Genderswap
Jun. 29th, 2013 01:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
miss_morland posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
les_miserablesI normally don't pay much attention to genderswap (nothing against it, just not a trope that grabs me), but it occurred to me that it might be interesting to discuss what various Les Mis characters would be like if genderswapped -- they are all shaped by their circumstances, but how would different circumstances (due to different gender roles) affect them? Would they still be recognisable as their canon selves?
For instance, 63!Valjean would not have been sent to a bagne. Would she end up spending 19 years in prison? Would she be able to build a Madeleine-like life for herself with the aid of the Bishop's silver? (I'm not up on the French rules for unmarried women owning property during this period.) 63!Fantine is hard for me to imagine to begin with, because Fantine's storyline is so specifically about the unfair way society treats unmarried women -- though I think I could believe in a story about 63!Fantine being a poor youth taking care of his little sister and being forced to become a male prostitute, if done well.
As for 63!Javert, I can see her turning into a typical stern spinster -- the sort who keeps a sharp eye on troublemakers and delinquents in her neighbourhood -- earning her daily bread in some low-paying but honest job. I'm not sure it would occur to her that a woman could join the police, because Javert is so preoccupied with following the norms of "respectable society"; the thought of a woman passing as a man and doing a man's work would probably shock her, though I think it's definitely an interesting scenario.
These are just some examples, though I'd love to see others. Also, these are just some hasty thoughts; feel free to disagree or elaborate!
For instance, 63!Valjean would not have been sent to a bagne. Would she end up spending 19 years in prison? Would she be able to build a Madeleine-like life for herself with the aid of the Bishop's silver? (I'm not up on the French rules for unmarried women owning property during this period.) 63!Fantine is hard for me to imagine to begin with, because Fantine's storyline is so specifically about the unfair way society treats unmarried women -- though I think I could believe in a story about 63!Fantine being a poor youth taking care of his little sister and being forced to become a male prostitute, if done well.
As for 63!Javert, I can see her turning into a typical stern spinster -- the sort who keeps a sharp eye on troublemakers and delinquents in her neighbourhood -- earning her daily bread in some low-paying but honest job. I'm not sure it would occur to her that a woman could join the police, because Javert is so preoccupied with following the norms of "respectable society"; the thought of a woman passing as a man and doing a man's work would probably shock her, though I think it's definitely an interesting scenario.
These are just some examples, though I'd love to see others. Also, these are just some hasty thoughts; feel free to disagree or elaborate!
no subject
Date: 2013-11-13 05:34 pm (UTC)...mind you, I can also see a possibility of 63!Javert deciding her only option other than outlaw was 'nun'...
+1
I have found pretty much all the 63!JVJ I've seen dissatisfying on a character level so far because their roles in canon are so tied to gender--I feel like if you want to genderswap and keep those roles, it takes some serious Alternate France worldbuilding, and if you don't want to do that, their roles would look very different.
I hadn't thought of 'nun' for Javert, though, which kind of makes me want to attempt the genderswapped story I was poking at again. Hmmmm. What would nun!Javert think of fallenwoman!Valjean? Or what would she think she was supposed to think according to the moral authority of the Church? I suppose it might depend very much on the attitudes of the Mother Superior, whether she was more of a Myriel or more of a hellfire and brimstone sort...
(holy crap I think I've found a 63 JVJ femslash scenario that actually interests me O_o)
no subject
Date: 2013-11-13 06:19 pm (UTC)I think nun!Javert would be very different depending on whether she was a cloistered nun (like the sisters at the Petit-Picpus) or a nun who lived in the world (like Simplice or Perpetue). I don't actually know enough about different kinds of nuns in period to go into any detail about which, except that I now desperately wan a scenario where Simplice is the Inspector and Javert runs the hospital....
(and Fantine is ex-con mayor and Valjean is fallen woman??? maybe.... Valjean who can't get even seasonal work as a pruner to support her sister's family, and turns to prostitution out of generalized anger and despair?)
no subject
Date: 2013-11-13 06:46 pm (UTC)I also don't know enough about nuns in period. I wonder if one could just cheat and crib from Hugo, haha.
Cosette in this verse might actually be Valjean's son, yes?
no subject
Date: 2013-11-13 09:02 pm (UTC)(I really want Inspector Simplice now. That would be AMAZING. really you could leave the rest as-is and just swap those two, and see what happened....)
I still lean toward Cosette being Fantine's son via an upper-class woman who got herself in trouble and then dumped him... I feel like Valjean's relationship with sexuality is different enough from Fantine's that a 63!Valjean probably wouldn't have become anyone's mistress - or if so, would have gone into it for different reasons and not fallen for Tholomyes' particular brand of assholery? But 63!Valjean with a kid could work - especially if she'd been working the streets instead of in prison....