Why Rachel Berry's a role model

I'm not done with Glee. Not yet. I've already said what I thought about the show so I won't say it again. But I still think Rachel Berry (played by the incredible Lea Michele) is one of the best things to happen to television in years.

Here is an article explaining why she's such an amazing role model:

"All of the pieces were there for her character to be a power-hungry manipulator in the mold of a Tracy Flick or a sad-sack Cinderella of a social outcast who only comes alive and sheds her wallflower ways when she sings. But Rachel Berry is neither. She’s written as a complex, mercurial character. She films MySpace Le Mis tributes in her bedroom and announces to the school celibacy club that, believe it or not, high school girls want sex every bit as much as boys do. She can throw a diva hissy fit over not getting a coveted solo in one scene and then extend her hand in friendship to her former tormentor and the girlfriend of her crush in the next. And I love her for it.

How utterly refreshing is it to see a young female primetime character whose entire focus or major story arc doesn’t revolve around relationship drama and/or getting/keeping/deceiving/ditching a boy? Sure, Rachel pines for the sweetly dumb Finn, but she’s pragmatically resigned to his current status as Quinn’s baby daddy-to-be. And Rachel has bigger fish to fry anyway. She’s convinced that she’s going to be a star and damned if girl doesn’t have the ambition, confidence and straight-up vocal chops to back up her Broadway dreams.

Sure, Rachel’s got her flaws. She’s bossy, abrasive and high maintenance, but these are all tempered by self awareness. She knows she’s bossy, abrasive and high maintenance and will candidly own up to it. And she’s also achingly vulnerable – admitting that she wants glee club to succeed because being part of something special makes you special by proxy, confiding in Puck that her problem is that she wants everything too much and harboring an unspoken but all-too-evident fear that it’s only for the sake of her talent that people deign to associate with her at all. The insecurity behind the theatrics is more than enough to offset her occasion bouts of know-it-all-ism and social tone deafness.

Glee might be a giddy, implausible (Terri’s fake pregnancy, Sue Sylvester’s, well, everything), over-the-top romp, but Rachel rings true as complicated young woman who knows exactly who she is, but still struggles to balance meeting her own self-imposed type-A expectations with her desire for peer acceptance and friendship. TV and especially young women who watch TV need more Rachel Berrys to relate to."

And here's proof of Lea Michele's talent, her rendition of Don't Rain on My Parade. Lea is the only person who has ever made me consider giving Broadway theatre yet another chance. Lea has just been nominated for a Golden Globe. My vote goes to her.

Between the lines

I think I'd like to post little updates about things before posting my usual "this is what I enjoyed reading/watching/listening to recently."

I'd been meaning to read P.G. Wodehouse for a long while now and it's only recently that I decided to borrow an omnibus from the library. Long story short - I was in the middle of Much Obliged, Jeeves when I decided to check out the group dedicated to P.G. Wodehouse on LibraryThing, The Drones Club. I read a few posts and a few of my favourites were written by Rule42 so I checked his/her profile which is very detailed and in which he/she gives an extensive list of his/her favourite authors. I agreed with a lot of what was said about literature in general and our tastes (humour, humanism) seem to match quite a bit (even though we only have two books in common, both by Evelyn Waugh (whom I've never liked but I might give him yet another chance, religion is my problem when it comes to him). So I did my research and added a lot of books to my list before heading for the library. Here's my To-Be-Read Pile:

1. Wodehouse Omnibus 5 (to finish, I have two stories left, having read the novels)
2. The Rachel Papers - Martin Amis (Rule42 loves his father but I figured I might as well add Martin's first book to my pile as well)
3. Jeeves in the Offing - P.G. Wodehouse
4. Something Fresh - P.G. Wodehouse
5. Three Men in a Boat - Jerome K Jerome (this one was here before I "met" Rule42)
6. The Little Stranger - Sarah Waters (finally! I had to make a reservation for this one as all the copies are impossible to get hold of unless you specifically have it put aside for you)
7. The Grand Sophy - Georgette Heyer (this one was here before as well, I don't like Heyer much, I've read two books by her and her heroines are so weak, she seems to be a solid favourite for many people though and I'd hate to miss out so I'm giving her another chance)
8. Trouble for Lucia - E.F. Benson (was here before - it's not even the beginning of the series but that's all I could find at the library when I went)
9. The Old Devils - Kingsley Amis (his son Martin's favourite)
10. Crome Yellow - Aldous Huxley (best known for A Brave New World which I couldn't find)
11. The Code of the Woosters - P.G. Wodehouse
12. Author, Author - David Lodge (I wanted Changing Places, which is the first book in a series but this will do, it sounds interesting. This line in the blurb won me over: "Thronged with vividly drawn characters, some of them with famous names, Author! Author! presents a fascinating panorama of literary and theatrical life in late Victorian England.")
13. The Sirens of Titan - Kurt Vonnegut (this line in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction won me over: "A fine and complex satire about the folly of mistaking good luck for the favour of God". Also, a reviewer on Amazon said "if you've never read Vonnegut, this is the place to start")
14. Swing Swing Swing: The Life and Times of Benny Goodman - Firestone (apparently the definitive biography of the man, I love his music so much)
15. Burr - Gore Vidal (oh dear, can I just say, FINALLY! I've been wanting to read Vidal for the longest time but I never knew where to start. Well, this is it! I was going to start with his essays but couldn't track a decent collection anywhere so I settled for fiction. Burr is the first in a series of chronicles of the US entitled "Narratives of Empire". It wasn't the first to be published but it's the first chronologically. Historical fiction at last. Took me a while to find something I desperately wanted to read in that genre but I'm absolutely looking forward to reading it!)

I also entered a contest here to win a copy of Thank You, Jeeves in its Everyman Wodehouse edition (a gorgeous hardcover book). Fingers crossed as I'm planning on collecting them all in this edition but don't have much money, being a student.

I have to dash - today's Dissertation Day, I'm currently analyzing how the "in the next episode" trailers at the end of Sense and Sensibility (2008) and Emma (2009) participate in the dramatization of the story. Great fun!

I didn't buy or borrow this but I thought the title was most appropriate. Be dangerous with me?


Sibylle

The title of this blog, as I explained when I opened it, is a direct reference to Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen, one of my favourite novels. Here it is in its entirety:

But from fifteen to seventeen she was in training for a heroine; she read all such works as heroines must read to supply their memories with those quotations which are so serviceable and so soothing in the vicissitudes of their eventful lives.

Follows a very dull list of quotations that are so generic they couldn't be useful to anybody (which is the point). Catherine, despite everything, is the heroine of this book. I am personally in training for a heroine - always trying to be a better person, and this journal is my attempt to be just that, through works of fiction because I'm a great believer in the power of texts (be they books, movies, shows, music) to change lives. As you've probably noticed, they're changing mine everyday!

Happy Birthday!

In Training for a Heroine turns 1 today! I'm obviously still in training and looking forward to a new and exciting year. This blog has proven to be everything I imagined: a place for me to talk about things I'm passionate about in the way that suits me best. I have never ever seen it as work so let's hope I'll have as much fun with it as I do now. I wish I could expand it, buy a new layout and perhaps a domain. We'll see how it goes. In the meantime, please help yourself to some coconut cake!

Background music: The Andrews Sisters

Sibylle

My God! How the Money Rolls in!

>>>CLICK THE PICTURE TO SEE MORE!<<<

Hey there! This journal always reminds me of how much I love my life. So here I am, listening to the amazing Boswell Sisters and writing about some of my most recent delights.

I read a great book entitled Anything Goes: A Biography of the Roaring Twenties, written by Lucy Moore. I read another book about the 20s earlier this year (also excellent), Flapper: A Madcap Story of Sex, Style, Celebrity, and the Women Who Made America Modern by Joshua Zeitz. However, while the latter focuses exclusively on women in the 20s, the former is about the 20s as a whole in the United States, or at least the gist of it. It works only if you include precise portraits of precise people and include them in a broader narrative of what happened on a national level. Lucy Moore does that very well, the word "biography" is really accurate - you learn as much about Al Capone's life , Bessie Smith's career (I loved that part of the book) as you do about Black Tuesday, the Scopes trial and the revival of the Ku Klux Klan. I like reading about this decade a lot, as you may have noticed, because in a way, it's a completely anachronistic era, sandwiched between two world wars, full of extremes. I like the cultural aspect of it a lot - a lot of the music and a lot of the films, but Moore makes it clear the decade was only roaring for a certain category of people only. In short, if you were white and could afford the excess, you could probably have a good time in the 20s. Not so much for the majority of people, though. I found it interesting that in her portrayal of the Fitzgeralds, Lucy Moore differs a bit from Joshua Zeitz. While Zeitz's section devoted to the couple is more complete, Moore's understanding of them is perhaps greater. They sure had an interesting life and even if a lot of it wasn't happy, it becomes clear really quickly that they did enjoy a great part of it. That's completely out of topic but the covers to both the paperback and the hardback editions are gorgeous. I could find no information about the artist, though - such a shame. Lucy Moore's bibliography is divided into chapters and she adds helpful comments for people to go further - I certainly will.

I also read two of Philip Pullman's books - The Tin Princess, which is the last book in the Sally Lockhart series, and Count Karlstein, a part novel part graphic novel book. I enjoyed them both, although my favourite book by him will probably forever be The Tiger in the Well, the third book in the Sally Lockhart series. In The Tin Princess, Sally doesn't make more than an appearance as the focus is on a much younger heroine - as usual, the plot is challenging as the political intricacies are very hard to understand but I feel are worth it in the end. The characters are really full of life and colourful even though they're not as developed as the characters from former books are, which does make them look like stereotypes. I thought the end was completely and utterly ridiculous, it reminded me of Edgar Allan Poe, and not in a good way. Still, I found enough to enjoy.
Count Karlstein was a lot better. I was very pleasantly surprised at all the author could do in such few pages. The book was so funny, to begin with. Two girls escape their uncle's castle where a terrible end awaits them and they meet several characters while on the run. It's a parody of Gothic literature, which is always hilarious anyway, and in this the characters are simply wonderful. A woman named Miss Davenport made a lasting impression on me.

I read another good graphic novel - Rapunzel's Revenge by Shannon Hale, her take on the fairytale, in which Rapunzel saves herself and wouldn't be out of place in a saloon. The book was hilarious - fairytale clichés are poked fun at, and the story is highly entertaining. Here's what may be my favourite comic strip:

Now to moving pictures. I haven't seen a movie I liked in its entirety in a long, long while. The Purchase Price (1932) was a complete mess and yet some scenes were enjoyable on their own if you can forget the general structure and think of it as a series of shorts starring one of my favourite actresses, Barbara Stanwyck. However, I literally fell in love with the first part of Blonde Crazy (1931) starring James Cagney and the fantastic Joan Blondell. I must say I was really impressed with James Cagney's acting, I will definitely watch more movies with him. Bert (Cagney) makes sure Anne (Blondell) gets a job and that's how they meet. Very quickly, though, Bert reveals himself as a con with a heart and he convinces Anne to join him in tricking rich people (some very clever tricks there, my favourite being one in which Bert manages to steal a very expensive bracelet by placing it on a rich man's account and then lying about his identity to retrieve it once he goes to the rich man's place to take the bracelet away from the servants). The first half was so enjoyable - I don't think I have EVER seen that much slapping in a movie in my entire life. Anne doesn't take anything from Bert, when he's going to far, her answer is simple: she makes him think he's tricked her too but then she delivers a witty line, slaps him, and leaves. It must happen more than 10 times in the movie. The sexual innuendo is extremely funny as well as Bert's lines are barely toned down. Some scenes are complete classics: at some point, Bert tries to enter the bathroom when Anne is taking a bath, the audience sees both Anne in her bath and Bert at the door, then Bert leaves and tries to find the money Anne has hidden... in her bra. The moralistic end was a huge disappointment, and I do mean huge because I was enjoying myself until they decided to turn this movie into yet another sentimental "I'll wait for you forever while you go to prison for your crimes" story. It deserved better and I wish the director, Roy del Ruth, would have developed his vision until the very end. Shame for a pre-code.

James Cagney and Joan Blondell.

TV-wise, I gave up on two shows: Mad Men and Glee. I've always had a love/hate relationship with Mad Men but you can be sure I'm giving up for good now. This show has no point of view. You can't root for any of the characters - Joan makes quite a lot of racist comments in the second season, Pete is a rapist - I'd like to think the creator is saying that a rapist isn't special, you can't recognize him. A rapist is your milkman, a rapist is your co-worker, a rapist is your neighbour. I don't think the show is that smart, though, let's face it. Don and Betty, I have so many issues with these two I don't even want to go there. And the show has no point of view. It just films that, and moves on to the next shot. I hate this show. That's not being subtle, that's being in denial.

Glee. Oh dear, Glee. I watched it for quite a few episodes because it was catchy (clearly not my type of music as you may have noticed but still), the actors are obviously very dedicated and also I loved the characters. Rachel is one of the main characters - she gets a lot of criticism for being focused, for knowing what she wants and for going for it because she knows that if she's not the one who's going to audition for a part and been given more solos, nobody's going to do it for her. I personally see nothing wrong with that. Go Rachel. No, she doesn't need your help and she does what she wants. So obviously people hate her. Because she's her own person and she's a girl. Quinn is a cheerleader who knows what she wants and she's mean. People hated her at first, and then loved her because, guess what, Quinn is pregnant and she's lost about it. Quinn needs help, so Quinn is loved.
See where I'm going here?
Another BIG issue for me: Emma. Emma is a woman who works at the school the glee club is at. She's in love with a teacher who's married. He's miserable with his wife. Emma is the kind of person I want to shake and yell at. She longs to be with Will, but Will is married. So what does Emma do? She says yes when a complete ass she doesn't even like proposes to her. Because that's what women do in 2009. Right? WRONG. I can't believe they're actually writing a female character who prefers to be married to a guy she hates than be on her own and make her own happiness.
And then there's Sue. Sue is a witty character. She's funny because she's entirely mean and completely focused on what she wants: to win. Sue gets excellent one-liners and everything that comes out of her mouth is quotable and witty. Right? WRONG. Because Sue is so incredibly over-the-top and delivers deadpan lines like nobody's business, she can get away with racism. I'm going to quote an excellent review I found on a blog:

“Oh, but they’re just using humour to defuse tension when dealing with complex issues.” No, they are not, they are using humour to avoid dealing with complex issues. People who really think like this watch Glee and have their norms reinforced, the takeaway from the show being that, yeah, being racist and ableist and sexist is fine and dandy. People who don’t share these norms get to watch Glee and not have to confront the realities of how damaging these norms are, because the show glosses over them to make them all fuzzy and family friendly.

Here’s the thing: When you are in a position of privilege, you really do need to be reminded of that. You need to see the way in which your privilege can be harmful, can be a tool of oppression. If you don’t, you aren’t going to learn about how to manage your privilege. Glee does not make people uncomfortable (unless they are extremely aware of these issues). It just uses oppression as a humour vehicle. Which, can I say, yuck?"

So I stopped watching Glee. A few catchy songs don't make it okay.

Speaking of catchy songs, I know I've already mentioned Louis Prima here but he's truly one of my favourite singers. Louis, Keely Smith and Sam Butera would probably the three singers I would bring with me on a desert island because if we have to die, at least let's die swinging. Their songs are hysterical. Angelina and There'll Be No Next Time are some of my all-time favourites. I love singers who have so much fun they constantly ad-lib. That's music for me.

LISTEN HERE

Sam: But he took me to see
that little friend of mine

Louis: Oh that little motha'

Sam: hahaha DISTRICT JUDGE

Louis: I remember him

Sam: ROOM 229!!

Louis: Yeah! He was crazy!

Sam: He said sam
Your payments are wayyy behind
I said don't worry judge
It won't happen next time

Louis: What'd he say?

Sam: He said mmmmmmmmmmm Next time
There'll... be no next time
You're going to jail right now.

That's it! Tell me quick, wasn't that a kick in the head?

Groucho Marx

Sibylle

Out and About (?)

This is a depressing post. I'm in Oxford and I'm a student. That means I don't have a salary at the end of each month and that means I'm not too far from London but not that close either. I'm going to list all the things I'm missing out on this year either because of money or because I don't feel like going back to Oxford alone in the middle of the night after a show.

1) Chuck Berry in concert in Oxford (New Theatre). That's what hurts the most, because I don't even know when he's going to tour again. Money problem and I only found out recently so the seats that remain are pretty dreadful and I would probably be better off listening to The Chess Box in my room for I doubt I'll see much of him from row R seat 16...

♥

2) John Barrowman in La Cage aux Folles in London (Playhouse Theatre). I could have gone to a matinée and be back in Oxford early in the evening but it doesn't erase the fact that it's very expensive.

3) The Puppini Sisters in London (Pigalle Club). The show is incredibly cheap (£20) but it starts at 8pm and hotel rooms are so expensive in Piccadilly, I couldn't possibly pay for one so I'd have to go back to Oxford on my own in the middle of the night after the show.

4) The Rat Pack Live from Las Vegas in Oxford. It's a musical about Frank, Sammy and Dean with a real live band. Expensive. It's actually not that expensive compared to the others and it's in Oxford, reviews are very good, although some are mixed. Ultimately, though, I think I'll pass. I'd rather listen to Frank, Dean and Sammy, not people imitating them, even if most of the audience must go for the ambiance.

I can't believe I'm not a millionaire.

Sibylle

Sibylle: A Manifesto

I started this blog on November 18, 2008, almost a year ago. So far, I've let my tastes speak for me but I think perhaps it's time I come out into the open. You won't find any picture of me but I think self-definition is important.

I'm a humanist. I'll take Wikipedia's definition because it's the broadest, strangely enough: "Twenty-first century Humanism tends to strongly endorse human rights, including reproductive rights, gender equality, social justice, and the separation of church and state." I'm an agnostic atheist ("the view of those who do not claim to know of the existence of any deity, but do not believe in any.") I tell people I'm an agnostic so they leave me alone.

Therefore I'm a feminist. "Women are not born, they're made." Hence my argument about why we still need feminism today: because a toddler doesn't care if the toy is pink or blue, because dolls are for everybody and cars for everybody. Society imposes its vision of gender differences from cradle to grave. I'm against that. It all goes against self-determination, and this for me is everything. The right to be whomever you are. Since we're talking about feminism, I might as well add right now: for me, getting married is admitting that you need state recognition for your love. I don't need the state to recognize my love for anybody or recognize my right to live or do whatever with whomever. I don't need marriage. On a practical side, divorces are too expensive, and I believe people should stay together if they feel they want to, not because they have to. In short, I don't believe in marriage.
I don't believe in having children either. I can be passionate about a lot of things and people but becoming a mother is beyond me. I refuse this. It's slavery: work for no pay, and actually it's expensive. I don't want my life to revolve around one person, I don't need this sense of purpose. My purpose in life, as far as I'm concerned, is to be happy and be the person I am.
I believe in open relationships, in catching moments of happiness whenever, I believe in being open and true and honest.

The reason I love Harry Potter so much is because it gave me, as Time magazine puts it, "social, moral and political inspiration". You can change what you think isn't right. There's an alternative to doing nothing and stare at the world. Take action. And the reason why I love Hermione is because she's the perfect example of this: "Get all the education you can, but then, do something. Don't just stand there, make it happen." (Lee Iacocca) Education is important because it gives you your weapons to be the change you want for the world. That's why I want to teach.

Sentimentality saddens me. It's terrible and yet so many people indulge in it. I avoid sentimentality at all costs. When I tell people I'm working on Jane Austen, I can see they think I'm on their side - the side of the people who think Jane Austen is sentimental, somebody who writes for women (oh dear), places marriage at the center of things (oh dear) and loves romantic things (oh dear). She's not any of these things. She's witty and would mock so many people's idea of her today. I don't read her for escapism, I read her before her writings are not neat, because Elizabeth fell in love with Darcy when she saw how grandiose Pemberley was, because Brandon fell for Marianne because he reminded her of his childhood sweetheart, because Tilney fell for Catherine because it was obvious she liked him. I love Jane because none of her marriages work. I love Jane because she laughs at people swooning over wet shirts, I love Jane because she's daring. I love Jane because she's funny. I love Jane because she's on the side of justice and because her wittiest characters always win. I love Jane because she would laugh at Twilight, and yet she's one of Stephenie Meyer's favourite writers (another one who hasn't read the same books I did, obviously). She would laugh at people relaxing on a Sunday night while watching a period drama. She hinted at things they don't pay attention to: people died from a cold, poverty was everywhere and could happen overnight, women were trapped and went from father to husband. I love Jane for all these reasons, not because I want to live in early 19th century (oh dear) and swoon each time I reread Pride and Prejudice because it's genteel.

I don't think anything was "better back then" or worse, "simpler". I love a lot of black and white movies (the idea of "classic" is disturbing, like there's the canon and then the rest, we can do better than that, come on) because the stories are great, not because they're glamorous. Love Crazy is the story of a couple having fun, The Shop Around the Corner is the story of two people who fall for each other because they really have things in common, mainly literature.

I don't think television is not as good as cinema. Television is just as good. Gilmore Girls for me is the story of women who are a lot like me, who reference works of fiction all the time because they know how much they influence their lives. It's the story of a woman who raised a daughter alone, of independent women who are exceptional because they are interesting for themselves, not because being paired up makes them interesting.

I'm passionate about good food. However, I don't like chocolate, coffee or most teas. Now that I'm at it, I don't drink alcohol, I don't smoke and I don't do drugs. Chocolate, tea and alcohol taste awful. Coffee smells incredible but tastes awful. Cigarettes smell awful. I'm not into destroying myself, I love life. Good food is high on my list of priorities.

I think most of all I believe in wit. Because there are so many funny details in life to miss out on these moments of fun. I'm looking for laughter in almost everything I do. Laughter and honesty, even bluntness. Because "people who are shocked need to be shocked more often" (Mae West said that, hear hear). Wit is hard to achieve because it raises you above a situation and makes you an observer, even if you're involved. I believe witty people are the best because they're subversive in the best way.

And this is Sibylle in a nutshell! I don't believe in changing for anybody. I know who I am. No excuses, no apologies, no regrets (that's Brian Kinney in Queer as Folk) - to me that means one has to be the best person they can the first time around and then, I say, it's take it or leave it.

Sibylle