The representation of women through objectification and stereotypes has resulted in the marginalisation of women throughout most cultures around the world. This has resulted in damaging effects on their relationships with others and women’s self-esteem such as the Me Too Movement, and early forms of such feminist movements have occured during both the 20th and 21st cenutry. Carol Ann Duffy and Eli Rezkallah subvert traditional gender roles in order to reveal their values in concern with the portrayal of women in literature and advertising, exploring how such representations have a direct effect on women in the real world. On one hand, Rezkallah created a parody of a 1950s advertisement by Van Heusen to satirically inverting misogynistic gender roles. On the other hand, Duffy based her poem, “Little Red Cap” one the fairy tale, Little Red Cap/Little Red Riding Hood but in contrast with the fairy tale, the narrator is in power and control and therefore challenges the traditional gender roles of women. Both Duffy and Rezkallah have used their respective intertextual parody to convey the marginalisation of women while reinstating new contemporary values that undermine that original texts.
Firstly, Duffy inverts the traditional role of women in fairy tales although still keeping in tradition with approaching sexual maturity and portrays Little Red Cap in a new light as a girl transitioning from childhood to womanhood. The juxtaposition of each line in the first two lines of the first stanza such as “at childhood’s end” in contrast to “houses petered out” and “playing fields” in contrast to “factory, allotments” reveals that Duffy has reinstated the main character as a girl on the verge of sexual maturity through transition of “playing” symbolising children and “factory” as the world of adults. Red Cap has now entered the dangerous adults world rather than the safe children’s world and where this new world is dominated by men. However, the third line inserts an ambiguous narrative in Duffy’s reimagined fairy tale. On the one hand, it seems as though the poet represents the actual or at least the traditional roles of women where women are “kept, like mistresses” for men’s sexual pleasure. However, on the other hand, “kneeling married men” could refer to the shift in power and imply sincerity and reverence. In addition, there is the irony in that man who is interested in working in allotments would not be considered to be interested in illicit sexual affairs, yet “kneeling” could also convey deceitful behaviour along with the “kept” women. Despite this, Duffy portrays red cap as the character in power and control by describing here initial encounter with the wolf has “clapped” suggesting authority.
Likewise, in the second stanza, Red Cap ensures her dominance by making sure the wolf has “spotted” as she asserts, in a way, her dominance by seeking out the wolf first, despite the wolf perhaps symbolising a sexual predator and the allegorical figure of all men. It challenges the roles of women even though the lines before it, convey the traditional roles of men with a few exceptions mainly that the wolf is described as being intellectual which is in contrast to the original wolf in the fairy tale as “reading his verse out loud” conveys that he is literate. Nevertheless, “wolfy drawl” reveals the stereotype that women are attracted to bad boys and thus portraying the wolf as although intellectual, there is still the patriarchal and predatory instincts beneath. The wolf is experienced in sex through the choice of red wine through the word choices of “red” that connotes passion and “wine” that connotes experience. In spite of the sexual predatory nature of the wolf, red cap adopts an innocent persona on purpose and creates irony in that she is the sexual predator. Duffy downplays that the wolf is a threat and that Red Cap has an equal interest in sex, discrediting the patriarchalistic view that girls are frightened of sex. Duffy has aimed to disprove the stereotypes of women in order to express her view and perspective on the sexuality of both men and women, with particular attention to the representation of women through her sex-posivite feminism standpoint in this poem.
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