Ruby slippers and masculine virtue
Men can be brainless, heartless cowards... except when they aren't
Who can find a virtuous woman? For her worth is far above rubies….
Strength and honor are her clothing, and she will rejoice in time to come. She opens her mouth with wisdom, and in her tongue is the teaching of kindness.
Proverbs 31: 10,25-26
After a week of war news, massacres, unspeakable cruelties, crime and troubling foreign affairs wore me out last week. I knew better than to consult the shart-phone or the computer yet I did anyway. Idiot.
Sick at heart, I needed to watch something fun. The Wizard of Oz popped into my mind. I will watch that and feel better, I thought. This beautiful, decent film, released in August 1939, will drive away demons, or irritate you if you are a demon. The Wizard of Oz will also remind you that demons still remain, still walk among us, and must still be defeated.
I was right, the movie lightened my heart. But I saw something new: the feminine power of decency to inspire manly protection. All of Dorothy’s companions are male, including Toto, who represents loyalty.
The film holds many obvious themes: compassion over law, tenderness over violence, jollity over hopelessness. The virtues of wisdom, empathy and courage as practiced by the scare-crow, tin-man and lion are ones any kid can see. Of course they already possessed these virtues, but they were moribund, disused and without direction until Dorothy demanded their service. In this sense, The Wizard of Oz is a powerful story of how female decency and tenderness inspire masculine protection and, in so doing, direct men’s virtue toward a righteous cause.
Each companion is a caricature of a masculine foible: the naive and clumsy scare crow, the heartless machine-like man, the blustering but weak bully, the small, dependent ankle biter. We men can behave brainlessly, lasciviously and laconically. Our minds are on a rail, one way, to and fro. We are called heartless, we don’t “get it” and we forget birthdays. We can be cowards, fearing commitments, criticism, and responsibility. We can act like children. We betray. All true except when they are not.
Virtue is not innate, it is a muscle and must be exercised. The heavy lifting needed to protect a mother, a wife, a daughter or a friend build great strength and a convicting mind. No man regrets protecting a beloved woman but every man of honor regrets not having done so.
Dorothy does not directly ask her men to defend her. She doesn’t even expect it as her right. She does not beguile them or belittle them in cheap coercion. Instead, she offers to help them and earns their loyalty along the way. Her obvious decency, her acceptance of their flaws and their own anger at the witch’s cruelty compel them to virtue and self-sacrifice.
Virtue is not gendered, of course. Virtue is neither masculine or feminine, but there are masculine and feminine versions of virtue. Dorothy’s prudence protects her (and Oz) from using the power of the ruby slippers, a power the witch would kill for. In fact, Dorothy is naive of their power, but only because she does not covet any power at all; another virtue. She could have remained in Oz as a great queen. Great power is best if it remains with the more decent, prudent and kind among us.
World War II started a month after The Wizard of Oz opened in August 1939. I see The Wizard of Oz as accidental allegory of these United States in that war: at first naive, reluctant, misdirected, yet possessing loyalty, decency, a sense of fairness and a hatred of bullies. These latter virtues being rays of light from the better angels of our nature.
The wicked witch’s final words must surely have been spoken by astonished tyrants past when defeated by a more righteous foe:
You cursed brat! Look what you've done! I'm melting! melting! Oh, what a world! What a world! Who would have thought a good little girl like you could destroy my beautiful wickedness?
Dorothy killed the witch when she doused a friend on fire. Let us endeavor, men and women, to douse any flames burning our friends and perhaps melt some witches while we are at it.
Vale!
If you have a brain you will WATCH THIS (you will feel better, really!):
Virtue may not be gendered, but its etymology is: vir is Latin for “man,” in the male rather than generic sense. On a similar note, the Greek motto of my college is andrizesthe (Iliad VI?), which can be translated “have courage,” but is more literally “be manly:” a point which did not go unnoticed when women students were admitted, I think in the 1970s.
In any event, I doubt anyone will deny that the world could do with more virtuous men in it. May the beauty of Lady Wisdom awaken our love for virtue!
Have you ever seen the dark side of oz? It's the wizard of oz with dark side of the moon playing over it.