Book of Mormon + Horse Girls

[osprey_archer]

I attended two theatrical productions this weekend! (In fact, I narrowly escaped attending three: Macbeth was on offer, but we ended up going to a cinema showing of Interview with the Vampire instead.)

First, I went to Book of Mormon, which I’ve wanted to see since 2014 despite a nagging feeling that possibly making a musical comedy about someone’s holy book was maybe not the best thing to do. However, I had a great time: the songs are super catchy and the show is a lot of fun, very energizing. I generally turn into a pumpkin around ten p.m. but did not pumpkin at all during the show!

Then I went to the Sunday matinee of Horse Girls, a play put on by the university theater department, whose productions range from “AMAZING” to “well, you tried.”

The lead actress was great, and the set designers were clearly having a ton of fun trying to cram as many different horse objects as they could into this twelve-year-old’s bedroom, but the script was… well. Let me just say, by the end of the play, there are three horse girls down. One gets boinked over the head with a riding trophy, another impaled on the surprisingly sharp ears of that selfsame riding trophy, and a third strangled with her own braid.

Also, the playwright seems to be under the impression that Anne Romney (wife of Mitt Romney) is some sort of patron saint of horse girls, as evidenced by the fact that when their stable is in trouble, our horse girls attempt to contact Anne Romney in the White House. (Oh, this play takes place in an alternate universe where Mitt Romney won the 2012 election, I guess.) And the director’s note is all about how Anne Romney originated or at least popularized the concept of the horse girl, which also makes me feel like I’ve stumbled into some bizarro alternate universe, because the horse girl has been around much longer than that? I’m sure there were horse girls in the 1990s if not before? Am I insane or is the director?

The director’s note also notes that horse girls are “often considered prissy, privileged, or just plain weird,” which seems like an unpromising set of assumptions to bring to the table when you are directing a play that is literally called Horse Girls. Although possibly exactly the assumption you want to bring to a play where the horse girls are homicidal maniacs.

Comments

[wychwood]

I definitely think the Pullein-Thompson clan would have something to say about the Anne Romney thing!

[osprey_archer]

Right?! Thank you! I feel so validated that it's not just me who thinks the Anne Romney thing is coming from outer space.

[regshoe]

There are so many good directions you could take 'horse girls murder play': horse girls murdering people for being mean to their horses? horse detectives solving murder mysteries?? That does not sound like one of them. o_O

[osprey_archer]

I would love to see the horse girls murdering people for being mean to their horses tbh. I feel like this particular gang of horse girls would be quite good at it.

[asakiyume]

Surely horse girls have been around forever. They were definitely around when I was a kid. It's one of those cliches: girls going through a horse phase!

I feel like the prissy-privileged-weird thing is maybe making an assumption that horse girls ... get to go riding and have horses? That was definitely not the case among the horse girls I knew: they read books about horses and drew horses and pretended to be horses, etc. Horseriding was out of most people's reach.

And I feel like if you lived out in Wyoming or something and actually grew up with horses as part of your life, or hell, even in W Massachusetts, that you were probably pretty far from prissy? Like probably pretty outdoorsy and whatnot?

Seems like the playwright's conception is narrowing the term's focus down to "privileged girls who get riding lessons and stable privileges somewhere but who don't live on working ranches or farms." ... I mean, if you limit a term so it only applies to what you want to talk about....

[osprey_archer]

I'm pretty sure that horse girls have been a distinct category since at least the 1950s and possibly the 1930s. Maybe even earlier!

And yes, definitely, most horse girls of my acquaintance read books about horses and drew horses and pretended to be horses (or to ride horses, or to have a telepathic connection with a winged unicorn) and maybe POSSIBLY got to ride a pony at the fair as a special treat. But Ye Average Horse Girl doesn't take riding lessons, let alone have a horse.

I'm not sure I've ever seen a rural girl who has a horse described as a "horse girl." It seems to apply solely to girls who are obsessed with horses but have very little chance to ride, and privileged girls who take riding lessons. The play is focused on the latter group, and I guess it's POSSIBLE that privileged riding students during the 2012 presidential campaign latched onto Anne Romney in some way, but... I mean I can't prove they didn't but I'd be awfully surprised if they did.

[sovay]

or hell, even in W Massachusetts

spatch in the hill towns of western Mass grew up with two teams of draft horses stabled by his family for their respective owners, who used them for ploughing and logging. He remembers the dark bay Percherons as "sensible" and the cream Belgians as "flighty and a little stupid," i.e. one was famously once spooked by a bee and took off while still in harness, leaving a wild furrow across a whole lot of things no one had wanted ploughed up. None of them was what he refers to as a riding horse. He remembers walking alongside them as a small child as they worked. Other families had riding horses; he thinks he was eight the first time he was one on. He was no trouble reading horse language to this day, despite not being regularly around them since college. I understand this can be a rural norm, but it did nothing to disabuse me of the notion that he grew up partly in the 1930's.

[asakiyume]

Sovay, I think he did grow up in the 1930s and time traveled into this time. He may insist to the contrary, but...

The B'town fair has a horse pull, using draft horses, on Fair Weekend Saturday and an oxen pull on Fair Weekend Sunday, but I never think of the people as actually using these animals in fields. The last guy I spoke to with memories like Spatch's was a professor emeritus of Japanese history who grew up in the hilltowns and did have plow horses.

LOVE the story about the Belgian who left a furrow "across a whole lot of things no one had wanted ploughed up."

[sovay]

Sovay, I think he did grow up in the 1930s and time traveled into this time. He may insist to the contrary, but...

Thank you for backing me up here!

The last guy I spoke to with memories like Spatch's was a professor emeritus of Japanese history who grew up in the hilltowns and did have plow horses.

Case in point!

LOVE the story about the Belgian who left a furrow "across a whole lot of things no one had wanted ploughed up."

I hear it with humorously fast fiddle accompaniment and maybe some dismayed mouth harp.

[marginaliana]

I feel like the description of horse girls as 'prissy' and 'privileged' could be somewhat accurate depending on the generation and geography of the setting, but patron saint figure Anne Romney is just... *frantic flappy hand gesture*

[osprey_archer]

The horse girls in the play are all horse girls who have the means to have riding lessons and (in many cases) own a horse and go to competitions, so they're definitely privileged, but I still can't get over the Anne Romney aspect. It's like the playwright never noticed horse girls as a phenomenon until there were articles about Anne Romney's dressage hobby and then decided that, since Anne Romney was how SHE learned about horse girls, obviously Anne Romney was in some way central to the horse girl world.

[troisoiseaux]

Re: Horse Girls: hahahahahahaha what???

(Glad you had a good and ....interesting...? time, respectively! But also: WHAT????? It's mostly the Anne Romney alternate universe situation I can't wrap my head around...)

[osprey_archer]

They have an Anne Romney song and dance, which they perform to summon the spirit of Anne Romney to their aid when they learn the stables are in danger. The song and dance aspect 100% is something that 11 to 13 year old girls might do, but I really, truly believe they would be singing and dancing to, like, Marguerite Henry, or the spirit of Seabiscuit, or something.

[kore]

....whaaa

Is Anne Romney even that popular a figure with girls? Even conservative girls? IIRC Utah has a giant horse girl culture (and cowgirl culture, which is a bit different, more Four-H I think -- rodeo queens, overlapping with state fairs) but jeez, apparently Romney didn't get into dressage until she was an adult?

[kore]

And of course I meant Future Farmers of America, not Four-H, gahh.

[osprey_archer]

Now to be fair, I don't have any direct experience of tween girl culture in Utah, but I don't think that Anne Romney was ever a popular cult figure anywhere, even in the early 2010s when this play was written.

[sovay]

The song and dance aspect 100% is something that 11 to 13 year old girls might do, but I really, truly believe they would be singing and dancing to, like, Marguerite Henry, or the spirit of Seabiscuit, or something.

The spirit of Seabiscuit sounds about right to me.

[rachelmanija]

What.

[osprey_archer]

One of those moments in theater where you start to wonder if you might be hallucinating.

[kore]

"the director’s note is all about how Anne Romney originated or at least popularized the concept of the horse girl"

WHUT

Horse Girls had been a big Thing even back when I was a kid, and that was like the 1970s. I think it might go back even to the 1920s? Altho there's Horse Girls (riding actual horses) and Horse Girls who just collect horses and posters of horses and are absolutely obsessed with them, which I think is a later phenomenon. Those plastic horse figurines that were everywhere. Girls got into those in the fifties at least I think. (And isn't there an overlap between Horse Girls and Tomboy Lit?)

[troisoiseaux]

I think it might go back even to the 1920s?

National Velvet (the book) was from the 1930s, which as far as I know is the OG Horse Girl, as a cultural touchstone...?

[kore]

YES THANK YOU, no idea why I couldn't fucking think of that, altho I was struggling. And the movie too! Elizabeth Taylor!

[troisoiseaux]

Yeah, so, SOLIDLY 1930s-40s. (And, per the bizarro Anne Romney as patron saint of horse girls thing, ELIZABETH TAYLOR IS RIGHT THERE??)

[kore]

RIGHT there! And also I seriously want to think that Horse Girls were big in the 20s too, but I just can't remember/don't know. (Brain keeps helpfully yelling "Annie Oakley!" No, brain, not Annie Oakley. But I want to say there were girl trick riders in the late 1880s? And women ranchers? Altho that's a little different from the upper-class Horse Girls but anyway.)

[sovay]

(And, per the bizarro Anne Romney as patron saint of horse girls thing, ELIZABETH TAYLOR IS RIGHT THERE??)

PREACH.

[asakiyume]

Seriously!! ELIZABETH TAYLOR!

That was one of the earliest movies I recall seeing, and it definitely made me want to ride in a steeplechase!

[osprey_archer]

Only tangentially related, but National Velvet is on my reading list for the next few months! Might have to watch the movie too.

[osprey_archer]

I feel that tomboys often ride horses but are possibly not Horse Girls in the strict sense of the term, because being a horse girl in that way is an appropriate girly thing to do? Horse figurines and Lisa Frank horse stickers and reading every horse book at the library etc.

[cyphomandra]

I just finished reading Jane Badger’s Heroines on Horseback, which is a history of the pony book, and book horse girls pretty much started in the 1930s with National Velvet and Joanna Canaan’s books (she’s the Pullein-Thompsons’ mother) - horse books before then were more horse/pony pov after the massive success of Black Beauty (1877). That play sounds bonkers!

[osprey_archer]

Important info! Important info which the playwright should perhaps have looked into before positing Anne Romney as the patron saint of horse girls...

[sovay]

And the director’s note is all about how Anne Romney originated or at least popularized the concept of the horse girl, which also makes me feel like I’ve stumbled into some bizarro alternate universe, because the horse girl has been around much longer than that?

I got this shelf of Marguerite Henry and Enid Bagnold argues on your side.

[osprey_archer]

THANK YOU. There were moments in this play where I really felt like I might be hallucinating, either the play itself or my previous understanding of horse girls.

[sovay]

There were moments in this play where I really felt like I might be hallucinating, either the play itself or my previous understanding of horse girls.

I think the play might have been hallucinating.

[genarti]

I've definitely run into the "prissy, privileged" stereotype of horse girls, which is weird to me as someone who learned to ride in a rural state. Sure, there are extremely Rich Person ways to own horses, and sure, some of the kids I knew who had horses had money, but others of them were farm kids whose family had a paddock and lean-to for a couple of horses alongside the dairy barn. Plus that take on the "horse girl" stereotype is always so gendered, too -- not just rich, but shallow prissy bitches, you know? I've gotten more and more annoyed by it, I admit.

However, the Anne Romney part is, uh, a new one on me! Maybe the term horse girl caught on in the 2012s, or something? I honestly couldn't tell you when it started. Beyond that I got nothin', though. Golly.

[osprey_archer]

I think there may actually be three separate but sometimes overlapping horse girl stereotypes: girls who read horse books and collect horse merch but often don't have the resources to actually ride horses, girls who ride and passionately love horses (might be rich but might also just be rural), and prissy shallow rich girls who ride horses because it's so much easier to look down at the plebs when you're sitting atop a horse. (I'm not sure how many of this third kind actually exist in reality. Might be largely just another stereotype to sock women with.)

The second kind of horse girl tends to star in horse books written for the first kind, although it does occur to me that my favorite horse series as a child DID feature a snobby-type horse girl as the antagonist. But obviously our heroines are the non-snobby horse girls who just love horses!

The Anne Romney thing was totally out of left field, though.

[asakiyume]

Might be largely just another stereotype to sock women with. --I'm betting yes, this.

[littlerhymes]

The more I hear about Horse Girls the more I'm the baffled blinking man gif.

[osprey_archer]

Some plays I think are simply written to create the baffled blinking man gif reaction. If you can't be good, then at least be confusing!

[chomiji]

So my younger sister and I were horse girls in the late 1960s/early 1970s.

We lived up the hill from one half of a big riding stables facility; the other half was another quarter mile or so through the park. We both took lessons, but we were borderline upper middle class enough that if we took riding lessons, that was it for extras that year. I gave up after a couple of years because I wanted to learn to make jewelry, which was a little pricey (not as much as riding, though). Sis continued on for another couple of years and eventually rode in some major shows, using the stables' horses.

One of the most striking things about the serious riders is that they did stables chores like mucking out stalls. I don't understand how really devoted horse girls could possibly be prissy.

[osprey_archer]

I'm sure in the minds of the anti-horse girl stereotypers, the prissy horse girl does not muck stables but leaves all that sort of thing to the Staff. Possibly also in their minds, the prissy horse girl is not a serious rider but does it for rich girl kudos? Because yes, my understanding is that most serious riders DO get involved in the horse care side of things as well.

[skygiants]

Okay, I'm desperately curious -- how was Horse Girls advertised? what did they imply was the plot ....

(Obviously everyone is correct about Elizabeth Taylor and horse girls going back to the 1930s but anecdotally I can definitely confirm Classic Horse Girls in the 1990s because my elementary/middle school best friend was one and I spent several years supportively trying to muster up matching enthusiasm, down to joining her horse-themed internet-message-board roleplaying game. Alas, it never quite took!)

[osprey_archer]

"Twelve-year-old Ashleigh rules the Lady Jean Ladies, South Florida’s most exclusive horse club. News that her family’s stables are being sold and their horses killed for meat throws the Ladies into crisis in this dark comedy of middle school deception and lies. Horse Girls is a play about pre-teens: their obsessions, their insecurities and their desperate need to find a place in the world."

So, like, clearly we're not getting fun happy stable times, but I also don't think this description immediately suggests TRIPLE MURDER.

I am glad to have confirmation that Classic Horse Girls were a thing in the 1990s. I was pretty sure they were but the production seemed so sure there was an Anne Romney connection that I was questioning my sense of reality.