I guess it’s fitting that the episode of Game of Thrones that aired on Mother’s Day would be the one where the Mother of Dragons let her last remaining child run wild and slaughter the population of an entire city. I guess that’s appropriate somehow.
No, wait. It isn’t.
It seems like such a long time ago that Game of Thrones advertised its sixth season with the tagline “women on top.” We were promised a slate of powerful, brilliant women poised to take over Westeros: Sansa Stark as Lady of Winterfell, Cersei Lannister (however one feels about her) taking the Iron Throne, and the Mother of Dragons herself coming to claim her birthright.
Lo, how the mighty have fallen. Or maybe they were never really there to begin with. Maybe, like the blink-and-miss-it moment of “girl power” during the final battle of Avengers: Endgame, the creators of Game of Thrones want all the credit for doing right by women while actually doing the exact opposite.
Between the New York Times writeup in the morning and the fourth episode of Game of Thrones Season 8 in the evening, it was a rough day for those of us with an interest in medieval and medieval-ish things. Plenty has been said regarding both, but I found myself contemplating the commonalities between my frustrations and that’s what this recap will, to some extent, be about.
Yes, I’m crossing my geek streams, but there we go.
I’ve had some time to think about the pacing and structural choices in this season of Game of Thrones a bit more, so I’m going to put those thoughts out there.
I’ve remarked elsewhere that I wasn’t entirely convinced by the choice to finish the battle with the Armies of the Dead three seasons in, and basically consign the supernatural threat to the dustbin with three episodes left.
However…I’ve talked it over with a few people and thought about it, and there are ways for it to work. I don’t know that the show is taking any of these directions, but I’d be curious to see if they did.
…well, I didn’t see that coming.
No, seriously, I did not see that coming. Did not see the Night King dying three episodes into the final season. Granted, there are only six episodes in total, so maybe that’s less surprising than it feels. But still. I need to process this fully.
A bit late, but here it is!
A certain feeling has persisted from the opening of Game of Thrones’ seventh season of the characters on the show operating as a kind of elaborate human chessboard, appearing and disappearing wherever the plot requires them to be with no sense of journey or motivation (not to mention a complete lack of travel logistics, but that’s another story). This leads to a lot of frustrating inconsistency, as I can see the larger touchpoints in the narrative, but none of the emotional highs feel earned at all; they just happen.
There were lovely moments in this episode—Brienne and Arya for a start—but what stood out to me was how much history loomed over everyone, and nobody remarked upon it.
Okay, here goes nothing.
Perhaps against my better judgement, I was inspired by the following Twitter thread to consider academic fashion and my own relationship to it.
Now, Aaron and I have known one another since grad school (he was a year or two behind me in the same program, if in a different field), so I’m aware that he didn’t intend to be prescriptivist in his thread, and that his goal was to elucidate his own experience as a white cis male who looks younger than he is. Nor am I trying to be prescriptivist here, so much as talk about my own experience with style, fashion, la mode, what have you. Which is to say that anyone who wants to comment about their own experience and offer suggestions based on that is encouraged to do so. I know that women’s fashion (and fashion in general) is especially challenging for plus-size people and people with disabilities, so any suggestions on that front would be especially welcome. I’m coming at this as a cis woman who spent most of her life thinner than average, so my experience is very much my own and may not translate to others.
Pretty much anyone reading this is probably aware of the following, but I’m going to reiterate it anyway:
These two factors influence my fashion choices in different ways. As contingent faculty, I don’t feel that I have the freedom to “dress down.” I always have to look polished and put together, to look “professional.” Most advice for academics, particularly for women, tends to fall into that pattern. Never mind that the very concept of “professional” clothing has classist, racist, and sexist implications. The prevalence of suits as default academic dress for all genders exists for the same reason that it exists in law, finance, or business: academia was–and, to a large extent, remains–a white, male-dominated space, so the default setting for “professionalism” is “look like a white man.” C.f. this thread:
I won’t say that I’m a fashion aficionado. I’m not. I like what I like, and what I like is inevitably at least 3 years out of date.* If not possibly 50 or 100 years out of date, depending on what it is. What I am is someone with a pretty well-defined sense of personal style, honed over about two decades. If I had to describe it, I’d call it about 30% Audrey Hepburn, 20% Goth, 20% Victorian dandy, and 30% Too tired to do anything right now because I have two small children.
Anyway. You’re probably here for advice. I’m bad at advice, but I’ll do my best. I’ve already produced this Twitter thread that distills what I’m going to elaborate on here:
First thing, women’s fashion is a pain in the rear. It just is. Sizes aren’t standardized between labels, there’s no rhyme or reason to how things are measured, and some styles are just deeply confusing (I, for one, do not understand cold shoulder tops. Not even a little. What is the point? Also tulip skirts. Literally nobody looks good in them. Why can’t they just go away?). When I buy clothing for my husband, everything more or less makes sense. There are actual measurements involved. This is partly why I started buying men’s jeans for myself (also pockets). There’s something so reassuring about knowing that waist measurement is consistent no matter which brand I’m buying.
It’s also very hard to buy clothing ethically. I do my best, but between budget constraints, size constraints, and style preferences, it is challenging to say the least. I do think that buying clothing secondhand helps from a sustainability perspective, and I try to pay attention to the brands that I buy frequently and to be aware of trends they’ve exhibited as pertain to both labor and environmental issues.
For instance, I stopped shopping at H&M for several years because it came out that their labor practices were deeply questionable and they ran an ad campaign that was, to put it bluntly, racist. However, since then, they’ve started offering textile recycling at their stores, so I’m at least willing to see what they have to offer while dropping off my worn-out stuff for recycling.
Which is all to say that if buying ethically is important to you, go for it, and there are a number of brands who make their manufacturing and environmental policies abundantly clear, but if you’re dealing with a limited budget, be fair to yourself and do your best within your parameters.
But that’s enough complaints. Let’s talk about academic fashion.
I think I’ve owned one suit that I was happy with–a J. Crew Super 120s wool suit in navy with white pinstripes. I bought the skirt new on clearance and got the matching jacket and trousers used on eBay. I even own a blouse that works for it–a cream silk shell from White House Black Market that I also got on clearance for $10. This entire ensemble (which I’m wearing in my “official” headshot from 2017) took about three years to put together, but I’m also pleased to say that it doubles as excellent stealth Peggy Carter cosplay.
One of the things that helped me get past this mental block was a conversation with my friend and colleague EJ Nielsen, who remarked that conference attire was itself a form of cosplay. I’m an introvert by nature and it wouldn’t be inaccurate to say that the self I present at conferences or while teaching is a character of sorts–a version of myself who is more confident, more outgoing, and more authoritative. With that in mind, thinking of conference (or interview or teaching) fashion as cosplay made it far easier to develop a distinct style that worked for me.
I’ve never not dressed up to teach. Even as a graduate student when I had single-student tutorials, I dressed nicer than usual because I knew I needed to in order to be taken seriously. Jacket, nice top, dressy trousers, heels. I still have those heels even though I’ve needed to replace the soles twice because I walked too much in them. (Got them for $30 at DSW after Christmas in 2008. I regret nothing.)
When I returned to the US after finishing my PhD in 2010, I taught part-time at three universities in the greater Washington DC area: Georgetown University, George Washington University, and the University of Maryland at College Park. I upped my fashion game so I didn’t look shabbier than my students, some of whom had more pocket money than I made in a year. So I stocked up on dresses and jackets from a variety of clearance racks and invested in a pair of lace-up knee-high boots that I still own (these are the updated version with a more rugged sole). I still get compliments on them, and they happen to be very comfortable and great for teaching. I also wore full makeup on teaching days (although I admit this got a bit spotty toward the end of the semester, especially in spring 2012 when I was teaching 4 classes across 2 universities that were on opposite sides of the city).
For me, the important thing for teaching is to be able to move in whatever I’m wearing. I tend to pace a lot and to wave my hands around, so I figured out that, with few exceptions,** pencil skirts and tight sheath dresses weren’t going to work for me. Thankfully, trends shifted from sheath to A-line and even full-skirted dresses, which made things easier for me.
If I’m dressing for conferences, I’m dressing to be noticed. As I mentioned in the Twitter thread, I realized relatively early on that, as a woman of colour straddling two predominantly white fields (medieval and early modern studies), I was going to stick out no matter what I did. So I decided to embrace it and indulge my more esoteric tastes. These include things like blood-red lipstick, metallic eye makeup, funky jewellery, Statement Shoes, and hats. I love hats. I refuse to let dudebros ruin trilbys (I’ve owned a red one since 2010, c.f. above about Peggy Carter cosplay), and I have a burgundy cloche (similar to this one) that is my go-to conference hat.
If I had to give people advice (and I try to avoid that when possible), it would be to focus on intentionality. Whatever you choose to wear is great, so long as you commit to it. It can be something you bought for $5 off the clearance rack (I’ve done that) or a designer item that you splurged on (done that too), but what ultimately matters is that you’re comfortable in it and that you like it. Also that it fits. A good tailor is worth their weight in gold, and I’ve purposely bought things a size larger and had them tailored to fit me.
The other big piece of advice is to take advantage of secondhand/consignment markets. It’s easier than ever now with various online options–eBay, Poshmark, ThredUp, even social media groups. Or check out Goodwill, Salvation Army, or whatever other local options you have. Now is an especially good time to try, given the current KonMari craze and people ditching stuff that doesn’t spark joy*** in them.
A few other specific suggestions
TJMaxx/Marshalls: I used to make fun of my mother for shopping here when I was young and stupid. I am no longer young and stupid and both of these stores are amazing. Not just for clothing, but also for shoes, accessories, skincare, and makeup. I found several skincare and makeup items that retailed for twice the price at Sephora (and don’t get me wrong; I love Sephora, but they are not cheap).
Nordstrom Rack: I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I’ve shopped at an actual Nordstrom (if you’ve never been fitted for a bra, I highly recommend them; their employees absolutely know what they’re doing), but I go to Nordstrom Rack several times a year and I use their website as well. They are great for all kinds of items, and they have epic sales at Black Friday, end-of-year and the middle of summer. I buy winter boots there in summer, for myself and for my daughters.
eShakti: One of my pipe dreams for a long time has been custom clothing made specifically for me. I still hope to manage a suit someday (and have several Etsy sellers bookmarked for this purpose), but in the meantime, eShakti gets me most of the way there for dresses. Their designs are fun, they carry plus sizes, they are always having sales, and pretty much all of their dresses come standard with pockets. The only caveat I’d issue is that if you’re getting a long-sleeved dress, give them measurements of your arms to make sure the sleeves are wide enough.
* This is why online secondhand shopping is so dangerous. That random jacket I fell in love with in 2009 but couldn’t find in my size? Someone will sell it to me, possibly at a discount. The dress I bought one of when I ought to have bought three because it was perfection? On sale from someone else’s wardrobe. THE INTERNET IS A MARVEL, PEOPLE. It just also hates my bank account.
** The kickpleat is a wondrous thing.
** I’m aware that “joy” isn’t an exact translation of the term Kondo is using; it’s one of those Japanese words that doesn’t properly translate into English. She has specified in interviews that she refers to items that are meaningful.
Yesterday, a piece appeared in The Guardian, written by Kevin McKenna, on “the enduring appeal of Mary, Queen of Scots.” Several things stood out, articulated wonderfully by my colleague Dr. Kathleen Kennedy on Twitter:
There are plenty of historians (because #womenalsoknowhistory) who could have been consulted on this topic and who could have provided a more nuanced explanation of Mary Stuart’s appeal without consigning her to utter political insignificance.
Because the fact is that Mary Stuart was not politically insignificant. Though she only ruled Scotland for a few short years, her influence pervaded politics in England and France for the last half of the sixteenth century and it was her son James Stuart who finally unified Scotland and England as James VI of Scotland and I of England, an accomplishment that, for better or worse, fundamentally altered the European landscape.
(And I say this as a lifelong fan of Elizabeth I: Mary Stuart’s reputation is both undeservedly bad and overly romanticized.)
Stephen Greenblatt’s Tyrant: Shakespeare on Politics (subtitled Shakespeare on Power in the UK; an interesting shift in focus) is not an academic book; it is an extended version of an editorial he wrote for the New York Times one month before the 2016 election. Tyrant does just what its title implies: it examines Shakespeare’s treatment of tyrants and tyranny across a range of plays. And, like most of Greenblatt’s popular books, it is elegantly written, wry, perceptive, and sometimes just a bit self-involved.
Shakespeare has always been political, and the people who try to argue otherwise are a) wrong; and b) the same people who claim that all classic literature is somehow apolitical and not of its time. Greenblatt’s capsule studies of 2 and 3 Henry VI, Richard III, Macbeth, Julius Caesar, King Lear, The Winter’s Tale, and Coriolanus offer a rogues’ gallery of tyrants to choose from, but the true strength of this book lies not in the exploration of the tyrants themselves, but of their enablers, their followers, and their opponents. Greenblatt clearly takes pleasure in using Shakespeare as a commentary on the turbulent presidency of Donald Trump without once mentioning his name, and his references range from the ham-handed (Jack Cade intending to “make England great again”) to the amusingly subtle (the blink-and-you-miss-it use of the word “grab” in relation to Richard III’s treatment of women).
I took issue with several elements of Greenblatt’s original 2016 editorial, and he does address some of those in the book. First, he offers an extended discussion of Jack Cade, a character I thought was missing from the original editorial, and he does not lose sight of the fact that Cade has been suborned from on high by the duke of York to sow chaos amongst the common people so that York can step in to seize power. And I am forced to admit to my own bias as a fan of the first tetralogy; the very thought of comparing “the erudite, dangerously charismatic Richard and the inarticulate buffoon who won the 2016 election” was one that “may have sent the playwright spinning in his grave,” according to my original analysis. Unlike the president, I’m willing to admit when I’m wrong.
As Constance Grady remarks in her review for Vox, one of the strongest threads in Greenblatt’s book is “how forcefully it troubles the pleasure of the tyrant, and with what moral clarity it examines its mechanisms.” Because there is pleasure in watching Richard of Gloucester rise to power through Henry VI Part III and Richard III. He implicates the audience in his schemes, winking at them, drawing them in, even seducing them to a degree. As Greenblatt aptly observes, “the play does not encourage a rational identification with Richard’s political goal, but it does awaken a certain complicity in the audience, the complicity of those who take vicarious pleasure in the release of pent-up aggression, in the black humour of it all, in the open speaking of the unspeakable” (81). And because it is a play—a work of fiction—the audience can do so without consequence.
In the theater, it is we, the audience, watching it all happening, who are lured into a peculiar form of collaboration. We are charmed again and again by the villain’s outrageousness, by his indifference to the ordinary norms of human decency, by lies that seem to be effective even though no one believes them. Looking out at us from the stage, Richard invites us to not only share his gleeful contempt but also to experience for ourselves what it is to succumb to what we know to be loathsome. (81-82)
Ouch. There are plenty of us—myself included—who look at supporters of Donald Trump in utter bafflement, wondering what they see in him that they find so appealing, but don’t think twice about finding Richard III to be a compelling character. Part of the brilliance of Shakespeare is that when he holds up the mirror to his audience, we see things we would rather not see.
I still don’t think Trump and Richard III are the same, just for the record, even if an audience’s reaction to both is, on some level, unsettlingly similar. Richard is nothing if not clever, and, as Professor Eliot Cohen argues in his review of Tyrant for the Washington Post, his soliloquies offer a glimpse of “a complex if terrifying trajectory of a kind that would elude Trump, a considerably more static figure.” Donald Trump completely lacks Richard’s rhetorical capability and charisma–of course, Richard has the benefit of being a fictional character written by a magnificently talented playwright, based on an admittedly unfinished treatise by an equally talented philosopher. Trump, on the other hand, is the mediocre son of a rich man who has coasted to power on nothing but crude bravado, other people’s money, and a complex system of inequalities that privilege him most when he deserves it least. Thus, while there are some superficial similarities between the two, Greenblatt’s reliance on this particular comparison seems a bit overstretched at times.
Greenblatt’s analysis of those around Richard is far more effective. Of the chapters on Richard, Chapter 5 (titled “Enablers”) is the strongest, implicating not just the characters in the play but those of us in the audience who go along with his schemes in spite of their appalling consequences. “There are almost no morally uncompromised lives,” Greenblatt argues; “virtually everyone grapples with painful memories of lies and broken vows, memories that make it all the more difficult for them to grasp where the deepest danger lies” (71). In this, he focuses primarily on George of Clarence, whose affection for his brother and his own suppressed guilt about his prior actions blind him to Richard’s treachery.
What Greenblatt leaves out is another character who, at least early on, falls into the category of those who respond to Richard’s rise with fear: “those who feel frightened or impotent in the face of bullying and the menace of violence,” but who ultimately forms the heart of the resistance against him (66-67). This is Elizabeth, the widow of Richard’s elder brother King Edward IV. Her initial reaction is to go along with Richard, not because she supports him or believes that he is out for anything other than blood, but because she has no other option. All the men surrounding her are following his lead, and to resist would put her in greater danger than staying silent.
Shakespeare’s source for Richard III, Sir Thomas More’s unfinished History of King Richard III, fleshes out Elizabeth earlier in the narrative than Shakespeare does. More’s Elizabeth makes it abundantly clear from the start to the reader, and to other characters, that she does not trust Richard one inch. “Troweth the protector,” she demands, “that I perceive not whereunto his painted process draweth?”[1] When she does capitulate—handing over her son to the Archbishop of York, acting on Richard’s orders—she does so knowing that she is signing her child’s death warrant, and only surrendering because she has no other choice. Her arguments are completely sound, but they cannot stand against armed men.
Shakespeare excises this sequence, but devotes the majority of Act 4, Scene 4 of Richard III to Elizabeth. She enters in grief, mourning the murder of her sons in the Tower of London, and, after encountering the otherworldly Queen Margaret (who was historically dead but dramatically resurrected by Shakespeare to comment on the action), she manages to defeat Richard in an extended argument of 230 lines in the Folio text. Greenblatt briefly discusses this scene, primarily as an illustration of Richard overreaching and misusing tactics that have worked for him in the past, and in that, it serves his larger discussion of tyranny well enough.
I see something quite different, and I’ve written about it at length elsewhere. Yes, Elizabeth is clearly nauseated by Richard’s proposal to marry her daughter after having murdered her sons. But that does not stop her. She fights through her disgust and rebuts him, line by line, and in doing so, makes him look ridiculous to the audience that, for the first half of the play, gloried in his rhetorical prowess. Greenblatt allows that Elizabeth has already allied with the forces waiting to bring Richard down from abroad, but he doesn’t acknowledge her theatrical victory, fragile as it seems.
Rereading that scene in the light of recent events brought to mind two courageous, articulate women: Professor Anita Hill and Dr. Christine Blasey Ford. Both of these women faced down an overwhelmingly hostile interrogation by unsympathetic, sexist old (white) men with intelligence and grace. Where they differ from Shakespeare’s Elizabeth is that Elizabeth wins the argument and the war. Richard may dismiss her as a “relenting fool, and shallow, changing woman,” but the audience knows better.[2]
When I read Greenblatt’s 2016 editorial, I responded with the following on Twitter:
Even though we lost (and, make no mistake, we lost), and in spite of all the setbacks we’ve had since then, all the abuse and gaslighting and horror, we are fighting back. We remember our history. We don’t buy the lies. And we are done with tyrants.
ETA: I forgot to mention one other odd omission in Greenblatt’s analysis that has come up in other reviews of the book, namely Angelo from Measure for Measure. However, there is an excellent essay by Peter Herman on just this topic, related to the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings, that appeared in the Times of San Diego on 24 September 2018.
[1] Sir Thomas More, The History of King Richard III, ed. Richard S. Sylvester (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967), 38. Spelling modernized.
[2] William Shakespeare, Richard III, 4.4.431.
Dr. Kavita Mudan Finn 
