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Three White Mice CommentaryCommentary on Three White Mice Spoiler alert. Really. Don't read on if you prefer to make up your own mind about what underlies a story. I'm not a big fan of lit crit, mostly because it's a reader's job to manipulate and distill what goes in through the eyes so that it can trickle happily into the brain. A piece of writing is completed by the reader, and it's my job to give you a tasty treat to pull apart, not to cut up your meat for you. But it's kind of fun to turn the lit crit lens on yourself every now and then, just to see if people agree with you about what you've written. If you do read on, and you don't agree, I'll be interested to hear what I wrote from you. A Brief Distillation of The Three White Mice This story is about how adults view childhood innocence, and how it can poison the very people they're trying to protect by turning the transition to adulthood into something fraught with fear and disgust. Men especially treat girlhood innocence with a kind of reverence that can be stifling. It's the beginning of the Madonna-whore trap that women get backed into; either we're pure or we're filthy. But women are neither, and both. . . The man in this story views the sanctuary the girl offers with true reverence, but his very presence shifts and changes it irreparably. He can't help wanting to be there, but he can't help destroying it either. But by destroying it, he's really liberating the girl. The only problem for him is that as soon as he frees her, she may want nothing more to do with him. Sexuality is a double-edged sword for women. We need to be sexual to fulfil our promise and our potential as human beings, but we can so easily be criticised for expressing our sexual feelings. And it's a double-edged sword for men as well: by adhering the Madonna-whore paradigm, or rather paradox, men sometimes disdain the innocent woman they've pursued as soon as she becomes involved sexually with them. As soon as she ‘succumbs,' her attractiveness is at an end. Both sexes have addictions to potential gratification that sometimes supercedes an actual desire for fulfilment. Women dress and speak to attract men, but only follow through with what they constantly promise tacitly with infrequency. Men are attracted to women they see as mysterious or pure, so that when they actually achieve their objective, the woman is instantly spoiled for all future contact. She becomes a whore by stepping off the Madonna pedestal to kiss him. But the truth is, she needs to come off that pedestal and walk into the woods, and she needs not to care what she's thought of when she does. And he needs to be excited enough to head off into the forest with her. Whenever men or women step beyond the pedestals and the Madonna-whore complex, it's uncharted territory. And that's where the real adventure beings. Return to The Writer's Way Return from Three White Mice Commentary to WILDsound Filmmaking Feedback Events home page all work © by jen frankel
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