Ingenue

The ingenue may be my least favorite heroine type. In fact, I would go so far as to say that my dislike of the ingenue is not only active but that it borders on hatred. There is no objectivity when I am faced with an ingenue. I cannot divorce myself from my knee-jerk, visceral reaction to her character which can be summarized as violent disgust.

I am partially writing this blog post in the hopes that by explaining to you, my audience, why I loathe this particular character type so, I will also explain it to myself.

As far as I can tell, not having read the entirety of her works, Barbara Cartland is the Grand Dame of the ingenue. Every single heroine is sweet, innocent, nauseatingly naive and in grave danger. Many would argue that this is not an ingenue but rather a heroine who is TSTL. Rather! But here’s the thing : What really is the difference between Ingenue & TSTL? No, I ask this in all honesty because quite frankly I do not believe there is a difference. I am willing to have my mind changed. I just have yet to meet the heroine who is an ingenue without being TSTL.

Oh I can hear you, Lady Blog Reader, out there now saying “What about Merry Wilding from The Windflower? She was quite the little ingenue but not TSTL?”

 Hmmm. Well, confession time. I’ve never liked any of Laura London’s heroines. Now don’t look at me like that, Lady Blog Reader.  I love Rand Morgan. I love Cat. I love the whole damn crew. I love the prose and the madcap plot, but Merry’s mewling innocence got old after awhile. Stop frowning at me. It isn’t sacrilege. I haven’t sacrificed a puppy during Easter services or something. Good Lord!

“But Merry’s fantastic! She learns. She grows. The Windflower is her bildungsroman, her coming-of-age quest.”

So you say, LBR. But I disagree. Merry does grow but she doesn’t grow enough, in my humble opinion. She ought not to be so gosh darned ignorant!

“Don’t you mean innocence?”

No, I mean ignorance. Plus innocence is just ignorance in a white nightgown with its hair loosened. Don’t try to fool me! I know bad case of wide-eyed, just-fell-off-the turnip-truck naivete when I see it.

“Hey now. That’s just not true. Innocence is a state of purity, of having not been corrupted by the evil of the world yet. That’s admirable, while ignorance, a lack of knowledge and experience, is not.”

That’s what everyone thinks but they are wrong. Innocence, in the case of the ingenue, is ignorance. It is a lack of experience and lack of knowledge disguised painted with a pretty face. Innocence is purity of the mind. If there is one part of a person’s anatomy that should be deflowered immediately, it is the mind.  A pure mind does no one any good, especially the person in possession of it. Power comes with knowledge. Knowledge is power, yadda yadda yadda. Purity is a false virtue. Nothing can be truly pure in the universe. Creation is an act of a corruption. To live is to become impure. From the moment of the first breath to the moment of the last, every human being is in a state of corruption. This is what original sin means. People think it means being naughty or doing evil or being born to go to straight to hell,  but what it really means is all that who are born will one day die; that all that was new will become old; that what is fresh will rot; that what is sweet will stink. The arrow of time only moves forward. Innocence in this case, is the desire for an unsulled world, a hollow Eden where being cannot being because only nothingness is truly pure (see Milton Paradise Lost for more!)

“Well, what about children, madame philosopher? Huh? Shouldn’t they be kept innnocent?”

Well, I don’t know what you mean by that. If you mean that children should be protected then I ask you from what? If you mean protected from knowledge then, no I don’t. If you mean, protected from being violated, tyrannized and exploited because they are not physically or mentally ready to protect themselves, then yes. I think children and all people who are oppressed should have their basic civil and human rights protected for them if they can’t do it themselves. However, in order to be a mature, critical-thinking adult one must not be kept from knowledge. One of the first things tyrants do is to forbid the dissemination of information. If we really want to protect our children we should make sure that they acquire the knowledge and experience in order to eventually become adults. Maturity and wisdom come only with knowledge and experience. The problem is that with knowledge comes choice, and with choice comes the ability to choose badly. But one always chooses, even the refrain from choosing is, in itself a choice. Do we really want a bunch of people wandering around acting like adolescents into their 60’s and constantly commiting existential bad faith? Oh wait! We do!

“Low blow! We are sooo off-topic, by the way. What does any of this have to do with you hating ingenues?”

Well, Lady Blog Reader, I will tell you. I despise the Ingenue because I it is my contention that this character trope rewards the most narrow vision of femaleness and womanhood.  That is, it defines femininity as innocence and ignorance, helplessness and emotionalism and while I am pro-feminine virtues, I protest the idea that these are either feminine or virtues.  The Ingenue is rewarded for being naive, for being pure. The virginity of her body is only a metaphor for the total virginity of her mind. I don’t mind heroines who are virgins, but I despise heroines with virgin brains.

Moreover, they always end up with The Rake. Let me tell you something I have learned about rakes, both by reading about them and that one ill-advised time I dated one: They don’t find innocence refreshing. What they find refreshing is a person who behaves against their type, against how the rake expects they will behave. If you, woman, happen to be a virgin and act the doe-eyed ingenue, well they expect that and mock you for it, if not to your face then behind your back. What they don’t expect is a Virgin who has a mouth like a trucker, has a passion for horticulture, and spends her weekends playing lacrosse. See that’s the kind of girl who would catch a rake’s interest. Also, let’s be clear. There’s a difference between a rake’s interest and a rake’s interest  if you know what I mean and I think you do.

“I do. You mean, there’s difference between someone who fascinates him as a person and someone who he just wants to shag.”

Precisely.

“But hang on. I mean, isn’t the Ingenue historically accurate. I mean, it would make sense for a woman of that time period to be naive in sexual matters, at the very least.”

PSHAW! How dumb would you have to be to never wonder about sexual difference or how babies got made? I mean, even if you didn’t know or couldn’t ask anyone, oughtn’t you be at least curious?

“Well, yeah. But, hey! Merry was curious. She totally asked her aunt about it at the beginning of The Windflower.”

Okay I’ll give her that. I’d like to point out two misconceptions about history. The first is that what was true in one place in one time was true everywhere in that time. EEEEEEEP! Sorry! No, just because one family kept their daughters and sons ignorant as dirt about sexual matters doesn’t mean that everyone did. Mores, social taboos, customs and practices can change drastically from nation to nation, village to village, family to family.   Second, everyone is always under the impression that Modern Times Be More Enlightened which, if you’ve ever looked at sex education pamphlets in Texas you know to be utterly untrue. Most people’s knowledge about the past has been shaped by years spent in the American Public Education System and if there is one thing besides math, science, and basic grammar that the APES fails to teach, it is history

“Ha! Texas sucks . . .except, you know, Austin.”

Why does everyone always say that? How great can a place be with that kind of humidity?

Anyway, to summarize: What I object to about the Ingenue is that  ignorance is rewarded, female naivete lauded, and physical virginity is equated with innocence of spirit and purity of soul.

What I’d like to see is a Villaness with all the attributes of an Ingenue only instead be a Vamp. Oh wait! Nevermind! There is one!

 

 

Behold! Blair Waldorf, bad girl extraordinaire of the book and TV series Gossip Girl. Queen Bitch, backstabber, and meeeaaan girl. Once she was a sweet, innocent virgin with a nice, upstanding boyfriend until her BFF shagged her boyfriend and in a fit of alcohol inhanced misery she lost her V card to Chuck Bass in the backseat of her father’s limo. Chuck’s a totally the Rake,  but Blair, playing against type, only appears to be an Ingenue. Watch out! She’ll cut a bitch! God I love Blair.

Here’s to Blair Waldorf and every backstabbing, lying villainess wench with her hymen intact, defying expectation and proving that you can be a Good Girl with a Bad-Ass Brain.

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