Saviors, nurturers, or magically insane: a braided reading of white women characters in three ecological narratives

ABSTRACT

Media can both perpetuate and disrupt the patriarchal, anthropocentric discourses that shape social understandings of “woman” and “nature.” Using a braided feminist lens, we investigated media discourses about white women’s relationships with the human and more-than-human world. We present our analysis in three cases: Olivia from the novel, The Overstory; mother from the film, mother!; and Eleven from the Netflix series, Stranger Things. These characters illuminate stories of injustice and separation at the intersections of gender, race, species, and settler colonialism. We specifically consider the discourses of woman as crazy, woman as magical, woman as white savior, and woman as nurturer. Recognizing that no text tells a single story, we explore how we might re-story the discourses around white womanhood to invite a more reciprocal and feminist orientation to relationships, building from Donna Haraway’s notion of the Chthulucene (a trans-species, non-hierarchical response to the Anthropocene). Finally, we discuss how “othering” may not always occur as explicit marginalization and inferiority. For instance, by constituting white women as “saviors” or essentially magical (and possibly crazy), media may reinforce social and ecological hierarchies.

KEYWORDS:

• The Overstory
• Stranger Things
• mother!
• feminist analysis
• discourse
• literature
• eco-justice
• Chthulucene
• Anthropocene

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.

Notes on contributors

Emma M. McMain

Emma M. McMain, MA, is a PhD candidate in Educational Psychology at Washington State University. Her research focuses on social and ecological justice in education. Her past and current projects incorporate critical discourse analysis, critical media literacies, feminist and affect theories, and anti-racist pedagogies in explorations of curriculum, film, literature, and youths’ lived experiences. Email: [email protected]

JT Torres

JT Torres, PhD, is the Director of the Center of Teaching and Learning and assistant professor of English at Quinnipiac University. His book with University Press of Florida, entitled Situated Narratives and Sacred Dance, explores the performance of identity in the ritual ceremonies of Arará communities in Cuba. His work brings together art and qualitative methodologies to understand the ways humans read and write their relationships within more-than-human entanglements. E-mail: [email protected]