July 2000

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     I recently had the opportunity to put my vast reserves of storytelling and archetypes and fairy tales to the test with a tough audience: a pair of four and five year old sisters who were too rowdy for bedtime. Their mom (a friend of mine) was at that stage where patience has given way to sheer exhaustion, so, untired, I thought I'd offer help. Starting the story with a "once upon a time" I wove the girls' names and events from the day we had spent together into something that would, I hoped, be interesting enough for them to stay tuned yet calming enough to put them to sleep. The two girls became princesses, their mother a Queen, a family friend a wizard and myself, of course, a benevolent witch. The frog from the back yard became a friendly dragon who whisked the girls away to the Moon. The girls contributed the magic bracelet I had given them earlier in the day, and eventually, details of the geography over which the princesses and dragon were flying to find the lost Queen Mother faded them off into sleep. But while I was telling them the story of the two independent, intelligent and beautiful princesses (I wanted intelligence to rank above beauty, but both needed to be there, I felt, for their own self-esteem) I found in one detail that the girls insisted upon inserting a little food for thought.

     The girls wanted handsome princes to marry them, and had a long list of boys' names they readily debated-- the merits of this one versus that one distracted them for a few seconds while I regrouped with the story. Don't get me wrong-- I am all for marriage, having married my own handsome (if slightly less than shining-armor type) prince. I do not feel that feminism means giving up family, and want women to be empowered to be both smart and sexy. But the adoration of my own prince is based not just on beauty (which we both know fades, especially after almost 10 years of sharing a fondness for gourmet food coupled with our aversion for healthy exercise of the fat-burning sort). Our mutual respect and fondness is based in part on our abilities to share intimate, intelligent debate (on everything from Rush Limbaugh to women in science fiction). It is also based on shared goals, shared dreams and passions, and a shared willingness to work hard at being kind to each other.

     At four and five years old, these two little girls were all for "betting on the prince" to save them-- they barely considered pulling their own bacon out of the fire until I mentioned it, and they accepted my advice that the princesses marry the princes only after college (which I said the princes, too, should attend) with the good-natured attitude of wise-children humoring the irrational adult. I wanted the girls to rely not on delicately small foot-size and stylish shoes but on real powers, real strengths, and so, their insistence upon finding the prince was frustrating at first, and I felt I had failed in my modern fairy telling. I was especially sad because I know so many women who in their search for the PERFECT knight-in-shining-armor, pass up some pretty great men with slightly dented, less-than-perfect armor in the back of their closet. I was also sad for the princes-- who must live up to a level of sheer heroism and perfection that few can attain-- and who, like us, may be searching for an ideal in princess-hood that cannot last forever.

     I wondered, why are we as a society so in love with fairy tales? Why do we still (if perhaps secretly) covet the kiss on sleeping lips, the slipping of a shoe upon a perfect foot, the slaying of the evil imprisoning witch by the strong warrior? Is this obsession with fairy tales wrong? Are we teaching our daughters and sons unhealthy types when we tell them the old standards?

     Once I thought about it for a while, I realized it's not the fairy tales but our own critical readings of the stories that need work. We don't need to convert the old favorites to Politically Correct bedtime stories; it is that we fail to correctly read the moral lessons the stories already tell us. We believe that the reason the Prince hunts for Cinderella is her beauty, her stunning appearance at the Ball in borrowed ball gown and shoes, when this is far from true, and far from the story's ultimate ending. Cinderella's lesson is actually that she is rewarded for hard work, and responding to years of backbreaking unfairness with kindness to others and never losing her ability to love, and dream. The gown and shoes are temporary, fleeting-- they, as we all eventually do-- revert to pumpkin-colored ordinariness at midnight. The Prince may be initially drawn to Cinderella because of her beauty (which if we are honest we are all attracted to) but she keeps his interest with a night of dancing and conversation. Don't forget, there were hundreds of beautiful women at the Ball, but Cinderella was the one who the Prince chased after-- because she was a good person, and his perfect match. I am positive that somewhere in that happily-ever-after there was a lot of hard work.

     The Grimm's version of the story adds another lesson-- should we choose to hear it today. Cinderella's step sisters, in their attempts to "grab a Prince," resort to actually forcing their feet into the proffered shoe by cutting off their toes, and heels. The shoe fits-- but the Prince is alerted to their deception by the blood that eventually seeps from the shoe. The sisters try to force themselves into someone else's "ideal" mold-- as women today try to do with diets and obsession and pills-- and which they usually fail to do and for which they often feel inadequate. The stepsisters' actions remind us that we only harm ourselves when we attempt to force an unrealistic "shoe" to fit.

     I bring all of this up because this month, I read a book by Jane Green called Jemima J, subtitled "a novel about ugly ducklings and swans". The story takes us along with Jemima Jones, a very overweight woman who loses the pounds and becomes a "swan," only to find out that swans have their problems too. The novel is fun, well-written and humorous. I read it in one sitting and couldn't put it down because I was consumed with a desire to see how this ultimate makeover worked out-- and whether she found her Prince, and how she dealt with the temptation to force herself into another's ideal (like Cinderella's stepsisters). I highly recommend the novel, but I was still struck by its fairy-tale quality-- and wanted to ask its author about her intent with the story-telling. Did she, like me with my own bedtime tale, struggle with the issues of fairy tale versus feminism? Luckily, I got the chance in an interview with Jemima J author Jane Green:

Q: One of the main issues in your novel is the modern woman's body image obsession-- how did you research this? You seem to really nail it-- both the perspective of the overweight woman and the newly thin one. Did anything in your research surprise you? I have to admit, myself, that I was torn between wanting Jemima to lose the weight (it seemed it would make her so much happier) and wanting her to be able to be happy at the weight she was-- but of course, that would take a societal change, and why should women alone be responsible for that? Was there a place you wanted to take this idea?

A: I've been fascinated with the relationship women have with food for a long time. I find it extraordinary that in this day and age, no matter how successful or happy we perceive ourselves to be, body image is the one hurdle we haven't yet managed to conquer. And every woman I know, no matter what shape or size, has an issue either with her body, or with food. Even the ones who are 'model-thin' claim that life would be perfect if they could just lose an extra couple pounds. In writing Jemima J I wanted to explore this whole notion of life being better if you're thin: does your life really change or is that just that you inspire different reactions from people--I wanted to look at whether -- as I have come to believe -- being thin doesn't mean you're any different inside.

In doing the research for Jemima, everyone I spoke to echoed this. I spoke to women who had been extremely overweight, who had then lost the weight, and they all said that they still had all the same problems they had before. And interestingly, all of them said that no matter what the mirror reflected back, they still thought of themselves as fat.

Jemima J is very much a fairytale, and the ultimate makeover, and as with all good fairytales, she had to experience the change before she's whisked off her feet by Prince Charming, although I would stress that being thin doesn't make her happy. Learning to love herself is what makes her happy, and although the thin days in LA are exciting, she doesn't actually find happiness until she completes the journey, and ends up a normal weight.

I wish that society was different, that we truly could be accepted no matter what size we are, but I believe the key point really is learning to love ourselves, no matter what society thinks.

Q: I'm going to sort of jam a bunch of questions together, because they all seem to work as part of the same issue. Obviously, another important part of the novel is the Internet romance. You have two women characters (Jemima J and her friend) who are willing to come all the way to the US to meet men they barely knew, and whose relationships with them turn out less than satisfactory. What do you think this level of (should I call it desperation? I find that I don't really want to label it that, but some might) reveals about what are otherwise successful women? Also, it seems like Jemima sort of falls into her relationship half-heartedly-- which is amazing, considering she is willing to go to such extremes for it. What were you saying about women & romance? Do you consider yourself a feminist writer? If yes, how do you hope to portray a particularly feminist viewpoint, if no, why not? What (if anything) would you want a readership of women who do consider themselves feminists to take from your work?

A: I never thought of Jemima and Lauren as desperate. Lauren's a born risk-taker, always on the look-out for adventure, and for Jemima, going to LA was the adventure of her life. Remember that Jemima, due to her size, had led an incredibly sheltered existence before she met Brad. She wasn't desperate, she was excited, it was the first opportunity she had had of truly living up to her potential.

And nor do I think either of them were betraying their sex by crossing the Atlantic to meet a man. I don't believe for a second that being successful in your career precedes wanting a relationship. Part of the problem now is that as children of feminism, we take equality for granted. Women are fully emancipated, independent, and able to achieve whatever they wish for. And for a while we went to the other extreme -- we felt ashamed to talk about marriage, or motherhood, or wanting -- shock, horror! -- to give up work to be a mother, because we believed we'd be betraying the sisterhood. I believe that it's only now, as we're truly learning to live as post-feminists, that we have accepted the two can live side by side: we can be career women. And wives. And mothers And that having a career doesn't mean you have to feel guilty about wanting to fulfill the other parts of your life as well.

Q: Do you have any more novels in the works?

Jemima actually was my second novel. I've written three others that have all been best-sellers in England, and are published in seventeen languages around the world.

The first was Straight Talking, which I'm only now able to admit was -- like most first novels -- almost entirely autobiographical. The second was Jemima J, the third Mr Maybe which will be out in America next year, and the fourth, Bookends, has just been released in England. Having just had a baby, I have a very strong suspicion that the next book will be all about pregnancy and motherhood...

Q: Where did you get the name Jemima from? This is kind of silly, but I can't help but think of pancakes (Aunt Jemima). What did you want her name, and the shift from Jemima, to JJ, to Jemima J, to signify?

A: If I had known that Jemima wasn't a common name in America I would have changed it to Jennifer. I had never heard of Aunt Jemima pancakes, but of course it's the one thing that everyone in the States thinks of when they hear the name.

Jemima is actually a very traditional name in England, and the truth is I honestly don't remember how she came to be named. I do however remember how stupid I felt when my publisher pointed out the similarity to Bridget Jones, which is why the title became Jemima J rather than Jones, I'm a huge fan of alliteration, and I have a friend called JJ who also happens to be extremely confident and beautiful, and I thought it would suit Jemima perfectly for her new, gorgeous persona. But of course JJ is the fantasy, and as we all know: fantasies can't be sustained for very long, hence her return to Jemima.

Q: I have to admit that I wasn't thrilled with the epilogue to the novel-- even though I was glad that Jemima moved out of her obsessive dieting into a healthier weight consciousness, the ending seemed kind of fairy tale-ish. I almost expected a "happily ever after". Do you think that the ending was necessary, that people wanted that happy ending to be so clearly spelled out?

A: Oddly enough, I'm not a fan of happy-ever-afters either. In fact all of my other books either leave the ending up in the air, or have a bittersweet ending that leaves you slightly unsure as to what emotion you should be feeling. But Jemima, as I said earlier, was a fairytale. It was my version or Cinderella, and corny as it may be, I felt it only appropriate that she should have the literal equivalent of being carried off into the sunset on a white charger. Oh well. You can't please all of the people all of the time!