Mattie Ross is the star of the award winning film True Grit made by the Coen Brothers.
This is a remake of the 1969 film starring John Wayne which is in itself
an adaptation of the 1968 Charles Portis novel.
The 14 year old lead character is played by Hailee Steinfeld
who much to my surprise was only 13 when filming the movie.
This is a significant and welcome change from the original casting
where actor Kim Darby was 21 when playing Mattie Ross.
it's always nice seeing young actors playing lead roles in serious films
especially young women, because they are offered so few of these.
Without giving too much away, this is a classic western narrative about the search
for revenge, self-reliance, and independence in a harsh and unforgiving land.
The movie follows Mattie on her quest for revenge against the man who killed her father.
To help her on in this venture, she hires notorious US Marshall Rooster Cogburn, known for his ruthless grit.
The Marshall initially dismisses and ridicules Mattie because of her age and gender
however, she convinces him of her confidence and they set out on the trail to find the killer
For those of you who haven't seen True Grit, there's going to be a few spoilers ahead.
What's so captivating about Mattie's character is how witty and smart she is
and how daring, self-reliant and independent she is.
She's full of confidence in herself and her abilities in a hostile, male-dominated world.
These are traits rarely ascribed to female characters, let alone female teenage characters
One of my favorite scenes comes early on when Mattie sucessfully negotiates with
an unscrupulous horse trader.
And I want $300 for Papa's saddle horse that was stolen from your stable.
You have to take that up with the man who stole the horse.
Tom Cheney stole the horse while he was in your care. You are responsible.
hahaha... Yeah, I admire your saying, but you'll find I'm not liable for such claims.
You are the custodian. If you were a bank and it were robbed you could not simply tell the depositer to go hang.
I do not entertain hypothetical, the world as it is is vexing enough.
Secondly, your evaluation of the horse is high by about 200 dollars.
How old are you?
If anything, my price is low. Judy is a fine racing mare.
I've seen her jump a 8 whirl fence with a heavy rider. I'm 14.
Mattie really is a breathe of fresh air
As Rebecca Keegan points out in her LA Times article
“Given that female adolescents are frequently depicted on-screen as vapid, angst-ridden, pregnant or merely decorative.
Mattie Ross is a remarkable role. She never shakes out her braids in a makeover montage, swoons
over a cute stable boy or frets about the daunting task at hand.”
I wholeheartedly agree, however, I've been a little dismayed by some mainstream media articles
and some blog posts that are quick to label Mattie a "feminist character."
Personally, I think it's a little bit of a leap
While it is certainly true that Mattie possesses a number of admirable traits
rarely seen in female movie rolls,
I'm just not convinced she's a feminist character.
Here are the two main reasons why:
All characters need a good story arc where they're one way when the story starts
and they learn a lesson or change or grow or regress or something.
The point is that the character has transformed from the place that they were
at the beginning of the story to some place different by the end.
For all intents and purposes, Mattie is basically the same person
from the first scene to the closing credits.
When she first steps off the train, she may be a little bit naive
but she is still fairly confident, self-assured, independent and emotionally cold.
During her experiences traveling with Rooster and LaBoeuf she retains all
of those traits and seems fairly unaffected by the danger, brutality and death all around her.
As an adult, she seems to have changed very little, if at all
and that leads directly into point number 2.
At no point in the film do we see a real range of emotion, such as sorrow,
despair, or grief for the loss of her father
Mattie's entire reason for being, as far as we're shown in the movie
is to seek the death of his murderer, an outlaw named Tom Cheney.
She is unwavering in her conviction that justice can only come through
the hanging of Tom Cheney in the town square
In fact, the whole film frames the murder of Tom Cheney as justice
whether he meets it by the state, by the US Marshalls, or by Mattie herself
It's never questioned that maybe "an eye for eye" is not such a good idea
We don't see Mattie questioning capital punishment ie. the death penalty,
or really considering any other potential forms of justice.
Even after she kills Cheney, she still shows no emotion
In fact, no one in the movie seems to be effected by brutality, death or the suffering of others.
As we know, all people, regardless of gender
are capable of the entire range of human behaviors
But since we live in a male-dominated, male-centered society
traits stereotypically identified as masculine
are more valued and consequently, more celebrated by Hollywood.
While traits stereotypically identified as feminine,
are undervalued and often denigrated.
This may be one of the reasons why people are quick to adopt Mattie as a feminist character,
and other female pop culture characters who are considered strong and tough.
The feminism I subscribe to and work for involves more than
women and our fictional representations simply acting like men
or unquestionably replicating archetypal male values
such as being being emotionally inexpressive, the need for domination and competition
and using violence as a form of conflict resolution.
In my feminist vision, part of what makes a character feminist is watching her struggle
with prioritizing values such as cooperation, emathy, compassion
and non violent conflict resolution in a world largely hostile to those values.
I think feminist characters should, like feminists in real life
push beyond societal norms, challange gender roles
and the institutions that actively work to maintain them.
And let me be clear here, this is not to say that I don't want characters who are flawed, because I do,
I want characters who are subtle, who make mistakes and who don't always do everything right.
but I want those characters to fit into overarching themes where they're not stuck
in stereotypical roles such as the damsel in distress, the girlfriend, or the love interest.
And on the other hand, I don't want them to just recast tough male roles for women to play,
which we've been seeing a lot of lately.
In True Grit, Mattie is certainly subverting expected gender roles
by being witty and smart and competent and independent
yet she is not challagenging the set of partiarchal, archetypical
male values ever-present in most mass media narratives,
she is actually adopting them.