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DERRY GIRLS APPRECIATION WEEK 🌈 🇮🇪

Day 5 (8th July): Fave scenes/moments

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LM 1.2.7

just a stray thought right now, but this :

He admitted that he had committed an extreme and blameworthy act; that that loaf of bread would probably not have been refused to him had he asked for it

is really interesting to me? The idea that Valjean, as crushed and alienated as he was at the point he was making this judgement , still believed the baker would have just given him the loaf-- that can't be rose colored glasses at that point, right? ..mild spoiler territory

And that makes me wonder if the baker even pressed charges, or if this, like Fantine's arrest later, is something that happened because it was Seen , and a cop decided to make the charges regardless of anything the person Valjean actually tried to rob might have said? (I'm not sure if breaking and entering/robbery would have/could have been treated the same way--if anyone has a stronger understanding of the laws in place at this point, let me know?)

-which ..on the one hand def. a lot of what goes on in LM is individuals being bigoted and horrible! but also there's room in the book for a lot of individual kindness and understanding. But the legal system is always awful! and Valjean getting arrested and his family destroyed by law even while the guy he committed the crime against would have been willing to let it go seems like the sort of thing that Fits...

but maybe there's some quirk of the law that would have prevented it ? because the legal system never breaks the law of course /s

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You know, rivers catching on fire used to be a regular occurrence.

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I think a lot about the relationship between Jean Valjean’s fury and outrage in his early chapters, vs the Conventionist’s response to Myriel condemning revolutionaries.

Jean Valjean:

Anger may be foolish and absurd, and one may be wrongly irritated, but a man never feels outraged unless in some respect he is fundamentally right. Jean Valjean felt outraged.

vs the conventionist:

“Right has its wrath, Bishop; and the wrath of right is an element of progress.”

His theft of the loaf of bread feels very similar to me: he is guilty of a crime, but it’s a crime that was building up over the course of an entire life spent surrounded by death and despair.

“A cloud had been forming for the space of fifteen hundred years; at the end of fifteen hundred years it burst. You are putting the thunderbolt on its trial.”

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On one hand I understand the complaints of how long Les Miserables is, and how the digressions can be frustrating.

On the other you these words hit much stronger after the 14 chapters describing the man who lives behind that door.

The Evening Of A Day Of Walking, Les Miserables by Victor Hugo

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One thing I love about Jean Valjean’s pre-prison backstory chapter is how human/flawed he is: he’s not an all-loving saint, but a regular guy taking on the duty of caring for his family even when when he has a lot of resentment about the burden that’s been placed on him. He’s not special. He’s an average guy and average criminal. His name literally means “voila gens”/“here is the man;” he’s an ordinary John Doe.

This is something I’ve noticed adaptations tend to change: they often want Jean Valjean to be unique, better than the other criminals in a way that makes him an Exception, a special person who doesn’t deserve to be lumped in with other criminals, and they want his arrest to be the system making a mistake rather than the system working as designed. But the novel is very clear that there is nothing special about Jean Valjean’s story, that he is not exceptional, and that he is a representative of a very common story and a very average kind of person.

I go back and forth on the description of young Jean Valjean sometimes, because on one hand, I do think Hugo has some classist ideas about peasants— but on the other hand, I really do like the characterization of Jean Valjean caring for his family while also being a regular person who feels overburdened by them, as anyone would. He protects his sister’s children by spending money they can’t afford on milk they’ve stolen, but he does it grumblingly. He spends all of his time working the same job that killed his father in order to support his family; but the narration points out he has no time to do normal young person things like falling in love, and he seems to exist without really believing he has any kind of future. He’s not this Ideal of Fatherhood—- he’s just a regular ordinary guy doing what he can to support his family even when he resents the weight that’s placed on him.

And despite all of his suffering under that weight, he still takes it on— and he still breaks down sobbing over his family when he’s parted from them:

While the bolt of his iron collar was being riveted behind his head with heavy blows from the hammer, he wept, his tears stifled him, they impeded his speech; he only managed to say from time to time, “I was a tree-pruner at Faverolles.” Then still sobbing, he raised his right hand and lowered it gradually seven times, as though he were touching in succession seven heads of unequal heights, and from this gesture it was divined that the thing which he had done, whatever it was, he had done for the sake of clothing and nourishing seven little children.

And his first escape attempt also happens shortly after he’s told the only news he ever hears of his family.

So again, I think this is also something I think a lot of adaptations miss: Pre-Prison Valjean is not a saintly hero who’s “mistaken” for an average criminal. He’s a very common type of person with a very common type of tragedy:

It is always the same story. These poor living beings, these creatures of God, henceforth without support, without guide, without refuge, wandered away at random,—who even knows?—each in his own direction perhaps, and little by little buried themselves in that cold mist which engulfs solitary destinies; gloomy shades, into which disappear in succession so many unlucky heads, in the sombre march of the human race.

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The thing is, Jean Valjean’s “nineteen year prison sentence for stealing a loaf of bread” from Les Mis isn’t actually unusual….not even today! I see people talking about it as if it’s strange or unimaginable when it happens every day.

In modern America — often as a result of pointlessly cruel (and racist) habitual offender and mandatory minimum laws— people are routinely sentenced to life in prison for minor crimes like shoplifting or possession of drugs.

The ACLU did a report in 2013 detailing the lives of various people who were sentenced to life in prison without parole for nonviolent property crimes like:

•attempting to cash a stolen check

•a junk-dealer’s possession of stolen junk

metal (10 valves and one elbow pipe)

•possession of stolen wrenches

•siphoning gasoline from a truck

•stealing tools from a tool shed and a welding machine from a yard

•shoplifting three belts from a department store

•shoplifting several digital cameras

•shoplifting two jerseys from an athletic store

• taking a television, circular saw, and a power converter from a vacant house

• breaking into a closed liquor store in the middle of the night

And of course, so so so many people sentenced to life without parole for the possession of a few grams of drugs.

And we could go on and on!

Gregory Taylor was a homeless man in Los Angeles who, in 1997, was sentenced to “25 years to life” for attempting to steal food from a food kitchen. He was released after 13 years. The lawyers helping to release him even cited Les Miserables in their appeal, comparing Taylor’s sentence to Jean Valjean’s.

And there’s another specific bit of social commentary Hugo was making about Valjean’s trial that’s still depressingly relevant. He writes that Valjean was sentenced for the theft of loaf of bread, but also that the court managed to make that sentence stick by bringing up some of his past misdemeanors. For example, Valjean owned a gun and was known to occasionally poach wildlife (presumably for his starving family to eat.) . So the court exaggerates how harmful the bread theft was—he had to smash a windowpane to get the bread, which is basically Violence— then insist the fact that he owns a gun and occasionally poaches is proof that he is habitually and innately violent. Then when Valjean obviously becomes distressed traumatized and furious as a result of his nakedly unjust sentence and begins making desperate (and very unsuccessful/impulsive/ poorly thought through) attempts to escape…. the government indifferently tacks more years onto his sentence, labels him a “dangerous” felon, and insists that its initial read of him as an innately violent person was correct.

And it’s sad how a lot of the real life stories linked earlier are similar to the commentary Hugo wrote in 1863? Someone will commit a nonviolent property crime, and then the court insists that a bunch of other miscellaneous things they’ve done in the past (whether it’s other minor thefts or being addicted to drugs or w/e) are Proof they’re inherently violent and incapable of being around other people.

A small very petty fandom side note: This is also why I dislike all those common jokes you see everywhere along the lines of “lol it’s so unrealistic for the police to want to arrest Valjean over a loaf of bread, there must have been some other reason the police were pursuing him. Because the state would never punish someone that harshly and irrationally for no reason. so maybe javert was just gay haha”. (Ex: this tiktok— please don’t harass the creator or poster though, I don’t think they were intending to mean anything like that and its just a silly common type of joke you see made about Les mis all the time so it’s not unique in any way.) because like.

As much as I don’t think Les Mis is a flawless book or that its political messaging is perfect….the only way that insanely long unjust sentences for minor crimes is “unrealistic” is if you’re operating on the assumption that prisons are here to Keep You Safe by always only punishing bad criminals who do serious crimes. And that’s just, not true at all. Like I get that these are just goofy silly shallow jokes, and I’m not angry or going to harass anyone who makes them. but it feels like there’s an assumption underlying all those goofy jokes that “this is just not how prison works!” “Prisons don’t routinely sentence people to absurd laughably unjust pointless sentences!” “Prisons give people fair sentences for logical reasons!” When like…no

Valjean being relentlessly hounded and tortured for a minor crime in a way that is utterly ridiculous and arbitrary in its cruelty is not actually a plot hole in Les mis. It’s a plot hole in …..society ajsjkdkdkf. And the only way to fix that is to fight for prison abolition or at least reform, and (in America) stand up against the vicious naked cruelty of habitual offender and mandatory minimum laws.

But yeah :(. I hate how Les Mis opens with a prologue saying the novel will be obsolete the moment the social issues it describes have been resolved— but two hundred years later, the book is still more relevant than ever because we’re dealing with so many of the exact same injustices.

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- Jenny Holzer

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had some fun coloring an inktober sketch

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*goes to egg your house but I find out you're vegan so I ¼ cup of unsweetened applesauce your house instead*

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Once again its 3am and this washing machine wizard haunts me

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Did I read that correctly…

PBS was the only news outlet that dared to call it what it is, namely a nazi salute and today PBS got defunded??

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Ceramic dishes by Deana Coveney.

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PLEASE buy from people who have not filled their goals!

Did you know that for a long time, Girl Scouts has openly included transgender and nonbinary individuals in its membership? I first learned of this four years ago while searching for a source for my annual Girl Scout cookie purchase. At that time, a wave of anti-trans sentiment was intensifying, prompting me to seek out transgender Girl Scouts from whom to order. One major benefit of their online ordering system is that it allows for trans girl scouts to sell their cookies with relative privacy and no contact between the scout and the purchaser when it comes to online orders.

My initial effort was a success, meeting the goals of every single scout featured on the page. The achievement felt wonderful during what seemed like one of the most severe legislative attacks on transgender children in recent memory. Unbeknownst to us, each subsequent year would bring greater such attacks. Since then, every year I've repeated this initiative, we've surpassed our previous sales, leading to coverage in multiple major media outlets.

It is that time of year again. I have reached out to the families on my list to gather girl scouts to purchase cookies from. Please consider choosing a trans girl scout to get your cookies from this year - the kids are under attack this year more than ever, so lets give them some joy.

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My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002) dir. Joel Zwick

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Reblog daily for health and prosperity