A tale of two Lolitas

That's obviously a pile of petticoats in the background and not a pair of jeans. Definitely not

(SPOILERS: American Horror Story: Coven)

Happy Halloween!

This year I've opted for the demonic doll look. I've already been cackled at on my way to work (it was a Halloween themed night, okay) by group of thirteen year old girls standing around in the cold wearing tiny hotpant playsuits. It's Halloween, people! What happened to the childish excitement surrounding the holiday, when it was about honouring all things that go bump in the night and not getting boys to want to grind against you at a disco? And on the subject of unspeakable things and provocatively-dressed children, it's time to talk about Lolita. Both of them.

After years of weeaboo pipe-dreaming, I've finally bought myself a Lolita outfit - the Japanese kind, that is. I know at 22 I'm probably pushing the acceptable age limit for this subculture, but I already the child treatment for my appearance so I'm going to milk this young face until the end of time. I've already sweated it out twice in this outfit this month, once at the MCM Expo in London, and another at work. If anyone's wondering if three pairs of false lashes, an enormous frizzy wig, a temperamental bonnet and flared frilly sleeves are a good call for bartending, the answer is no, definitely not. To get the most out of my new outfit my first point of call was to trawl countless YouTube videos on Lolita make up and photo poses because  being asked for a photograph at Expo and having no idea what to do with your hands is pretty awkward. It definitely still happened, though.

Anyway, there are always hysterical YouTubers who flock to these videos shrieking, as much as one can shriek using a keyboard, things like: "DO YOU REALISE ALL THESE LOLITAS HAVE SUGAR DADDIES?!?!?!?!" as though they've busted some kind of kawaii conspiracy. The conflation of the Lolita style with Nabokov's infamous novel is based purely on the name - and it causes some to rant and rave as though lace and frills are inherently corruptive. There are even those within the subculture who won't use the name because the connotations are just too pervy; I did wear my outfit to an under 18s night to serve coke and lemonade to under 18s. COINCIDENCE? So is the shared name just just a random occurrence, or is there a darker side to the bows and ruffles? There's no official answer to the question of how Lolita fashion got its name, so let's look at some of the possible connections.

JESUS, 'PEOPLE MAGAZINE'!

When Vladimir Nabokov set out to write Lolita in the mid-twentieth century, modest knee-length skirts and petticoats were probably the last thing he had in mind for his female lead. She is instead characterised by her revealing, flirtatious clothing teamed with her bandy physique. This has become an iconic look all in itself. Lolita is a minor who lacks the innocence of her youth. She is described as a 'nymphet' - a girl between the ages of nine and fourteen that Humbert, the narrator, finds most appealing. As a girl resting on the cusp between childhood and puberty her interest in sex is apparent, boasting about her exploits to Humbert. However, her need to assert her apparent maturity only serves as a testament to how young she actually is. Humbert takes advantage of her during a point in her development where she is curious about sex, and uses it to trap her. He blackmails her with poverty and the orphanage if she doesn't perform certain sexual favours. He never refers to her by her true name, Dolores, instead renaming her 'Lolita', to signal her new life as his possession.

The name 'Lolita' itself is a more coquettish incarnation of Dolores, which was not only a popular girls' name in the novel's era, but also translates as 'sorrows', perhaps referring to the tumultuous relationship between Lolita and her mother. 'Dolores' also has Catholic connotations, associated with the Spanish title for the Virgin Mary, Mary of Sorrows. The name Dolores represents all who Lolita's mother, and in turn, society, expect her to be as a young girl growing up in 1940s suburban America - chaste and innocent. Her new name even gives him pleasure to say, thoroughly cementing her transition from straight-laced upbringing to paedofile's plaything:

"Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth"

There are those who still claim that Lolita is an equally guilty party in all this and that she encourages Humbert, but this is probably down to Humbert's narration bias - of course everything the twelve-year-old does is going to seem hypersexualised. Lolita doesn't need to give Humbert any encouragement. He is not only a paedofile, but a rapist. Before their first 'consensual' sexual encounter, he drugs and attempts to molest her, only failing because she wakes up. He even considers impregnating Lolita with a daughter with the intention of eventually a raping a child of her likeness when she is 'past it'. Oh yeah, this is the same book that Vanity Fair once called "The only convincing love story of our century." Thank God for the single life, right?

Here's one for you, 'Vanity Fair'

On the surface the Japanese style has nothing to do with this plot - this plot is not kawaii in the slightest. But undeniably, in both, there is a fixation on the beauty of youth. With Lolita clothing, it is often devoid of sexual intent, focused more on prettiness; there's something oh-so-becoming about a nice little bonnet, don't you think? On the other hand, Lolita is more concerned with, and I shudder to say “The sexy aspects of childhood”, but that's exactly how Humbert's twisted psyche views it.

The continued association with the term 'Lolita' and sexual deviation is also in part due to its creeping in to the language of psychology. In his 1965 book The Lolita Complex, Russell Trainer (who is frequently criticised for being a pulpy amateur who doesn't know what he's talking about) describes a phenomenon where men are fixated on young girls, calling it - you guessed it - The Lolita Complex. The term was translated to 'Lolicon' in Japanese, which then became a horrific genre of manga and anime based around sexy depictions of child-like girls. I'm not entirely sure that was Trainer's intention.

Humbert clearly suffers from the 'complex', the same attraction repeating itself throughout his life. Even his name, Humbert Humbert, has at its core the idea of repeated behaviour, which is all linked to his psychosis. This perverse pattern in his sexual behaviour is seemingly linked to the death of his childhood sweetheart, Annabel Leigh. He recognises attributes of his lost love in Lolita, which aids his attraction to her. It that his obsession with so-called 'nymphets' is a way of coping of the loss of Annabel and returning to a more innocent time where his life was untainted by death.

The name, Annabel Leigh, is directly inspired by Edgar Allan Poe's poem, Annabel Lee, in which an unnamed narrator laments the loss of his childhood love:

"The angels, not half so happy in Heaven,

Went envying her and me -

Yes! - that was the reason (as all men know,

In this kingdom by the sea)

That the wind came out of the cloud by night,

Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee."

It all seems a bit too contrived to be true. Perhaps Humbert, who we know is a distinguished reader, is having a joke with us, making up a romanticised situation to explain his vile behaviour when in fact, he has no excuse. Perhaps he's preserving Annabel's purity with an obvious pseudonym so she remains untainted by the actions of the boy she loved. Or, perhaps Nabokov is showing us that Humbert is romanticising the situation with Lolita far more than he should, and we can all see right through it.

This morbidity in Humbert's intentions, to capture a youth, frozen in time, can be seen in the doll-like aesthetics of the Lolita. While some Lolitas take offence to the term "living doll", there are certainly some aspects inspired by dolls. In popular culture, the heterosexual man with a fixation on dolls in signal for sexual deviance. In The Simpsons, Smithers' huge collection of Malibu Stacy dolls is a running joke based on the camp aspects of his homosexuality. In American Horror Story: Coven, the moment we see the creepy doorman Spalding strap a Victorian bonnet over his greasy locks and retire to his china doll bachelor pad, alarm bells start ringing. Not only does he have an impressive and expensive antique doll collection, he also dresses dead girls in doll clothes and performs sexual acts on them. This obsession with youth is a particularly ghoulish one - the fascinations with the eternally beautiful yet passive dolls being the next step down from necrophilia, and the need to mirror this in the preservation of human beauty after death.

But then, the "creepy old man with a doll collection" is only a horror trope, and it's not a fair assumption to make of anyone with a doll collection in real life. Still, interest in childhood is often linked to paedophilia. Lewis Carroll, who created Wonderland as a childish haven, is frequently accused of being a paedophile, apparently harbouring an unhealthy fascination with a family friend, Alice Liddell. Incidentally, Alice's Adventure's in Wonderland is a particular source of inspiration for Lolita fashion. The word 'Lolita' was used in a spin-off Lolicon Manga comic called Stumbling Upon a Cabbage Field in the 1960s. Perhaps the link lies in Alice and Wonderland. Who knows?

But this is all just speculation. There are obvious links, but nothing to lose your rag and burn your petticoats about.

Fairy Tale Film Club: 'Maleficent' (2014)

Welcome to the first of a (hopefully) fortnightly feature, Fairy Tale Film Club. It's a bit of an ambitious and, let's face it, slightly desperate title because this 'club' just is entirely made up of just me, watching films, alone. I'm not film critic in any sense of the word (I think I’m blind to camera angles) so these posts are going to focus less on reviewing films and more on how fairy tales have expanded and been developed to fit the (slightly more) modern medium of film. Because of this, they're going to be packed full of spoilers - you have been warned.

First up is Maleficent, a three-dimensional re-imagining of the Basile/Perrault tale and Disney classic, Sleeping Beauty. The film is centred on the croissant-headed villain from all our childhood nightmares and shows that she isn't quite as malignant as the original motion picture makes her out to be. Following Oz the Great and Powerful to the big screen by about a year, Maleficent is part of Disney's current string of live-action reinterpretations of classic films, often depicting the origins of popular culture’s most hated villains; Disney has always had a tendency to be quite black and white in their depictions of good and evil. By drawing on existing films, one could be accuse Disney of simply struggling to find new source material to work with, instead returning to the tried-and-tested favourites to make easy money at the box office. But I find it hard to be so cynical about Disney, a franchise that has, after all, largely been built on retelling other people's stories. Fairy tales, by their very nature, call for constant reinterpretation as they are passed down through different mediums, cultures and ages. Just as Sleeping Beauty reflects the romantic values of the 1950s, Maleficent manipulates the story so that it reflects Disney's updated twenty-first century values.

Anyone who appears in green flames HAS to be irredeemably evil, right?

And Disney's values are certainly changing. Once upon a time if you were a single princess, you were pretty much screwed if you met any misfortune. This is, most probably, because their interpretations closely followed the values in the original fairy tales. It’s little wonder, then, that we grew up thinking our lives are over if we get dumped - your life IS over if you haven’t found your ‘true love’ by the age of sixteen. This outdated reliance of romance, which usually occurs after very little dialogue between the couple, is finally being overridden by independence and more focus on platonic and familial love. The dangers of committing yourself to a man you barely know are evident in Frozen, and more Disney princesses are remaining single at the end of films, finding fulfillment independent of romance. So when, in Maleficent, Prince Philip fails to revive Aurora with his kiss, but Maleficent, who has developed a maternal affection for the girl, can, we see that 'love at first sight' pales in comparison to that between a mother figure and her child.

The loss of love is often attributed to a female character's turn to evil. In Oz the Great and Powerful, which serves as a prequel to Baum's work, we also became acquainted with a villain's backstory. We witness the doe-eyed, love-struck Theodora being left heartbroken by the Wizard and, as a result, turning green becoming the Wicked Witch of the West, bent on destroying everyone. And I thought my break ups were bad. However, this Wicked Witch origin story lacks the depth and originality of Gregory Maguire's novel, Wicked. Whereas Maguire creates a multi-faceted, witty heroine with politically and morally complex backstory, Disney relies on the tiresome 'spurned woman' trope. We all know that romantic, happy endings are important in fairy tales - literally a case of life or death - and it's understandable how the inability to fulfil this obligation could naturally lead to a life of evil. But this is the twenty-first century, can't we stop seeing female villains as such delicate flowers, incapable of malice without having been heartbroken, and just let them be greedy or evil for the sake of it?

Initially, Maleficent looks like it's going down the same heavily-soiled path. We are introduced to Maleficent as a forest-dwelling fairy child of the Moors, with startling cheekbones and trademark horns, but a pair of wings that aren't familiar with fans of the animated original. She's innocent, but to be honest, anyone who gives their child a name like Maleficent is just asking for trouble. She meets Stefan, with whom she shares 'true love's kiss' as a teenager, but he later disappears to pursue his ambition at the castle. As an adult, Maleficent uses her wings to protect the Moors from invaders from the kingdom, and when she mortally wounds the current king in battle, he pledges that the man who slays her will be his successor. Stefan visits Maleficent under the guise of rekindling their relationship, drugs her and cuts off her wings to return to the king as evidence of her demise. Heartbroken, Maleficent becomes the secluded (save for her human/crow companion, Diaval) queen of the Moors, fixated on revenge.

Although heartbroken about her lost love, Maleficent’s evil deeds are a result of her lost wings, and the freedom that came with them. Angelina Jolie herself has admitted that the act of drugging Maleficent and taking her wings was consciously conceived as a metaphor for rape, as her identity is bound with her wings in the same way that a woman's identity includes the freedom to choose whom she has sexual relations with. Like rape, it is the theft of a body. It is only through learning to love Aurora that Maleficent regains her original self, and relinquishes the need to avenge what she has lost. It is an ending that is concerned with love, but is not as restricting as the old-fashioned fixation on romance.

Naturally, there has been some moral outcry from militant parents who don't want their little darlings to be exposed to the story of a woman reclaiming her sense of self after an assault. However, the metaphor is veiled that it isn't evident to many adults, let alone a child with little or no knowledge of sex. The use of sexual metaphor in a film based on a fairy tale is hardly surprising considering the lurid meaning of much of the source material. In Giambattista Basile’s Sun, Moon and Talia, the original Sleeping Beauty tale, princess Talia is put to sleep by a splinter of flax; Basile must have thought that princesses were excessively fragile if they could be overcome by a plant. A passing king is enraptured by her death-like beauty, and so rapes her in her sleep. She becomes pregnant and gives birth to his children in her slumber, and only wakes up when one of her babies, searching for a nipple to nurse on, sucks on her finger instead and removes the splinter. After some nasty business with the king's wife - under which logic Basile chose to make her the villain instead a man who has sex with unknowing girls in their sleep, I don't know -Talia and the king live happily ever after. This debacle ends on the worst moral I have ever come across in a story:

"Those whom fortune favors

Find good luck even in their sleep"

Nope. violation and a resulting pregnancy is never "good luck", whether it’s by a king or not. Maleficent puts the blame back where it belongs - on the violator.

The spinning wheel, added by Perrault to replace the splinter of flax, is a simultaneously masculine and feminine icon, pertaining to the sexual acts in Sun, Moon and Talia. On one hand, the pointed needle is a phallic symbol, representing the dangers associated with sex. On the other hand, the circular motion of this domestic object reminds us of the perpetual nature of gender-assigned roles, confining the female to the home. Let's look at this in comparison to Sun, Moon and Talia. It is through the one-sided act of sex with the king during her sleep, a time where she has absolutely no say in the outcome, that Talia's domestic destiny is decided, as bearing the king's children automatically assigns her a place in the his home. She has no choice but to be overjoyed, because as a woman she must remain passive, her future decided by external forces such as licentious kings and splinters of flax. Had she not been happy with the king’s actions, would she have had a say in the matter?

Fairy tales, such as Little Red Riding Hood, are often used as metaphors to warn young girls about the dangers of men and sex. Still, Perrault depicts Sleeping Beauty as being, despite warning, drawn to the sharp point of the needle; she cannot sate her curiosity until she has touched it. Sex can be seen as damaging to a young woman because it could have bound them to a man through pregnancy and the resulting marriage – they could have as little choice in their life partner as a sleeping woman, yet would need to force themselves to be content with it. In the era of fairy tales, sex could bind women in the domestic cycle, limiting their personal choice. In the same way, Maleficent’s freedom to fly and protect her land is restricted after her violation, yet this time, it is viewed negatively. Contrary to Sun, Moon and Talia, the actions performed upon Maleficent in her sleep are not considered good fortune doesn't find good fortune in her sleep. In fact, any invasive action during sleep has no true benefits.

Maleficent is a critique of male entitlement to female space, the same entitlement that the king is guilty of in Sun, Moon and Talia. There is clear a dichotomy between male and female geographical spaces in the film. The Moors, where Maleficent rules, is a space related to femininity and the stereotypical role of reproducer and nurturer, as it is a wild, natural and fertile place where Maleficent discovers her maternal instinct. Stefan's castle on the other hand, is cold, angular and stone, relating to male warfare and power. It is entirely governed by men - the queen has very little screen time, her death going unnoticed in favor of Stefan's quest for power, and the fairies fulfil their duties away from the castle in the woods. These spaces are entirely built on stereotypes associated with the sexes.

It is not a criticism of men in general, but a criticism of the archaic attitudes towards female independence and allowing women to govern their own spaces. It is the inability of the male characters of power to accept that there is a space run by a woman, independent of male influence,  that makes them the villains. They try to take her land by force, as rape is taking a woman's body by force. By removing the wings that make her powerful, the castle are removing the threats associated with autonomous females in society. Maleficent reclaims her original identity, putting aside vengeance, when she learns to love Aurora, who is as irritating as you'd imagine anyone who's been blessed to never feel sad would be. She is therefore reconciling the idea of traditional feminity – maternal – with being poweful. Feminity and power do not have to be mutually exclusive.

The film has been criticised for forgoing a one-dimensional character for Maleficent in favour of an irredeemably evil male character. However, Stefan’s evil is necessary, showing how entitlement to female space is unacceptable and unnecessary to society, that putting too much emphasis on isolates your loved ones and, as Maleficent shows, it is possible to rule with compassion.

For more on the rape imagery in Maleficent, read Robyn Bahr's article here.

Next time: Red Riding Hood (2011)