Hi guys! It's Olivia here and today I'm gonna give you my discussion video on
the Peter Pan by JM Barrie. So I read this one and I didn't enjoy it and I'm
here to tell you why and just discuss some of the aspects of the book. There
will be spoilers so if you haven't read the classic or you're planning on
reading the classic, maybe don't watch this. But a lot of people know this
general storyline because of the movie and because of pop culture. And if so just
grab some tea cuz we gonna bring some tea to this video. So first of all let me
tell you what Peter Pan is about and I think most of you know. It's about Peter
and Wendy. Peter Pan is this boy who lives in Neverland and he never grows up.
And he has adventures there with the Lost Boys. They fight against Captain
Hook and they have encounters with the natives of the island. Yeah, he just flies
to the human world and he sees Wendy and Wendy and her brothers. And Peter
Pan decides to bring them to Neverland and they have some adventures there. And
that's basically what this book is about. Before I bring in all the tea and all
the sass about all the terrible things about this book, I wanted to try -- try! -- and
say some good things. So I've got a list of some good things here. Let's go through them.
The first good thing is that JM Barrie did exactly what he intended to do with
this book. It's supposed to be a discussion about youth and adulthood.
How adulthood is significantly different than young life hood and there should be
some type of distinction and separation between the two. It also discusses about
whether kids are inherently good or evil, especially in the character of Peter Pan
and also, you know, Peter Pan reflected on Wendy and the other Lost Boys. So he does
get that discussion going. And, you know what? This book was a best-seller in
his time and it's still around now so ultimately if it's Olivia's opinion
versus JM Barrie's opinion, JM Barrie wins. He made money, he sold his book, it's
still around all these years later. You win, JM Barrie, you win. It also
manages to make a mockery of adults. Like, the parents in this book are pretty
awful parents and that's really discussing about the fact how children
sometimes know than parents
give them credit for. They can be more sensible, they can be more cunning than
parents can be and this book does show that as well. Also, if you read some
introductions to this classic book... so I think in particular the
introduction that comes before Peter Pan in one of the Penguin Classics editions.
I think it looks like this. But in that introduction it talks about
jamberries life and the choices he made in life. And compares it to the Peter Pan
story and you see some really disturbing links between the storyline and his life
and what he was trying to do in the story. Whether I believe that all or not
I don't know. I also tried my best not to think about it because that's just
creepy and weird. But yeah, if that's what he was aiming to do: to call out people
in his life in the way that he did and reflect on different people... he also
achieved that. Is that a good thing? I don't know, but he achieved it. Okay, that's it.
That's all I can really say for the good things because I really want to get to the bad
things and you know, that's what I'm really here to talk about. So let's talk
about the bad things about Peter Pan. And the glaring one that they have to start
with is the racism in this book. So we have natives to the island and they are
portrayed in a very very poor way. They're portrayed as rough. They're
portrayed as having these weird rituals that are sometimes even a danger to
themselves. They are portrayed as childlike and infant like. They're
basically made a huge mockery of. They're called this slur throughout the book
the whole time. They are called and labelled this throughout the book
multiple times. So there's one occasion where Tiger Lily who is the chief's
daughter in the tribe, gets trapped as she's pretty much kind of dying. And then
Peter Pan saves her. And once Peter Pan saves her the natives all start to call
Peter Pan 'the great white father' and they basically glorify him. Which is just
a glaring white Savior trope right in your face. And as well as that they all
start to do exactly what he says. It sounds a bit like colonialism and
slavery to me. The way that things go down is the fact that Tiger Lily, she kind
of has these descriptions which are of two minds as well. In one
case Tiger Lily is a savage and she's just like all ripped up and torn kind of
like the other natives to the island. But then on the other hand she's pretty much
as beautiful as it gets, and she kind of wants to be Peter Pan's wife. That's
heavily suggested. And although Peter Pan is kind of like: no thanks, because he's
all about being eternally young. The fact that Tiger Lily just wants to be with
him because he's like, the best that she's gonna get. And the fact that Peter
Pan and the narrator kind of describes her as desirable but undesirable at the same
time just goes for the way that people describe people colour back in the day.
And it just fits that to the bill. And then when it comes to the natives in
battle their biggest kryptonite is the fact that they stick to their ritual so
they can't even really save themselves because they have to do things a
tribal way. And is trying to kind of, portray their tribal practices in a
very negative light and as harmful to themselves. We've to talk about how gendered
Peter Pan is. There's a very clear distinction that women have to be one
way and men get to be another way. So for example Wendy is brought to the island
to Neverland, and she is portrayed as the mother. The kids even call her mother,
like, The Lost Boys and Peter Pan even though Wendy is a child herself. They
call her mother and Wendy gets to stay home and repair the boys clothes and
cook food and give them medicine and tuck them up in bed. And she's very
content to do this while they all go off and have their "male" adventures where
they get to shoot guns and fight pirates. And they just come back and tell her all
about it and Wendy's like: oh, that's really nice. So Wendy just really is a huge
stereotype of what women should be like back in that day. And then the male
perspective is all about the benches and fighting and all of that tough stuff. So
you get to see this huge gender separation. Even when it comes to dreams,
when they were talking about what the kids dream about. Wendy was described as
dreaming about a wolf cub that's lost and she takes the wolf cub and nurtures
it like the mother she is. While the boys are thinking of, you know, fighting
pirates and shooting them with guns. So you get this huge gender dynamic that's
just very present. And then speaking of gender let's talk about the girl-on-girl
hate in this book. You would think that there
can't be girl on girl hate because there's literally two, three?? female
characters. Wendy, the mother, Tinkerbell and Tiger Lily. Okay, there's four female
characters. But of those four female characters excluding the mother,
you kind of get mostly girl and girl hate .Tiger Lily is not featured unless
she is showing how terrible the native are or begging Peter Pan to marry her so
she's kind of excluded from this. But Tinkerbell who is a female fairy
absolutely hates Wendy. She's very worried that Wendy's gonna replace her
as Peter's favorite female. I don't understand.
But Tinkerbell is just so mean to Wendy. She tries to get Wendy killed at some
point which is very dark. And she just never never has a taking to Wendy. She
swears at Wendy, she teases Wendy and it's all this huge go on girl hate
mentality that we just try to get rid of in the present day is very present in that.
And we have to talk about how horrible Peter Pan actually is as a
character. So you've got the Lost Boys and The Lost Boys miss their mother. When
Peter Pan goes off on singular adventures and just leaves them behind
to have adventures by himself because that's who he is. He sometimes forgets
about the Lost Boys for long periods of time where they have to fend for
themselves.Which is just not responsible if you've brought them here. But he also
tells the boy is that they cannot talk about mothers to him and they cannot
express that they've missed their mothers. But the boys really do. So
they're basically in fear of Peter Pan and don't mention their mothers
around him. And they suppress all that sadness which again is a very toxic
representation of masculinity, as you need to repress certain emotions because you
have to be tough, you have to be bold and you cannot feel sadness and miss people
that you care about. So that's kind of presented in this book. As well
that they're kind of scared of Peter Pan. They do everything he says.
Sometimes Peter Pan brings them food and they're grateful and they get to eat.
But sometimes Peter Pan pretends that he's eating food and he tells the Lost
Boys that they have to pretend that they're eating food and feel full as well even
though the Lost Boys are practically starving.
And again, that's just you know not a very good representation. And it just
shows how cruel Peter Pan is to these boys who miss their parents, who are
sometimes hungry, who want to go home. And he just goes off and leaves them alone
sometimes and they just fend for themselves. Also basically he's kidnapped
them. So they want to go back he's not letting them go back. That's basically
kidnapping. And Peter Pan is also manipulative because when the Lost Boys
are like trying to get home he tries to pretend that he doesn't care. He tries to
pretend that doesn't bother him whatsoever they can just totally well go.
And he's kind of trying to influence them to stay by saying like: oh, I really
don't care if you go so really shouldn't want to go because I don't care. You're only
doing it to spite me. And it's kind of a bit of a manipulative sort of behavior
which is just again, very very problematic. Then last but not least just
a couple of things. Wendy feels pressured to stay young and
not grow up at the end. Which just goes to show how controlling Peter Pan is and
how worried that she is about what he thinks rather than what she's doing and
independent self. Even when she is a fully grown adult who has her own
daughter, she still doesn't want to show Peter Pan that she's an adult. So that
just goes to show how much he manipulated her and how people pleasing
that Wendy's trying to be. Gender is involved in that once again. Lastly, I
also found that it was a bit boring. The story just didn't captivate me. Nothing
intriguing really happened all the way through and the narrator was really
annoying. In the way that he would start stories then be like: oh, actually that's
a story for another day. And you just never get to hear about it again. So it
just felt a bit like, why did you even tell me in the first place. I just
wanted the narrator's to stop directing where I was going and just let me read
the story and make of it what I would. Hook... I mean this is not a bad thing. Hook
was actually quite an interesting character. I just wish Hook was in it more.
And I also found it very interesting to compare Hook to Peter Pan because they
both have a lot of similar traits. And I felt like actually Hook was a better
character than Peter Pan. Or a more likeable character than Peter Pan. Which
was actually really interesting to think about and analyze. But in the grand
scheme of things Hook is just not in it enough for that to redeem the
book me. There you have it. Those are my extensive
thoughts on Peter Pan. Please Iet me know in the comment section down below if you agree or
disagree with me. Or if you want to contest anything I have to say. Or yeah, I
know lots of people love Peter Pan. I know some people don't love Peter Pan. I
respect all opinions here. Please give this video a thumbs up if you enjoyed it,
hit the subscribe button if you want to see more, and don't forget to hit that
notification bell to be updated every time I have a new video. I'll see you in
my next one. Goodbye!