What The Trailer of Little Women Got Wrong
By Mary Grace Quinlan
“Women — they have minds and they have souls as well as just hearts. And they’ve got ambition and they’ve got talent as well as just beauty. And I’m so sick of people saying that love is all that women are fit for. I’m just so sick of it... but I’m so lonely!”
The trailer for the 2019 adaptation of Little Women put this quote at its apex, emphasizing culture’s desire to proclaim the feminine power that people seemed to have missed for the past 200 years. But after seeing the film, they left out (most likely on purpose), what I think to be the most important part of that line in the trailer...
As a young woman myself, Little Women resonates deeply with my current situation. Jo March, the boyish and clever protagonist, can think of only creating a better life for herself and her family. She is ambitious, stubborn, funny, loyal, and intelligent. She has a soul and talent as she says in the line above. But what was left out of the trailer really defines her character and what I’m sure most people feel at some point or another...
“... but I’m so lonely!”
Jo was so set on becoming a “spinster” and only focus on her writing that she neglected a very important part of our human condition. At the death of her sister, she was forced to look at her life and see the emptiness that she tried so hard to fill with her own pursuits.
I’m sure most women can agree that they’ve had these moments where we feel that we are trying our best to be successful and yet, we feel empty or alone. If only we understood our humanity...we were created for unity. Jo is lonely because all of the success in the world could not satisfy her longing to be loved and to love. Why did the editors decide to leave that most vulnerable line out of its trailer? Why have women become so afraid of embracing sensitivity and the desire for unity when stifling it is only detrimental to our well-being? We are strong and we have great ideas, but we shouldn’t block that which makes us vulnerable...that which makes us human.
Our loneliness serves a purpose. It is not for us to continuously dwell on and become moody, unpleasant people. The loneliness should be transformed. For all our ambitions, talents and intelligence that Jo describes... we should be using it with our hearts to serve others around us. Jo realized that her loneliness came from years and years of not allowing herself to be loved or to love. In that moment of vulnerability with her mother, she comes to the understanding that all the ambition and talent in the world cannot satisfy a woman’s heart completely.
In pursuing the highest of heights, the loftiest of goals, we cannot be fully satisfied. It is in our unity with others and more so with God that we fill that void. Feeling lonely is not a weakness and yet it can be crippling. It was in giving up herself that Jo found love and community...how many women could learn from this simple yet profound example of femininity.
