RedQuestionAsker2 [he/him, she/her]
I get how you can make it but “not playing the game” isn’t something that you or I may do.
I agree. I don’t think any of us have an honest choice in the matter because there’s a large level of coercion behind social expectations. I should have used a different word than “choose,” but I actually think your insight makes my reading stronger.
Even if he did “choose” not to play, the movie doesn’t present a positive outcome for doing this.
Also, I love Tolkien, but his writing is full of analogies lol.
It’s a critique of masculinity, and it uses the knightly code as a way to explore the way that men enforce that code.
Gawain enters the fight against the green knight in order to build his name and get out from under the shadow of his father. Logically, he should strike the green knight non-fatally so that will be returned to him, but he knows that if he does that, the other knights will call him a coward. So he is pressured into entering this arrangement that he knows will kill him.
He’s then led around by a few female characters as represented by his mother’s green belt. He could accept the help of the women which will ensure he lives, but this would feminize him-- implying he cannot fulfill the role of his father.
The ending is critical because it calls into question what exactly honor is in this context. Yeah, he chooses not to live a life without “honor,” but he is not rewarded for it. He gets beheaded anyway because he was damned the moment he wanted to play the game.
In this case, I find it very important that the king outright told Gawain that it was all a game. He was pressured into playing it and following the rules. The movie is telling us that strict adherence to masculinity and patriarchy is self destructive.
Shit like this keeps happening and Iran just shows incredible amounts of restraint.
Meanwhile, the “only democracy in the Middle East” is allowed to act like a rabid dog.
We don’t think you fight fire with fire best ; we think you fight fire with water best. We’re going to fight racism not with racism, but we’re going to fight with solidarity. We say we’re not going to fight capitalism with black capitalism, but we’re going to fight it with socialism. We’re stood up and said we’re not going to fight reactionary pigs and reactionary state’s attorneys like this and reactionary state’s attorneys like Hanrahan with any other reactions on our part. We’re going to fight their reactions with all of us people getting together and having an international proletarian revolution.
-Fred Hampton
I have a friend who lives in Argentina, and he’s definitely feeling the instability.
How dare you besmirch the name of Fidel Castro, you revisionist
Shadow Chancellor!?
Supreme Leader is not okay, but Shadow Chancellor is!?
The liberal model not working for a developing country?