There is a natural way of things in the world, even when magic was real and fairy godmothers roamed the land. The natural way is change. Decomposition. It happens to us all, one day.

In some way or another, at least.

There is one woman who does not follow the natural way of things. Not like everyone else does, at least.

You can still find her. You find her when you’re at your lowest, when you wander with no destination. You find her when you pick the darker path, when you walk until your senses scream at you to turn around. You find her when you push your way through the brambles, skin torn by thorns, called forth by something you do not understand.

Her skin was once beautiful.

It chafes against the sharp edges of her bones like a tarp stretched over a frame. Her cheeks flutter in the breeze like curtains.

Her chest rises and falls, but it is not with breath. It is with necessity.

The worst of it is her eyes. They have long since lost the strength to stay closed. And why should they? That was never part of the curse. So she stares with what looks like eyes. They should be eyes. They were once eyes. Eyes that might have even been blue long ago, but are no longer.

She smiles.

Bares her teeth.

With what should be lips.

And littered at her bedside, for all these years …

It is at this point that you realize that Sleeping Beauty was never cursed. The curse was really for the poor souls that tried to kiss her. Like in the old fairy tales.

Curses last a long time.

Gender studies: an examination into the ways in which literature reproduces and subverts cultural norms surrounding gender roles. 

Since we discussed Sleeping Beauty and the Airplane in class, alongside our discussion of gender and queer studies, I couldn’t stop thinking about what a strange story it was. It both objectified a woman and gave her agency that was nonexistent in the original fairy tale. In that vein, I became interested in media that both subvert and reassert gender norms. 

In my search for a reflection of this phenomenon in contemporary media, I came across this 1940s advertisement. 

The iconic image of Rosie the Riveter is the first thing you see. If you look closer, you may notice that she’s not the same Rosie shown below.

First, you might see her makeup looks a little more prominent than usual. Then, you’ll likely notice her wedding ring, or her painted fingernails. She’s a feminized Rosie. 

Of course, you’ll notice the big blue letters: “Get the POWER.” Rise up, take charge, assume the place in the world you deserve that you’ve always been denied… as a cleaner. “The power to clean anything.” 

This advertisement uses an iconic subversion of traditional gender roles to argue that women should be content in those traditional gender roles. The most prominent features of the ad are the instantly recognizable Rosie the Riveter figure and the statement “Get the POWER.” We associate these features on sight with the subversion of traditional gender roles for women as docile, domestic caretakers. It’s only once we have made this mental association that we notice the traditional expectations seeping through in the details. This display of unconventional and conventional side by side is an attempt to encourage women viewers to associate traditional feminine gender roles with empowerment and agency.  

Examining this advertisement through a gender studies lens shows us that the “breaking” of traditional gender norms can ultimately serve as a tool to reinforce those same norms.

I find myself still contemplating the idea of deconstruction. I think I understand on the surface what it means. I just can’t stop thinking about the implications of it in a more metaphorical sense.

It helps me to think of deconstructionism as viewing words like puzzle pieces. Each puzzle piece holds a little bit of information, but it only means something when it connects to another puzzle piece, and that one to another, and another, and so on. This is understandable to me. Except you’re not putting together a complete puzzle; there is no complete puzzle. You just have the text: a box full of puzzle pieces. It presents no one true meaningful satisfying picture at the end. The puzzle pieces are signifiers and the “whole” puzzle is the signified. The signifiers give each other meaning in that you can tell each puzzle piece is distinct from the next, but the whole picture is ambiguous. There is no universal picture uniting the puzzle pieces except that they all came from the same box and are meant to fit together. You can interpret the whole puzzle in any way you want, but those interpretations will contradict each other, and ultimately, the puzzle will fall apart. 

Deconstructionism, to me, appears to say that any meaning set up by a text will inevitably fall apart into nothing, net zero. And as life is one big text, life falls apart into nothing, too. I don’t know how to feel about that.