Ashley Fetters - The Atlantic: In the new Steve Carell comedy The Incredible Burt Wonderstone, there's a moment when Jane (Olivia Wilde), Burt's reluctant onstage assistant, transforms Burt's dollar bill into a butterfly.
It's a charming scene, showing one more adorable step toward Burt and Jane's inevitable rom-com happy ending. Plus turning money into a tiny fluttering monarch is just generally pretty cool. Yet it also got me thinking: Why is this the first time I have ever seen a woman do a magic trick?
5 comments:
This is something I've never even thought about thinking about. But now that it is brought up to my attention, it's true that I can't think of having heard of or seen a single female magician. When I think women and magic, all that comes to mind is the magician's assistant in a sparkly leotard waiting to disappear or be cut into two pieces. All the reasons brought forth about why women magicians are rare seem to make sense to me; I just feel like all these reasons could also apply to actors. For a long time, women were not allowed to make theater; so why is it that women started acting before they started doing magic tricks?
Just like Camille I cant say I had ever thought about female magicians before. I cant think of a single one. Females in magic have always just been the beautiful assistants used to distract you from what was really going on. So good on this movie to break an unknown stereotype and have a female magician, while I wouldn't consider it a pressing issue it still gets people thinking about it.
Like Hunter and Camille, I have never heard of a female magician. I think that magic is awesome, and I've always wanted to be a magician, and i refuse to believe that's because I'm strange. I think there should be more women in the business because 1, magic is awesome, 2, women role models for girls who want to actually go into magic should be more common than they are. I find it unfair that men hog the spotlight when it comes to magic.
Why are there so few female magicians? A very good question. Up until I read this article this is a thought that has never crossed my mind. As Camile said when I think of a woman as a magician I would automatically think an assistant but this is how society has painted a picture us as women. We are always to be in positions of assistance. A woman's place is to be the assistant or the clerk. I believe this goes further than women being magicians but the bigger picture of women not being able to the things that "MEN" do. Women are just as capable of doing the same things that men do. I digress, I do think that more women should be in the business as it portrays the feminist side of the practice and I think that women magicians would be way more attractive and sexy to the public.
I think the answer is simple. Women are attractive. Not just are they pretty, they actually attract our attention (men for lust, females for jealousy). For this reason they are used as assistants in magic shows, to divert the gaze of the audience while the magician performs secret tricks. If there was a female magician, everyone would be focused on her and would see all the slight of hand movements that are meant to be concealed.
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