Tribulation Force, pp. 5-8
Wherein LaHaye & Jenkins' overwhelming visceral contempt for women almost succeeds in distracting readers from the astonishing inappropriateness of Buck Williams' actions.
This is, on the surface, a fairly straightforward scene which, like most of Tribulation Force, has nothing to do with theology, "Bible prophecy" or the End Times. All that actually happens is that Buck Williams arrives at his new office following his disciplinary demotion and learns that no longer being the boss means that he's not still in charge and that he doesn't get a prestigious desk.
Buck seems surprised to learn this. He arrives still expecting to receive the deference accorded to his prior rank and all of the perks that went with it. Until now, he doesn't seem to have realized what being demoted meant, and he still fails to understand why he is being punished. Yet despite the absurdity of his arrogance in this context, he's not meant to be the villain of the scene. That honor is reserved for his new boss, Ms. Sensible Shoes herself, Verna Zee.
We don't have the time, expertise or equipment to plumb the full depths of LaHaye & Jenkins' misogyny in this scene. That would require a bathysphere, a team of psychiatrists and a blogger with a stronger stomach than mine. The best I can do here is to point toward or hint at the unfathomable sunless world of their fear and loathing. It won't be pretty.
It's not clear in that phrase, "the militant Verna," whether the word militant is meant as a noun or an adjective. In either case, it's not a word that can stand alone without further explanation. She's a militant what, exactly? What is it that she militates for?
Verna is, like Buck, a journalist, but we're not being told here that she's a militant journalist. She is also, like Buck, an ambitious go-getter aggressively seeking career advancement. But we're not meant to understand her as a militant careerist either. Verna's militancy seems to refer to something else, and because of that something else, all the traits she shares with Buck are held against her. The very things that are portrayed as assets for him are portrayed as deficiencies for her.
"Just checking in," he said. "You can call me Buck."
"I'll call you Cameron, if you don't mind, and --"
"I do mind. Please call --"
"Then I'll call you Cameron even if you do mind."
As is often the case with these books, it takes effort on the reader's part to interpret the authors' intended effect. They want us to like Buck Williams here, even as he clownishly violates the First Rule of Nicknames, and they want us to dislike Verna just for tweaking his swollen ego.
It's worth reviewing what we were first told about Buck's supposedly rebellious nickname here. This was back in the first book, in the paragraph that introduced him as a character:
In other words, he views the nickname as flattering, as a kind of honorary title acknowledging the "envy" that everyone else must surely feel toward him. By insisting on its use here, then, he is insisting on being flattered. "I require you to flatter me," is never a cool or a likable thing to say. Plus, more often than not, those who insist that others call them by flattering nicknames are overcompensating for some insecurity. (If you met a man who insisted on being called "Buck-steel Cam-plank," for example, you could probably safely guess at his anatomical inadequacies.)
Every sentence in these pages portrays Buck as a swaggering idiot whose only response to his demotion is an expanded sense of entitlement and self-importance, yet we're not meant to perceive Buck this way at all. Even when we read this, presented as Buck's own thoughts from his own point of view:
It's hard enough to keep liking a character despite such a passage, but L&J want readers to like Buck even more because of it. It's not Buck they want us laughing at and despising here, but the militant Verna.
A brief refresher on what we learned earlier about Verna: In the midst of the biggest breaking news story in the history of the world, her boss at the newsmagazine disappeared and Verna stepped up to fill the vacuum. It may have been a self-promotion, but it was also a battlefield promotion -- a corporal taking on the lieutenant's responsibilities while still only earning a corporal's pay. Thanks to Verna, the Chicago office filed copy as the Event unfolded. Buck did not. Instead, he flew to London to investigate the suspicious suicide of a personal friend. For not doing his job, Buck was promoted. His first act in his new position of authority was to fly to Chicago to reprimand Verna for doing both her own job and Lucinda's as well. The nerve. He slapped her down for bucking tradition and authority by not allowing the leadership void to remain unfilled until such time as her superiors eventually got around to filling it.
But again it's Verna here that readers are meant to despise and Buck they're meant to admire. Because Verna is militant. Or perhaps because she's a militant.
So we're going to have to try to unpack that word.
As an adjective, militant means something like stridently or violently zealous. Zealous, of course, doesn't stand alone either. It requires modification or context. One cannot be zealous unless one is zealous about or toward some further aim.
As a noun, militant refers to a fighter, usually not a formal soldier, for a particular cause. This again won't stand alone without some further explanation of what kind of fighter we're talking about. A fighter for what?
The only time the word militant is used without such further explanation is in the context of ongoing stories in which the reader can be expected to understand what sort of militancy or militants are being discussed. A story about "militants" firing rockets into Israel from the Gaza Strip, for example, can be understood to be referring to militant supporters of Hamas.
Verna Zee is not meant to be understood here as a supporter of Hamas, or of the IRA or of some Sunni insurgency in Iraq. Yet the word militant is used here without further explanation because LaHaye & Jenkins assume that their intended audience will understand it in the context of a larger, ongoing story. That story is what they like to call the "culture war" here in the United States, and Verna Zee is, in the familiar phrase of the culture warriors, either a militant feminist or a militant homosexual. They needn't explain which, specifically, since in their view the two categories overlap.
The phrase "militant homosexual" is so common in religious-right jargon that L&J seem not to realize how peculiar it sounds to anyone who doesn't share their phobias. It provides us a glimpse of how they perceive the Pink Menace of homosexuality -- a faceless horde in refugee camps south of the border, lobbing deadly, indiscriminate rockets of gayness toward their peaceful homes.
But the key point here, as it applies to the militant Verna, is that for L&J and their intended audience, "militant feminist" is always regarded as a subset of "militant homosexual." For them, in other words, all feminists are presumed to be lesbians, and all lesbians are presumed to hate men.
This leap from sexual orientation to a presumption of militant hatred is illuminating. L&J's visceral opposition to the presumed militant feminists/lesbians is proclaimed as a defense of sexual morality, but that claim is ironic, since lurking just below the surface here is a staggering sexual incontinence. Their cartoonish depiction of the militant Verna Zee is simply L&J's expression of frat-boy douchebag sexual entitlement. Their purported complaint that she fails to display a requisite femininity or wifely submission seems really just the insistence that women -- all women -- provide universal sexual access. They are saying, in effect, "If you don't agree to have sex with me when I want, whenever I want, then you must be a lesbian. A militant lesbian."
There's a whole chicken-and-egg question here, as it were, as to whether the homophobia or the misogyny is the primary motivator of the caricatured militant Verna. My guess is that, in L&J's case, the homophobia is a kind of misogyny by other means. They can't seem to conceive of feminine lesbians or of masculine gay men, only of ultra-butch women in sensible shoes and of swishy effiminate queens. They seem, in other words, to hate gay men for behaving like women and to hate lesbians for refusing to behave like women. But, as I said earlier, I'm in over my depth here and can't really fathom what they're about.
And in any case it hardly matters whether they hate homosexuals because they hate women or if they hate women because they hate homosexuals -- either way they're hateful, hateful people who concocted the entire Verna Zee subplot just to fulfill their fantasy of smacking down an uppity female.
If we can manage, however, to screen out the appalling contempt piled on poor Verna here, it's also worth taking a closer look at Buck Williams' behavior in this scene so we can try to figure out what on earth he's thinking.
We're told that upon arrival, "Buck winked at Alice, Verna's spike-haired young secretary." After Verna informs him that he will need an appointment to get a meeting with her, he sits down next to Alice's desk and proceeds to flirt with her for the next two pages.
"Thanks," she said shyly, pointing to a chair beside her desk.
They whisper together for several more paragraphs, Alice giggling even though Buck never says anything actually funny.
The authors intend us to view Alice sympathetically. She's accommodating, subservient, fawningly grateful for Buck's very presence. She is, in other words, available. She's like Rayford Steele's dream date. Just like Rayford, Buck doesn't need or want to actually avail himself of this attractive young woman, but he does require her to signal to him, constantly, that he could if he wanted to. This may actually be even creepier than the aforementioned douchebaggery.
There are at least two obvious problems with Buck's idly passing the time here with his idea of light-hearted flirtatious banter. First, he's supposedly still in the throes of sappy, first-blush-of-love smittenness over Chloe. Do you think the authors would have approved if instead of Buck and Alice, it had been Chloe and Allen whispering, giggling and winking at one another? Me neither.
But apart from the question of whether light-hearted, flirtatious banter is appropriate with Alice, there's the matter of whether such frivolous chit-chat is at all appropriate or human-seeming just two weeks after the Event. In the weeks following Sept. 11, 2001, even professional comics like Jon Stewart and David Letterman seemed uncertain whether laughter and comic banter were appropriate. (Gilbert Gottfried's legendarily filthy granting of permission to laugh again didn't come until three weeks after that tragedy.) In the wake of the sudden disintegration of every child on the planet and the deaths and disappearances of millions more adults, greeting people with a flirty wink just seems terribly, terribly wrong.
But again, the Event doesn't really exist in this book. "What Has Gone Before" is over and done. That was Book 1. This is Book 2. Anybody still whining about the missing children needs to get over it and move on.
More recent than the Event, however, was the big showdown at the United Nations in which Buck was the only non-brainwashed eyewitness to Nicolae Carpathia's coldblooded murder of two of his closest advisors. That event is still in play here, because that incident is the whole reason Buck got demoted in the first place and sent here to the Chicago bureau.
In addition to brainwashing everyone else in that room to reinterpret how they remembered the killings, Nicolae also brainwashed everyone -- apparently everyone in the entire building, city and world -- into believing that Buck had not been present.
I can appreciate that this would have been flabbergasting for Buck, but it ought to have sunk in eventually. And once he realized that everyone insisted he hadn't been there, he ought to have stopped responding, "But I was there, really, truly, honest I was!" The obvious smart move would have been to play along, to make up some cover story, some excuse for his supposed absence. If he'd even tried to offer Stanton Bailey some explanation for why he wasn't at the meeting, he'd probably still be editor in chief with the big corner office back in New York.
But Buck still doesn't understand that. As he walks by the "underlings" in Chicago, this is what he imagines them thinking:
No. He wasn't fired because he "missed a meeting." He was fired because, from the brainwashed perspective of his boss and everyone else, he missed a meeting and then lied about being there and then, when he was called on that lie, he had nothing further to say in his own defense.
And because Buck doesn't understand why he was fired, he doesn't understand the larger repercussions of what this mass-brainwashing likely means.
Why would Nicolae bother brainwashing the whole world into believing that Buck wasn't in that room? The most obvious answer is that he's covering his tracks -- that he somehow realized that Buck was immune to his brainwashing, which means that Buck saw and remembered everything that happened in that room, which means that Buck must be born again, which means that Buck is both an eyewitness to his crimes and his sworn enemy.
We've already seen that Nicolae is lethally ruthless in dealing with his opponents and even his potential opponents. Eric Miller, Jonathan Stonagal and Joshua Todd-Cothran all knew too much. Now Buck knows too much. Do the math.
So what on earth is Buck doing blithely wandering around in public, flying to Chicago, buying cars, renting apartments, checking in at the office and flirting with the secretary? He should be in the wind. He should be deep, deep, deep underground. In the last book, he faked his own death to escape from Todd-Cothran. It might be time to try that again, seeing as how the guy who killed Todd-Cothran is the one chasing him now.
The fact that Buck isn't already six kinds of dead makes me lose all respect for Nicolae Carpathia as an evil overlord.
Amen. Buck should never have left that room. He should have been framed as the killer. He already had the motive.
Posted by: The Ridger | Mar 13, 2009 at 07:50 PM
Verna inadvertantly reveals her sexual orientation late in Book #3, Nicolae. If we belive Jerry Jenkins that he writes as a "process of discovery", then (besides explaining part of the sheer awfulness of his writing), he didn't know that his character Verna was a lesbian until shortly before he wrote it ... in the next book.
Posted by: aunursa | Mar 13, 2009 at 07:54 PM
One of the things that has constantly caught my intention is how often I like the people that the author's want me to hate and to hate the people that they think that I should like.
I find this depressing because it suggests that there is a vast gulf between me and them and, more importantly, their fans that I simply can't bridge.
Posted by: Andrew | Mar 13, 2009 at 07:56 PM
"The fact that Buck isn't already six kinds of dead makes me lose all respect for Nicolae Carpathia as an evil overlord."
This is like saying you've lost respect for Lex Luthor because he hasn't killed Jimmy Olsen. I for one would feel contempt for Nicolae if he stooped to killing Buck.
"he clownishly violates the First Rule of Nicknames"
Hereafter, I'd like you to refer to me as...
Posted by: King Ian of Awesometown | Mar 13, 2009 at 07:56 PM
Why would Nicolae bother brainwashing the whole world into believing that Buck wasn't in that room? The most obvious answer is that he's covering his tracks -- that he somehow realized that Buck was immune to his brainwashing, which means that Buck saw and remembered everything that happened in that room, which means that Buck must be born again, which means that Buck is both an eyewitness to his crimes and his sworn enemy.
Yes, this I never understood. Nicolae gives no indication that he knows that Buck is immune to his brainwashing, and in fact continues to employ Buck throughout this book and the next.
Posted by: aunursa | Mar 13, 2009 at 07:56 PM
If I met someone like Buck, I swear I would've done a lot more than called him Cameron.
Posted by: Renaissance Blonde | Mar 13, 2009 at 07:58 PM
The rest of the stuff in this book, the half-assed world-building and the just-plain-assed theology, I can laugh off. And frequently do. But the way these guys treat women just makes my blood curdle.
I also have to comment on Alice's hair. First, no global newsweekly would let a visible employee like a bureau chief's secretary wear that haircut. Second, no woman who wears that haircut would fawn over the pathetic flirting of a preening nitwit like Buck, especially when it's clear that her boss thinks he's a gigantic tool.
Posted by: Michael | Mar 13, 2009 at 08:00 PM
Yet despite the absurdity of his arrogance in this context, he's not meant to be the villain of the scene. That honor is reserved for his new boss, Ms. Sensible Shoes herself, Verna Zee.
i.e. "Central Casting? Send over a bitchy bull dyke."
"Can't say he stuck his finger in the dike --
Can't say "dike",
Can't even say "Lesbian" --
Nowadays it's 'Woman in Comfortable Shoes'..."
-- GOOD MORNING VIETNAM
They can't seem to conceive of feminine lesbians or of masculine gay men, only of ultra-butch women in sensible shoes and of swishy effiminate queens. They seem, in other words, to hate gay men for behaving like women and to hate lesbians for refusing to behave like women.
"Verna Zee, meet Guy Blade. Guy, Verna..."
But, as I said earlier, I'm in over my depth here and can't really fathom what they're about.
Just ask Fred Phelps; I'm sure he understands.
The authors intend us to view Alice sympathetically. She's accommodating, subservient, fawningly grateful for Buck's very presence.
i.e. "WOMAN! SUBMIT!"
She is, in other words, available. She's like Rayford Steele's dream date. Just like Rayford, Buck doesn't need or want to actually avail himself of this attractive young woman, but he does require her to signal to him, constantly, that he could if he wanted to. This may actually be even creepier than the aforementioned douchebaggery.
Man, "Pretrib Porno" is right! This sounds like porn. At least it uses the porn tropes, with the exception that since it's Christian (TM), Buck can't follow through like in secular porn.
1) Well, he IS the Author Self-Insert, just like Eragon...
2) And this series' main audience demographic was Born-again Bored Housewives?
There are at least two obvious problems with Buck's idly passing the time here with his idea of light-hearted flirtatious banter. First, he's supposedly still in the throes of sappy, first-blush-of-love smittenness over Chloe. Do you think the authors would have approved if instead of Buck and Alice, it had been Chloe and Allen whispering, giggling and winking at one another?
Of course not. Chloe is predestined to be Buck's Proper Christian Wife in tight bun and denim jumper ("What is thy will, My Lord Husband? How may I better Submit?"), bought and paid for from the other Author Self-Insert, and "Chloe & Allen whispering/giggling/winking at one another" would be ADULTERY. (Ask any Ayatollah or Talibani.)
I don't know which is scarier; that LH&J write like this is perfectly normal or that their target audience swallows it whole.
We've already seen that Nicolae is lethally ruthless in dealing with his opponents and even his potential opponents. Eric Miller, Jonathan Stonagal and Joshua Todd-Cothran all knew too much. Now Buck knows too much. Do the math.
"BUCK, YOUR TIME HAS COME!" -- James Thurber, in a vastly-different context
So what on earth is Buck doing blithely wandering around in public, flying to Chicago, buying cars, renting apartments, checking in at the office and flirting with the secretary?
Indulging the author's fantasies, like a good Gary Stu Self-Insert.
The fact that Buck isn't already six kinds of dead makes me lose all respect for Nicolae Carpathia as an evil overlord.
No, it's Buck's Script Immunity. (Again, Author Self-Insert Script Immunity. Just like Eragon Whatever-slayer.)
Posted by: Headless Unicorn Guy | Mar 13, 2009 at 08:05 PM
"(Gilbert Gottfried's legendarily filthy granting of permission to laugh again didn't come until three weeks after that tragedy.)"
The Onion told us to laugh again after only two weeks. Here was their come back special. Articles included "God Angrily Clarifies 'Don't Kill' Rule," "American Life Turns Into Bad Jerry Bruckheimer Movie," "U.S. Vows To Defeat Whoever It Is We're At War With," "Not Knowing What Else To Do, Woman Bakes American-Flag Cake." It felt very good to laugh just then
Posted by: Ian the Terrible | Mar 13, 2009 at 08:06 PM
That event is still in play here, because that incident is the whole reason Buck got demoted in the first place and sent here to the Chicago bureau.
Come to think of it-- what kind of pall does this cast on flirting with your boss's secretary? Everyone in the office has concrete reason to believe Buck to be either dishonest or crazy-- or more specifically both, that special kind of crazy dishonest where someone sticks to a lie that (a) everyone can easily verify as false and (b) there is no real benefit in telling. If someone who's just been unmasked doing this comes back to work, walks past cubicles of people staring, and drops at your desk and starts flirting with you, do you go along and playfully whisper back?
Or maybe we're misinterpreting the giggling. I mean-- given the authors' past behavior we can probably assume "spiky hair" to be a signifier, like "sensible shoes", especially given Verna Zee picked this person as her secretary. Does the text support the idea that what's happening here is that meta-Alice is sitting at her desk when this known-crazy, chauvinist male plops down and thinks she's impressed with and interested in him, and is spending the entire scene holding her voice down and stifling giggles as she tries her utter best not to laugh out loud at him?
This is like saying you've lost respect for Lex Luthor because he hasn't killed Jimmy Olsen.
Well, look. You do have to admit. Lex Luthor is kind of goofy.
Posted by: mcc | Mar 13, 2009 at 08:13 PM
Ian: This was the one that brought my vengeful side the most comfort.
Posted by: aunursa | Mar 13, 2009 at 08:14 PM
This book is horribly amazing. Any number of people could have written that passage but with anybody else at the helm it would be clear that Buck is a horrible, hateful tool. In fact I can see an editor hashing it out with the writer saying they're making Buck too much a loathsome jackass and he needs some depth to be interesting. That they intend for him to squarely in the right, and that he expects his coworkers are trembling in delight at the possibilty of touching his arm at the copier...It would be hilarious if it weren't so disheartning that so many act like this, believe this, and try to push this on others. They don't just not get human beings they seem to actively hate them.
Posted by: JessicaR | Mar 13, 2009 at 08:16 PM
Why would Buck assume Verna is making him "pay for his years of celebrity" rather than screwing up the story of the century? Heck, Rick Bragg got bounced from the NYT for less.
But of course, assuming it's pure, jealous payback proves that Verna is a spiteful bitch.
Posted by: Fraser | Mar 13, 2009 at 08:16 PM
George Costanza was a pathetic little man, but at least he never tried DEMANDING that people call him "T-Bone"
Posted by: Apsaras | Mar 13, 2009 at 08:18 PM
Of course Verna is making him pay for his years of cebrity, and not because she is a spiteful bitch. But because she is a woman and is therefore a spiteful bitch by default. She obviously wouldn't take to well to bible reading and pretending Kirk Cameron can act no sir. And I think from the get go Verna is meant to be a lesbian. The "sensible shoes" when she was introduced was dead giveaway dog whistle language.
Posted by: JessicaR | Mar 13, 2009 at 08:20 PM
"...Alice, Verna's spike-haired young secretary."
Wow! An actual physical description of a character!
How's ol' Buck wearing his hair these days, by the way???
Posted by: Grumpy | Mar 13, 2009 at 08:25 PM
...he somehow realized that Buck was immune to his brainwashing, which means that Buck saw and remembered everything that happened in that room, which means that Buck must be born again, which means that Buck is both an eyewitness to his crimes and his sworn enemy.
I don't think we can conclude that, actually. Or that Nicolae can safely conclude it either.
How obvious is it that belief or unbelief is the determining factor? Even if Nick knows that RTCism defeats mind-mojo (umm, because he read the book cover?) then the many, many Christians still around--whether newly-minted born agains like Buck, or after-the-fact NOW I Believes like Ray and Chloe--would be as immune as Buck, leaving a sizeable number of people who cannot be whammied into submission.
Of course, L&J don't seem to be acknowledging that anyone except Our Heroes recognizes Nicky for what he is, so maybe ol' Nick, on his part, is a little slow on grasping the implications of belief-as-shield as well. In any case, either all RTCs are a threat to him and must be eliminated, or none of them are, particularly. It'd fit with Nicolae's (assumed, not really shown) arrogance, if he chose to believe that Buck is too insignificant to bother hunting down and blowing away, though it sure doesn't say much terribly complimentary about the heroes.
*snerk* They really DON'T think this stuff through, do they? Heh.
Posted by: Yeltar | Mar 13, 2009 at 08:29 PM
Nowadays it's 'Woman in Comfortable Shoes'..."
Pain-free feet...men. Such a tough choice...
Posted by: jamoche | Mar 13, 2009 at 08:32 PM
Sorry, what was this post about? I quit paying attention because I was trying to figure out why someone would insist on being called by a nickname that he acquired in adulthood.
Asking, or even insisting to be called by a nickname that you picked up before the age of maybe ten or so, because you're so used to being called by the nickname that it is your de facto name is one thing.
Insisting on being called by a nickname that you picked up in adulthood, because you find that nickname flattering and feel entitled to being flattered is being a douchebag.*
And for a Christian to insist on being called by a flattering nickname, when one of the main Christian virtues is humility, get you double douchebag points.
And the misogyny of the LB series is so blatant, I can't imagine how any woman, Christian or not, could like them. And yet, the series has no shortage of female fans. In fact, most of the people I've seen reading them in public places have been women, and they've all told me they thought the books were pretty damn good. Even the anti-Catholicism is more subtle than the misogyny.
But, wait until you get even further into the books. It takes a while for the racism to become really noticeable, what with token black characters being introduced, only to be killed off in the next book or the one after (when the black doctor, whose name I can't remember, fell in love with Hattie, I should have known he was doomed...) and the stereotyping of Arabs (Albie becomes the most sickening "cute pet foreigner" I have encountered in any form of pop culture.)
*This is the first time in my life that I have ever used the word douchebag outside the context of feminine hygiene products. And I just came out as asexual in the other thread. I'm on a roll today.
Posted by: Not Really Here | Mar 13, 2009 at 08:36 PM
I'm thinking L&J's problem isn't with Verna's shoes, it's that she has the gall to sport footgear at all. It appears women in their world are meant to be barefoot.
Posted by: Mark Krawec | Mar 13, 2009 at 08:44 PM
I'm sending out a call to be left in comments or on Right Behind for entries in the Verna and Alice Saved From Drowning series. They need meta-rescue stat!
Posted by: JessicaR | Mar 13, 2009 at 08:46 PM
Buck seems surprised to learn this. He arrives still expecting to receive the deference accorded to his prior rank and all of the perks that went with it. Until now, he doesn't seem to have realized what being demoted meant, and he still fails to understand why he is being punished. Yet despite the absurdity of his arrogance in this context, he's not meant to be the villain of the scene.
Classic Mary Sue signal: any character who doesn't like the hero is eeeevil.* Halfway competent writers know better than to do this. I was just working on a volume of Inuyasha and was struck by the fact that almost every character on the side of "good" dislikes the title character, or bickers with him, or has a grudge against him for some reason. This is a comic book aimed at grade-schoolers, and Left Behind still has less nuanced characters. But I guess it would suggest "moral grey areas" if characters had legitimate reasons for disliking the heroes, and that would be the same as atheism.
*In this case, it's worse than that: any character who doesn't fawn all over the hero, suck up to him, and obey his commands is evil, even if that character is the hero's boss. I'm not sure if L&J think Buck is Verna's natural superior because he's their self-insert, or because she's a woman and therefore any man is by definition her superior. Probably a combination of the two.
Posted by: Shaenon | Mar 13, 2009 at 08:50 PM
Just like Rayford, Buck doesn't need or want to actually avail himself of this attractive young woman, but he does require her to signal to him, constantly, that he could if he wanted to.
Hold up. Rayford's using Hattie as a rhetorical fuckbuddy was treated as evidence of his non-RTC iniquity, yes? So, here's Buck doing the same thing, post-conversion, which is treated as an example of proper gender relations? Or do LaJenkins have such a low opinion of men that they consider infidelity on our end inevitable?
Posted by: schism | Mar 13, 2009 at 08:54 PM
"Or do LaJenkins..."
Bah, remove the "or."
Posted by: schism | Mar 13, 2009 at 08:55 PM
Don't forget "9/11 Hijackers Surprised To Find Selves In Hell."
Posted by: Mark Z. | Mar 13, 2009 at 08:58 PM
I don't know which is scarier; that LH&J write like this is perfectly normal or that their target audience swallows it whole.
I would cast my vote for the latter, because there are more of them. Unless you mean in the sense that Ellenjay are the originators of the material, thus allowing their target audience to swallow it whole. Then it's a toss-up, sort of chicken-and-egg kind of thing.
Posted by: hk8312 | Mar 13, 2009 at 09:00 PM
@schism--
try removing all questions. rephrase as statements. now you're nearer the mark.
for my own comment:
The authors intend us to view Alice sympathetically. She's accommodating, subservient, fawningly grateful for Buck's very presence. She is, in other words, available…
But Buck still doesn't understand that. As he walks by the "underlings" in Chicago, this is what he imagines them thinking:
By now, of course, everyone knew what had happened. They felt sorry for him, were stunned by his lapse of judgment. How could Buck Williams miss a meeting that would certainly be one of the most momentous in news history ...?
No. He wasn't fired because he "missed a meeting." He was fired because, from the brainwashed perspective of his boss and everyone else, he missed a meeting and then lied about being there and then, when he was called on that lie, he had nothing further to say in his own defense.
Amazing. It’s like everyone has not only read the book jacket, but they’ve also read “what has gone before” and realized that Buck really was there and that he still deserves respect and ego-stroking.
I always thought spiky hair indicated she was a punk or a wiccan or something. No offense to any Wiccans out there. It just felt generically "alternative" (spiky hair, I mean). I'm not sure that they're going for lesbian, but I think it's a way to indicate that she's not a good little RTC woman, catering to the whim of every man. Maybe the fact that she flirts back with Buck is an indication that she's a slut and that's why she got left behind.
I mean, Buck isn't flirting with her, she's flirting with him. I don't care what the book says. That's how it goes. If they had sex and she got pregnant, it would all be her fault. Cause that's how Buck is.
Posted by: Jessica | Mar 13, 2009 at 09:02 PM
Yes, Verna comes out as a lesbian in Book 3. But if I'm recalling correctly, it's a pretty pathetic come-out. Buck says something generic about lesbians, not, in his pure and innocent mind, suspecting it to apply to someone he actually knows. And Verna reacts with terror: "Ohmygod, how did you guess? You won't tell anyone, will you?" Before he decides what to do with this dreadful knowledge, Verna is killed in the "Wrath of the Lamb" earthquake. Another uppity woman literally squashed flat.
mmc, I think you're right about meta-Alice. It's the only way that scene could make any kind of sense.
Posted by: Amaryllis | Mar 13, 2009 at 09:12 PM
As to how Buck is still in one piece, think in terms of God protecting his saints. Granted, this isn't horribly consistent (Chloe in book 9 or 10 comes to mind...), but it's the best explanation I can think of...
Anyway, I'm not sure what gives LaHaye & Co. such difficulty in conceiving of the femme and bear archetypes. This sounds like a case of "male is male, and female is female, and never the 'twain shall meet".
Now how they REACHED that sort of conclusion, I've yet to work out...
Posted by: Skyknight | Mar 13, 2009 at 09:14 PM
Don't forget "9/11 Hijackers Surprised To Find Selves In Hell."
That one was my personal favorite.
Posted by: Wenzer | Mar 13, 2009 at 09:16 PM
As an ardent fan of Brian K. Vaughan's Y: The Last Man, I can't help but fantasize about the LB women's counterparts in that universe getting some kind of major karmic payback for their treatment at the hands of LaJenkins. Like, Y-Hattie shoved Ray's corpse out of the pilot's seat and guided the jet to a miraculous landing, and then became a fighter pilot or something. It lifts my spirits.
Posted by: Michael | Mar 13, 2009 at 09:28 PM
As to how Buck is still in one piece, think in terms of God protecting his saints. Granted, this isn't horribly consistent (Chloe in book 9 or 10 comes to mind...), but it's the best explanation I can think of...
Chloe's capture and eventual death are yet another example of L&J's misogyny. She gets captured because she has gone off and done something mind-bogglingly stupid, I forget what exactly.
Chloe, and the female characters in the LB series in general, all have a propensity for doing mind-bogglingly stupid things. There seems to be an underlying message that the reason women are supposed to submit to the menfolk is that women by nature just aren't very bright, and need to be looked after, lest they get themselves (and everyone around them) in trouble.
Posted by: Not Really Here | Mar 13, 2009 at 09:30 PM
Scene:
Carpathia and his henchmen have Stanton Bailey held at gunpoint. Carpathia is furious his mind-mojo did not work on Buck, and vows to rectify his mistake.
Carpathia: He sticks out like a sore thumb. We'll find him.
Bailey: The hell you will. He's got a two day head start on you, which is more than he needs. Buck's got friends in every town and village from here to the Sudan, he speaks a dozen languages, knows every local custom, he'll blend in, disappear, you'll never see him again.
::Buck walks into the room, talking on his cell phone.::
Buck: Yeah, hold on a sec. ::looks over at Bailey:: Hey, since you're going to demote me I decided to quit and get a job over at the World Report. And I'll need you to write me a letter of recommendation. I'll pick it up this afternoon. 'Kay, thanks, bye.
::Buck goes back to talking on his cell phone while walking out of the room::
Carpathia: Dammit! How does he always get away.
Posted by: Philip | Mar 13, 2009 at 09:46 PM
That should be a question mark at the very end.
Posted by: Philip | Mar 13, 2009 at 09:47 PM
"Hold up. Rayford's using Hattie as a rhetorical fuckbuddy was treated as evidence of his non-RTC iniquity, yes? So, here's Buck doing the same thing, post-conversion, which is treated as an example of proper gender relations? Or do LaJenkins have such a low opinion of men that they consider infidelity on our end inevitable?"
Rayford, unsaved, was married to a "good" woman. That is what made his behavior sin. Buck's behavior is considered appropriate for a saved unmarried hero.
I think they used the term militant because, even for authoritarian asshats, it is no longer fashionable to call women uppity.
Posted by: thebewilderness | Mar 13, 2009 at 09:49 PM
Sometimes I don't know whether it makes me happy or sad that trans people are so far off most folks radars that a jerk like Jenkins would never even think to put an insulting caricature in his so-called novel.
It's like, almost the only time trans stuff is ever mentioned in popular culture is just to point out the other worldly freakishness of it.
I mean, I hate to hear anything bad said about trans people, but friends, wouldn't it be a little better for the spikey-haired secretary to turn out to be trans, and just giggling at what an absolute asshole Buck is? I mean, sure, she'd almost certainly be presented in the worst possible light, but would it be nice to have a to a trans person laughing at Buck in the text?
No?
Posted by: CombatQueer | Mar 13, 2009 at 10:03 PM
"Then I'll call you Cameron even if you do mind."
As is often the case with these books, it takes effort on the reader's part to interpret the authors' intended effect. They want us to like Buck Williams here, even as he clownishly violates the First Rule of Nicknames, and they want us to dislike Verna just for tweaking his swollen ego.
Wow! An actual likeable character enters the LB-iverse. I can't wait to read the adventures of Meta-Verna in Right Behind.
Posted by: J Neo Marvin | Mar 13, 2009 at 10:16 PM
Mideast factcheck: not all the rockets coming out of Gaza are from Hamas. Not that this makes them "good guys", but this is a little important, since before Israel killed some Hamas members on Nov. 4, Hamas was keeping the ceasefire pretty well. During the two previous months, there were just a couple rockets out of Gaza, neither from Hamas.
OK, back on topic.
Posted by: Toby | Mar 13, 2009 at 10:17 PM
I don't know which is scarier; that LH&J write like this is perfectly normal or that their target audience swallows it whole.
I think there are a couple of reasons why people swallow the misogyny and some of them are quite innocent:
a) A lot of readers probably do not notice the misogyny the same way they do not notice the bad writing in general, because they just plain do not pay enough attention to what they are reading to pick up anything except the most often repeated phrases and descriptions and main line of action. I'm reasonably sure, that quite a few of the readers might not able after finishing the book to give a short summary on what was happening without peeking on the back cover. - During my school time my teachers spent a lot of effort to teach us how to read between the lines, interpret the author's meaning, summarize etc. Considering how difficult my classmates and I found these lessons, it does not really surprise me, when bad books become popular or readers don't really get the message they have just read.
b) Having grown up in a misogynic environment, they do not realize that misogyny is wrong and not just plain normal. So there is no reason to spend any thoughts on a main character behaving 'normal'.
c) The reader notices and dislikes the attitudes, but because everybody around him/her claims the books are wonderful, the reader assumes the fault lies somehow within him/herself rather than with the authors.
Posted by: Angelika | Mar 13, 2009 at 10:28 PM
Good ear, Fred. "Militant" in this case is definitely conservaspeak for "feminist."
There's a whole chicken-and-egg question here, as it were, as to whether the homophobia or the misogyny is the primary motivator of the caricatured militant Verna...I'm in over my depth here and can't really fathom what they're about.
L&J's complaint is about feminism, I think, at least in this passage. The resentment they're playing to is that of males who have female supervisors. This is why they have him self-medicate by flirting with Alice, the secretary, just after being rebuffed by Verna (the appt). He's trying to get back his sense of control over the ladies. Actually, I doubt they're putting this stuff in the book consciously - this scene probably just approximates what they'd do themselves, in a similar situation. Which is about par for the course.
Posted by: cyrano | Mar 13, 2009 at 10:35 PM
I mean, I hate to hear anything bad said about trans people, but friends, wouldn't it be a little better for the spikey-haired secretary to turn out to be trans, and just giggling at what an absolute asshole Buck is? I mean, sure, she'd almost certainly be presented in the worst possible light, but would it be nice to have a to a trans person laughing at Buck in the text?
Nice? No.
But only a complete and utter tool would want to be nice to Call-Me-Buck.
Now I am expecting a meta-Alice tale in which she is revealed as trans.
Posted by: borealys | Mar 13, 2009 at 10:36 PM
I'm not sure if L&J think Buck is Verna's natural superior because he's their self-insert, or because she's a woman and therefore any man is by definition her superior. Probably a combination of the two.
Probably both, but virtually unconscious. I get the impression that the writers writing that scene have no idea whatsoever how WEIRD that scene looks to a reader who isn't already in love with the character. They are INCAPABLE of seeing the self-insert character from another character's point of view, because they operate with a bulletproof lack of self-awareness.
Posted by: J Neo Marvin | Mar 13, 2009 at 10:39 PM
I think that... crud. Angelika totally beat me to the punch with point A.
While it isn't quite as depressing as picturing teeming millions of snarling misogynists lapping this sort of thing up and approving wholeheartedly, it's still kind of sad to think about the millions picking up books (good or awful), swallowing them without absorbing a thing and crapping them back into used bookstores and libraries undigested.
It bums me out even more when I realize that I've probably done the same thing with many books myself. How many awful books have we gushed about? How many great books have faded from our memories? Argh.
Posted by: El Durazno de la Muerte | Mar 13, 2009 at 10:40 PM
2) And this series' main audience demographic was Born-again Bored Housewives?
I think it has to do with two things, why women swallow up sexist crap:
1.) It's usually portrayed as good/normal. After all, it's not like the sexist crap is portrayed as a BAD thing in this scene--we're supposed to agree with it. And the fact that it's NOT calling itself sexist, nor even drawing attention to itself, makes it insidious. Women don't have any built-in anti-misogyny meter, unfortunately, and our brains act like sponges the way all human brains do.
2.) In most sexist media, when the man acts like a pig, the woman responds positively, and this makes the man treat her well. In porn, the woman enjoys being submissive and abused. In Christian Lit, she enjoys being kept on a spiritual leash.
I remember a comic I once read, where all four or five muscle-bound men in the room stared and all but dog-whistled when their single female member walked in wearing her tight, sexy suit. In real life, this would embarass or scare most women. But in the comic she's cool and flattered, not threatened or self-conscious when they openly gape at her body and let her know that they are doing so. The creepiness factor is there, the idea that the men assume they can visually lap up any female they like, and that if they tell her they are, OF COURSE she will be flattered to enjoy their attentions. She is there to be consumed, and consumed for them, and since she would never protest they don't need to consider her feelings.
Posted by: AngmarBucket | Mar 13, 2009 at 11:08 PM
Their purported complaint that she fails to display a requisite femininity or wifely submission seems really just the insistence that women -- all women -- provide universal sexual access. They are saying, in effect, "If you don't agree to have sex with me when I want, whenever I want, then you must be a lesbian. A militant lesbian."
Which is doubly weird combined with their other message: "If you have sex, at all, outside of marriage, you're an evil evil slutwhore who must die." Cognitive dissonance, fundies: you has it.
Also, it might just be the dinner party I came from, but "indiscriminate rockets of gayness" sounds somehow euphemistic. And hot.
I confess to some surprise that a spiky-haired woman is supposed to be sympathetic. I also grew up equating spiky hair with some subset of punk rock/alternative sexuality/paganism, the kind of girl who would have interesting piercings and tattoos and make really good pot brownies. And while I like this kind of girl a lot, she seems like exactly the sort L&J would despise.
Posted by: Izzy | Mar 13, 2009 at 11:13 PM
I think part of the reason for trans absence is that for all LaJenkins don't believe homosexuals really exist, they really, really, really don't believe transsexuals exist. They think of them as either homosexuals to the power of ten, or as straight perverts that cross-dress to sneak into women's bathrooms.
Being dichotomous thinkers, LaJenkins put everyone into one of two sexual categories: straight and perverted. They don't distinguish between the straight transgendered woman, the gay cisgendered man, and the pedophile. They don't even realize that one of those things is not like the other.
Posted by: Leum | Mar 13, 2009 at 11:31 PM
I quit paying attention because I was trying to figure out why someone would insist on being called by a nickname that he acquired in adulthood.
Because "Cameron" sounds like it could be a girl's name. :-D It's just Verna's militant way of not being properly deferential to His Manly Buckness.
Posted by: SueW | Mar 13, 2009 at 11:38 PM
"Cameron," she said flatly, still seated. "I didn't expect you till Monday."
"Just checking in," he said. "You can call me Buck."
"I'll call you Cameron, if you don't mind, and --"
"I do mind. Please call --"
"Then I'll call you Cameron even if you do mind."
This snippet of dialogue was eerily echoed on Meet The Press two or three weeks ago when Katrina vanden Heuvel, the editor and publisher of The Nation, suggested to fellow panelist Karl Rove that he was perhaps not the best person to criticize deficit spending. Ms. vanden Heuvel began her comments by calling Mr. Rove "Mr. Rove." Mr. Rove twice interrupted Ms. vanden Heuvel by saying "Call me Karl" in an attempt to engender a sort of hey-we're-all-talking-heads-now bonhomie. Ms. vanden Heuvel did not take the bait.
Back to TF: Notice the dynamic here. Buck is telling his acknowledged superior that he objects to not being called by a nickname. If an underling were to insist that a superior address him by his proper name, that could be seen as demanding that the superior accord the underling a basic amount of dignity. An underling's suggestion that a superior call him by a nickname is likely an offer of friendship. The insistance by an underling that a superior call him by a nickname has nothing to do with friendship, but is instead an assertion of power by the underling.
Moreover, this is not just any nickname. Buck allegedly earned his nickname by "bucking" the will of his superiors (all evidence to the contrary). Asking Verna to call him "Buck" is asking her to acknowledge that he has the right to be insubordinate. I'm sure if Buck had said "Call me Stinky" he would have met with a warmer response.
The ability to name people or things has been seen as an indication of power from Genesis (Adam's naming the animals) to George W. Bush (who famously bestowed nicknames on all around him, whether they wanted them or not - for example, I'm sure Mr. Rove was reminded of his inferior status whenever GWB referred to him as "Turd Blossom").
Buck is using this time-honored technique to let Verna know that he does not accept her authority. Verna, bless her sensible shoes, is having none of it.
Posted by: noyatin | Mar 13, 2009 at 11:43 PM
We don't have the time, expertise or equipment to plumb the full depths of LaHaye & Jenkins' misogyny in this scene. That would require a bathysphere, a team of psychiatrists and a blogger with a stronger stomach than mine. The best I can do here is to point toward or hint at the unfathomable sunless world of their fear and loathing. It won't be pretty.
Posted by: Samantha | Mar 13, 2009 at 11:54 PM
I confess to some surprise that a spiky-haired woman is supposed to be sympathetic. I also grew up equating spiky hair with some subset of punk rock/alternative sexuality/paganism, the kind of girl who would have interesting piercings and tattoos and make really good pot brownies. And while I like this kind of girl a lot, she seems like exactly the sort L&J would despise.
Not if she flirts with Buck. All sins are forgiven (unless and until the woman shows a spark of independence). What with all the shy pointing to chairs and giggling, I'm visualizing her as a porn "schoolgirl" or possibly a manga* character.
* I'd say anime, but no matter how short the skirt and shy the glance in anime, the girls can usually kick butt!
Posted by: ohiolibrarian | Mar 13, 2009 at 11:55 PM