MovieChat Forums > Little Women (1994) Discussion > 'Jo how could you?!? Your ONE Beauty!'.....

'Jo how could you?!? Your ONE Beauty!'...........


I'm sorry but every time I hear this line I can't help but think Amy is a total B!tch for saying something like that lol. It is like saying Jo got rid of the only thing that makes her beautiful. Its quite funny to think of the line as an insult.

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I've always thought of this line as an insult also, and it always gives me a chuckle.




That'll do pig. That'll do.

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Yes, does make me laugh, but more at Amy for being so young and innocent she doesn't know you might feel hurt being told you only had 'one beauty' - she is just so shocked at Jo's sacrifice.

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To be fair, in the book her hair IS her one beauty. Jo is described as skinny, coltish, and awkward with big hands and long limbs. She's not meant to be pretty, especially when compared to Meg, who is curvy, fair, and elegant-looking. In the movie, the line is a bit misleading, because Winona Ryder is beautiful, perhaps the most beautiful of the siblings.

However, in either context, I don't think Amy means any offense when she makes this remark, and Jo seems relatively unfazed. She is aware that she's not a classic beauty.

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Personally, i don't think that Amy meant it in a snide way. To me, she honestly was sad for Jo, that she made the sacrifice and cut her hair off.

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Just watched it again on TV. I think she didn't mean it to be her one beauty only, just that, it's one of her most beautiful asset.

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In the novel, Jo replies: "It'll grow back, and I'll still have at least one beauty. Unlike you, you ugly little b/tch. I should have let you drown."

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Thats why books are always better than their movie adaptations... From that crucial point on, Jo and Amy had a completely different relationship than depicted in the movie. For one thing, Amy marrying Laurie made much more sense...
I was so sad to see they left that one little transaction between them out...

Much that once was is lost, for none now live who remember it.

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a sense of humour... please grow one.

Though you're dressed in rags, you wear an air of queenly grace

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According to "Invincible Louisa" by Cornelia Meigs, the biography about Louisa May Alcott, it was Louisa May Alcott who considered her hair her one great beauty.

In the novel, no one person was attributed as saying it; when she took off her bonnet to reveal how she had earned the $25 for her mother everyone exclaimed...“Your hair! Your beautiful hair! “Oh, Jo, how could you? “Your one beauty/” “My dear girl, there was no need of this.” “She doesn’t look like my Jo any more, but I love her dearly for it!”

I'm assuming the screenwriters took the quotes and attributed them to whichever characters they thought would probably say each thing. I'm wondering if it was construed as sounding mean because Kirsten Dunst's character was so much younger than the other March girls.

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I thought that that line was such a crude statement! I mean, I understand that she's young and innocent, but Amy despised Jo! She saw it as Jo's fault that her nose was so flat and she even burned Jo's manuscript. It was childish behavior and it was not the right thing to say, in my opinion.

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Jo's appearance gives rise to several similar remarks in the book. She is referred to as "plain" and "odd", even by herself on occasion.

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You have to remember that in that era, brains and strength weren't considered beautiful (at least in a woman), and having short hair was often the result of poor hygiene (lice, for instance.) To Amy (and many) Jo's hair really WAS what made her beautiful.

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Not only that, I think I remember that Marmee berated Amy for her trying to make her nose pointed by sleeping with a clothespin on it. Marmee seemed to discourage vanity in her daughters. Amy seems to have had what would have been considered by her mother the weakness of being vain about her appearance. Jo never seems to have paid attention to her appearance which was rather slapdash. It is unlikely she would have been hurt by her hair being referred to as her 'one beauty'.

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I never could stand Amy. I'm glad they gave the line to her, because it's such an unfeeling thing to say that it kind of makes me feel justified in disliking her.

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