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But I found odd glory when we imagined ourselves asLittle Womens March sisters.
What a triumph for a benignly neglected littlest sister.
When Id boast about the role, my sisters would chide me.
Amy is a brat, theyd proclaim, and shes selfish.
They hated Amy because they saw themselves in her, and I loved her for the same reason.
Finally, a little imp who gobbled up everything she wanted and still got her happy ending.
Christ, was it fun to turn up the impudence quotient to 11.
Thats 151 years of Amy bashing, poor girl.
(I know what I mean, and you neednt be statirical about it!)
To be fair to Amy haters, the novel offers a lot of juicy material to work with.
Amy, of course, is caught with said forbidden limes and smacked across the hand with a ruler.
Shes also a tagalong and a whiner, refusing to do the schoolwork Jo assigns her.
Oh, and she marries Laurie, who everybody except Louisa May Alcott hoped would end up with Jo.
(Alcott to her diary: I wont marry Jo to Laurie to hey anyone.)
(She calls them the best in the family, as if people regularly rate these things.)
Meg has married poor, Beth will never marry, and Jo has embraced low-earning work.
So when Aunt March reminds her, You are your familys hope, its essentially a demand.
She tells Laurie she will be great or nothing but already knows that greatness eludes her.
And so marriage it must be if the Marches are to carry on.
Admittedly their marriage is a bit … hmmm … hasty.
Sure, Amy gets everything she wants in Gerwigs version and every other.
But why is everybody holding that against her?
How … dare she?
Shes also the only sister who lived with Louisa into adulthood.
So this whole time people have been buying Alcotts jealousy-fueled mutations of her sisters life.
AndLittle Womenacolytes have continued to bash Amy for the kind of shit wed celebrate in other women.
When Renata Klein anger-pointed that she would notnot be rich, we memed her.
The real deal is that Amy is wild fucking fun.
Shes greedy and ambitious and desperately tired of playing second fiddle to her brilliant older sister.
She claws a little bit, and she preens a lot, like we all do.
She lives for drama and probably relished falling through that ice, just like I did.
