But no. Tweedles Dum & Dee are misogynist predators. Know how I know? Bc the looks they exchange when they mutter to one another "she's curious!" are of the same mettle, the same warp & weft, as those the Door made when Alice read the bottle label to see if his potion was poison.
There are only two of them, but they're tag-teaming to mind-game her like the Door did. & they're pretending to dance, sing, & play with her to get her lost, & to get her to admit defeat. In short, they're trying to interfere w/her relationship to her intuition, like the others.
Ok I slept off the worst of the sweats but I am still post-second-shot dizzy and achy and cruddy so prepare yourself for Ming Analyzes "Alice in Wonderland": Section Two
Tweedles Dee & Dum really are the Hell twins. They're misogynist & obstruction. They're as bad as the doorknob when it comes to assessing Alice's natural intuition & curiosity as threats, & as bad as the sea animals when it comes to a vaguely rapey frat bros roughing Alice about.
*obstructionists. Anyway: they quickly see the threat Alice's curiosity poses and use it against her (by tantalizing her with a story about curiosity) classic DARVO tactic. The fable they waylay Alice to tell her is about the dangers of curiosity to the misogynist construct!
They also attribute both "logic" and "manners" to behavior that's absolutely its opposite. They're neither logical nor polite, but they condescend to Alice and employ word salad to preach to her as though she's the one being senseless and rude.
I don't think we need to get to into the symbolism of oysters as feminine. It's right there. This asinine walrus, too fat to need to eat the innocent baby oysters, lurkers then across the ocean floor and murders them for his supper.
He says to their empty shells that he "sympathizes" with them. Kind of like when GOP reps in the NRA's pocket give "thoughts and prayers" the the victims of misogynist killing sprees. Or, more closely, when a serial murder says he's "sorry" in his trial. He's not sorry at all!
But performative apologies are a part of the unsavory cocktail of word salad and DARVO that the Tweedles use to get Alice off track. Suck a victim's curiousity/intuition/ life force intentionally, then perform a mannered apology for it.
This does several things. It confuses victims who remain. It buys the predator time. And it helps the predator rehabilitate his own self-image.
Alice does what she did with the other obstructionist Narcissist whose chosen weapons were confusing her, condescending to her, bullying her, and forcing her to accept bad behavior as "manners" and twisted stories as "logic" -- namely, the greasy doorknob.
Which is to say, she escapes, but not on the terms of the bloviating obstructionist(s). There *is* no escape on the terms of a narcissistic abuser. There is no escape of victims from misogyny on its own terms. That's what Estés' "backtracking & looping" is all about.
After Alice points out quite sensibly that the moral of the murdering-innocent-oysters-for-their-curiosity story the Hell Twins are trying to convince her apply to her because she's not an oyster, they insist she stay for "another recitation."
So she does what is available to her, and has nothing to do with the terms by which the Hell Twins try to remold her sense of logic and manners and bully her intro submission. She simply sneaks off while they bloviate.
I should specify that I meant to type "lures" here, and that it's bullshit to imply fat people/animals aren't ever hungry and don't need food. My apologies. What I should have said is that...
it seems clear from his attitude and language that this walrus isn't luring and trapping innocent baby oysters to eat because he's desperately hungry, but because he gets off on tricking young innocents, and enjoys the mind games of predation.
This was what I realize is an offending tweet, & again, bullshit on my part. The walrus just seems to exude predatory-wealthy-uncle vibes, especially with his wealthy dress, narcissistic mind games, & the way he sort of hypnotizes young innocents.
https://twitter.com/minglishmuffin/status/1377776022196785160?s=21https://t.co/i7kyNgWuX2
His enjoyment of these morsels symbolizing innocence, naïveté, and credulousness, in other words, really doesn't seem to come from need, like starvation, but because he enjoys it.
ANYHIZZLE! We now get to Rabbit's House. Rabbit seems a little more endearing and less predatory. He's self-obsessed, but his anxiety is kind of an over actively self-referential circuit that just keeps sparking, and less preoccupied with impeding Alice's knowledge acquisition.
Still, he's another masculine figure whose self-preoccupation keeps him from being particularly helpful to Alice. He literally doesn't really "see" her. The first thing he does is call her by the wrong name, & order her to find his gloves. Not the mentor she deserves!
His first move is still to disregard her identity & slot her into his worldview as an instrument for his goals. What about Alice's goals??
I think that's why I absolutely love this scene so much. Alice gamely follows Rabbit's bizarre directive to go into his house and find his gloves, even though he calls her by the wrong name & barks orders at her.
& when she gets inside Rabbit's construct, ie his house, her natural curiosity & meeting of her own needs lead her to eat cookie-& as a result she literally grows bigger than that house! She outgrows the terms & constructs foisted upon her by a guy who doesn't bother to see her.
It's such a satisfying development. I think because it implies how naturally *formidable* Alice is, how strong her intuition & self-love make her, when she *meets her own needs first* & doesn't submit entirely to misogynistic, narcissistic obstructionist terms of living.
Of course, Alice's unintentional challenge to Rabbit's worldview by virtue of remembering her own name and meeting her own needs lead to her growth, ie to him finally *having* to see her. & the first thing he does? He calls her a monster. WHERE IS DONNA HARAWAY WHEN YOU NEED HER?
Anyway, the comparatively benign narcissism Rabbit exhibits, his anxiety, is tied to cowardice. He wants the dodo to do something about the "monster" whose identity he initially disregarded growing beyond his own terms of reference when he barked orders at her.
Dodo outsources dealing w/it too, to a lizard w/a ladder. He's Bill, & his vaguely Cockney-ish accent evokes a very British preoccupation w/class & hard labor: a "big jobs go to the little guys" mentality that's disturbingly in keeping w/Rabbit's ascot & Dodo's purple coat & pipe
Rabbit's incessantly self-pitying in all this. It doesn't occur to him that maybe he should have looked at the girl in front of him and learned who she is before misnaming her and ordering her into his house to fetch what he wants.
He doesn't put together that his predicament is largely due to the natural result of his summary dishonor of Alice & her uniqueness, & outright dismissal of her needs & wants & her identity, subordinating all those things to his momentary desires. No, rather, *she's* the monster!
Bill tries to run away because he's scared too. Dodo manipulates Bill by telling him stories of the fame he could enjoy if he ousts Alice, & literally bullies him into the situation by physically forcing him down the chimney. Not-so-subtle class commentary!
In keeping w/ men here, Dodo doesn't give a shit about Bill's well-being, which becomes evident when these guys' first reaction is to bully a lowly lizard down the chimney to deal w/ a woman demanding their notice as herself and not as the identity Rabbit selfishly foisted on her
Their lazy, irresponsible outsourcing of dealing with the problem to Bill results in Bill being shot into the sky like a cannon when his being shoved down the chimney upsets the ash & Alice naturally sneezes.
It's another awesome event, because the sneeze the a natural & bodily response of this woman who has outgrown the terms of these selfish upper-class cowards, a response the bullies could have seen coming. & of course, Alice's sympathy for Bill is genuine. The Dodo's is not.
*I meant "the sneeze IS a natural" sorry
Alice has met all sorts of masculine characters and she's still the only one whose compassion is genuine and extended to someone other than herself. She's the only one who cares about anyone else. It's a succinct indictment of toxic masculinity.
Dodo next suggests burning everything Rabbit owns down to oust Alice "the monster" -- they'll just smoke her out! It's the definitive Pyrrhic victory. They'd need to destroy what they're trying to protect, just to get at her. Toxic masculinity is rife with Pyrrhic victories.
Of course, the guys don't notice that Alice would also love to get out of this. & it's her idea that actually works. Not for the first time, she solves her own predicament by following her own intuitive idea. This time, to eat a garden veggie in hopes of shrinking. & it works.
& does rabbit learn from his mistake to deny the identity of the woman in front of him & disregard her? No, not even after she shows herself to be sympathetic to "Poor Bill" & not to be interested in destroying anything. Not even when her intuition is, once again, curative.
Dodo is characteristically also slow on the uptake. Even after the problem is past, he asks successfully-smaller Alice herself if she has a match. Just as he wasn't concerned for Bill's well being, he's more concerned with making his destructive and bullying goals happen than...
Whether Rabbit is in actual danger, which he's not anymore. He's off for whatever he's late for, & in continuing to try to catch up with him, Alice displays the first behavior that might be termed *unwise* instead of just naive, hopeful or innocent.
Rabbit has shown her who he is: an anxious, self-obsessed coward who'd sooner burn her up & destroy her than learn her name, not to mention learn a new way to treat her than to order her around & negate her identity.
He's called her Marianne, a barbarian, & a monster. She's none of those, obvs. She's Alice. But can we blame her? Compared to Bloviating Doorknob, Frat Bro Lobsters/Starfish, Predatory Tweedles & the murderous walrus they tell of to scare her, Rabbit's positively endearing!
Now for the flowers: the 1st feminine characters in Wonderland! I do appreciate that their exclusionary cattiness makes plain as incisive a critique of mean-girl British culture & what it means so be socialized as a woman as the guys in Wonderland do of being socialized as men.
ANYHIZZLE! I am now here to report that if you have a sensitive nervous system like mine AND have the immense privilege of sleeping all you can after shot # 2, that 3 sessions of just *staying in bed* for 12 hours, whether you sleep or not, seems to do the trick. I'm revitalized!
& now for the flowers. Alice had escaped the murderous Dodo looking to incinerate her because she offers him "no cooperation at all" in pursuit of the White Rabbit.
It's pretty amazing how quickly the tone shifts, one Alice gets into the land and lair of the first feminine characters native to Wonderland. The soundtrack alone!
And the first thing that happens is a word joke. Alice goes from literal persecution as a "monster" by cowardly, be-ascotted Rabbit & the murderous, bullying Dodo, to a land where she doesn't need to worry about misogyny, it's bullish callousness, & its single-minded destruction.
& for a glorious and short-lived respite, all seems well. Alice has fought four kinds of misogyny & perhaps not "won", but survived, which when it comes to misogyny & its suffocating, fundamentally lethal terms for victims, is victory enough.
now there are beautiful, gentle-voiced flowers, using that respite from bullying murders to create a land of literal harmony! The flowers sing for Alice, and let her sing with them. None of the previous wonderland denizens have allowed her to join in their activists.
At most, the previous masculine Wonderlandians Alice has encountered have made her the brunt of them as a cruel joke, but none of them allowed her in like this. *Their* victimization of her was cruel and obvious. The flowers' much less so.
This turns out not to serve Alice either, which we can start to pick up on right when she wanders into the thicket. "I'll never catch him when I'm this small," she self-reflects: she knows her several recent experiences at the hands of brutal, toxic misogyny have weakened her.
She's not at her full size or height. She's not at her normal operating levels of self-trust or confidence or strength. And that's where she is vulnerable to what the flowers now do, which is the socialized feminine version of what the crude masculine jerks have already done.
Accordingly, it takes longer for the plot to play out here with the flowers than in the previous tussles with outright misogyny that Alice has heretofore survived. 1st is the lilting word joke: "butterflies!" Alice exclaims; "you mean bread & butterflies," comes the coy answer.
It seems at first a place where Alice's flights of fancy are welcome; & as she can relax, word jokes can be just that: sources of joy & humor in the way Alice experiences the world. It's almost harder to watch the flowers turn against her because the initial hope is so real.
(Personally the whole thing reminds me of joining the #binders in 2012 only to encounter such toxic policing & hostility & bad faith that the very premise of sisterhood was no longer the bedrock I'd hoped it would be, but I digress!)
Anyway, the lilting harp music, the soft voices, the gorgeous petals--the silly puns & word jokes that the change in context encourage as less dangerously brusque than rather sort of delicately attractive--it gives off a Lotusland vibe, and starts to entice Alice accordingly.
Nothing here is *overtly* dangerous. There is no bottle of poison to shrink her, no bloviating doorknob insisting she do so, no rabbit ignoring her until she becomes more fully herself, no Dodo to try to bring her alive when she grows thus...no! Rather the flowers sing for her!
Alice politely takes a seat, voluntarily and gamely enjoying what seems to be a real treat. The whole thing is so delightful that Alice herself starts to wave her arms along with the music!
We interrupt our normal broadcasting to apologize for the errors & typos in these tweets; I meant *its and *activities and *insisting that she drink it --apologies I just get enthusiastic; carry on 
Lulled by the whole experience, Alice gets sleepy & yawns. It should be a signifier that she is, as she no doubt believes herself to be, finally *safe*--but she's not. Rather, this whole thing has simply been a more adept & effective version of what the Tweedle Hell Twins did.
Sleeping is when we are most vulnerable. Like children. Like babies. That Alice yawns is unfortunately not a sign that she's safe; only that she believes herself to be. It's an important distinction to make as we wade into girl-on-girl oppression, which is what these blooms do.
It's so upsetting & insidious! They charm her, lull her into sleepiness, sing her into a false sense of security, & as a cherry on top, the bread-&-butterflies pull on her clothes to bring her into the fold & sing *with* the flowers--as a soloist, no less! Dream come true, right?
By the middle of the song Alice is so comfortable & entranced & feels so safe that she yawns. & *thats* when the breakdown to this great song provides the bread & butterflies the entree to tug her along into her solo. It's a softer version of the coercion Alice has already faced.
& one of the most heartbreaking aspects of this style of coercion--softer & gentler on the surface, musical, lulling--is that when she is coerced, Alice instead (& understandably) things she's being *included*; & moreover, included in *good faith.*
& that's why she tries to sing although she's clearly a little bashful about it. When she hits a wrong note, she knows it. But the flowers immediately surrounding her help her out, & she relaxes into what she thinks is the gentle environment of sisterhood that's been missing.
That's what makes what the flowers then do so much worse, so much more hurtful. Because as opposed to the coercion of the Bloviating Doorknob, the Frat Bro Starfish, The twin impediments Tweedle, & thinks she's found her sistren.
When the bread-&-butterflies gently tug her into the spotlight, she thinks she's being taken care of & encouraged, not coerced. If the Doorknob weren't so Bloviating, he'd have been able to confuse the two, like the flowers do here.
The flowers, subtle as they are, don't exploit Alice's vulnerability w/ forceful reminders of her lowly status (ie Bloviating Doorknob's office hours) or shove her on her face (like the frat boy lobster bros) or tell her she's comparatively rude & senseless like the Hell Twins..
& they don't misname her or try to burn her alive. At this point, the bar is pretty low.
most of all, w/ Alice at this point of exhaustion & vulnerability, they have the calculating instinct to nominally include Alice, not exclude her; & to pretend NOT to ignore her. This ultimately feeds into a destabilizing betrayal for poor Alice, who thinks she's found chums.
But everything coming up (forgive me) roses is not what any coming-of-age narrative is about, much less any trauma narrative or grief narrative.
...& since coming-of-age narratives inherently involve heartbreak & betrayal, the latter is unmistakably what we're dealing with once the former is convincingly invoked.
This does Alice have another rite of passage--this time of the gossipy, two-sided, backstabby kind. Instead of confusing her sense of logic as the previous masculine brutes do, these flowers confuse her social sense--the one of belonging & being seen clearly.
If you're really tuned in to Alice's compassion, curiosity, & humanity, this scene is one of the hardest to watch. It's immensely disappointing--heartbreaking, even--to see that Alice is actually still being mistreated, only in subtler ways w/ each of her Wonderlandian encounters
Because, as every character does in every effective narrative ever, both literary & lived, these flowers gave themselves away at the top. They're malignant narcissists, only more charming ones than the previous.
Look at each kind of flower clamor for its own sort of attention! They're not concerned with Alice herself, only with bouncing off of her to conjure another chance to be in the spotlight.
It takes the matronly rose corralling them to get them all on the same page, because they show their asses as the same useless gossiping driveling lot who want to either take the piss out of Alice (only sweetly); make it about themselves & star in the song they'll sing; or both!
Look at each kind of flower clamor for its own sort of attention! They're not concerned with Alice herself, only with who's "worth talking to" if they're older; & with bouncing off of her to conjure another chance to be in the spotlight if they're younger. Not great.
In case the clip in question didn't previously upload, the aforementioned initial "soft" narcissism & "nice" social-oppression-via-snobbery on the part of the flower gang is here:
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