Amazing in a Wonderfully Ordinary Kind of Way

A friend from work let me borrow her copies of the Anne of Green Gables (AOGG) movies the other day. There are three of them in case you didn't know. The first one is lovely. It is definitely an accurate adaptation of the book on which it is based. The second one is ok, but oh the third one. The third one was so disappointing my heart hurts a little when I think about it.

AOGG was one of my favorite books growing up, and when I was in college I finally got around to reading most of the rest of the series (I think there are still two or three I haven't read). The books really are beautiful.

Part of what is so wonderful about the books is how interesting, funny, heartbreaking, inspiring, page-turning etc. etc. they are while still being so normal. Sometimes I actually forget that the books are not real. In my mind I equate Anne's story with that of Laura Ingalls Wilder (who is real). When I remember than Anne is in fact fiction, I actually get a little sad about it.  Everything that happens to her is completely plausible. I think part of the reason I wish she was real so much, is because she really could be. Everything about the books seems familiar, possible and even ordinary (in the best kind of way). For example:

• Being slightly insecure and sensitive about an aspect of her appearance (red hair in her case)
• Doing something silly to try and fix said "problem" (dying her hair black . . .  but really green)
• Being mortified by things that are in the scheme of things really small (the green hair, being called carrots, falling off the roof, etc.)

These are real emotions that all of us feel. Each of the books I have read documents Anne's very real struggles and triumphs. Her very real emotions are evident in how she handles each situation, and the characters she interacts with are also refreshingly ordinary.

Anne was perfect the way she was!

But apparently that was not interesting enough for the third movie in the Anne installment. Real life situations that a young Canadian woman might find herself in are substituted for action, adventure, danger, love triangles (kind of), and all sorts of ineptly strung together scenarios that would mostly likely have Lucy Maud doing barrel rolls in her grave. Here is a brief overview of the happenings of the third movie:

• Anne and Gil go to New York to work (unmarried . . . which was a little weird for their time/upbringing)
• Anne's novel manuscript is stolen by a famous American author
• Gil enlists as a doctor to go to the front during WWI
• Anne and Gil FINALLY get married (at least 10 years later in the movies than the books I think)
• Anne travels to France and then goes searching for MIA Gil through war torn Europe and almost gets herself killed several times
• Anne so happens to run into afore mentioned American author who has a child with his French mistress, Author gets lost, mother is killed, and now Anne has a baby to take care of. She can't find Gil but remarkably finds Diana's husband.
• Anne, baby and Diana's husband go live in American author's London apartment. There were many weird coupleish scenes between the two even though they were both married. (Yes, I know this isn't really a big deal in media these days but it definitely is unusual for the tone/feel of the AOGG books)
• American author turns out to be a spy. People think Anne is involved in his spy activities. American author professes his love for Anne and says they can be together when they return from the war.
• Anne dresses as a nun to sneak American author's baby our of London before evil spies come after him.
• Anne finally finds Gil.
• American author is killed by enemy spies on the train before they are able to return safely to North America. 
• Anne and Gil end up with baby and decide to raise baby as their own.

Here is a good synopsis that explains everything that is wrong with the basic structure better than I can (and saves me time trying to explain too!).

But my real problem with the third movie:

 Why did they have to attempt to turn Anne into some kind of super-female action hero that she is not?

WHY?

I am not saying that Anne is not capable of great things. She certainly is! Why wasn't being the amazing but ordinary woman she was written as enough?

Anne certainly became the kind of young woman I would want my daughter to be, and her "faults" as a young girl were harmless enough and far outweighed by her many good qualities to make her an excellent role model for anyone. She was more than good enough as she was before her character was basically butchered in the third film. She is:

• Kind-hearted
• Imaginative
• Capable of great love
• A fierce friend
• Loyal
• Selfless (She gives up her scholarship to stay and help Marilla at Green Gables for example)
• A hard worker
• An optimist
• Always striving for self-improvement
• Funny
• Intelligent
• Quick to feel remorse when she makes mistakes or loses her temper
• Willing to apologize (even to the likes of Rachel Lynd) (Of course it did take her a very long time to finally forgive Gilbert for insulting her, so I suppose it took her awhile to learn this one)
• Adventurous 
• Driven to achieve her goals

That list is probably not exhaustive, but you get the idea. She was good enough as she was. 

I was personally infinitely more touched by Anne loss and subsequent struggle to cope with the death of her first born daughter Joyce in Anne's House of Dreams than by any circumstance she found herself in during her traipse across Europe during WWI.

Honestly, I do not think that girls needed (or even wanted) Anne to become another action hero. We have Katniss, Mulan, Arwen (in the movies anyways), Elektra, Bat Girl, Cat Woman, Storm, Jean Grey, Rogue, Kim Possible, Black Widow, Princess Leia, and many more to fill those roles!

I have read a few articles lately about the lack of strong female action heroes in literature. Honestly, believe of me what you will, but this does not concern me at all. Seriously, it is great and all that Katniss Everdeen inspired a generation of girls to learn archery. But in so so many ways Katniss is not a girl you can ever inspire to be. Yes, she is self-sufficient, skilled, brave, protective of her family, strong etc. But would you ever want your daughter to exist in the kind of world that forced Katniss to develop her traits? Would you want her to find herself in the situations where Katniss is forced to use her talents to kill other people? Would you want your daughter to be faced with the choice or hunting or starving? Would you want your daughter to loser her childhood and be forced to care for herself and her family or face certain death? To grow up in a world where the thought of starting her own family fills her with dread?

I certain do not. I would much rather my daughters learned some life lessons from reading about Laura Ingalls,  Sarah Crewe, Mary Lennox, Nancy Drew, the Baby Sitter's Club, Anne Shirley, and Jo March.

Please just let Anne be the amazing, completely normal woman that she is. If becoming a strong, independent, loving woman capable of building a strong marriage and a strong family (while still having the skills necessary to take care of herself) is what my daughter aspires to be some day, I will be proud of her. I am sure Lucy Maud Montgomery was proud of the Anne she created.

I unfortunately cannot say the same of AOGG The Continuing Saga.