open your mouth, boy

[lotesse]

hmm. What do y'all think the likelihood is that JKR's SPEW is a swipe at the Victorian Society for Promoting the Employment of Women? I keep coming across the acronym and having odd moments of fannish dissonance.

Comments

[naraht]

I always assumed it was...

[lotesse]

God, really? Suddenly that plotline seems (even more) appalling.

[naraht]

I don't know, maybe I'm giving her too much credit for knowledge of Victorian history. But it certainly sounds like a direct reference to me.

[lotesse]

It does - I'm just mildly shocked at how absolutely antifeminist it seems, considering the textual scorn poured on Hermione's project.

[laughingrat]

For what it's worth, I've often thought JKR sold Hermione short. "Just books and cleverness" really sticks in my craw all these years later. And then this whole plotline...it was interesting, because we had at least one House Elf who wanted freedom, so maybe all the other House Elves were written as they were to show how insidious oppression is? How it becomes so much a part of the oppressed person's life that it's unimaginable to live without it? But then, the storyline was also so gross. I dunno. I'm torn.

[ilthit]

I wouldn't be surprised if she saw the acronym at some point and thought it was funny that any kind of an advocacy group would be called "spew", so she just swiped it for the books. It IS kinda funny.