The Gender Wars: Mystery Edition

New, spritely little Marple.                     

So, I have recently been rediscovering my absolute love of Agatha Christie. And it all started because the Austin Public Library has like everything the BBC has ever made on DVD. And they will loan you a whole season for three weeks. It’s awesome. Anyway, I discovered in this way that the BBC redid the Miss Marple mysteries in the last few years, starting in 2004, with this adorable lady. If you are unfamiliar with the series, it’s about a little old lady, Miss Jane Marple, a spinster who knits and crochets, who has a mind “like a bacon slicer” and who gives naughty murderers their comeuppance.  The books were written between 1920 and like 1973, and I read most of them in elementary school. Which I am sure had severe psychological repercussions on my impressionable mind.

Aged, Turkey Wattle Marple

So I have always liked Agatha Christie’s books, but I have always hated the Marple movies, because of the people they would get to play her. Miss Marple is age-defying. She is scrappy and smart. And this is who they got to play her for most of the 1970s and 1980s. Now, no offense to this lady, but she really is mostly dead. And she has a wattle. My Miss Marple most definitely does not have a wattle. I prefer my Marple with a little gumption.

So, I have been loving these new Marples. Of course, eventually I ran out, well except for wattle Marples, so I started watching the Poirots. For the uninitiated, Hercule Poirot is a Belgian detective living in England who had a fastidious manner and a perfect moustache who peppers his speech with little French words that are super annoying if you’re 10 years old and don’t speak French. But he has a style about him, and a certain something (I would have said je ne sais qua, but I can’t spell French either). 

And low and behold, there are crazy differences between these two detectives, that I would say mostly revolve around their genders. Oh Agatha Christie, could I ever write an article about you. Here is a sampling:

And of course Poirot has his own issues. He is from Belgium, which everyone in the books treats like the most foreign place imaginable. And you know, Christie doesn’t do it perfectly, but she does show how this dude who is totally un-British has his own awesomeness. Don’t get me started on how both detectives are othered by the people around them. (Othering: fancy word for the process by which people are made to feel different from or other than what is perceived as normal). 

In any case, I feel like I’m getting a new appreciation for what Agatha was trying to do. When I was a kid, Miss Marple drove me crazy. I was always like, “Just tell people you can solve murders already! Come. On!” It’s was always this “Oh inspector, if you have the time you might want to check so and so’s alibi because I noticed that he is hiding the fact that he has a peg leg.” Or “That man reminds me of so and so from the village. Oh village life is so interesting. He killed his whole family with a shovel. Isn’t that quaint.” Damn it woman, say what you mean! Now though, it seems like that’s the only way she could get the men in charge to hear her. 

It also made me totally crazy that everyone treats her like an idiot. If someone patted my head and

Rutherford's Marple: Not a sweet old thing:

called me a sweet old thing, I would punch them in the face. But good ole Jane relishes in people underestimating her. Cause in the end, that sweet old thing is sending you to the gallows, probably by next Tuesday. 

Of course, when I was ten I didn’t know much about the women’s movement or age discrimination. But I did learn a lot about strychnine and digitalis. Thanks Agatha! And I was probably learning a little about how to work in a system that will often treat you like you’re a moron if you have lady parts. Anyway, here’s to strong women everywhere, and good ole Agatha and Jane in particular.