As someone who has read Little Women only two times and not a dozen times as many people here probably did, I watched the newest movie version of the book by Greta Gerwig (which is very hyped on the internet) and I was kinda baffled at how wrong it felt to me.
I never cared who Jo ended up with in the end of the book. To be honest, I found Laurie very immature in the book at first, but later he turns into a decent young man, and it is clear that Jo in the book at least never has any romantic feelings for him. She hopes all the time how she wants him to marry one of her sisters…There is no second-guessing on her part regarding that while in the 2019 version it feels like that and it just feels so wrong, because while I am no expert on Alcott as Greta Gerwig likes to claim, I know that Laurie is based on one of her suitors whom she did not end up with either (probably for good reasons). Laurie ending up with Amy never bothered me either and to be honest I never hated Amy at all. Both Amy and Jo have flaws but they are sisters and sisters fight. It is part of being sisters.
Now to Jo and Mr. Bear: A lot of people claim this relationship is meant to be a joke, but I have to severely disagree with that as Mr Bear resembles several men in Alcott’s life whom she admired greatly and loved. I mean he is a German and Alcott loved Goethe and how Geothe believed in writing literature which should be founded in reality and not sensational fiction like Jo does in the novel for some time to earn money and which is something Mr. Bear is critical of and Jo herself in the books feels uncomfortable writing actually. She is not at all proud of her sensational writing. In fact, they never really have a fight over it at all and Mr. Bear never belittles her over it and only thinks she can do better, something Jo does in later sequel books (which Greta Gerwig conveniently oversees when making her statements that Mr. Baer is a joke character). If he truly is why did Alcott not simply kill him off between the prequels, since she had no qualms of doing so with other characters in other novels? Simple, because Mr. Bear is no joke. While Alcott wanted Jo to be single and might have been forced to write a love interest for her (according to Gerwig by the publisher, but so far I found no proof for that online other than interviews given by Gerwig, in fact what I heard is that her fans wanted her do marry Jo to Laurie and she disliked that a lot) when she did give Jo an interest she gave her a man that was to Alcott’s tastes: A German professor.
That said, I would have been totally fine with Jo ending up single, but making Jo pine for Laurie while never doing so in the books and at the end claiming she is honoring Alcott’s wishes sounds kinda contradictory me or maybe I missed something in the book when I was reading it, but Jo seemed very much into Bear and their relationship felt genuine and warm to me. Not at all like a joke.
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by Dry_Lynx5282