Umbridge's Rape (Was Umbridge a Half-Breed???)

[abigailnus]

No: HPFGUIDX 78110

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "jsmgleaner" <jsmgleaner at y...> wrote:
> 
> > > <<"James Redmont" wrote:...Also, and excuse me if you think it's 
> > > crude (we're all grown-ups here, right?), when Umbridge gets back 
> > > from the Centaurs, I kept thinking (maybe I'm perverted, I don't 
> > > think so, yet this still occurred to me) that she had been, um, 
> > > sexually abused by the centaurs as a punishment...ok, raped...>>>

And several others offered the same observation, to which I say:

Oh, thank God!  I thought I was really twisted, but the very first 
reaction I had to the centaurs pursuing Umbridge was that they 
were going to rape her.  And then I felt really, really bad.  Still do, 
in fact.

Because there's a reason why rape is such an immediate reaction 
to Umbridge and the centaurs, and it has nothing to do with the 
centaurs themselves (although they are an entirely male group, 
and horses are a rather masculine animal) but with Umbridge and 
her portrayal.

I don't like Umbridge, and by that I don't mean that she's a bad 
person.  She is, and there are instances in which she is a superb 
bad guy.  The punishment quill with which she makes Harry write 
lines is disturbing in the extreme, and so is the obvious fact that 
she gets off on Harry's pain.  She does a masterful job of 
manipulating the staff and engaging in Orwellian tactics (her only 
misstep was banning The Quibbler article, which ensured that it 
was read by the entire student body).  

On the other hand, Umbridge often caters to the ugliest 
stereotypes on how women in power act and look.  I don't mind 
that she's physically unappealing, although I do find the constant 
references to her toad-like face disturbing, but there's 
something almost laughable about the way she dresses and 
carries herself.  She wears bows and pink clothing and carries a 
little handbag.  Her office is decorated with kittens.  Is this 
supposed to lull anyone into a false sense of security?  If so, who?  
It can't be the readers, who cotton on to her almost from her first 
appearance.  Are we meant to believe that the students, rather 
then being put off by a grown woman who dresses and acts like 
a thirteen-year-old, will find her reassuring?  Everyone must be 
able to see through Umbridge's charade, so why does she keep 
it up?

It gets worse when you consider the way she behaves towards 
other adults.  With women she's often brusque, even rude.  
When speaking to men, even ones she despises such as 
Dumbledore, she is placating.  Her voice is most often described 
as 'simpering'.  She is obviously Fudge's toady - the only person 
more in his thrall is Percy, and he has the justification of being 20.

You might ask what I'm complaining about.  After all, Umbridge is 
a bad guy - she's meant to be off-putting - but the manner in 
which she is described makes my teeth stand on end.  I'm reminded 
of Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (shameless 
plug: read the book, avoid the movie).  Ratched is evil.  She is a 
psychiatric nurse who dominates the men under her care, and seems 
determined to prevent them from ever becoming healthy.  Ratched 
is described as cool and unflappable, but a great deal of description 
is given over to her big breasts, which are kept hidden, caged, in her 
nurse's uniform.  The book's hero, McMurphy, is a wild and 
highly-sexed man who, in the climactic scene, strikes Ratched down 
and tears off her shirt, exposing her breasts.

I hated Ratched when I read Cuckoo's Nest.  I wanted her to be 
punished.  I cheered when McMurphy struck her down, and then 
I was horrified by what he did next.  Not because of the 
sisterhood and the need to stand beside any victim of sexual 
assault, but because of what that assault meant.  In order to take 
power away from Ratched, McMurphy exposes to the world the 
fact that she is a woman - her sexuality makes her weak.  
Penetrable.  

I think the fact that so many people jumped the conclusion of 
rape in Umbridge's case - despite very little hard evidence in the 
matter - is emblematic of the same kind of perception.  Umbridge 
needs to be taken down a peg, and how do we do that?  By 
raping her.

Compare Umbridge to the other evil female in OOP, Bellatrix 
Lestrange.  She wears her sexuality on her sleeve, as opposed to 
Umbridge who tries to conceal her own sexuality behind her 
childish clothing and demeanor.  Bellatrix bows to no man except 
Voldemort, whereas Umbridge kowtows to any powerful male in 
the room.  I'm not saying that we should admire Bellatrix - her 
delight in inflicting physical and emotional pain (so similar to 
Umbridge's) sticks in my craw - but I prefer her as a portrayal of a 
woman in power.  No one could take Bellatrix's sexuality and use 
it as a weapon against her.

I'm not pleased by the way JKR wrote Umbridge.  The immediate 
reaction to OOP is that finally JKR has remembered her female 
readers.  She gives us Tonks and Emmeline Vance, makes Molly 
significant in the Order, brings Ginny to the fore and makes 
McGonagal infinitely more interesting than she ever was before.  
But then there's Umbridge, and the readers who delight in the 
assumption that she was raped, because the stuck-up bitch 
deserved it.

I don't like that at all.

Abigail