what happened to the boy?("Flicka" again)

[ritaxis]

what happened to the boy?

I've been thinking about this question. Why was the boy turned into a girl for the modern movie?

I think, actually, it's down to sexism. Not overt sexism on the part of the movie makers, who probably actually thought they were being anti-sexist by making a movie with a strong female lead, but real sexism -- that pervasive thing that comes from culture and politics and expectations, the thing which has to be fought consciously and with great effort if it is to be fought at all.

Here's what I think is going on. In the fifty or so years since the book was written, horses have moved from economically active working chattel to luxury, to pure entertainment: conspicuous consumption. The original boy's passion for horses was a masculine passion for a vocation. This girl's passion for horses is overtly nostalgic, and overtly tied into a theory of the land and America which has nothing to do with economics or (so-expressed) politics. (did I mention in my first post on this movie that there's a running voice over of the girl's essay for school on the topic of "How America Was Settled" which expresses these ideas in so many words -- and which never once mentions the fact that there were people here before [modern] horses? No Native Americans, just a wild, untamed land, settled by Men With Horses)

It's a really old reactionary trope -- Girl is Nature, Wild, Beautiful, Free. Oh yeah, and "flicka," which in Swedish actually means "girl" plain and simple, is here translated as "a beautiful young girl just on the brink of her greatest beauty," and at least the actors have the grace to be awkward and embarrassed when they deliver these horrible lines.

And then, the girl is called upon to behave in ways they would never have a boy do -- she has tantrums continuously, from the beginning, before the going even gets rough. She never completes a logical thought (her essay is a mess, too, but I don't think it's necessarily supposed to be): she expects to get her way because she's right in an inchoate, earthy way, beyond reason, all about passion. She never does the right thing either -- it's a wonder she survives her three cat confrontations, it's a wonder she doesn't get trampled to death on several occasions, it's a wonder that she doesn't get two different horses killed on at least htree different occasions. She pouts, she flounces, she sulks, she shirks her work -- and everybody seems to think her father is the unreasonable one, because, really, they really say this, he can't see that she is him -- thatg is, she is the part of him which is the expression of the earth and the wild.

(the animal they call a lion, I realized last night after being bugged about it subliminally all day, is actually a lynx -- I don't know if in Wyoming "lion" is the correct name for a lynx, but in California, a lion is a mountain lion, (or a cougar or a puma, or a catamount, all names for the same large animal) and a lynx is a lynx. A lynx is quite easy to distinguish -- it's much smaller than a lion, and has the most amazing tufts on its ears and tail. The animal in the movie is much smaller than a lion and has the most amazing tufts on its ears and tail: it's a lynx)


I'm late. But I think I made my case for why they turned the boy into a girl. The girl is a good character study though, it's just too bad they put it into such a horrible bad and horribly ideological vehicle.

Comments

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

From your description, the girl does forgivable girl things - she behaves like a spoilt little princess, but that's ok. In the books, Ken is deeply disturbed - he's a loner, he doesn't get on with his (macho, All-American) brother, he totally idealises a horse (and a sickly mare of all things) - he's a fish out of water.

I've always loved the books, but one of the things that stuck in my mind was the desperate struggle this family went through - despite the apparent wealth (large ranch) money was a constant worry - don't have money for school fees, have to sell this colt, can't afford a better borehole, had to let these cattle go cheaply because we couldn't feed them through the winter - there was a lot of quiet despair behind the people in the book that made them feel *real*; but which might not make a popular film in the current climate. It's not a story about rich ranchers, or even comfortably-well-off ranchers.

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, the lion? Definitely a mountain lion in the books.

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

Well, that's consistent. This kid is really quite strange in the modern movie, too, in quite believable ways. The thing is, I don't think that a modern American movie would portray a boy like this unless he picks up a gun at some point.

These people have money troubles, too: they're worried about it, and on the verge of selling the ranch off to housing developers. They look rich, and their house looks rich, but that's just because for some reason American movies do that all the time.

They don't have any cattle at all, it's just a horse ranch. Which is why the whole thing seems very strained, I think.

And the cat in the movie is definitely a lynx. It's about half the size of a mountain lion, and it's tufted out to hell and gone.

[blackoakdreams.livejournal.com]

Interesting analysis. I'll have to bring it up to the various book/movie nerds I talk to, and see what thy say.

[coneycat.livejournal.com]

Oh, now--Kennie is just a dreamer in the book. I don't think he's supposed to be disturbed. (I didn't care for the sequels and therefore, to me, My Friend Flicka is a standalone.) He's a bit immature, maybe, but there's no sense of anything wrong with him, he's just a romantic-minded, dreamy kid, and although his father worries that he'll never be able to cope in the world, I don't think his mother has any such fears.

Howard the big brother is a pill, but I don't think that's Kennie's fault.

I always thought the story was as much about Kennie's father learning to respect him for who he is as it was about Kennie learning to be more responsible and down-to-earth. And the kid himself is one of my very favourite fictional characters.