Film vs. Novel: Fried Green Tomatoes

I finally finished reading Fannie Flagg's Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe. I think it took me so long to finish this book (years, in fact) because it's nothing like the movie, Fried Green Tomatoes, which I grew up watching. But now that I've finished it I can definitely say: the book is so much better!

First of all, I love the film. Love it. I love Jessica Tandy and Kathy Bates, I love Mary-Louise Parker and Mary Stuart Masterson. The film is great. However, the film avoids the core of Idgie and Ruth's relationship: namely, that it is a loving, sexual relationship between women. The film shows two women who have an intense friendship, an indivisible bond, and maybe even some sexual desire (that is not acted on). Ruth comes to live with her friend out of desperation: she is constantly abused by her husband and has to escape before she has a baby in such a horrible environment. There are moments of intimacy, sure, but the relationship is never defined, by Ruth and Idgie or by other members of the community, as anything but platonic.

The film's interpretation of this relationship makes me so sad because it's the reason the book is so interesting. In the book, Idgie and Ruth have an open lesbian relationship. Ruth leaves to get married because she feels Idgie is too young to choose a partner, not because she doesn't love or need her. When Idgie gets lonely, she visits the local prostitute (I couldn't think of a nicer word for her, but prostitute doesn't really fit), Eva. When Ruth is living with Idgie and about to have her baby, Idgie's father gives her what I have to call a 'man-to-man' talk; he talks to her about the responsibilities of caring for and supporting a family. The book is so interesting because it shows an open lesbian relationship in the South in the 1930s (and on) that is never questioned, never scorned and never ridiculed. No one in the book wonders why two women are living together, raising a child. No one questions Idgie's right to discipline Stump, as another parent would. No one questions the love and devotion that exists between Ruth and Idgie. Everyone simply understands that Ruth and Idgie are a loving a couple like any other.

What I think the film really gets right is Kathy Bates's character, Evelyn Couch. She may be one of my favorite literary characters ever. In the beginning of the novel, she is exactly the woman that Betty Friedan was writing about: She's married because she thought she had to be. She never had sex before marriage for fear of the bad girl reputation, but finds as an adult that she has less knowledge of sex than her sixteen-year-old daughter; worse, she discovers that nothing horrible ever happened to the bad girls in high school, they are all unhappy or happy, married or not, just like everyone else. She feels like she missed out on feminism, and doesn't understand it. She lacks control in her life and tries to gain it through hopeless dieting. Through the meetings with Miss Threadgoode and the stories of Idgie and Ruth, Evelyn gains the confidence and understanding she needed to take back control of her life. The film shows this beautifully, with Kathy Bates slowly getting stronger, going through an angry, man-hating phase, and finally settling down in a place where she's happy, employed, and healthier.

The biggest travesty of the film is the ending, when we discover that Miss Threadgoode has been Idgie all along. Never mind that she has explicitly told us that she married into the Threadgoode family by marrying Idgie's brother Cleo (incest anyone?). Never mind that she's discussed having a child of her own. As a professor of mine put it, the filmmakers seemed to have wanted to 'redeem' Idgie, by having her straighten up (literally), marry a man and have a family of her own. Never mind that it doesn't fit the character of Idgie, whom we've watched onscreen for an hour and a half at this point! Never mind that it doesn't make any sense!! I hate to think of this move being remade, because of the beautiful performances by all of the actors involved; but, I would like to see a film that explored the relationship between Ruth and Idgie as it was written to be.

I don't want this to be a rant against the film, because I do love it. I've watched that movie since before I can remember. My grandmother looks and sounds just like Jessica Tandy, and I love all the memories of watching the movie with my sisters and seeing our grandmother so perfectly imitated onscreen. But for those who love the film, or even who have never seen it, Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg is a must-read novel.