magic, adventure and a romanticised past. Medievalist imaginings provide an extensive reserve of recognisable motifs, imagery and characters that can be called upon or appropriated by children’s television writers and producers. Significantly, medieval imaginings also provide an effective platform over which to lay ideological precepts. The cultural influence of representations of the past can work to cement traditional hierarchies of power as natural and authentic. Equally though, the popularity and widespread awareness of medieval imagery and fairy tale patterns can provide an easy starting place for subversion. Fixed paradigms of behaviour and power often attract a comedic or satirical response, and the unreal and fantastic nature of fairy stories also gives room for movement in storytelling. Imaginings of a medieval past, therefore, offer a raft of possibilities to one adapting or constructing a new ‘medieval’ tale.
This paper will consider three children’s television programmes that utilise medieval motifs and settings to challenge engrained gender expectations. Each of these programmes has been screened on Australian television by the national broadcaster during the ‘ABC for kids’ afternoon timeslot. In Jane and the Dragon(New Zealand/Canada 2005-)[1] Jane, previously destined to be a lady-in-waiting, is rewarded for rescuing the King’s son from a dragon by being allowed to fulfil her ambition of becoming a knight in training. Certainly, having an established friendship with the dragon does not harm Jane’s pretensions to knighthood. Sir Gadabout: The Worst Knight in the Land (United Kingdom 2002-03)[2] is set in a comical reconstruction of the mythical Camelot, where King Arthur and his knights are generally incompetent and, more often than not, too involved in narcissistic bickering to notice the kingdom needs protecting. The wellbeing of Camelot consequently falls to the younger generation – King Arthur’s daughter, Princess Elanora, who has the secret identity of ‘Sir Knight’, together with Sir Gadabout’s squires, Will (Season I) and Juan (Season II). Maid Marian and Her Merry Men (United Kingdom 1989-93)[3] , a satire which revels in blatant use of anachronism, depicts Maid Marian as the defender of the oppressed and as the true leader of the band of outlaws. Robin Hood is merely a cowardly fop who receives credit for Marian’s campaigning because no-one can accept a woman might be behind such a resistance.
Given the medieval setting for these programmes, challenges to entrenched patriarchal notions that assert a passive and ancillary role for women necessarily involve certain licence and anachronism. Though the courtly model ostensibly granted highborn women great influence, actual power was owned by men and articulated from a male perspective. Through service in the name of their Lady, knights would perform acts that demonstrated masculine qualities such as bravery, physical prowess, fidelity, and long suffering. A knight’s worth was largely constructed through service to his Lady, but the woman herself, for the most part, stood simply as a conduit for male homosocial relations, and as a mirror in which the man’s heroic image could be reflected. As Laurie Finke notes, while courtly conventions might “seem to involve the relations between men and women, closer analysis reveals that the homosocial bonds by which men established relations with one another, using women as tokens of exchange, are central to courtly ideology” (Finke, 161). The role performed by a knight’s Lady is therefore a passive one, and though associated with authority, the woman herself is possessed of little active power of her own.
The portrayal of active and heroic female characters within children’s television programmes therefore, entails a rewriting of the past. Though complications may arise from attaching contemporary notions to imaginings of the medieval, such an amalgamation can also assert a significant cultural influence. Representations of the Middle Ages continue to exert power in the western psyche as they appeal to a contemporary cultural and affective bond. In his discussion of the alterity of the past, Paul Zumthor speaks of how the Middle Ages have been given significance within contemporary Western culture. Though censorious of the ahistorical decentring of the medieval period, he notes that much medievalism, dating particularly from the nineteenth century, “reduced the historical character of the Middle Ages to the mythic category […] of ‘our origins’” (Zumthor, 369). Such a mythic category provides a point of contemporary appropriation and of identification.
In her work, Hollywood Knights, Susan Aronstein notes that differing constructions of the Middle Ages function as a past through which the West can identify itself either by opposition or by alignment. As a barbaric, violent and superstitious ‘other’ it can work as a contrast to modern identity, confirming society’s progress. Alternatively, in its romanticised construction, the past becomes “a site of a lost ideal and a past to which the modern must return in order to ensure its future” (Aronstein, 11). Far from being simply distant, escapist and irrelevant, representations of the past inform modern western identity. Identification – either with or against a medieval past – can perform a legitimating role for contemporary social structures and ideological beliefs. The featuring of female heroines in these television programmes can provide a retrospective authorisation for active female participation in today’s society. These texts also portray gender discrimination as foolish, thereby contrasting the ignorance of the past to the enlightenment of contemporary Western society. Conversely, the placement of these heroines in medieval timeframes can imply that the hierarchical and restrictive power structures they face are also a thing of history. The historical context can work to bracket issues of gender equity within the past.
Through the featuring of their female heroines, Jane and the Dragon, Sir Gadabout, and Maid Marian and Her Merry Men clearly exhibit new feminist elements of “girl power”. They can be seen as representative of the ‘new girl’, whom Marnina Gonick describes as “assertive, dynamic, and unbound from the constraints of passive femininity” (Gonick, 2). These television programmes, however, also demonstrate the strength and endurance of patriarchal paradigms. This is evident as Jane, Princess Elanora, and Maid Marian are all cast as exceptions to the rule, and are variously portrayed as being somewhat odd, unusually gifted, or as functioning outside the proper place of girls. As a consequence, these television programmes can be seen to confirm gender stereotypes at the same time as they seek to challenge them. In “Medievalism and the Fantasy Heroine” Jane Tolmie argues that the depiction of an active and heroic female as ‘exceptional’ can, paradoxically, work to reinforce established notions that ordinarily the role for women in society is innately passive. She notes the heroic female, though “independent, strong, feisty and passionate – […] does not exist within a system in which all women are independent, strong, feisty and passionate” (Tolmie, 146). A heroine’s exceptionality can serve to create a noteworthy ambivalence within medievalist texts that cast women in heroic roles. On one hand the active heroine provides an exemplar for assertive and liberating behaviour, whilst on the other hand these texts can represent this behaviour as anomalous and, in some way, unnatural.
This portrayal of heroic women as exceptional is not the sole factor contributing to the ambivalence discernable in medievalist texts. In Strategies of Fantasy, Brian Attebery comments there can be a close association between the use of conventional medieval markers and an unexamined acceptance of the past’s social structures (Attebury, 87). Attebery notes this is a particular danger in coming of age tales, as:
In the societies from which we derive our legacy of myths and fairy tales, coming of age was a process of accommodating oneself to a strictly defined social role: hunter, chieftain, farmer, king. The passage from childhood to adult status was generally marked by the enactment of rituals which not only marked the individual’s transition but also at the same time reaffirmed the hierarchical order in which the newly adult member was to find a place. (Attebury, 87)
Consequently, the medieval timeframes utilised by television programmes can entail an uninterrogated acquiescence to traditional hierarchies. In Jane and the Dragon, Jane’s relative freedom from social expectations contrasts with the structures in which her friends operate. Jane’s friends are both confined and defined by their social roles. Pepper is the cook, Smithy works in the stables as the blacksmith, Rake is the gardener, and Jester the King’s fool. These roles are confirmed not only by their names, but also by their family backgrounds. According to the profiles found on the programme’s website, Jane and the Dragon: Royal Archives [4] , these roles all fit with the characters’ heritage and therefore, conform to strictly defined social conventions regarding birth and place. Though working at the castle gives an increase in prestige to their crafts, the children all remain within the spheres and vocations determined by birthright. Pepper’s parents worked in food produce, Smithy’s family in farming, and Jester came from a family of travelling players. Rake seems to have quite literally been born and baptised into his role as castle gardener, as he “was delivered into a seed tray” in the castle vegetable garden, “and taken to the royal fountain for his first wash”[5] . His grandfather was the royal gardener before him.
Pertinently, though Jane’s gender makes it markedly unusual for her to be an apprentice knight, she has the lineage to provide validation for her knightly aspirations. It is not insignificant that Jane’s maternal grandfather, Sir John d’Ark, was a knight of some renown who died in defence of the Royal family. Ironically, though the family name and pedigree given to Jane offers an allusion to Jeanne d’Arc (Joan of Arc), this is masculinised in the person of Sir John. Jane’s knightly aspirations are therefore tacitly authorised by association with an exceptional historical female exemplar, confirmed in her role by divine calling. Through Sir John d’Ark, however, these associations are further filtered through distinguished rank, which Jeanne d’Ark lacked, and by paternal authority. Jane’s exceptional role is therefore, mediated through notions of destiny and caste.
Significantly, the role of Gunther Breech, the castle’s other apprentice knight and Jane’s rival, is not similarly validated by family and history. Indeed, Gunther’s standing in the castle is quickly signalled as suspicious due to his subordinate heritage and through the taint of trade. A family history reveals the Breech fortune was acquired through traffic with the kingdom’s enemies in times of war, and was further cemented through his father’s mercenary marriage into greater wealth. Gunther’s position as knight in training is therefore, not one attached to birth; rather it has been purchased by his father, a wealthy and unscrupulous merchant whose ambitions drive his bullying behaviour and his acquisitive desire for status and influence. Conservative and hierarchical notions of caste alone therefore provide greater authority to Jane’s pretensions to knighthood than to Gunther’s. Her status as ‘exceptional’ thus remains attached to her gender not her class.
Jane’s position as an apprentice knight is not only mediated by her caste, but also by her friendship with a strong, devoted, male, fire-breathing dragon. There is little doubt that Jane and the Dragon has intended and explicit “girl power” overtones. In a Dominion Post article, Kelly Andrew notes the programme’s creator and the author of the children’s stories on which the series is based, Martin Baynton, “deliberately wrote the books with a heroine who would empower girls” (Andrew, A-3). Indeed, journalist John Rogers records a telephone interview with Baynton, who revealed the “series grew in part out of a conversation Baynton once had with a schoolgirl who told him she hated fairy tales ‘because all the girls were such wimps. They just hung around waiting for the handsome prince to kiss them and save them’” (Rogers, G-43). Jane is certainly not one to hang around passively waiting for a man, handsome prince or otherwise, to fulfil her and to answer her needs. Jane’s singularity is signalled in the show’s theme tune which explains “That girl wasn’t ordinary”, a refrain repeated within the series dialogue. The song provides a back story for the series, describing how, in order “to prove that a girl could be a Knight”[6] , Jane sets out to slay the dragon and rescue the kidnapped Royal Prince. Instead, Jane rescues the prince through befriending Dragon.
Jane’s position, therefore, has roots in her expression of her own heroic nature and agency, but these are propped up by Dragon’s backing. Jane herself sings in the theme song, “With Dragon’s help I’ll be a Knight someday” and the blurb on the DVD case comments that Jane has “a tough job proving herself to the King, to her parents and to the other Knights. But Jane does have a little help – she has a giant green dragon by her side”. Though the blurb continues on to assert dreams “can come true – even a young girl’s dream of becoming a knight in the King’s Guard”[7] , there is the dual message that female agency and ability is not quite sufficient of itself – that a girl can attain her dreams if she has the support of masculine brute force. Indeed, in the theme song Jane even attributes the success of her original mission to the dragon who “let me save the young prince”[8] . Consequently, Jane’s alliance with Dragon is used to validate her position. Ironically, this is despite Jane’s obvious competency in comparison to Dragon’s and despite the fact that throughout the series Dragon is more likely to be the cause of Jane’s problems than the answer to them. Jane generally proves herself to be brave, mature, and thoughtful while Dragon’s behaviour is more often portrayed as impulsive and childish.
This privileging of Dragon’s masculine strength demonstrates the difficulty attached to moving past entrenched hierarchical and gendered binaries. It is ironic then, to consider that Jane’s initial ‘defeat’ of the dragon rests not in the violent slaying which she intended to perform as proof of her fitness for knighthood. Instead it is achieved through establishing a relationship with Dragon, whom she found to be “sweet”. This is pertinent, as the resolution of conflict through ‘peace-making’ is more often characterised as a feminine rather than male trait. Though Jane demonstrates ‘girl power’, clearly being active, confident, agile, and physically strong, many of her strengths lie in characteristics more stereotypically associated with femininity[9] . She puts deep store in relationships, often places the interests of others before her own, and evinces thoughtfulness, nurturing and caring in her actions. Through its portrayal of such characteristics as knightly qualities, the series promotes and approves a wide range of behaviours, beyond those associated with the warrior, as heroic and desirable. In doing so, it places pressure on traditional boundaries regarding what can be cast as heroic conduct.
With its affectionate use of medieval markers Jane and the Dragon appeals to an idealised construction of the Middle Ages that nostalgically evokes simplicity, order, place and essentialist notions of an authentic and natural lifestyle. Jane and the Dragon also has a natural appearance, enhanced by the genuinely lifelike movements of the characters, achieved through production company Weta’s use of new motion capture technologies to catch and record the movements of real actors. These techniques create computer images which are enhanced by the animators. This serves to add a sense of realism to the movement and bodies of the animated characters. Given the lifelike representation of these characters it is worthwhile to consider the physical representation of Jane – her long and lanky appearance, her boyish physique, and her wild red Celtic hair symbolising feistiness.
This consideration of her physicality is particularly pertinent when Jane’s body is compared to the bodies of the other young females – a more buxom Pepper and the plump six-year-old Princess Lavinia. Both these girls possess physical attributes which Susan Bordo notes “evoke helpless infancy and symbolise maternal femininity as it has been constructed over the last hundred years in the West” (bordo, 208). The name ‘Lavinia’ has maternal associations, meaning ‘mother of Rome’ and Princess Lavinia sees it as “her duty to make sure that everyone in the castle is happy”[10] . Pepper, through her role as cook for every person in the castle, can be seen as a personification of the nurturing woman. Bordo argues that domestic conceptions of femininity require women to perform the role of emotional and physical nurturer to others, not self, and this entails self-denial. Beyond this selflessness she also recognises that women who wish to compete in a professional sphere “must learn to embody the ‘masculine’ language and values of that area—self control, determination, cool, emotional discipline, mastery and so on” (Bordo, 171). Consequently, skinniness becomes linked with self-discipline and empowerment – and therefore, paradoxically, with both nurturing femininity and individual agency. Consequently, Bordo asserts that slenderness and its associated fitness regimens “offer the illusion of meeting, through the body, the contradictory demands of contemporary ideology and femininity (Bordo, 172). Through her physical body Jane can be seen as an exemplar of this demanding ideal which insists on adherence to contradictory constructions of what a modern woman should be.
Certainly Jane and the Dragon provides a positive model for active female participation in society as it employs a rewriting of the medieval with the stated aim of placing pressure on conventional gender based paradigms of roles and behaviour. It does not achieve this in an unmediated manner, however, as Jane’s position is validated by the notion that she is extraordinary, by her knightly heritage, and by the “giant green dragon by her side”[11] . Other females such as Pepper and, in some ways, even the Princess Lavinia are tied to more traditional expectations of womanhood. Consequently the text is not unequivocal in its mission to “empower girls”. Through an appeal to an imaginary but authentic-looking past, the series provides a retrospective authorisation for the exceptional female’s involvement in traditional male roles. However, its ordered and idealistic representation of the structures of the Middle Ages hinders Jane and the Dragon from fully breaking with hierarchical notions attached to class and gender.
Sir Gadabout employs a very different representation of the Middle Ages for its light-hearted parody of Camelot and the knights of the round table. With fantastic and vibrantly colourful sets that give the appearance of a bizarre cross between a cartoon and an illumination, Sir Gadabout does not even pretend to any realism. The adult characters, King Arthur, his knights, Merlin and the resident villains – Sir Rancid and Nanny – are similarly larger than life caricatures, and invariably silly. Silliness is cheerfully signalled by touches such as the discordant trumpet fanfare announcing the start of each programme, Gadabout’s ineptitude, Arthur’s attachment to his teddy bear, and the knight’s magnificent steeds – step-through horses’ costumes decorated with brightly coloured heraldic cloaks; one up, perhaps, on Monty Python and the Holy Grail’s coconuts. Overt silliness is also obvious in the naming of Camelot’s knights who, along with Sir Lancelot and Sir Gadabout, are Sir Gestion, Sir Prano, Sir Real, Sir Tificate and Sir Prise – the foreign exchange knight from Japan. It is within this context that the younger characters, including Princess Elanora, shine like a beacon of sanity.
This Camelot does not represent a barbaric, violent and superstitious ‘other’, but neither is it the idyllic past of legend. Its satirical humour, however, does rely on idealised conceptions of Arthurian Britain, as it is dependant on the audience understanding that this King Arthur’s kingdom does not measure up to the ‘real’ Camelot story. It is pertinent to note that such a satirical representation does not necessarily equate to a mockery of cultural attachments to the medieval. Nadine Attewell draws upon Fredric Jameson’s observation that the “‘great parodist’ needs a ‘secret sympathy’ for his source” to argue that irony and parody need not simply undermine. Indeed, she suggests that nostalgia and its associated pleasures are validated through a knowing self-consciousness regarding sentimental attachments (Attewell, 41). So despite its use of overt parody, an appreciation of Sir Gadabout is underpinned by an unspoken acceptance and approval of chivalric ideals. Though these ideals are not realised in Arthur and his bumbling and bickering knights, they are exemplified by the young, generally sensible and definitely more admirable characters of Will, Juan and Princess Elanora.
This positive representation of the younger generation as possessing knightly characteristics – such as loyalty, resourcefulness, bravery, and physical prowess – effectively places the promise of a ‘recovered’ and idyllic Camelot in the hands of the young. This promise reveals that some surprisingly utopian elements reside in this overt satire as it invites the young to participate in the construction of a better kingdom. Aronstein points to the power that medieval filmic texts have, in Althusserian terms, to ‘hail’ their audience – inviting viewers to identify with particular ideologies, and to situate themselves within approved social, gendered and political structures (Aronstein, 3-4). With its wide audience and targeted children’s programming, television is ideally situated to participate in identity formation. Audience identification with the younger characters in Sir Gadabout therefore works to promote behaviours considered appropriate, desirable and culturally productive, ‘knightly’ conduct such as resourcefulness and bravery. It is interesting, then, to consider the annexure of ‘girl power’ messages to Arthurian mythology and concomitant powerful and sanctioned ideals in regard to good citizenship.
Like Jane and the Dragon, Sir Gadabout clearly portrays and approves an active female heroine through Princess Elanora’s alter-ego, Sir Knight. Significantly, Sir Knight’s power is supernaturally passed down the female line, and has come to Elanora through her late mother, Guinevere, who was ‘Sir Knight’ before her. The only other character within the series who knows of Elanora’s secret identity is Merlin, an older male who oversees the use of her power. Again Elanora is portrayed as exceptional, and her heroic and knightly roles are both mediated and validated to the viewer by ideas of caste and destiny. They are also backed by patriarchal power in the character of Merlin.
Attractive, willowy, and very much exemplifying the image of a fairytale princess in appearance, Princess Elanora receives little validation for any of her professed knightly aspirations. Though fitting within the slender female aesthetic recognised by Susan Bordo, she is not expected to “embody the ‘masculine’ language and values” of the professional sphere (Bordo, 171). Rather, in order to fulfil cultural mores, she is expected to play the traditional and passive role customary for a princess and a member of the ‘weaker’ sex. Her gender and physicality clearly define her place in the eyes of most of the adult generation. When (in a dream) Sir Rancid suggests to King Arthur that Elanora will grow up to efficiently oversee the knightly protection of the land and the castle, Arthur is horrified: “But she’s a woman. You can’t have a woman running Camelot. She’d have us all using coasters and such like. It’d be very unsettling”.[12] Another expression of the status quo is seen when Sir Gadabout comes across Will with his sword drawn toward Princess Elanora. He is horrified at what he perceives to be “a strapping lad picking on a mere girl”, asking “would you bully a fluffy rabbit just as quickly? Hmm, or a baby seal? Hmm, I think not”[13] .
Clearly an audience is meant to align itself with the perspective of a capable and empowered Elanora, and be amused at the obvious blindness and foolish prejudice of the old guard, but it is not only the incompetent older generation that demonstrates conservative views on female nature. Even Will finds it amusing that Elanora might wish to be a knight, noting (laughably, to Sir Knight herself) that Elanora’s “not exactly knight material is she? She couldn’t fight her way out of a paper bag”[14] . More pertinent still is that Elanora’s own actions sometimes suggest that she herself feels a tension between her knightly abilities and her wish to be liked and accepted as a woman. When an astonished Will asks Elanora, who is besting him in an impromptu sword fight, how she became so skilled, Elanora’s response is to drop her sword, pretend to be exhausted, and to coquettishly compliment him on how very good he is at swordplay.[15] This demonstrates the difficulty attached to challenging entrenched paradigms which naturalise passive roles for women. It is certainly possible for the audience to perceive Elanora’s need to pretend weakness as an indictment on restrictive gender expectations and a dig at male vanity; it is, however, also possible for the viewer see traditional femininity as necessary for social acceptance and romantic success. This series features a strong female role model in the person of Princess Elanora. Its message though, is far from unequivocal as Elanora is depicted as exceptional, as legitimated by both class and destiny, and as placed in a culturally awkward position because of her ability.
Maid Marian and Her Merry Men is another overtly satirical view of the Middle Ages and of British national mythology. Far from the vibrantly colourful and slightly surreal world found in Sir Gadabout, the world of Maid Marian and Her Merry Men – despite its characters’ tendency to burst into musical numbers – represents a brutish, uncivilised and filthy Middle Ages. Indeed, the opening song of the series, entitled Mud, speaks of people not only living in mud (over the street, on people’s feet, in their hair, everywhere) but subsisting on it:
There’s a mad bad King and he’s called King John
And he sits on a big bad throne
And he takes all the people’s money
And he won’t leave the people alone
He taxes their farms he taxes their homes
He taxes their flesh and blood
He lives for the pleasure of counting his treasure
But all the people’ve gotta eat… Is mud[16]
Not surprisingly, the sets and costuming are anything but clean, and there is little of the romantic vision of ‘merry England’ to be seen – except, perhaps in the dandy Robin’s quite astounding costumes. Interestingly, Marian herself with her frizzy hair and often grubby face, her oversized coarse tunics, and her expression fixed somewhere between anger and disdain, looks anything but the picture of a demure medieval maiden. Neither does she fit within slender feminine aesthetic that Bordo links with empowerment.
An idyllic vision, however, can still be discerned in Marian’s naïve construction of the role she and her merry men will play in society. After a series of unfortunate events sees Marian and Robin on the run from the ‘entire Norman army’ (which seems to consist of two incompetent guards named Gary and Graeme) Marian explains to Robin they’ll never be able to return home again. Unperturbed, and with music stirring in the background, Marian delivers a speech with a passion to rival Shakespeare’s Henry V on St Crispin’s Day:
From now on we’ll live here in the forest – camp out under the stars, and we’ll make bows and arrows and we’ll hold rich travellers to ransom and we’ll give it all to the poor and we’ll surround ourselves with a band of highly attractive respectable young men who are just a little bit rough and are dedicated to freeing our country from tyranny and injustice and cruelty to animals and stuff and we’ll swing through the trees on long ropes and we’ll have our own costumes and we’ll never be cross or grumpy and we’ll do these fantastically brave deeds with a merry smile and people will say, ‘good heavens, it’s those merry men… come in and have a cup of tea… can we have your autograph,’ and no one will dare stand against us and our names will go down in history and we’ll be famous forever and people will name pubs after us.[17]
The desires expressed in this impressive run-on sentence demonstrate the influence that national mythologies exert on constructions of identity and behaviour. Marian’s speech plays with temporalities as it evokes the legend of Robin Hood in its modern and popular form, even though its medieval setting precedes the myth. Marian knows and understands how the story should play out and wishes to play her role, but the people of Nottingham, Sherwood, and the oppressed village of Worksop refuse to co-operate – despite the privations spelled out in the opening song. Not only does Marian face constant difficulty in her attempts to discipline her merry men – “We’re supposed to be fanatical revolutionaries. People are supposed to be terrified of us. You lot wouldn’t frighten the Nottingham East under-sevens ballet class”[18] – but people insist on giving the credit for any of her achievements to the ineffectual Robin. This again is indicative of the strength of paradigmatic gender expectations as few can accept Marian as more than, in the sheriff’s words, a “cross little girlie-whirly”.[19] Still, though Marian wishes to construct herself as a great leader, she does not fit within the category of ‘exceptional’ as easily as Jane and Princess Elanora. Though obviously more intelligent than those around her, she has no special strength, beauty, powers or abilities, no birthright and she is, time and time again, shown to be remarkably naïve in her idealism.
In spite of this want of ‘exceptional’ markers, it is clear that audience sympathy is intended to rest with Marian and her assertive approach to womanhood. Tony Robinson, the writer and the actor who portrays the Sherriff of Nottingham in the series, brings with him a pedigree in historical parody given his association with the Blackadder series. Indeed, reviews of Maid Marian and Her Merry Men often cast the series as a Blackadder for younger viewers, granting a certain authority by association. Robinson notes in an interview with Allen W. Wright that the show was written with his (then) seven- or eight-year-old daughter in mind. In Marian he hoped to create a character with whom his active daughter could empathise[20] . Viewers are expected to see Marian as an exemplar – to align themselves with her and against the ignorance and prejudice expressed in the show. Whether or not they are expected to identify themselves against the less than desirable medieval past depicted in the programme is a more complex question.
The poverty-stricken, repressive and unclean medieval world portrayed in Maid Marian and Her Merry Men certainly looks like a construction of the Middle Ages as a barbaric, violent and superstitious ‘other’ against which the present can identify itself as civilised and rational. Despite this, the world of Maid Marian and Her Merry Men ironically seems to appeal for audience identification and empathy. This Middle Ages is in no way an idyllic world and the site of lost values, but neither is it a completely alien world to its viewers. The series’ use of blatant anachronism and intertextual reference makes it very clear that Maid Marian and Her Merry Men, though set in the thirteenth century, is a contemporary text and very much concerned with current social and political issues. Throughout its lifetime Maid Marian and Her Merry Men took aim at a wide variety of targets ranging from broad notions of injustice, to bureaucratic pedantry, package holidays, the royal family and even Australian soap-operas. Through a subversive retelling of national myth the programme provides a critique, not only of nostalgic reconstructions of the past, but of contemporary English society and Western values and practices.
Whilst viewers of Jane and the Dragon and Sir Gadabout might possibly see the barriers faced by their heroines as confined to a pre-feminist past, the signalling of Maid Marian and Her Merry Men’s contemporaneity makes its satirical commentary clearly relevant to modern society. When Robin opines, “I think royalty are great, don’t you? They’re so natural and… cred”[21] , Marian’s horrified reaction both critiques the series’ King John and simultaneously comments on England’s current system of monarchy and idealised conceptions of national institutions. Other criticisms, such as Marian’s complaint about the state of rural bus services – “you know what these country bus services are like; one bus a week, and when it comes it’s a fortnight late”[22] – eschew the past altogether (except for the slow, ‘premodern’ temporality alluded to here) and only relate to matters of contemporary significance.
Consequently, in her quest for justice and for recognition, the issues Maid Marian faces as a female heroine cannot be sidelined as simply relevant to the past. In the Wright interview, Tony Robinson comments on grand narratives and their continued appeal, confirming his own sympathy as a parodist for his source. He notes he has always felt drawn by the image of Robin Hood, a noble man fighting against a tyrannical society, holding to his own notions of right and wrong. Robinson goes on to say that in Maid Marian and Her Merry Men he has shifted the axis so that it is Marian who seeks to create a world that conforms to her image of goodness:
And she does it in a very contemporary way. And like most of us trying to do that nowadays she doesn’t do it terribly well and finds that an awful lot of the people who she’s having to work with are grossly inefficient and not as bright as her and don’t understand what she’s saying and get things wrong. But that’s life.[23]
Marian’s imperfections make her an interesting exemplar. Rather than promising ‘dreams can come true’ for young women, Marian provides a model for those who continue to strive for their ideals in a less than idyllic world.
Jane and the Dragon, Sir Gadabout: The Worst Knight in the Land and Maid Marian and Her Merry Men each assert deliberate ‘girl power’ messages through the portrayal of their knightly heroines, approving active female participation in society and in roles traditionally seen as the domain of men. Though representing vastly differing constructions of the Middle Ages, each text utilises affective and cultural attachments to the past to appeal for audience identification and to validate contemporary ideologies. Recognisable medieval markers and narrative structures, however, can also work to tie medievalist texts to entrenched and traditional beliefs, even texts which actively seek to rewrite the Middle Ages and subvert hierarchical gender paradigms. Jane and the Dragon and Sir Gadabout, through the portrayal of their heroines as exceptional, contain an ambivalence in their message of female agency and empowerment. Their heroines’ roles are mediated through notions of caste and destiny, and through patriarchal support in the characters of Dragon and Merlin. The representation of Maid Marian, though perhaps less optimistic and certainly less idealistic, is also less equivocal in its feminist message, utilising the past not as a site of lost values but as a mirror reflecting the foibles and inequities still present in contemporary Western society.
Works Cited
Andrew, Kelly. “Skinny Heroine’s a Big Hit.” Dominion Post, 11 May 2007, A-3.
Aronstein, Susan Lynn. Hollywood Knights: Arthurian Cinema and the Politics of Nostalgia. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.
Attebery, Brian. “Women’s Coming of Age in Fantasy.” In Strategies of Fantasy. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992.
Attewell, Nadine. “Bouncy Little Tunes: Nostalgia, Sentimentality, and Narrative in Gravity’s Rainbow.” Contemporary Literature 45, no. 1 (2004): 22-48.
Bell, David. Maid Marian and Her Merry Men. Produced by Richard Callanan. Written by Tony Robinson BBC United Kingdom 1989-93.
Bordo, Susan. Unbearable Weight – Feminism, Western Culture and the Body. Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 2003.
Emes, Ian. Sir Gadabout: The Worst Knight in the Land. Produced by Linda James and Roger Holms. Alibi Productions United Kingdom 2002-3.
Fallows, Mike. Jane and the Dragon. Television program. Created by Martin Baynton. WETA Productions Ltd/Nelvana Limited New Zealand and Canada 2005-.
Finke, Laurie A. Women’s Writing in English: Medieval England. London: Addison Wesley Longman, 1999.
Gonick, Marnina. “Between ‘Girl Power’ and ‘Reviving Ophelia’: Constituting the Neoliberal Girl Subject.” National Women’s Studies Association Journal, 18 no. 2 (2006): 1-23
Rogers, John. “Oscar Winner Tackles Kids TV.” The Associated Press, 25 April 2008. The Record G-43.
Tolmie, Jane. “Medievalism and the Fantasy Heroine.” Journal of Gender Studies 15, no. 2 (2006): 145-148.
Wright, Allen W. “Interviews in Sherwood – Tony Robinson” http://www.boldoutlaw.com/robint/tonyrob1.html(June 2009)
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Endnotes
[1] Jane and the Dragon. Television program. Directed by Mike Fallows. Created by Martin Baynton. WETA Productions Ltd/Nelvana Limited New Zealand and Canada 2005 – (hereafter Jane and the Dragon)
[2] Sir Gadabout: The Worst Knight in the Land. Directed by Ian Emes. Produced by Linda James and Roger Holms. Alibi Productions United Kingdom 2002-3 (hereafter Sir Gadabout).
[3] Maid Marian and Her Merry Men. Directed by David Bell. Produced by Richard Callanan. Written by Tony Robinson BBC United Kingdom 1989-93. (hereafter Maid Marian and Her Merry Men)
[4] Jane and the Dragon: Royal Archives. http://www.janeandthedragon.co.nz/ (9 June 2009).
[5] “Character Profiles: Rake,” Jane and the Dragon: Royal Archives.http://www.janeandthedragon.co.nz/profile_rake.htm (9 September 2009).
[6] “Jane and the Dragon song lyrics,” Jane and the Dragon: Royal Archives.http://www.janeandthedragon.co.nz/fun_stuff_theme.htm (9 September 2009).
[7] Jane and the Dragon. DVD case blurb.
[8] “Jane and the Dragon song lyrics,” Jane and the Dragon: Royal Archives
[9] See Penelope Bryant, “Killing Me Softly,” Buffalo Law Review 40 (1992): 487 at note 201.
[10] “Character profiles: Princess Lavinia,” Jane and the Dragon: Royal Archives.http://www.janeandthedragon.co.nz/profile_lavinia.htm
[11] Jane and the Dragon. DVD case blurb.
[12] “The Betrothal,” Sir Gadabout.
[13] “The Betrothal,” Sir Gadabout.
[14] “Silent Knight,” Sir Gadabout.
[15] “The Betrothal,” Sir Gadabout.
[16] “Mud” from “How the Band Got Together,” Maid Marian and Her Merry Men.
[17] “Robert the Incredible Chicken,” Maid Marian and Her Merry Men.
[18] “Robert the Incredible Chicken,” Maid Marian and Her Merry Men.
[19] “How the Band Got Together,” Maid Marian and Her Merry Men.
[20] Allen W. Wright. “Interviews in Sherwood – Tony Robinson”http://www.boldoutlaw.com/robint/tonyrob1.html
[21] “How the Band Got Together”. Maid Marian and Her Merry Men.
[22] “Raining Forks,” Maid Marian and Her Merry Men.
[23] Wright, “Interviews in Sherwood.”
Created on: Monday, 21 December 2009