This story is a deft study in presenting POC without the POC. It's amazing really. Yes, the Scots are technically not a POC but in that era they are seen as "primitive, backward, uneducated, superstitious" by the English. And gasp, they are Catholic mixed with a heavy dose of believing in a fairy world. All those "traits"attributed to folk seen as inferior by folk feeling superior And for convenience's sake, the English found a lot of folk "inferior" and used it as an excuse to "help" them by bogarting their way into other people's land. Hell, they treated their own "inferior" like crap and sent "undesirables" to "the colonies" or to Australia. Ok. England had a loooong history of just rolling right up in a place and BOOM! "Have some tea. We like the view but not you, so please die, or submit, or get out. Thank you."
So, let's delve
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Centuries ago, low born people were not worth considering and were to be avoided by all costs by the high born (not much has changed), unless the high born needed them for something. BUT...there is always the "call of the wild" , the call of the "exotic." Think of all those British explorers traipsing off to points unknown, searching for the "exotic." That pull toward the forbidden. Closer to the manse, there has always been both that Lord and Lady who are screwing both the scullery maid and/or the stable boy. This attitude that the "inferior" are good for service only has not died. And after the tryst, the so-called betters' duty is to remind the so-called inferior of their class constantly in any way possible.
Which brings me to Claire and Jamie.
Claire (England) is a stone pain in the ass. Sorry but she riles me up with her airs. It took me a long time to warm up to TV Claire because basically she is that know-it-all-chick who walked into the end of a play and wants everyone to stop and fill her in. Don't get me started on how this intelligent woman touched a HOWLING, SCREECHING, VIBRATING stone while a wind from nowhere kicked up all around her and thought nothing was gonna happen to her. What do I call a person like that? Besides six screws loose and the rest missing? Privileged. Arrogant. Clueless. All of them because that person walks around thinking nothing bad is ever going to happen to them because said person knows it all. Yep, that's Claire. And no, it's not because she's Caucasian. I hang with plenty White women who would have RUN, just like me, when that stone started moving and singing. Claire just thinks the world revolves around her and that which is between her legs.
Now, I am floored, positively floored, that readers, watchers (mostly women) have NO problem with Claire's sexing up Jamie. Girlfriend got tipsy to ward off wedding night jitters with basically a STRANGER AND THEN BANGED HIM WITH ABANDON WITH NARY A THOUGHT ABOUT THE HUBBY SHE LEFT BEHIND IN THE 20TH CENTURY! Sex outside marriage when the other partner has not sanctioned it is not liked by romance readers (and let's face it. this series is romance no matter how much Gabaldon distances herself from the genre now). The woman is MARRIED. Outlander is a romance. I know Claire married Jamie for safety, so getting carnal with the hot Scot ONCE would have been enough to make it legal but in my mind, girlfriend dropped trou for this guy a tad too quick. It just has always been a sticking point for me. Couldn't she have taken refuge in the nearest convent/abbey/church until she could get back to those stones? She and her husband (Frank) in the future had a good relationship. In the book, they were trying to recapture the spark in their marriage after 5 years apart due to WWII. I think more soul-searching, more hand-wringing, more hesitation on Claire's part would have sounded more true in her facing her predicament.. Her accepting Jamie into her bed, on a permanent basis, so eagerly, always rang false to me. I mean she supposedly always had her mind and eye on getting back to the future through those stones! Why acquire a husband? Especially a supposedly, "low-born" one? And us being alerted constantly that she is "high-born" "of gentle birth" yadda, yadda, yadda, English.
Which brings me to the POC part.
Jamie (Scotland) is a gorgeous, untamed, wild hunk of the Highlands. At least that is how he is presented. BUT he is as "high-born" as Claire or even more so. He is Laird in his own right. Nephew of a laird and of a war chief. Well-educated. Intelligent. But his refinement and his connections to refinement are not brought up the way Claire's background is harped on. He is pimped as soldier, fighter, warrior, enthusiastic lover, outlaw. All those "bad boy" labels that "high-born" ladies who like slumming, love. Geezus Christ! The only thing missing is a motorcycle. That unequal equal the good girl can screw and leave behind. Sorry but deep down, that's how I think Claire sees Jamie. She loves him because he is NOT anything like Frank, not for him alone. Plus, she's being "high born" by making do by doing this handsome "low-born, manly guy until she can leave. Frank was the pleasant, English gentleman. Jamie lets her get loose and down and dirty. Even the sex she had with Frank was tame compared to the sex she has with Jamie.
Claire reads like the stock heroine in every frontier/foreign land romance book where the "civilized" chick travels to the wild, and finds herself through doing that just wild enough "heathen half-breed." He brings her orgasms and she brings him to "heel." Jamie in his kilt. Do not. Do not. Do not get me started with that kilt. That issue of Entertainment Weekly with the characters of Jamie and Claire on the cover showed Jamie's kilt as sex accessory inside. I mean is there anything he DOESN'T do in that apparel? Jamie might be Scots and European but remove him and insert "Native American chief and his loin cloth" "African prince and his dark skin/loin cloth," "Pacific Islander prince and his loin cloth" "Sheikh and his burnoose," on and on. You get the picture. Jamie could be Shaka, Mako, Chief Running Interference (or some such nonsense), Prince Ahmed or fill-in-any-noble POC. After all is said and done, he is reduced to his chic, ethnic garb as sex accessory, and what's under it.
James Alexander Malcolm MacKenzie Fraser. Romance hero. Honorary "Person of Color." Think about it.
photo credit tvguide.com
