Let me start by saying that 20-year-old me would not be impressed with this review. It would strike that me as a little overly sappy and eggheady. It’s possible that my pendulum of sensibilities will swing back, but I doubt it. More likely, I’ll only get weepier as I rewatch this episode, remembering watching Anne with an E for the first time with my wife and kid. Anne with an E is an adaptation of Anne of Green Gables. It’s also a bit like a Canadian version of Little House on the Prairie, with things like farm life, adopted children, and the usual small-minded, empathy-free antagonists that we love to hate. What it also offers (particularly in this episode) is an enjoyable model of non-toxic masculinity. Adoptive father Matthew Cuthbert is pleasantly baffled by young Anne, appreciating her imagination and gregariousness as a contrast to his own stammering but warm shyness. He also understands that she sometimes needs protection, but that protection is rarely (if ever) about punching out some bad guy. His protection is a mix of patience and generosity.
This combination comes up in many of the episodes, but perhaps none more so than “I Protest Against Any Absolute Conclusion”. Poor Anne hates her red hair, and she tries dying it a different color. The result is a green shade that might be stylish today but was not acceptable in rural Canada in the second half of the 1800’s. So, she has to cut her hair very short, resulting in all kinds of teasing from the dingbats in school. To make matters worse, she has to participate in the town’s mostly crappy Christmas pageant (a show that features, among other characters, the appropriately bizarre “devil lobster”).
Long story short and most spoilers aside, Anne needs Matthew to work some last-minute magic so that she can be confident with her role. Not only does Matthew make a series of small but hilarious sacrifices to get Anne the prop that she needs, he also overcomes his stage fright to have a small role in the pageant. It’s an adorable moment of affection that shows a character being fatherly and protective without being a dick.
On top of this, the B-story of the episode involves the Cuthbert’s inviting Anne’s good friend and the town’s only Black man to Christmas dinner. With a lot of historical fiction, there’s a tendency to ignore the types of prejudices that people of the time would have, making the good characters unrealistically progressive. In this episode, the Cuthbert’s (their adoptive daughter included) are awkwardly polite but without malice. It helps the show to strike an effective balance between emotional weight and humor. It makes it realistic and, for that reason, more touching than a more purely bright and fluffy.
Like I said, 20-something me would most likely have been bored by Anne with an E. I would’ve been disappointed by the lack of explosions or cartoony humor. But father-me, 40-something me is very impressed with the show’s ability to take small moments and show what they mean to people. As a writer, I admire their confidence in the lives of relatively ordinary people to show admirable behavior while being entertaining. It’s impressive that it’s able to be wholesome without being cornball.
Zeke Jarvis is a Professor of English at Eureka College. His work has appeared in Moon City Review, Posit, and KNOCK, among other places. His books include, So Anyway..., In A Family Way, The Three of Them, and Antisocial Norms. His website is zkedotjarvis.wordpress.com
