Summary Laurie and Adaptive Attractiveness (Where is The Brown Skinned Laurie)
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Module
English literature
Institution
English Literature
Book
Little Women
In Little Women, Louisa May Alcott wrote that Laurie has "curly black hair, black eyes and brown skin", but Laurie has never been played by a brown-skinned actor.
Friedrich Bhaer is based on philosopher Henry David Thoreau. Louisa was in love with him and he appears in literal disguise in all of...
Laurie and Adaptive Attractiveness (Where is The Brown
Skinned Laurie)
Niina Niskanen/ Little Women Podcast
Summary:
In Little Women, Louisa May Alcott wrote that Laurie has "curly black hair, black eyes
and brown skin", but Laurie has never been played by a brown-skinned actor.
Friedrich Bhaer is based on philosopher Henry David Thoreau. Louisa was in love
with him and he appears in literal disguise in all of her novels. He is also based on
Alcott's favourite writer, the German poet Goethe. Unlike Greta Gerwig that lies to
millions of people, Jo and Friedrich never argue in the book, and Friedrich is the one
who helps her to become a writer. He literally gives the same advice to Jo, as Goethe
inspired LMA to improve as a writer. Laurie is partially based on Alcott's ex, Laddie
Wisniewski, and her friend Alf Whitman. She had a maternal relationship with both of
these men who were younger than she. One of the goals of the Little Women
podcast is to examine these relationships, and how (several) Little Women
adaptations ignore their significance.
You can Listen the Podcast here https://tinyurl.com/3vzyb4uz
Today´s comment shout-out goes to @justanavengersfan who says the following:
"Laurie is always a boy to Jo and when she speaks about Nat or Teddy as daughters,
you can see that she was never going to find Laurie attractive".
Jo in the books never finds Laurie attractive. Friedrich is her sexual awakening. There
are quite a few scenes in Little Men and Jo´s Boys where Jo refers to Nat and Laurie
as "girly" or "daughters". I am surprised that not that many people discuss this. I
think it´s fascinating. Even when Laurie is in his forties Jo always speaks about him
in a very maternal tone, which doesn´t happen between Jo and Friedrich Jo kinda
sees Laurie as a personal success story, because he was the first boy that she
adopted and that inspired Jo to start a school for boys. One of the things that a lot of
people don´t seem to understand about Louisa, is that she was a very maternal
person and she also loved the energy of young boys and very masculine men. Louisa
was a paradox but do these qualities need to be exclusive?
Some of you may know that I didn´t read Little Women part 2, or Good Wives until I
was a teenager but I did read Little Women part 1 as a child. I still have my old copy
, which is a Finnish translation from the 1940s. Here in Finland and most European
countries and I believe in most South-American countries as well Little Women used
to be published as two separate books while in the US it has been published as one
book.
In the first part of Little Women Jo is 15, then part 2 starts four years after the events
of the first part and part 2 covers roughly 20 years of Jo´s life. I didn´t pay attention
to the adaptive attractiveness until I read the original English Little Women, which
had not been whitewashed by Louisa´s publisher. In the original text, Laurie has a
darker skin complex, and a big nose and there are lots of references to his Italian
heritage. When I started to do more deeper research on Laurie´s character I re-read
my Finnish versions, which were based on these "newer versions" where Laurie´s
character was being romanticized. Many of these elements that made him more
Italian were erased and it´s funny because I was looking at my copy of Good Wives.
It has this cover illustration of Amy and Laurie. Laurie is blonde and he could be an
actor from a Finnish film from the 50s. However, I do not blame the illustrator
because that text was based on this, re-writing of Little Women.
In the original text same happens with Friedrich´s character. Louisa makes constant
references to him being German and Jo loves that he is German, which is quite
endearing. I am sure you can now find lots of different versions of this uncut original
book which is great and the book that I have is Penguin classic Little Women based
on the original book from 1867. That is the version I have used as a reference on this
podcast. Whenever I have quoted something from Little Women.
This is Little Women podcast: Laurie and adaptive attractiveness. Theodore Laurie
Lawrence is one of the most complicated characters in Little Women and his cultural
and cinematic history is also complicated. More than often the Hollywood
adaptations of the book changes our perspective of the characters. In the original
book that was published in 1868, Laurie is both foreign and androgynous.
Laurie has brown skin, curly black hair, a long nose, nice teeth, and little hands and
feet. He is the same size as Jo making him equal to her. When he asks Jo to dance he
makes a little French bow.
For the 1880 edition of Little Women Louisa´s publisher demanded she makes
changes to the books. Little Women was a huge hit and publishers want to make
money. Now all of Laurie´s foreign features were removed because they were not
suitable for a romantic suitor. He became more handsome, with no mention of the
colour of his skin and he is taller than Jo, making him superior to her.
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