Showing posts with label Lisbeth Salander. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lisbeth Salander. Show all posts

Friday, 20 January 2012

Lisbeth Salander and Feminism

I’ve come across Nick Cohen’s Guardian piece “Stieg Larsson was an extremist, not a feminist” too late to leave a comment, so I’ll leave one here. This is what made me want to make one – Cohen’s closing paragraph:

I do not go to actors for political advice. But when Rooney Mara said that she did not think that Larsson's Salander was a feminist, she was not the empty-headed celebrity she seemed.

Salander is not Erika Berger; she wouldn’t call herself a feminist. She’s not really keen on labelling herself as anything. One of the most important things to understand about Salander is the likelihood that she has a high functioning form of autism. Blomkvist thinks she has Asperger’s. Her way of relating to herself and everyone and everything around her is affected by her psychological make-up. It’s not enough to quote Eva Gabrielsson saying that Salander’s "entire being represents a resistance, an active resistance to the mechanisms that mean women don't advance in this world and in worst-case scenarios are abused like she was" without mentioning the probablity that she also has Asperger’s. It’s key to a reader’s understanding of how Salander thinks and how Larsson drew her as a character.

Tuesday, 11 January 2011

Drive Time

I am going to be on Premier Radio's Drive Time review panel today. I think I’ll be on with Nick Battle and The Watchman. We’ll be talking about:

Miss HIV

Things I Wish I'd Known Before We Got Married

The Lion Book of 1000 Prayers for Children

The last time I was on Premier's Drive Time I went in with the intention of talking about Lisbeth Salander’s work ethic (in Stieg Larsson’s The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo) in relation to Ian Coffey’s philosophy in his self-help book Working It Out: God, You and The Work You Do. But in the end I spared everyone.