Dingus of the week: The scarlet dingus
In times of trouble, we can always rely on Nancy Mace to cause more trouble
It’s the weekly dingus, where I make fun of something or someone in the news that has made our lives just a little bit dumber. It’s a good week to remind people that there are rules to the weekly dingus. I don’t mock known sexual predators or murderers or war. This week, that excludes a lot of people.
It’s been a dark and difficult week. There is another war. There are more innocent people dying. And around is a cloud of violence and terror, words, propaganda, and fear. I am not an expert on this centuries-old hydra of geo-political combat. No one needs my voice here.
What I can comment on is Nancy Mace.
This week, Rep. Nancy Mace (R - South Carolina), who was a key vote in ousting Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House, walked through the halls of Congress this week wearing a red ‘A’ on her shirt, a reference to Nathaniel Hawthorne’s 1850 novel The Scarlet Letter.
Said Mace, “I’m wearing the scarlet letter after the week I just had, being a woman up here, and being demonized for my vote and for my voice. I will do the right thing every single time, no matter the consequences.”
Mace then went on to vote for Jim Jordan for Speaker of the House. And declined to comment on allegations that Jordan ignored or covered up instances of sexual abuse on the Ohio State University wrestling team when he was an assistant coach there.
This is why we shouldn’t ban books, guys. And I am not just talking about Nancy Mace. There were a lot of comments in response to Mace’s stunt that pointed out, “The book is about adultery, Nancy, you absolute buffoon!” Okay, sir, ever heard of a metaphor? The fact that she’s not doing a one-to-one match-up of the book — naming her daughter Pearl and living in a hut outside of town — isn’t my objection here.
I’m not defending Mace, but I am saying, that if you are going to mock someone for misunderstanding a literary text make sure you are not being so reductive that you reveal your own functional illiteracy. It’s truly a Spiderman pointing gif of illiterati all mocking each other for not reading the book when no one has.
For example, one of my favorite moments of cultural analysis came from this Yahoo! news post that mocked Mace for her literary reference but had to add this correction to the story.
*Clears throat in English major*
Most of the novel is about Hester Prynne’s weird, awful, vengeful secret husband!!
But let’s think about this.
One of the major themes of Hawthorne’s novel is the darkness and hypocrisy of our Puritan institutions. One of the morals of The Scarlet Letter is that in the frothing self-righteousness of our own morality, we oops accidentally show our own asses. And so often, our chosen scapegoats reveal more about our failures than they do about the morality points we are trying to make. Another theme of the book is that the crowds judging those standing on the platforms of punishment are so often the most guilty. And that a movement and a faith that has no room for humanity, joy, love, and sex, is repressive and ugly.
*Looks around at America*
I can’t imagine who might need to learn that lesson.
Mace is, of course, no Prynne. Prynne’s sin was being a human, which is not a sin at all. All she did was have sex with a guy who kind of sucked. And like, listen, who hasn’t?
The hypocrisy of Mace wearing the ‘A’ is not that she doesn’t get the reference. I think she mostly does. Because, she’s saying “How dare I be pilloried for my human choices!” Which is more or less a simplistic interpretation of the book1. It’s not gonna get you a PhD, but you’ll pass high school.
But the hypocrisy is this: Mace is mad at McCarthy because he made didn’t fulfill his promises over birth control access. Like, if we think Hester Prynne wouldn’t have loved the pill, we aren’t reading the book correctly. Birth control offers people full participation in humanity and society, so does abortion, which Mace is against. It’s a case of having it both ways, expanding birth control, but restricting abortion. What Mace wants is to be fully human, while undermining the humanity of others. She wants is to be the victim, while victimizing others.
In this way, Mace is more like the town elders in The Scarlet Letter, who are concerned only with preserving a version of authority that is self-enclosed and restrictive. They are only concerned with protecting the values of aging men “endowments of that grave and weighty order, which gives the idea of permanence, and comes with the general definition of respectability.”
This sense of respectability is another theme of Hawthorne’s and it’s ironic to see Mace pilloried like this by keyboard warriors (who also didn’t do the reading) when only two years ago, she was supposed to be the most respectable Republican because she once issued a statement that seemed vaguely critical of the insurrection. Of course, when it came time to vote for impeachment, Mace didn’t and blamed the Democrats. And her lament over the insurrection, at its core, was that it overshadowed everything else Trump had done — like remove environmental protections and undermine the right to bodily autonomy. But it was that thin veil of respectability that she donned that gave her authority and credibility. Even now, Mace, by repudiating McCarthy on her “principles” is still playing respectability games in a closed system. In her self-righteousness, she’s trying to win at a system only designed for people to lose.
In this way, Mace is more like a Dimmesdale character. Dimmesdale is the minister with whom Hester Prynne has an affair. He is so caught up in his attempts to hide his sin and his hypocrisy and to play the respectability games, that he loses his humanity and eventually dies when the truth comes out. The repressive society and the rules of respectability that he believes in eventually destroy his heart and quite literally mark his body. Meanwhile, Prynne is free, her branding only superficial, because she never truly believed in the power of the community that judged her.
So in a way, Mace is making a compelling analogy, but not in the way she intended. She’s screaming out at a politics of oppression that is oppressing her. She’s playing the victim in a system designed for her to lose. She’s insisting on her humanity while denying it to others.
Maybe that’s the lesson here: If don’t want to be repressed by a bunch of Puritan blowhards, don’t join their party.
Or in the words of Hawthorne, “To the untrue man, the whole universe is false- it is impalpable- it shrinks to nothing within his grasp. And he himself is in so far as he shows himself in a false light, becomes a shadow, or, indeed, ceases to exist.”
And now for something good…
We love some consequences!
Also, the Untalented Mr. Ripely keeps experiencing consequences as well.
Female frogs are just like us and fake their own death to avoid unwanted male attention. Those queens.
An aging mother bear won fat bear week and this is REPRESENTATION.
A reminder that the MYAM third-anniversary sale ends in three days!
What I am drinking…
Lately, as a lapsed Baptist, I’ve so often found myself missing the ritual of prayer — of sitting and contemplating and letting the heart cry out with thoughts and emotions and of questions with no answers.
This past weekend, I went to visit a friend in her new house and we walked through each room with sage and spoke of hopes and dreams and fears and loss. We had no answers. We did have a ritual though. We had fire. We had bread. We had champagne.
We laughed and cried. We talked of change. We talked of the past.
One joy of living in a place so long is the way my life weaves together with the lives of others. How we come together, pull apart, and come together again, bound by proximity and history, bread and wine.
This weekend, I’ll be mixing a gin cocktail from
’s . Jason offers a review of some lovely types of gin in his newsletter and then this recipe for a Bijou cocktail, which is this:1 ounce green Chartreuse
1 ounce gin
1 ounce sweet vermouth
1-2 dashes orange bitters
Maraschino cherry, for garnish
Twist of lemon peel, for garnish
Ironically, Chartreuse is a little hard to find right now because the monks that make it are focusing on their faith more than booze.
Per the NYT:
“There’s only so much Chartreuse you can make without ruining the balance of monastic life,” said the Rev. Michael K. Holleran, a former monk who oversaw Chartreuse production from 1986 to 1990.
So if you are struggling, here are some backups spirits.
I think it’s also time for us to embrace brandy.
Correction: A small footnote on this newsletter accidentally called Emma Stone Emma Roberts. It’s fixed. You can stop leaving comments about it. Thank you!
Another correction: I clarified the reproductive access dance that Mace is doing. It’s confusing and contradictory.
If you want to be angry at people misusing The Scarlet Letter, go watch Crazy Stupid Love where a kid dons a red ‘A’ for liking an older girl. God, if I was the English teacher, I’d fail him for stupid analogies. Justice for Marisa Tomei in that movie. But also, why do we have two Emma Stone movies with Hawthorne references? Between this and Easy A, I have questions. But also, Easy A is quite possibly one of the best movie interpretations of a book. And Stanley Tucci in that movie is perfect. I mean, I’d do things to him that would brand me with an A, I don’t care. Sorry sorry. Sorry.
I am so glad you wrote about Nancy Mace and her weird stunt. The current GOP sitch is ALL about getting eyeballs. She's a little old for Matt Gaetz, but they are running by the same playbook, if we are doing congressional matchmaking. My real joy this week comes from Grazer. She gives grandma energy, IMO. Grandma will still fight but is done with your shit. This is me. And while I'm eating salmon, this fat grandma is overjoyed for soup season. You didn't ask for recipes, but I like a good potato leek soup. As my dad would say, "first you take a leek..." I won't be here all week - I'm off to see my overly religious cousin who won't attend his gay son's wedding. My cousin lives in Scotland, and we are of an age where this may be our last in-person visit. My brother and I have decided on safe words and an escape plan if things go biblical.
As a fellow English major and insufferable kid who read the books, I really liked The Scarlet Letter and this callout is impeccable.
Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson and Thomas Haden Church in Easy A...chef's kiss.