Persecuted innocence
The subject of persecuted innocence or the virgin in distress ( French demoiselle en détresse , English damsel in distress ) is a role type in novels, art, theater, film, comics, video games, related to the youthful naive or the ingenious . It is a young, beautiful woman who is threatened by a monster or villain , rescued by a usually male hero and emerges strengthened from this threat.
As a controversial definition of a female gender role , persecuted innocence is still present today. As a stereotype , it became the target of feminist criticism. The role subject offered actresses interesting roles.
history
Antiquity
In addition to a broad repertoire of powerful goddesses, there are also numerous helpless virgins in Greek mythology who are supposed to be kidnapped, held captive or offered as sacrifices. A well-known example is Andromeda , whose parents tied her to a rock on the coast to appease the offended Poseidon . The hero Perseus saved Andromeda. This corresponds to the basic structure of the virgin rescued from a monster.
A continuous story of material that is derived from ancient roots is problematic due to the unequal social conditions. A fundamental change happened when the differences between the sexes became more important than those between the classes : in the western world as a result of bourgeoisie in the 17th and 18th centuries. Century.
middle Ages
The Virgin in Distress was a common character in medieval novels , in which she is usually freed from captivity by a noble knight.
European folk tales , although their medieval origins are controversial, often contain the motif of persecuted innocence: Rapunzel is held captive in the tower by an evil witch until a prince comes to free her; Sleeping Beauty can only be awakened from her death-like sleep by a prince's kiss. “Medieval” fairy tales were used in the 18th and early 19th centuries to evade the classic mythological material that was taken over by the aristocratic tragedy in the court theater .
In heroic epics , the rescue and subsequent marriage to a threatened female figure is often one of the hero's tasks on his path to success, wealth and domination. Often it is dragons who guard either a maid or a pot of gold and must be overcome; this equality of the appropriation of a woman or a material good is a starting point for feminist criticism.
The motif is also found in legends of the Catholic Church, best known in the story of St. George . He saves a princess from being devoured by a dragon as an offering and baptizes her at the end. The festive baptism can be understood as an analogy to the usual wedding, which would not be appropriate for a saint.
18th and 19th centuries
In the eighteenth-century novel, the motif of persecuted innocence appears as a metaphor for the clashes between the bourgeoisie and the nobility, rather than as a moral educational program. With the Glorious Revolution, Great Britain had a social advantage over continental Europe in terms of class differences.
In entertainment theater , especially in the Rührstück , the "persecuted innocence" should prove that women of low origin could have a serious fate. In addition, it was not until the 18th century that it became common for women to be played by actresses instead of men in disguise. The persecuted innocence is considered a classic figure of melodrama , which in the 18th century, starting from London and later from Paris, prevailed as a serious dramatic genre for a lower class only partially literate against the then exclusively aristocratic tragedy . The pursued innocence as the heroine of the melodrama or the entertainment novel closely related to it is therefore not an aristocrat like the princesses in tragedy, but her persecutor is often a nobleman. When the nobles lost their power, the villain was increasingly absolutized into a monster. The vampire Count Dracula stands in a sense in the middle between the noble and the monster.
England - horror literature
In George Lillo's drama The London Merchant (1731), which is often viewed as a model for later melodramas, the tragic fate of seduction is still reserved for a bourgeois man. The female persecuted innocence debuts in the modern novel as the eponymous heroine of Samuel Richardson's novel Pamela (1740), who becomes involved with her noble admirer as soon as he agrees to marry. As a more extreme variant followed Clarissa (1748), who is threatened by a wicked seducer named Lovelace (see "loveless"). Historical figures who faced a fate similar to that of Emma Hamilton , on the other hand, met with only limited social recognition.
The exaggeration of this victim role could turn into the pleasure of scenes of violence or their parody . The 18th century novel is rich in female characters held captive in a monastery or castle by sadistic nobles or members of a religious order. The role type of the virgin in distress was widespread in the horror literature (English Gothic Fiction ) of the 18th and 19th centuries. Examples are Matilda in Horace Walpoles Castle of Otranto (1764), Emily in Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) and Antonia in Matthew Lewis The Monk (1796).
A number of London theaters, such as the Adelphi Theater , for which James Planché and Jane Scott wrote numerous plays, had specialized in melodramas since around 1800.
Continental Europe - professional battles
Novels by French enlighteners such as Denis Diderot's Die Nun , where a young nun in monasteries is also continuously abused by female villains, were often banned and successfully sold under the counter.
According to the so-called class clause , as it represented the French classic in a particularly rigid variant, characters of low origin in the theater could only be funny. This was overcome by turning “ordinary people” into tragic figures, as for example Gotthold Ephraim Lessing attempted with his drama Emilia Galotti (1772) based on English and French models. Emilia escapes the dishonor of an obtrusive nobleman by tearfully murdered by her father.
The center of continental European theater at that time was the Parisian Boulevard du Temple , on whose stages the actress Adèle Dupuis (1789–1847) played seduced, kidnapped or drowned young women in 75,000 performances [more likely 7,500], as reported in the Almanac des Spectacles 1823 . Were often silent roles as Fenella in Daniel Francois Esprit Auber's opera La muette de Portici (1831).
Prince Tamino in Mozart's Magic Flute (1791), who was saved by the Queen of the Night on his flight from a snake and then fell in love with the image of her daughter without hesitation, is a kind of travesty of persecuted innocence. In the portrait aria, masculine innocence celebrates an emancipation of feelings, as is part of this role. It is important that the characters are noble in comedy rather than bourgeois characters in tragedy.
Nevertheless, the pursued innocence persists as a female role cliché. The range of depictions ranges from the Gretchen tragedy (1772) in Goethe's Faust , the main character of which is seduced not by a nobleman but by a bourgeois man willing to emancipate, to the Marquis de Sade's novel Justine (1787) , who deliberately portrays himself as a nobleman used anti-aristocratic clichés.
United States
In the United States, characters who expressed "emotions of private life" were considered more American than the "flirting principles" of European theater. The interest in looking at her soul under a magnifying glass, as it were, gave female figures from humble backgrounds a meaning never before known. The tragic magnitude of female suffering promised higher social prestige for the characters portrayed and great roles for the actresses.
Variants since the 20th century
After the aristocratic upper class through the First World War had lost their power, became increasingly no longer understood that the female suffering role originally for emancipation had contributed bourgeois characters and the actresses and still popular cliché was propagated as a sign of female discrimination and sexism perceived . This paradoxical interplay of emancipation and oppression , which has stuck to the role type of persecuted innocence since its inception, offers space for a wide variety of interpretations to this day.
Use on the political stage
In the English-speaking area, Elizabeth I, like her opponents, used the Damsel in Distress as a metaphor for political roles. Elisabeth was imprisoned as a result of the Wyatt conspiracy in 1554 and placed under house arrest by her half-sister Maria I. The future queen was represented by the Protestant side as Damsel in distress, who resisted temptation and, despite great pressure from the Catholics, resisted conversion with God's help. The future Virgin or Maiden Queen never agreed to a marriage that would have put an end to this idealization.
Later, the trope was used in plays and film adaptations of Elisabeth's later conflict with Maria Stuart . Mary Queen of Scots was shown as a persecuted innocence who regularly bursts into tears, waiting for outside help, while Elisabeth asserts herself with the help of her own intellect.
A classic variant of the romantic chivalric novel, as well as the associated trope in theatrical performances, was the depiction of a noblewoman who was disguised as a page under her stand. In this way, she could be close to her lover and at the same time was exposed to the erotic desire of men and women as well as the danger of discovery. This constellation, known in Germany in Hauff's art fairy tale The Wirtshaus im Spessart, was already a common motif in England in the 16th century. It is said that Queen Elizabeth I spoke to her ambassador for Scotland about a meeting with Mary Queen of Scots in 1564. He suggested bringing her to Maria disguised as a page. The Maiden Queen often showed up with male regalia. But she was not ready to cast off her claim to power by disguising it as an inferior servant, and turned down the proposal.
An encounter between Maria Stuart and Elizabeth never took place in reality, but is one of the dramatic climaxes of the play Maria Stuart by Friedrich Schiller . From the perspective of a 1987 review of a performance at the Edinburgh Festival , Schiller portrays Stuart as Mary as a radiant heroine, almost the classic damsel in distress, persecuted by wicked Queen Bess . that was by no means intended at the time; The model was the classic royal dramas.
From melodrama to film
In Victorian melodrama, according to Michael R. Booth, the pursued innocence was part of the cast alongside a villain, a somewhat dumb but radiant hero, an elderly and a comical couple, which despite the mostly serious plot on comedy traditions like that of the Commedia dell 'arte refers. Also silent films followed this pattern, such as The Adventures of Kathlyn (1913) and The Hazards of Helen (1914).
There were still tragedies in the medium of film: the main character Lucy in Broken Blossoms (1919) by David Wark Griffith cannot be saved. A German-language melodrama in which, as there, the father of innocence is portrayed as the villain is Der Müller und seine Kind .
If, on the other hand, a happy ending was sought, the development of the female capacity for suffering was put in its place by a saving man. To do this, it was necessary to show the damsel in danger with the “ Cliffhanger ” . Fay Wray as Ann Darrow in the 1933 film classic King Kong and the White Woman or the docu parody or the exploitation film Ingagi (1930) provided authoritative embodiments of the cliché.
The silent films and early sound films up to 1934 were significantly more free in their portrayal of sexual allusions and personalities (see e.g. Safe in Hell , 1931) than after the introduction and implementation of the Hays Code . Critic Andrew Erish stated that "gorillas plus sexy women in danger mean huge profits." The change in societal ideas about evil, but also the (sexual) other, shows itself in the context of persecuted innocence as a change in the image of women .
The 1930s and 1940s saw an increased portrayal of "strong women" in series, for example at Republic Pictures . With the cliffhanger, however, they could be found in helpless or hopeless situations just as the damsels once did . Actresses like Linda Stirling and Kay Aldridge portrayed strong women who were by no means passively facing the villains.
Vaudeville
An influential art form were also magic performances in the vaudevilles and variety shows at the beginning of the 20th century. Jim Steinmeyer regards the sawed-up maiden, presented in 1921 by the magician PT Selbit, as typical. According to Steinmeyer, the First World War significantly reduced sensitivity to demonstrations of violence.
This has also contributed to the success of the Grand Guignol as a genre. This form of theater, which specializes in horror performances, influenced both the “unleashed theater” of modernity and modern splatter and horror films .
One of the most famous actresses of the Grand Guignol, Paula Maxa , was the victim of several thousand rapes and murders in her stage career.
Modern representations
Mainstream media
Even today, the Damsel in Distress is an indispensable motif and stereotype in films, television series, novels, magazines, computer games and other modern media: women threatened by murderers in detective novels, kidnapping victims to be freed from the hero or hostages of the villain in action films, after dark Heroes languishing and thereby passively surrendering themselves to danger ( Twilight - Bis (s) zum Dawn , 2009) or wife to be protected. Persecuted innocence is such a persistent motif as a counterpart or an object to be obtained of the male hero that it is often hardly noticed. With her film In the Cut (2003) Jane Campion tries to make this structure more conscious. As early as the 1970s, however , a similarly stereotypical counter-image was created with Mary Sue , a female main character who loosely solves all problems.
Video games
In early video games like The Adventures of Bayou Billy or Double Dragon, critics often noted the frequent use of the damsel-in-distress motif. As early as the 1990s, other female characters of the girlie type were increasingly introduced, who, like Nikita or Buffy, combined attractiveness and activity in films and video games. The Tomb Raider heroine Lara Croft , who was often criticized as a male projection, received an extensive, also scientific reception . Mary Flanagan argues (after Gladys L. Knight) that the typical early reception did not understand the difference between a more or less voyeuristic view of sexistically exaggerated cover images and actual gaming. The games made it possible to act as an attractive person, which is appealing to both sexes. In 2013, American media critic and blogger Anita Sarkeesian received greater media attention. In a video blog financed by Kickstarter, she spoke out against stereotypical damsel-in-distress depictions in video games and was subsequently exposed to a downright hate campaign in the internet community.
Bondage and BDSM
BDSM is now common in the literature as the associated scene collective name for a group of related sexual preferences, with dominance and submission as well as playful punishment and bondage games ( bondage can stand) in context. The figure of persecuted innocence is widespread in the bondage environment. The appearances of Damsel in Distress in films and magazines in the mainstream environment also include bondage aspects that convey tension as well as sexual stimuli. The figure of persecuted innocence per se is an established fetish in the BDSM environment, especially in bondage. The Japanese art of bondage " Shibari " (also " Kinbaku ") emphasizes the aesthetic aspect and charm of the situation.
Pictures made for this are only known in modern times, for example by Franz von Bayros pictures from the boudoir of Madame CC from 1912. As Didcap , a portmanteau from DiD , for “Damsel in Distress” and vidcap for video recordings are short in the associated scene Clips from mainstream films that are appealing to fetishists. They are more interested in the singled out situations than in the resolution of the tension arc.
For the pin-ups of Art Frahm images were typical in which beautiful women by mishaps or becoming loose clothes in distress fall. A well-known modern publicist in the field was John Willie , who became known as a bondage artist in particular through his literary character Sweet Gwendoline .
Gwendoline, a somewhat dumb, voluptuous blonde, is regularly freed from various awkward situations and restraints by a black-haired secret agent (who is said to have served as a model for Emma Peel ). The clumsy Sir Dystic d'Arcy and a dominant countess contribute to this. Also known in the community are Robert K. Bishop The Art of Bondage , a magazine series from 1993 and Eric Stanton .
In her contribution to the monograph Embodied Resistance: Challenging the Norms, Breaking the Rules edited by Chris Bobel and Samantha Kwan , Danielle J. Lindemann questions the extent to which BDSM is portrayed as sexual liberation using the example of the Damsel in Distress situation in professional BDSM can be understood beyond the norms. Lindemann refers to Judith Butler's The Uneasiness of the Sexes . With the portrayal and role play as Damsel in Distress, classic role models would be cemented rather than dissolved. For example when cross-dressing men appear in the role of "damsel" or "sissy".
One direction in sociology that originated from Ralph Linton and later from Erving Goffman sees a close connection between social roles and theater roles - the sociologist Frigga Haug , on the other hand, rejects role analogy.
New burlesque
Jacki Wilson, who teaches cultural studies at the Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design , sees the importance of the damsel in distress, for example in Dita Von Teese's photo motifs in the representation and production of femininity. As a result of the reform movement, the previously customary, cumbersome women's clothing went out of fashion. This represents a loss of gender-specific aesthetics and care in clothing, as Wilson emphasizes, which is also the case with the now less formal men's clothing. Wilson sees an exaggeration of a female role model in the corresponding depictions of Damsel in Distress in the context of New Burlesque . Von Teese made this a conscious goal, especially when portraying Damsel in Distress, because such a careful stylization of vulnerability, self-esteem and glamor is missing in today's everyday life.
Image of women
In romance
Beyond the depiction of the Damsel in distress, Daniel P. Watkins initially sees the romantic image of women as a male view of the desirable, rather passive woman. At the same time, however, the Marxist-influenced feminist criticism underestimated its potential, which is present, for example, in the Damsel with a Dulcimer in Samuel Taylor Coleridge Kubla Khan and which is inseparable from the fascination of the women described. The poem has similar connotations in Great Britain as the Lore Lay Clemens Brentanos or the Lore-Ley Heinrich Heines. In Coleridge's poem Christabel , her companion Geraldine, initially described as persecuted innocence, becomes a completely independent, seductively dangerous, mysterious woman. According to this, romanticism has a positive effect in the feminist sense, which reinforces utopian thinking and works to free sensual desire from the constraints of unequal power relations.
Feminism and Gender Studies
From a feminist perspective, fairy tales were criticized in the 1970s for the different and unjust portrayals of men and women, and literature was collected that should be free of them; Angela Carter and Jane Yolen rewrote fairy tales and legends. The pattern is not generally canceled, but the gender roles are often reversed and, conversely, the male protagonist is brought into the endangered role. The Bluebeard fairy tale was revised numerous times in this context.
The following on feminism gender studies were interested in the cultural sex ( gender ) and its history. The cultural historian Thomas Laqueur developed the idea of a "two-gender model" that emerged in the 18th century with the role models in theater and literature.
Joseph Campbell and Christopher Vogler endeavor with the image of the " hero's journey " to show the positive qualities of persecuted innocence, even if the rescuers are mostly male. A well-known persecuted innocence is Pauline from the silent film series The Perils of Pauline (1914). According to Campbell and Vogler's interpretation, the heroine is portrayed as a strong and self-confident woman, who has to endure a lot on the way to her goal of an independent existence as a writer. Ben Singer, with similar intent, denied the claim that these films could only be traced back to male fantasies; on the contrary, they were aimed at a predominantly female audience. Among other things, What Happened to Mary? of 1912, the first series film to appear in McClure's Ladies' World , a women's magazine, at the same time as a serialized novel .
literature
- Hans-Jürgen Lüsebrink: The persecuted innocence and its lawyers - on the rhetoric and public effect of sensitive speech in France in the 18th century. In: Klaus P. Hansen (Ed.): Sensibilities. Rothe, Passau 1990, ISBN 3-927575-15-1 , pp. 121-135.
- Pascal Nicklas : Aporia and apotheosis of persecuted innocence. Samuel Richardson and Sophie from La Roche. In: Colloqium Helveticum. No. 24, 1996, ISSN 0179-3780 , pp. 29-60.
- Mario Praz : The Romantic Agony. 2nd Edition. Emphasis. Oxford University Press, Oxford (England) 1991, ISBN 0-19-281061-8 (English).
- Gabriele Dietze : Hardboiled Woman. Gender warfare in American detective novel. European Publishing House, Hamburg 1997, ISBN 3-434-50411-7 .
- Hans-Dieter Gelfert : Small history of the English literature. 2nd updated edition. Beck, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-406-52856-2 .
- Robert K. Klepper: Silent Films, 1877-1996. A Critical Guide to 646 Movies. McFarland, Jefferson (North Carolina / USA) 2005, ISBN 0-7864-2164-9 (English).
- Verena-Susanna Nungesser: Persecuted Innocence and Serial Killer. Structures, functions and transmedia transformations of the “Bluebeard” fairy tale in Anglo-American literature and film. Lit Verlag, Münster u. a. 2012, ISBN 978-3-643-11917-9 (also dissertation, University of Gießen 2010).
Web links
- Extensive collection of examples of the "Damsel-in-Distress-Topos" of the website tvtropes.org (English)
Individual evidence
- ^ Sigrid Schmid-Bortenschlager: Love, sexuality and marriage, reason and passion in the novel of the 18th century. In: Ingrid Bauer , Christa Hämmerle, Gabriella Hauch (eds.): Love and resistance: Ambivalences of historical gender relationships - Love and resistance: ambivalences of historical gender relationships (= L'Homme writings / series on feminist history. Volume 10). Böhlau, Vienna 2005, ISBN 3-205-77374-8 , pp. 79-88.
- ↑ See also on the correctness of the translation: Werner Wolf: Angst und Schrecken als attraction. To a gender-oriented functional history. In: Journal of English and American Studies. 43rd year, 1995, ISSN 0044-2305 , p. 45.
- ↑ André dégaine: Histoire du théâtre dessiné. De la préhistoire à nos jours, tous les temps et tous les pays. Nizet, Paris 1992, ISBN 2-9506581-0-5 , p. 259 (French).
- ↑ David Grimsted: Melodrama Unveiled. American Theater and Culture 1800-1850. University of Chicago Press, Chicago a. a. 1968, p. 205 (English).
- ↑ Stephen Hamrick: The Catholic Imaginary and the Cults of Elizabeth: 1558 - 1582. Ashgate Publishing, 2009, pp. 188 ff.
- ↑ Bethany Latham: Elizabeth I in Film and Television: A Study of the Major Portrayals. McFarland, 2011, p. 61.
- ↑ a b Laurence Senelick: The Changing Room: Sex, Drag and Theater . Routledge, 2003, p. 128. (English)
- ↑ Review of Mary Stuart The Edinburgh Edition ASSEMBLY HALL 23,30,31 August 1087 THE EDINBURGH EDITION SCOTSMAN 25. Marv Stuart by JCF Schiller in the 1801 translation by Joseph Mfillish ASSEMBLY HALL 10-29 August 1987, in Ian Herbert, London Theater Record - Volume 7, issues 14-26 - page 35
- ↑ Michael R. Booth: English Melodrama. Jenkins, London 1965 (English).
- ↑ Andrew Erish: Illegitimate dad of 'Kong' . One of the Depression's highest-grossing films was an outrageous fabrication, a scandalous and suggestive gorilla epic that set box office records across the country. In: Los Angeles Times . January 8, 2006; English, accessed May 28, 2013.
- ↑ Julie Miess: New Monsters. Postmodern horror texts and their authors. Böhlau Verlag, Cologne u. a. 2010, ISBN 978-3-412-20528-7 , pp. 144–145 (also dissertation, Humboldt University Berlin 2008).
- ↑ a b Jim Steinmeyer: Hiding the Elephant. How Magicians Invented the Impossible. William Heinemann, London 2004, ISBN 0-434-01325-0 , pp. 277-295 (English).
- ^ PE Schneider: Fading Horrors of the Grand Guignol. In: The New York Times Magazine. March 18, 1957, p. SM7 , accessed April 10, 2007 .
- ↑ a b Simon Egenfeldt-Nielsen, Jonas Heide Smith, Susana Pajares Tosca: Understanding Video Games: The Essential Introduction. Routledge, 2008, p. 163. (English)
- ^ A b Gladys L. Knight: Female Action Heroes: A Guide to Women in Comics, Video Games, Film, and Television. ABC-CLIO, 2010.
- ^ Damsel in Distress Part 1, Anita Sarkeesian's First 'Tropes vs. Women In Games' Video , March 2013 (with German subtitles)
- ↑ Toronto Tweeter Causes Uproar Over Violent "Beat Up Anita Sarkeesian" Game . In: Toronto Standard. July 7, 2012.
- ↑ a b c Samantha Fuchs: BDSM: bondage and discipline, domination and submission, sadism and masochism. Books on Demand, 2008.
- ↑ Pinterest: The Art of Art Frahm
- ^ A b c Danielle J. Lindemann: "Is That Any Way to Treat a Lady?": The Dominatrix's Dungeon. In: Chris Bobel, Samantha Kwan (Eds.): Embodied Resistance. Challenging the Norms, Breaking the Rules. Vanderbilt University Press, Nashville (Tennessee / USA) 2011, ISBN 978-0-8265-1786-9 , pp. 26-36 (English).
- ↑ Danielle J. Lindemann: "Is That Any Way to Treat a Lady?": The Dominatrix's Dungeon. In: Chris Bobel, Samantha Kwan (Eds.): Embodied Resistance. Challenging the Norms, Breaking the Rules. Vanderbilt University Press, Nashville (Tennessee / USA) 2011, ISBN 978-0-8265-1786-9 , p. 27 (English).
- ^ Erving Goffman: The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Doubleday, New York 1959.
- ↑ Jacki Willson: The Happy Stripper: Pleasures and Politics of the New Burlesque. IB Tauris, 2008, p. 135.
- ^ A b c d Daniel P. Watkins: Sexual power in British romantic poetry. University Press of Florida, 1996, p. 17, pp. 25 and 51 ff. And associated review
- ↑ Alison Lurie: Fairy Tale Liberation. In: The New York Review of Books. v. 15, n.11, Dec 17, 1970 (germinal work in the field); Donald Haase: Feminist Fairy-Tale Scholarship: A Critical Survey and Bibliography. In: Marvels & Tales: Journal of Fairy-Tale Studies. v. 14, n.1, 2000.
- ↑ Jane Yolen: This Book Is For You. In: Marvels & Tales. v. 14, n.1, 2000. (essay); Jane Yolen: Not One Damsel in Distress: World folktales for Strong Girls. (anthology); Jack Zipes: Don't Bet on the Prince: Contemporary Fairy Tales in North America and England. Routledge, New York 1986. (anthology).
- ↑ Thomas Laqueur: written on the body. The staging of the sexes from antiquity to Freud. Campus, Frankfurt am Main / New York 1992, ISBN 3-593-34623-0 .
- ↑ Ben Singer: Female Power in the Serial-Queen Melodrama: The Etiology of An Anomaly in Silent Film . Ed .: Richard Abel. Continuum International Publishing Group - Athlone, 1999, ISBN 0-485-30076-1 , pp. 168-177 .