I’ve mentioned before that I’ve always loved Alice in Wonderland, so of course I was excited to finally get to the theater and see Tim Burton’s new adaptation.  I was a little hesitant – Tim Burton has become rather cliche and tends to just remix his Hot Topic costumes and “eccentric” casts.  However, I was really impressed with the film, an pleasantly so.

The story complements the original well without retelling a familiar tale too redundantly, nor taking artistic license overboard.  Alice fluctuates between her initial childlike-obedience (eating what says “eat me,” drinking what says “drink me,” and following the directions of a vast array of curious creatures) and taking ownership of her behavior (“it’s my dream after all”).  She bravely and cleverly dupes the Red Queen into thinking her a friend, allowing her to rescue her friend and find an important sword that will allow her to fulfill her destiny – Alice is not just a girl on an adventure, she’s a woman champion come to save Underland from the Red Queen’s rule and defeat the dreaded Jabberwocky.

Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter was the least enjoyable part of the film.  Depp remixed all of his other “eccentric” characters and put on a funny wig for this part.  What was even more disturbing was the deep, emotional connection alluded to between the Hatter and Alice.  First of all, it will be hard to top SyFy’s take on that dynamic, and secondly, Depp’s Hatter is too old, too mad, and too creepy for some sort of… whatever with a nineteen year old girl.  Creepy and irritating.

At the very least, however, this film portrays strong female leads, protagonists, and antagonists with little to no emphasis on romance as a plot device.  Alice is clever, strong, and charismatic and rises to the occasion, allowing her newfound courage to launch her into an adventurous career rather than a miserable marriage.  Plus, it was fun, and it looks cool – although maybe not quite as cool as this:

You can read some other great perspectives on the film at Adventures of a Young Feminist, Autostraddle, and Gender Across Borders.

A production of To Kill A Mockingbird came to our small town this week, and having reread the book for the first time since 10th grade, I was thrilled to see it!  After finishing the book this summer, I poked my nose around the internet a bit to get a better idea about its critical reception.  I was surprised to learn that although it was originally heralded as a controversial and monumental statement about race relations in the south, the book has not been received favorably by many African Americans or feminists.

In reading the book for the first time in my adult life, I was able to truly comprehend the importance of the trial at hand – perhaps even in the 10th grade I was as naive as Scout, or maybe I just wasn’t that engaged in the reading since it was required.  Reading it after spending two years in a community that is even more homogeneously white than the community in which I grew up, the racial messages of the book were very prominent to me, and I came away feeling like I understood the hubub.  The fear, hatred, and judgment of the unknown, including (or maybe especially) racial differences, have become more visible to me in that time, and I felt the book did a good job of condemning such ignorance.

As excited as I was to see the play, suddenly the criticisms of the novel became clear and understandable to me.  As I sat in the theater, filled with college freshmen required to attend for their Creative Arts and English 1010s, I realized that the supposed triumph over one form of prejudice simply promoted various other forms.  And I feared that even if these homogeneous, pious young adults were paying attention to the most prominent message of the production, racial tolerance, the acceptance of sexism and classism were being reinforced.  What messages would these students really walk away with?

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