I'm thinking about the uses of discomfort in the classroom lately.
One of the very excellent grad student teachers in our department has, as a standard clause in her syllabi, that uncomfortableness will happen in her classes. That discomfort is part of the critical learning process. This instructor, who is BRILLIANT, is a person whose gender is not readily obvious, and who in fact doesn't fully occupy either side of the (false) gender binary. This - along with the content of the courses - is part of the discomfort.
She was one of the instructors and mentors we had as first-year teachers, and I vastly admired her position on this - it reminded me in certain ways of a strand of New College-esque "fuck shit up" attitude that pervaded a number of my classes there. From the queer activist perspective, shifting and dodging and denying binary identifications and categories is all part of the plan for disrupting those binaries. It forces the undergrads to confront categories that they may never even have considered before. Discomfort is a good thing.
This week, I have been teaching the extraordinarily smart (and now, depressingly, canceled) ABCFamily show HUGE. In conjunction with the three episodes I selected for viewing, I also asked my class to read Marilyn Wann's "Foreward" to The Fat Studies Reader (2009).
One of the first comments a student made about HUGE is that watching it made her somewhat uncomfortable, but that she grew to like it and in fact ended up watching all 10 or 11 episodes over the weekend.
I asked them to consider the opening scene of the pilot episode - an overhead camera shot of the kids on the first day at Camp Victory (the so-called "fat camp") where the show is set, milling around and waiting for their turn at the weigh-in. The camera slowly moves in and down, panning across the kids standing around in pairs, in awkward knots, as individuals who don't yet know each other.
All of the kids are wearing bathing suits.
All of the kids are fat (in varying degrees).
It's dis-comforting. We're not used to seeing images of large groups of mostly-unclothed fat people. We're not used to seeing fat people without either the fuzzy black bar of shame obscuring their faces (in stories about the OBESITY EPIDEMIC!!!) or the punchline of a mostly-cruel joke at the fat person's expense (sometimes told by the fat person herself).
When Will, the main protagonist, played wonderfully by Nikki Blonsky, finally takes of her shorts and t-shirt, mimicking a striptease right in front of the camp director - intentionally aimed at the director - we get lingering shots of Will's body in all its fat glory, in relatively close-up, well-lighted shots.
Both Wann's foreward, and HUGE, ask us to reconsider, or consider at all, a number of things we're mostly used to ignoring. Wann does it more stridently, more explicitly, and more forcefully; HUGE does it more subtly, more emotionally. But both say: LOOK.
Wann makes the great observation that all one can diagnose from looking at a fat person is one's own level of prejudice and stereotyping. The act of looking at another can - and often does - tell us vastly more about ourselves than it does about that other person. This is not a new or original idea; it's part of what makes the critical concept of "the Other" circulate so frequently and potently through almost every kind of subaltern studies that exist. Looking at the Other is a way of looking at the Self. If your gaze is properly calibrated - say, by reading Marilyn Wann, or by watching a show clearly framed through a fat-positive, queer sensibility - this Other/Self looking can be revelatory and positive for both parties.
Examining your own life of privileges and oppressions is essential, Wann argues, for critical work in the field of fat studies.
But this is the case in all fields, in all areas of life: ignoring or failing to properly address one's own privilege and oppression makes it almost impossible to speak well and convincingly about anyone's privilege and oppression.
But to look at yourself, to say "I experience these privileges every day, because I am thin/beautiful/male/young/straight/affluent/healthy/white/etc" is hard. It's even harder to say "I experience these privileges at the expense of people who are not thin/beautiful/male/young/etc." It's hard - though maybe less hard? - to say "I experience those oppressions because I am fat/plain/female/old/differently-abled/poor/brown/etc."
It's even harder to realize that you can exist in both privilege and oppression simultaneously: Wann points out that the very thin anorexic knows as much about fat-shame and oppression as does the very fat person.
But seeing one's own privilege, when before it always appeared simply as "the way life is" - THAT is uncomfortable. Having to look where before we looked away, or were simply not shown something - THAT is uncomfortable. Having to address our uncomfortableness - THAT is uncomfortable.
It's also learning. It's education, it's critical thinking, it's cracking open your brain and your perspective. It's like being given glasses that allow you to see a whole new color in the spectrum, one you never even knew existed. And now that you know about it, you can never unsee it, or forget it. Even if the glasses are taken away, your mind and memory retain the impression of that new, unexpected, unlooked-for, color.
It feels sometimes like I'm being lazy in the classroom, that I'm not actually actively teaching anything. I felt like this last year, over Octavian Nothing: Kingdom on the Waves. The ways in which my students responded to that book - what they focused on, how they reacted, what confused, upset, pleased them - all had to do with the content of the book, not specifically with anything I said in some brilliant lecture [I don't lecture, to begin with]. Same with Marilyn Wann, and watching HUGE - the moment they saw that opening scene of all those fat kids in their bathing suits, the work of discomfort and learning began. I didn't do anything except provide a context, and choose the texts.
Is this even teaching?
But perhaps that is a question for another day, another post.
Meanwhile, discomfort reigns in my classroom, and I am making us all continue to stare at it, to live in discomfort - at least for one more day.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Tuesday, October 05, 2010
thank a teacher
sunday night, I read the (now-removed, soon to be reposted) story of an amazing english teacher who fought the good fight for good YA books and lost to an unsupportive administration who caved to parental book-banning pressure. It was a remarkable story, even before the book-banning appeared to give the story a dark turn; this english teacher got her students reading: in class, in a book club that swelled to over 100 members. these students, in turn, demonstrated the benefits of reading books you like by performing better on standardized tests.
Somewhere online, I came across a mention of National Teachers' Day, and got to thinking about teachers (again, as always, big surprise).
I'm a pedigreed teacher: both my parents taught in public schools. Both hold masters degrees in education. I, of course, teach the mostly-privileged at a university. I was raised to be respectful and appreciative of my teachers, a thing that probably would have occurred anyway, because I loved school. so, a brief ode to some great teachers, and some thoughts on queer teachers.
Second grade, Mrs Eva Chapman, teacher extraordinaire. Evidently reported to my parents, during a parent-teacher conference, that I was "perfect." [I only learned this much, much later, like late in college. no swelled heads in our family]. What was perfect was Mrs Chapman's teaching, which introduced to our second-grade classroom classics of art and music (I learned about Van Gogh and Renoire and Haydn in her room, as well as Don MacLean and The Marvelettes). We were told the story of "The Elephant's Child" via feltboard; I pestered immediately for my own copy of the Just-So Stories. We learned about winnie-the-pooh, accompanied by shepherdesque stuffed animal friends. We learned nursery rhymes and coloring, we learned about breeds of dogs, we put on an Extravaganza of singing and dancing (that, in retrospect, should have warmed the little flamboyant hearts of any babygays in the class). I learned to be curious in her classroom, or rather, learned that my curiosity had a place in school, in education, in the world. And that the payoffs to following my curiosity could be fantastic - i mean, Van Gogh! what a light at the end of the tunnel of learning....
There were some lean years of uninspiring teachers, but in highschool, my history teachers more than made up for it. Mr Bogey, AP European teacher, filled my notebooks and my brain with details and information and stories that still crop up from time to time. A few years back, in one of the last classes I took in the PhD program here, the subject of Italy's unification came up, and I, without even thinking, murmured the crucial dates and names. AP Euro was a lot of wars and dates and names, but there were also a lot of stories, and ideas: there was art and architecture, there were all those philosophers and thinkers and writers.
Mr Neubauer was THE teacher, though, in my junior and senior years. AP American History, AP Government & Politics, respectively. The knowledge acquired in those classes is also still handily tucked away in some fold of my brain. but more than that, mr neubauer gave us power. he taught us some fundamentally important Supreme Court cases dealing with free speech and expression. He taught us that West Virginia v. Barnett meant that we could not be compelled to pledge allegiance to the flag. he encouraged us to ask questions, to argue, to debate. He ran his classes like the best seminars I ever had at new college, and he did it with a bunch of relatively close-minded teenagers from very affluent, conservative families. He let me be the oddball outspoken lefty liberal and somehow, quietly encouraged me to feel like it was right and good and okay to be that person. he laughed sympathetically, commiserating when I came into class freezing cold with sopping wet hair from swimming in gym class. he let me, and a few of my cronies, sit on the window ledge during class, not in desks (initially, i began sitting on the window ledge to try to absorb what little heat i could from the heat vent on the ledge - see wet hair, above, for more details).
His class was the "radicalizing" moment of my life, I guess. We had to write about controversial topics, choose a side and argue it, and somehow, I can't remember why, I picked gay marriage as my topic. I really don't know how I came to choose it, but this was fall of 1996, and anti-gay feeling was free-floating in the world. And I picked it and - because we had to - made public my pro-gay attitudes, which somehow led to a whole slew of other things, including an effort at forming a gay-straight alliance in our high school (though we didn't know to call it that; it was just a before-school meeting of a very few gay kids and their very few allies, in the office of the district social worker, who, it turned out, was sticking her neck WAY out for us).
We caused a commotion, somehow, without necessarily meaning to; we weren't allowed to put up posters about our little group. We couldn't "recruit," as it were. We couldn't let the closeted queer kids in our school know that there were friends and allies and other queer kids, and that we were all there to help each other. Yet the Christian Prayer group was allowed to meet in the school building, with announcements on the PA, praying publicly around the flagpole in the mornings. It was gross and appalling discrimination, and Mr Neubauer made sure we had the intellectual tools we needed. He couldn't or wouldn't join the fight, for reasons I grudgingly accept and understand, but he taught us what we needed to know to go to law books, to do research and articulate our (lost) cause.
We failed in forming a lasting group. We were forbidden from posting signs or making announcements about our "diversity" or "tolerance" group. I came home after the final meeting with the principal, and burst into tears at the injustice of it. That we were right - legally, morally, ethically RIGHT - and still lost was an unbelievably bitter pill to swallow. It still sticks in my throat, to remember that feeling.
Our district social worker was threatened with being fired or disciplined for her support of our group. She stuck with us.
After school ended - our senior year - we had a little picnic in the park. The queer kids and their allies (all eight of us, I think - it was a small group) met up and had snacks and picnic food and pondered the future.
And a teacher from our school came, and brought her partner.
This was not a teacher I ever had, or knew; she had been almost silently instrumental in the forming of the group. She had spoken to the social worker after several of the queer kids (and their friends) wrote or mentioned the desire for a place to talk about being gay in a gay-unfriendly environment. There were NO openly gay kids at our school until that year, until two boys whose courage I can't even begin to truly emulate, came out. One of them was in this teacher's class, and was one of the students who wrote about the issue.
I was impressed at the time that this teacher would attend the picnic and bring her partner, but it wasn't until years later that I actually realized what an amazing thing she did. In the town I grew up in, there simply were NO visible gay people. The gym-teacher-lesbian jokes circulated, and occasional other, similarly unkind rumors - but there were NO out queers in that school or that community. And, as evidenced by the attitudes of other students and the principal, when we attempted to go public with our nascent GSA, it was an environment that was extremely hostile to gay people. At a bare minimum, it was grossly, offensively ignorant of the needs of gay students; the ever-delightful principal said "i can't have a support group for every kid who gets a pimple," as if that was the equivalent of being queer.
In a town where very conservative religious people dominated the scene (Mr Neubauer said - and I don't think it was a joke - that our town was the only one in New York to carry Goldwater in that election year), being an out queer teacher must have been an impossibility. To say, publicly, that you, a teacher, were also a lesbian - that was a very dangerous proposition. I don't know what would have happened if it became known throughout the community that an actual lesbian!!! was teaching Our Children!!! but I can imagine, and none of my imaginings are very nice.
So for this teacher to voluntarily attend our sad little picnic, with her partner, after being closeted for who knows how long - my god! what a thing to do! what a gift to give your students, some of whom weren't even really her students.
And how crushingly sad, to have to live and work and teach for years and years while hiding. One of the "It gets better" project videos is a silent one, from two queer teachers who keep their faces hidden and who hold up cards with text on it. It's heartbreaking to see these women saying "it gets better," even while hiding their faces. But they are saying: We are here for you. We, your teachers, are here to help you.
And this teacher, who wasn't my teacher, did a herculean job of this. She went to the social worker and said: these kids, my students, have a need. they need a safe space and safe people to talk with about being gay in a place where gays are erased. they need help. they need more than i can give them, because my position is tenuous. but they need help.
and we got it. she made that happen. she said, silently, through what she did: I am here for you. I know how you feel, more than you can possibly imagine. and at that picnic she said: I trust you enough to bring my partner. I trust you enough to be fully myself with you.
It's an expression of care that blows my mind to think of now.
I wonder what it felt like, for her, to walk with her partner across the lawn to the picnic tables where we sat, a bunch of 17 and 18 year olds preoccupied with boys and girls and college and the end of school and ourselves and our own lives. I wonder if she was scared, or proud, or if her partner was scared, or proud, or bored. Not bored; I can't think bored was in it.
I wonder if that teacher knew, or knows, what she did for us all, and how much it mattered.
The courage and actions of quiet everyday people, in their quiet, everyday lives, can sometimes make a world of difference. It's not heroic, it's not grandstanding, it may not even be noble or proud; but very often, teachers provide us with a safe space in which to be ourselves, which is one of the biggest gifts anyone can ever give.
It's what Fred Rogers did, essentially, except it's squads of teachers, saying and doing (in dozens of ways): "you're okay." and the good teachers, these teachers who say and do and make meaning in all these many ways, these good teachers hold the world at bay for a short while for us, while giving us the information and tools and knowledge we need to carve out our own safe spaces.
Some teachers sacrifice a lot, like the english teacher who ended up leaving her position after her books were banned. Some teachers risk a lot, like my not-my-teacher, coming with her partner to a silly little picnic. Others don't take obvious risks but, like Mr Neubauer, solidly, stolidly provide the tools and ability and confidence needed to make revolution happen, knowing exactly what it is they're doing, and why.
I am grateful to these teachers, and to all the teachers who were never my teachers, but who did for their students what mine did for me. The teachers who fought, quietly and loudly; who protected their students and gave their students the ability to build their own defenses; who made it clear that, though they may give grades and write hall passes and assign detentions and scold you for talking too loudly in study hall - who made it clear that, for all that, they were on our side.
Somewhere online, I came across a mention of National Teachers' Day, and got to thinking about teachers (again, as always, big surprise).
I'm a pedigreed teacher: both my parents taught in public schools. Both hold masters degrees in education. I, of course, teach the mostly-privileged at a university. I was raised to be respectful and appreciative of my teachers, a thing that probably would have occurred anyway, because I loved school. so, a brief ode to some great teachers, and some thoughts on queer teachers.
Second grade, Mrs Eva Chapman, teacher extraordinaire. Evidently reported to my parents, during a parent-teacher conference, that I was "perfect." [I only learned this much, much later, like late in college. no swelled heads in our family]. What was perfect was Mrs Chapman's teaching, which introduced to our second-grade classroom classics of art and music (I learned about Van Gogh and Renoire and Haydn in her room, as well as Don MacLean and The Marvelettes). We were told the story of "The Elephant's Child" via feltboard; I pestered immediately for my own copy of the Just-So Stories. We learned about winnie-the-pooh, accompanied by shepherdesque stuffed animal friends. We learned nursery rhymes and coloring, we learned about breeds of dogs, we put on an Extravaganza of singing and dancing (that, in retrospect, should have warmed the little flamboyant hearts of any babygays in the class). I learned to be curious in her classroom, or rather, learned that my curiosity had a place in school, in education, in the world. And that the payoffs to following my curiosity could be fantastic - i mean, Van Gogh! what a light at the end of the tunnel of learning....
There were some lean years of uninspiring teachers, but in highschool, my history teachers more than made up for it. Mr Bogey, AP European teacher, filled my notebooks and my brain with details and information and stories that still crop up from time to time. A few years back, in one of the last classes I took in the PhD program here, the subject of Italy's unification came up, and I, without even thinking, murmured the crucial dates and names. AP Euro was a lot of wars and dates and names, but there were also a lot of stories, and ideas: there was art and architecture, there were all those philosophers and thinkers and writers.
Mr Neubauer was THE teacher, though, in my junior and senior years. AP American History, AP Government & Politics, respectively. The knowledge acquired in those classes is also still handily tucked away in some fold of my brain. but more than that, mr neubauer gave us power. he taught us some fundamentally important Supreme Court cases dealing with free speech and expression. He taught us that West Virginia v. Barnett meant that we could not be compelled to pledge allegiance to the flag. he encouraged us to ask questions, to argue, to debate. He ran his classes like the best seminars I ever had at new college, and he did it with a bunch of relatively close-minded teenagers from very affluent, conservative families. He let me be the oddball outspoken lefty liberal and somehow, quietly encouraged me to feel like it was right and good and okay to be that person. he laughed sympathetically, commiserating when I came into class freezing cold with sopping wet hair from swimming in gym class. he let me, and a few of my cronies, sit on the window ledge during class, not in desks (initially, i began sitting on the window ledge to try to absorb what little heat i could from the heat vent on the ledge - see wet hair, above, for more details).
His class was the "radicalizing" moment of my life, I guess. We had to write about controversial topics, choose a side and argue it, and somehow, I can't remember why, I picked gay marriage as my topic. I really don't know how I came to choose it, but this was fall of 1996, and anti-gay feeling was free-floating in the world. And I picked it and - because we had to - made public my pro-gay attitudes, which somehow led to a whole slew of other things, including an effort at forming a gay-straight alliance in our high school (though we didn't know to call it that; it was just a before-school meeting of a very few gay kids and their very few allies, in the office of the district social worker, who, it turned out, was sticking her neck WAY out for us).
We caused a commotion, somehow, without necessarily meaning to; we weren't allowed to put up posters about our little group. We couldn't "recruit," as it were. We couldn't let the closeted queer kids in our school know that there were friends and allies and other queer kids, and that we were all there to help each other. Yet the Christian Prayer group was allowed to meet in the school building, with announcements on the PA, praying publicly around the flagpole in the mornings. It was gross and appalling discrimination, and Mr Neubauer made sure we had the intellectual tools we needed. He couldn't or wouldn't join the fight, for reasons I grudgingly accept and understand, but he taught us what we needed to know to go to law books, to do research and articulate our (lost) cause.
We failed in forming a lasting group. We were forbidden from posting signs or making announcements about our "diversity" or "tolerance" group. I came home after the final meeting with the principal, and burst into tears at the injustice of it. That we were right - legally, morally, ethically RIGHT - and still lost was an unbelievably bitter pill to swallow. It still sticks in my throat, to remember that feeling.
Our district social worker was threatened with being fired or disciplined for her support of our group. She stuck with us.
After school ended - our senior year - we had a little picnic in the park. The queer kids and their allies (all eight of us, I think - it was a small group) met up and had snacks and picnic food and pondered the future.
And a teacher from our school came, and brought her partner.
This was not a teacher I ever had, or knew; she had been almost silently instrumental in the forming of the group. She had spoken to the social worker after several of the queer kids (and their friends) wrote or mentioned the desire for a place to talk about being gay in a gay-unfriendly environment. There were NO openly gay kids at our school until that year, until two boys whose courage I can't even begin to truly emulate, came out. One of them was in this teacher's class, and was one of the students who wrote about the issue.
I was impressed at the time that this teacher would attend the picnic and bring her partner, but it wasn't until years later that I actually realized what an amazing thing she did. In the town I grew up in, there simply were NO visible gay people. The gym-teacher-lesbian jokes circulated, and occasional other, similarly unkind rumors - but there were NO out queers in that school or that community. And, as evidenced by the attitudes of other students and the principal, when we attempted to go public with our nascent GSA, it was an environment that was extremely hostile to gay people. At a bare minimum, it was grossly, offensively ignorant of the needs of gay students; the ever-delightful principal said "i can't have a support group for every kid who gets a pimple," as if that was the equivalent of being queer.
In a town where very conservative religious people dominated the scene (Mr Neubauer said - and I don't think it was a joke - that our town was the only one in New York to carry Goldwater in that election year), being an out queer teacher must have been an impossibility. To say, publicly, that you, a teacher, were also a lesbian - that was a very dangerous proposition. I don't know what would have happened if it became known throughout the community that an actual lesbian!!! was teaching Our Children!!! but I can imagine, and none of my imaginings are very nice.
So for this teacher to voluntarily attend our sad little picnic, with her partner, after being closeted for who knows how long - my god! what a thing to do! what a gift to give your students, some of whom weren't even really her students.
And how crushingly sad, to have to live and work and teach for years and years while hiding. One of the "It gets better" project videos is a silent one, from two queer teachers who keep their faces hidden and who hold up cards with text on it. It's heartbreaking to see these women saying "it gets better," even while hiding their faces. But they are saying: We are here for you. We, your teachers, are here to help you.
And this teacher, who wasn't my teacher, did a herculean job of this. She went to the social worker and said: these kids, my students, have a need. they need a safe space and safe people to talk with about being gay in a place where gays are erased. they need help. they need more than i can give them, because my position is tenuous. but they need help.
and we got it. she made that happen. she said, silently, through what she did: I am here for you. I know how you feel, more than you can possibly imagine. and at that picnic she said: I trust you enough to bring my partner. I trust you enough to be fully myself with you.
It's an expression of care that blows my mind to think of now.
I wonder what it felt like, for her, to walk with her partner across the lawn to the picnic tables where we sat, a bunch of 17 and 18 year olds preoccupied with boys and girls and college and the end of school and ourselves and our own lives. I wonder if she was scared, or proud, or if her partner was scared, or proud, or bored. Not bored; I can't think bored was in it.
I wonder if that teacher knew, or knows, what she did for us all, and how much it mattered.
The courage and actions of quiet everyday people, in their quiet, everyday lives, can sometimes make a world of difference. It's not heroic, it's not grandstanding, it may not even be noble or proud; but very often, teachers provide us with a safe space in which to be ourselves, which is one of the biggest gifts anyone can ever give.
It's what Fred Rogers did, essentially, except it's squads of teachers, saying and doing (in dozens of ways): "you're okay." and the good teachers, these teachers who say and do and make meaning in all these many ways, these good teachers hold the world at bay for a short while for us, while giving us the information and tools and knowledge we need to carve out our own safe spaces.
Some teachers sacrifice a lot, like the english teacher who ended up leaving her position after her books were banned. Some teachers risk a lot, like my not-my-teacher, coming with her partner to a silly little picnic. Others don't take obvious risks but, like Mr Neubauer, solidly, stolidly provide the tools and ability and confidence needed to make revolution happen, knowing exactly what it is they're doing, and why.
I am grateful to these teachers, and to all the teachers who were never my teachers, but who did for their students what mine did for me. The teachers who fought, quietly and loudly; who protected their students and gave their students the ability to build their own defenses; who made it clear that, though they may give grades and write hall passes and assign detentions and scold you for talking too loudly in study hall - who made it clear that, for all that, they were on our side.
Sunday, October 03, 2010
Why Mister Rogers Matters
A lot of academics spend a great deal of time trying to explain why their scholarly work matters. I know I spent a lot of time - and still do - trying to justify my ivory-tower life: what does reading and writing have to do with anything in the Real World? How is this not a relentlessly selfish pursuit?
First: because I teach. The activist angle of teaching was first made clear to me at Georgetown, by my brilliant and wonderful advisor. She said: "yes, these kids are privileged [and at Georgetown, almost quadruply so] but they are also the people who will be in charge of corporations and companies. They'll be in politics and positions of power. And if you can introduce to them now some of these ideas [any activist/progressive/radical ideas], it may affect the way they do their business in future."
Teaching is, or can be, activism, and my teaching often is. This is good, and it's the main thing I do, day in and day out, to make sure my work actually does something.
The second thing I do - and what I'm writing about now - is scholarly work on things that matter. Things that can actually make a difference in the way people understand themselves, or others, or the world around them. I made a decision in my first year in Pittsburgh that I was going to consciously write in clear, legible prose; I jettisoned the obfuscating and tortured jargon and construction of so many literary theorists. If a roomful of PhD students can't make sense of a phrase from Frederic Jameson, how in gods name can the "workers," the disenfranchised, the disaffected, make sense of it? And if it's all just babble to the elite, how can it be anything but condescending, self-congratulatory largesse?
So structurally, linguistically, theoretically, I choose the pragmatic and readable.
The topics are even more important.
My dissertation is, ostensibly, about imaginary/imaginative play spaces in children's media, and the way these spaces enable and encourage radical play, difference and experimentation (specifically with gender and sexuality, but with other aspects of life as well).
Really, though, what I'm writing about are places where it's okay - even great, even better - to be different. To be yourself. Places where you, in whatever form you feel like expressing yourself, are safe and loved and admired and respected.
The ultimate of these is Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, a show which seems to have made worlds of difference in the lives of scores of children (and their families). I've spent considerable time in the archives, reading viewer mail, and the love and affirmation these kids (and adults) feel for and from Mr Rogers is staggering. Almost every letter is a tearjerker. Almost every letter mentions, at least once, Mister Rogers' mantra of "I like you just exactly the way you are."
How rarely are we told this?
Lesley Kinzel, the astute and incisive writer of Fatshionista, writes back in response to the appalling burst of suicides from young gay kids in recent weeks - the most dramatic and spectacular of these, of course, being the death of Rutgers freshman Tyler Clementi. Lesley writes, in an effort to support those kids who are bullied and hurt and abused and sad and lonely:
She's doing the work of Fred Rogers here, whether she means to or not. We should all be doing the work of Fred Rogers: reminding each other that yes, YOU are likable and lovable; that you make each day a special day but just your being you; that there is no one else in this world exactly like you, and that that adds to the glorious variety of the world. That I like you just the way you are.
Mister Rogers' Neighborhood is off the air in most districts now, except perhaps on weekends; in Pittsburgh, home of the program and Fred Rogers, it's still on daily. It's dated, sure; there are no cellphones, no iPods, no laptops. No networking, except through Mr McFeely's speedy deliveries. No Facebook, except all the real friends who visit each other, both in Mr Rogers' neighborhood, and in the Neighborhood of Make-Believe.
There's nothing like this on tv now, where educational children's television is all about skills acquisition, and not about emotion. There's no Mister Rogers, showing up every day at the same time - as he promises at the end of every episode - to say "Hi neighbor. I like you!"
The letters in the archive come from parents, from children of all ages, from adults, from the very elderly. Everyone you can imagine writes to Mister Rogers, and they all say, in varying ways, the same thing: we love you, Mister Rogers, because you love us. We need someone to tell us, every day, that we're okay, and mean it. We feel better about our abilities and disabilities, as children, as mothers, as friends, as siblings, as fathers, as retirees, as very elderly single women with no families, because of you. We are able, because of you, to go out into our worlds as happier, more confident people, willing and able and actively doing things to make the world a better more interesting place.
So writing about Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, for me, is activism. It's me saying: LOOK! Look how much we needed Fred Rogers. Look how much he - just one guy, on a low-budget public tv show - was able to do, for so, so many people. Look how little he had to do, to do so very much.
It's saying, Fred Rogers wasn't a saint. He was a very, very good man with powerful motivation and a message that we all need, that we all know we need. If he could do it, so can we all. There's nothing so extraordinary, after all, in that show: bringing in something new to look at and think about. Going on a visit to an everyday place: a music shop, a restaurant, a dance studio, a potter's workshop, a shoe factory. Saying: sometimes it's really hard, isn't it? and you get angry, or sad, or confused, or scared. And that's okay, because I like you when you're angry, or sad, or confused, or scared. Because I like you, just exactly as you are.
Because you make every day a special day, by just your being you.
Because every one of us is important and meaningful and real and human. Always, every day, even when you're scared, or angry, or confused, or hurt, or sad. And you contribute to the infinite variety on this planet, the infinite variety that makes the world so very interesting and fun and curious and amazing. Losing even one person from that huge mosaic of difference makes the whole thing a tiny bit less bright and shiny.
It's so incredibly easy, to do what Fred Rogers did. To listen, to be there, to say: I like you, just as exactly as you are. To say, with words and actions: I care about you, because you're you, you're a person who is unlike anyone else in this world world.
To say, and mean it, that You make every day a special day, by just your being you.
and that's why i'm writing my dissertation.
First: because I teach. The activist angle of teaching was first made clear to me at Georgetown, by my brilliant and wonderful advisor. She said: "yes, these kids are privileged [and at Georgetown, almost quadruply so] but they are also the people who will be in charge of corporations and companies. They'll be in politics and positions of power. And if you can introduce to them now some of these ideas [any activist/progressive/radical ideas], it may affect the way they do their business in future."
Teaching is, or can be, activism, and my teaching often is. This is good, and it's the main thing I do, day in and day out, to make sure my work actually does something.
The second thing I do - and what I'm writing about now - is scholarly work on things that matter. Things that can actually make a difference in the way people understand themselves, or others, or the world around them. I made a decision in my first year in Pittsburgh that I was going to consciously write in clear, legible prose; I jettisoned the obfuscating and tortured jargon and construction of so many literary theorists. If a roomful of PhD students can't make sense of a phrase from Frederic Jameson, how in gods name can the "workers," the disenfranchised, the disaffected, make sense of it? And if it's all just babble to the elite, how can it be anything but condescending, self-congratulatory largesse?
So structurally, linguistically, theoretically, I choose the pragmatic and readable.
The topics are even more important.
My dissertation is, ostensibly, about imaginary/imaginative play spaces in children's media, and the way these spaces enable and encourage radical play, difference and experimentation (specifically with gender and sexuality, but with other aspects of life as well).
Really, though, what I'm writing about are places where it's okay - even great, even better - to be different. To be yourself. Places where you, in whatever form you feel like expressing yourself, are safe and loved and admired and respected.
The ultimate of these is Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, a show which seems to have made worlds of difference in the lives of scores of children (and their families). I've spent considerable time in the archives, reading viewer mail, and the love and affirmation these kids (and adults) feel for and from Mr Rogers is staggering. Almost every letter is a tearjerker. Almost every letter mentions, at least once, Mister Rogers' mantra of "I like you just exactly the way you are."
How rarely are we told this?
Lesley Kinzel, the astute and incisive writer of Fatshionista, writes back in response to the appalling burst of suicides from young gay kids in recent weeks - the most dramatic and spectacular of these, of course, being the death of Rutgers freshman Tyler Clementi. Lesley writes, in an effort to support those kids who are bullied and hurt and abused and sad and lonely:
So instead, I’ve written what I would have liked to hear, back then, in my darkest adolescent moments. I am touched by people every day who tell me that the things I write here — even the things I am convinced no one will relate to, that I believe are too specific or too raw or too me — that these things help them. That hearing it helps people to know that they’re not alone. Thus, I’m hoping that this will likewise speak to some of you.
You are okay.
She's doing the work of Fred Rogers here, whether she means to or not. We should all be doing the work of Fred Rogers: reminding each other that yes, YOU are likable and lovable; that you make each day a special day but just your being you; that there is no one else in this world exactly like you, and that that adds to the glorious variety of the world. That I like you just the way you are.
Mister Rogers' Neighborhood is off the air in most districts now, except perhaps on weekends; in Pittsburgh, home of the program and Fred Rogers, it's still on daily. It's dated, sure; there are no cellphones, no iPods, no laptops. No networking, except through Mr McFeely's speedy deliveries. No Facebook, except all the real friends who visit each other, both in Mr Rogers' neighborhood, and in the Neighborhood of Make-Believe.
There's nothing like this on tv now, where educational children's television is all about skills acquisition, and not about emotion. There's no Mister Rogers, showing up every day at the same time - as he promises at the end of every episode - to say "Hi neighbor. I like you!"
The letters in the archive come from parents, from children of all ages, from adults, from the very elderly. Everyone you can imagine writes to Mister Rogers, and they all say, in varying ways, the same thing: we love you, Mister Rogers, because you love us. We need someone to tell us, every day, that we're okay, and mean it. We feel better about our abilities and disabilities, as children, as mothers, as friends, as siblings, as fathers, as retirees, as very elderly single women with no families, because of you. We are able, because of you, to go out into our worlds as happier, more confident people, willing and able and actively doing things to make the world a better more interesting place.
So writing about Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, for me, is activism. It's me saying: LOOK! Look how much we needed Fred Rogers. Look how much he - just one guy, on a low-budget public tv show - was able to do, for so, so many people. Look how little he had to do, to do so very much.
It's saying, Fred Rogers wasn't a saint. He was a very, very good man with powerful motivation and a message that we all need, that we all know we need. If he could do it, so can we all. There's nothing so extraordinary, after all, in that show: bringing in something new to look at and think about. Going on a visit to an everyday place: a music shop, a restaurant, a dance studio, a potter's workshop, a shoe factory. Saying: sometimes it's really hard, isn't it? and you get angry, or sad, or confused, or scared. And that's okay, because I like you when you're angry, or sad, or confused, or scared. Because I like you, just exactly as you are.
Because you make every day a special day, by just your being you.
Because every one of us is important and meaningful and real and human. Always, every day, even when you're scared, or angry, or confused, or hurt, or sad. And you contribute to the infinite variety on this planet, the infinite variety that makes the world so very interesting and fun and curious and amazing. Losing even one person from that huge mosaic of difference makes the whole thing a tiny bit less bright and shiny.
It's so incredibly easy, to do what Fred Rogers did. To listen, to be there, to say: I like you, just as exactly as you are. To say, with words and actions: I care about you, because you're you, you're a person who is unlike anyone else in this world world.
To say, and mean it, that You make every day a special day, by just your being you.
and that's why i'm writing my dissertation.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
What just happened - LIAR
I finished Justine Larbalestier's LIAR today. It's a book I feel like I've heard about a lot, but - weirdly - knew nothing about going into it.
*************THERE ARE SPOILERS AHEAD, MATEY**********************
and seriously, you don't want this one spoilered. to spare your eyes I will provide a cute image to fill some space. see, here is a kitten diligently reading a book, maybe even LIAR. But probably actually reading Rotten Ralph or If you give a cat a cupcake.
Coming out of it, I'm not sure I know much more.
It was a terrific book. Micah's voice is utterly compelling and real and intriguing. The structure of the novel - in sections of varying degrees of truthfulness - worked wonderfully, and presents some very interesting and provocative (and unanswerable) questions about truth-telling. The whole premise of lying, actually, as both theme and narrational device, is inspired.
I was perplexed, at the library, hunting for this book. Larbalestier's other books are in the fantasy genre, and I'd always thought Liar was strict old everyday realism.
And then, werewolves.
And then, lying.
And oh - there are more puzzle pieces at hand than there are in the finished picture, but how do I know which to discard? Larbalestier says the book is intentionally vague - clearly haunted by the ghost (or IS it a ghost?) of Henry James's Turn of the Screw. Or intentionally multiple, would be a better way to rephrase it. I can imagine this book driving my students insane.
So we don't know, and we can't know - not for sure - what the truth is here. Micah's our narrator, and she is totally, completely and always unreliable. Except maybe when she's not. Does she ever tell us the truth? What about? Does it matter?
Whatever the "truth" or Truth or truth is - how Zach died, whether Micah's brother exists, existed, where or what or if upstate and the farm are, if Micah has the family illness, and if that illness is in fact lycanthropy - there are some thematic truths here that struck me repeatedly.
This book is about Betwixt and Between, to borrow Barrie's phrase. It's about being some of more than one thing. It's about being a third in a binary world. It's a totally queer book, in a lot of ways.
Micah is biracial - and this assertion never changes. She lies about being a boy, at the beginning of high school. She is a werewolf, by definition a being that is neither fully human nor fully wolf. She is liar, except when she's not, which is when? She is attracted to Tayshawn and Sarah, almost equally. She is not anyone's girlfriend, except when she is.
She lives in a world that demands everything be resolved into binaries, and Micah is neither one nor the other. You could say the book operates this way as well: is it a fantasy about werewolves, or a very chilling story about an extremely mentally unbalanced girl? are the pills birth control, or are they antipsychotics, or are they some kind of sedative?
There are no answers to these questions. All possibilities remain open; Micah, in both her lying and her truth-telling (which we cannot distinguish from each other) refuses utterly to foreclose on any of them.
LIAR, and Micah, break binaries at every turn. Fantasy or psychological realism? wolf or girl, straight or lesbian, sane or insane, only child or sibling'd - there are no clear answers and - more importantly - no way to resolve any of these. The answers simply cannot be had, because part of the point of the book (as I read it) is to refuse to provide them. We are meant to be on shaky ground. Because it forces us to look at possibilities, at multiplicities - to think beyond binaries. To stick with binaries is to be endlessly frustrated with this book, and with Micah. To stick with binaries is to, in some ways, obliterate Micah. She cannot be resolved into one thing OR the other.
And so everything we think we know about narrative, about truth-telling, about werewolves and detective stories and YA romances and desire and family and Micah is blurred and opened up on itself. This is a book that generates multiplicity and possibility, and in that, it is absolutely brilliant, and revolutionary.
Our inability to know is put on huge display in this book. No one within the text knows anything for sure; none of us reading know anything for sure. This resonates with me particularly along gender-identity lines: the queered body, unknowable as male/female, straight/gay, resolutely and perpetually resisting and refusing to be known and categorized. There's a huge amount of power there, but there's also a huge amount of power being challenged.
This was a staggering book to read. I had to put off my planned errands for the day until I'd finished the last 70 pages or so; I couldn't not know. But of course, there is no knowing here. This isn't a smug or smarmy poststructuralist endless delay of meaning - there's almost a flat-out assertion that there is no meaning to get to. This is a kind of gauntlet-throwing in the face of all systems of classification and knowing.
I HAVE to teach this book. It will break everyone's minds, and that's exactly what needs to be happening.
*************THERE ARE SPOILERS AHEAD, MATEY**********************
and seriously, you don't want this one spoilered. to spare your eyes I will provide a cute image to fill some space. see, here is a kitten diligently reading a book, maybe even LIAR. But probably actually reading Rotten Ralph or If you give a cat a cupcake.
Coming out of it, I'm not sure I know much more.
It was a terrific book. Micah's voice is utterly compelling and real and intriguing. The structure of the novel - in sections of varying degrees of truthfulness - worked wonderfully, and presents some very interesting and provocative (and unanswerable) questions about truth-telling. The whole premise of lying, actually, as both theme and narrational device, is inspired.
I was perplexed, at the library, hunting for this book. Larbalestier's other books are in the fantasy genre, and I'd always thought Liar was strict old everyday realism.
And then, werewolves.
And then, lying.
And oh - there are more puzzle pieces at hand than there are in the finished picture, but how do I know which to discard? Larbalestier says the book is intentionally vague - clearly haunted by the ghost (or IS it a ghost?) of Henry James's Turn of the Screw. Or intentionally multiple, would be a better way to rephrase it. I can imagine this book driving my students insane.
So we don't know, and we can't know - not for sure - what the truth is here. Micah's our narrator, and she is totally, completely and always unreliable. Except maybe when she's not. Does she ever tell us the truth? What about? Does it matter?
Whatever the "truth" or Truth or truth is - how Zach died, whether Micah's brother exists, existed, where or what or if upstate and the farm are, if Micah has the family illness, and if that illness is in fact lycanthropy - there are some thematic truths here that struck me repeatedly.
This book is about Betwixt and Between, to borrow Barrie's phrase. It's about being some of more than one thing. It's about being a third in a binary world. It's a totally queer book, in a lot of ways.
Micah is biracial - and this assertion never changes. She lies about being a boy, at the beginning of high school. She is a werewolf, by definition a being that is neither fully human nor fully wolf. She is liar, except when she's not, which is when? She is attracted to Tayshawn and Sarah, almost equally. She is not anyone's girlfriend, except when she is.
She lives in a world that demands everything be resolved into binaries, and Micah is neither one nor the other. You could say the book operates this way as well: is it a fantasy about werewolves, or a very chilling story about an extremely mentally unbalanced girl? are the pills birth control, or are they antipsychotics, or are they some kind of sedative?
There are no answers to these questions. All possibilities remain open; Micah, in both her lying and her truth-telling (which we cannot distinguish from each other) refuses utterly to foreclose on any of them.
LIAR, and Micah, break binaries at every turn. Fantasy or psychological realism? wolf or girl, straight or lesbian, sane or insane, only child or sibling'd - there are no clear answers and - more importantly - no way to resolve any of these. The answers simply cannot be had, because part of the point of the book (as I read it) is to refuse to provide them. We are meant to be on shaky ground. Because it forces us to look at possibilities, at multiplicities - to think beyond binaries. To stick with binaries is to be endlessly frustrated with this book, and with Micah. To stick with binaries is to, in some ways, obliterate Micah. She cannot be resolved into one thing OR the other.
And so everything we think we know about narrative, about truth-telling, about werewolves and detective stories and YA romances and desire and family and Micah is blurred and opened up on itself. This is a book that generates multiplicity and possibility, and in that, it is absolutely brilliant, and revolutionary.
Our inability to know is put on huge display in this book. No one within the text knows anything for sure; none of us reading know anything for sure. This resonates with me particularly along gender-identity lines: the queered body, unknowable as male/female, straight/gay, resolutely and perpetually resisting and refusing to be known and categorized. There's a huge amount of power there, but there's also a huge amount of power being challenged.
This was a staggering book to read. I had to put off my planned errands for the day until I'd finished the last 70 pages or so; I couldn't not know. But of course, there is no knowing here. This isn't a smug or smarmy poststructuralist endless delay of meaning - there's almost a flat-out assertion that there is no meaning to get to. This is a kind of gauntlet-throwing in the face of all systems of classification and knowing.
I HAVE to teach this book. It will break everyone's minds, and that's exactly what needs to be happening.
Thursday, September 16, 2010
day & night/ booking through thursday
this week's question!
ANSWER:
nope. I do not. I just read. If I'm particularly gripped by a book, I just read it every chance I get to read anything. I'm not good at putting books down if they're more than usually gripping; I end up staying up late, and finishing, all kinds of books (especially children's and YA, but then, isn't that the bulk of my reading?). I think Jellicoe Road may have been my most recent stayed-up-to-finish read [and, I'm excited to add, I ordered it in to the bookstore so I can get it with my discount and own my very own Jellicoe Road. I feel a little wistful that I have to make do with the American edition; it'd be nice to have the Australian On the Jellicoe Road instead].
There are a few things that I have discovered I cannot, or should not, read right before bed. The main one is Edgar Allen Poe. Foolishly, several years ago, I picked up a collection of Poe stories, since it had been a VERY long time since I last read Poe. And like a fool, I elected to read a few stories before sleep at night.
NOT A WISE DECISION.
so I leave Poe, and Stephen King (not that I read him often anymore) and that ilk for daytime/early evening. But otherwise, anything goes.
Today’s question is suggested by Mae.
Do you divide your books into day and night reads? How do you decide?
ANSWER:
nope. I do not. I just read. If I'm particularly gripped by a book, I just read it every chance I get to read anything. I'm not good at putting books down if they're more than usually gripping; I end up staying up late, and finishing, all kinds of books (especially children's and YA, but then, isn't that the bulk of my reading?). I think Jellicoe Road may have been my most recent stayed-up-to-finish read [and, I'm excited to add, I ordered it in to the bookstore so I can get it with my discount and own my very own Jellicoe Road. I feel a little wistful that I have to make do with the American edition; it'd be nice to have the Australian On the Jellicoe Road instead].
There are a few things that I have discovered I cannot, or should not, read right before bed. The main one is Edgar Allen Poe. Foolishly, several years ago, I picked up a collection of Poe stories, since it had been a VERY long time since I last read Poe. And like a fool, I elected to read a few stories before sleep at night.
NOT A WISE DECISION.
so I leave Poe, and Stephen King (not that I read him often anymore) and that ilk for daytime/early evening. But otherwise, anything goes.
Monday, September 13, 2010
adolescence, stereotypes and cliques
My Adolescence class is picking up steam, I think (I hope). We started in on actual primary texts this week (the introductory classes were reading various contemporary news/opinion articles on teenagers, "emerging adults" etc, and some fun with G. Stanley Hall); today's topic was the John Hughes' film THE BREAKFAST CLUB.
Somehow I managed to never see the entire film all the way through until about seven or eight weeks ago. My sister was a fan of the movie when we were younger, and I frankly cannot grasp how I managed to never see the movie in its entirety before now, but there you have it. I've seen it twice now, in a span of about seven weeks, and it's pretty fantastic for a lot of reasons.
But today - and the reason I put it on the syllabus - we talked in class about stereotypes. The students had a lot to say (which was joyous, and a number of them raised points that I hadn't thought of, which always delights me), and I'm looking forward to talking more on Wednesday. In the interim, I got to thinking (as I drove home from school) about the kind of stereotypes in the movie: the jock, the basket case, the brain, the delinquent, the jock ("Sporto"!).
And I wonder if these kinds of stereotypes really only manifest during adolescence. The kinds of cliques Melinda identifies at the start of Speak, for instance; it's a more comprehensive and updated list than Hughes's collection of types, but it's essentially the same kind of stratification.
Now, stereotypes run rampant across the adult world, of course, but it seems to me, on intial thought, that those tend to be organized around some relatively fixed aspect of a person's identity. That is: racial, ethnic, gender, sex/sexuality, religious (which can cross over with ethnic, for example: Jews and Muslims, where it's not just religion that's being singled out but a kind of ethnic or at the very least cultural identity). There are other "character types," - the Boss, the Soccer Mom, types within professions - the Lawyer, the Account Exec, the Secretary - but those are only visible when the person is inhabiting that role. For instance, once The Secretary gets in her car and drives home or goes to the supermarket, that Secretaryish type is almost or entirely invisible to everyone else. Ditto Soccer Mom, who, alone at the library or at Hot Yoga or the supermarket sans children, could just appear to be a woman.
Put another way: in my first year of grad school in Pittsburgh, a co-student of mine said (as we discussed clothing): "you're not really subculturally aligned."
At the time (and admittedly still) that comment rankled, for some reason; possibly because I was then 25 and it seemed to me that the time for subcultural alignment had come and gone long ago, and my acquaintance's remark (and her own persistence in subcultural alignment) struck me as silly and childish.
In retrospect, I was never subculturally aligned, primarily because I was never aligned. I was odd-girl-out through most of my high school years, and then in college, surrounded by a seething mass of mostly-hippies, I was again un-aligned except by virtue of my non-hippie-ness.
BUT. Subcultural identities and/or stereotypes seem to hold strongest and truest in adolescent and/or young adult life. I'm sure there are exceptions - bikers are one, I think, where there is a distinct "look" that accompanies biker life that makes bikers far more visible away from their bikes than for other kinds of subcultures.
The question is: WHY?
why do you get cliques? Why do you get jocks and princesses and brains and criminals and goths and hippies and hipsters and headbangers and stoners in high school, maybe in college, and then - somehow - they seem to seep away into the larger, less obviously differentiated mass of adulthood.
And when you do see vestigial subculturally aligned adults, they seem....well....sort of sad. The adult man who presents as Jock seems kind of like a joke, reliving (possibly imaginary) glory days of his youth. Adult (and old) hippies just seem out of it, kind of very worn and faded and disconnected from reality (though they probably seemed like that as young hippies too). Adult Goths seem sort of pathetic. In each case, encountering the older version of these younger identities always feels like the older version is either 1) immature/not really grown up 2) sad 3) trying to remain young and cool and/or 4) desperate for attention.
These visible marks of difference and identity that we put on as teenagers, and which are then used (by us and against us) to sort us into stereotyped categories, somehow shouldn't be necessary as an adult. You shouldn't need to wear lots of black eye makeup and petticoats to make your personality, your individuality, known. Ditto with the jock attitudes, or the hipster glasses, or whatever group you like. There is a point, it seems, by which one ought to have grown out of these stereotypes. How often do you walk into a gathering of adults and group them off into "jocks" and "cool kids" and "nerds" and "delinquents" and "goths" and "brains"???
you may get tech geeks drifting together, you may have a group of Beautiful People, but you can't tell by looking who those people are (even, sometimes especially, the Beautiful People).
So how does this work, this stereotyping, this subcultural aligning? WHY does it work? Is it part of that "trying on identities" thing the developmental psychologists talk about? How come most people only try on one other identity? I don't know anyone, personally, who went through multiple of these disguises. You went from Generic Girl to Goth, or from Brain to Cool Kid, but there wasn't much movement after that. Angela Chase's season-starting transformation in My So-Called Life makes this very visible; she switches it up, dyes her hair red, starts wearing plaid and funky skirts and shoes. But she doesn't try on yet another new persona.
I'm intrigued by this, and by how it works, and how it lingers, and if that's even a bad thing. Maybe it's a good thing. Maybe carrying the external, visible marks of your subcultural alignment is a useful, important, disruptive thing. I'm not sure.
It's unexamined territory, for my brain anyway, which is pretty content to be un-aligned and (consequently) always observing.
Somehow I managed to never see the entire film all the way through until about seven or eight weeks ago. My sister was a fan of the movie when we were younger, and I frankly cannot grasp how I managed to never see the movie in its entirety before now, but there you have it. I've seen it twice now, in a span of about seven weeks, and it's pretty fantastic for a lot of reasons.
But today - and the reason I put it on the syllabus - we talked in class about stereotypes. The students had a lot to say (which was joyous, and a number of them raised points that I hadn't thought of, which always delights me), and I'm looking forward to talking more on Wednesday. In the interim, I got to thinking (as I drove home from school) about the kind of stereotypes in the movie: the jock, the basket case, the brain, the delinquent, the jock ("Sporto"!).
And I wonder if these kinds of stereotypes really only manifest during adolescence. The kinds of cliques Melinda identifies at the start of Speak, for instance; it's a more comprehensive and updated list than Hughes's collection of types, but it's essentially the same kind of stratification.
Now, stereotypes run rampant across the adult world, of course, but it seems to me, on intial thought, that those tend to be organized around some relatively fixed aspect of a person's identity. That is: racial, ethnic, gender, sex/sexuality, religious (which can cross over with ethnic, for example: Jews and Muslims, where it's not just religion that's being singled out but a kind of ethnic or at the very least cultural identity). There are other "character types," - the Boss, the Soccer Mom, types within professions - the Lawyer, the Account Exec, the Secretary - but those are only visible when the person is inhabiting that role. For instance, once The Secretary gets in her car and drives home or goes to the supermarket, that Secretaryish type is almost or entirely invisible to everyone else. Ditto Soccer Mom, who, alone at the library or at Hot Yoga or the supermarket sans children, could just appear to be a woman.
Put another way: in my first year of grad school in Pittsburgh, a co-student of mine said (as we discussed clothing): "you're not really subculturally aligned."
At the time (and admittedly still) that comment rankled, for some reason; possibly because I was then 25 and it seemed to me that the time for subcultural alignment had come and gone long ago, and my acquaintance's remark (and her own persistence in subcultural alignment) struck me as silly and childish.
In retrospect, I was never subculturally aligned, primarily because I was never aligned. I was odd-girl-out through most of my high school years, and then in college, surrounded by a seething mass of mostly-hippies, I was again un-aligned except by virtue of my non-hippie-ness.
BUT. Subcultural identities and/or stereotypes seem to hold strongest and truest in adolescent and/or young adult life. I'm sure there are exceptions - bikers are one, I think, where there is a distinct "look" that accompanies biker life that makes bikers far more visible away from their bikes than for other kinds of subcultures.
The question is: WHY?
why do you get cliques? Why do you get jocks and princesses and brains and criminals and goths and hippies and hipsters and headbangers and stoners in high school, maybe in college, and then - somehow - they seem to seep away into the larger, less obviously differentiated mass of adulthood.
And when you do see vestigial subculturally aligned adults, they seem....well....sort of sad. The adult man who presents as Jock seems kind of like a joke, reliving (possibly imaginary) glory days of his youth. Adult (and old) hippies just seem out of it, kind of very worn and faded and disconnected from reality (though they probably seemed like that as young hippies too). Adult Goths seem sort of pathetic. In each case, encountering the older version of these younger identities always feels like the older version is either 1) immature/not really grown up 2) sad 3) trying to remain young and cool and/or 4) desperate for attention.
These visible marks of difference and identity that we put on as teenagers, and which are then used (by us and against us) to sort us into stereotyped categories, somehow shouldn't be necessary as an adult. You shouldn't need to wear lots of black eye makeup and petticoats to make your personality, your individuality, known. Ditto with the jock attitudes, or the hipster glasses, or whatever group you like. There is a point, it seems, by which one ought to have grown out of these stereotypes. How often do you walk into a gathering of adults and group them off into "jocks" and "cool kids" and "nerds" and "delinquents" and "goths" and "brains"???
you may get tech geeks drifting together, you may have a group of Beautiful People, but you can't tell by looking who those people are (even, sometimes especially, the Beautiful People).
So how does this work, this stereotyping, this subcultural aligning? WHY does it work? Is it part of that "trying on identities" thing the developmental psychologists talk about? How come most people only try on one other identity? I don't know anyone, personally, who went through multiple of these disguises. You went from Generic Girl to Goth, or from Brain to Cool Kid, but there wasn't much movement after that. Angela Chase's season-starting transformation in My So-Called Life makes this very visible; she switches it up, dyes her hair red, starts wearing plaid and funky skirts and shoes. But she doesn't try on yet another new persona.
I'm intrigued by this, and by how it works, and how it lingers, and if that's even a bad thing. Maybe it's a good thing. Maybe carrying the external, visible marks of your subcultural alignment is a useful, important, disruptive thing. I'm not sure.
It's unexamined territory, for my brain anyway, which is pretty content to be un-aligned and (consequently) always observing.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Jellicoe Road
or - where have I been for the last couple of years, that word of its greatness somehow passed me by?
I read it - the entire book - today. I should not have devoted the whole day to it, but that's what books will do to me, especially good books.
And Jellicoe Road is an amazing book. I cried. Repeatedly. What an absolutely gorgeous and unexpected story....the intersecting and bisecting and intertwining stories and characters are so wonderfully, vividly crafted. I really did not know, for the first 50 or 75 pages, where this book was going; the shifts in tone and plot happened so naturally and subtly that I don't even know when it crossed over into emotionally gripping and mysterious - all I know is, at some point I couldn't put the book down. When I tried to, the characters swarmed my brain; I could see them even when I closed my eyes.
I don't think I have anything profound to say about this book, not yet anyway, just that it took my breath away (almost literally). Having read Looking for Alibrandi and Saving Francesca within the last ten days, and then coming to Jellicoe Road, I was simply not prepared for the depth and complexity of the story and emotions of it. Which is not to say that Marchetta's other books are shallow - they aren't. But their themes and concerns are, in some ways, very different from those in Jellicoe.
I will give Jellicoe Road the absolute highest recommendation I possibly can give. And I will have to acquire it for my very own, read it again, and think think think about it.
Friday, August 27, 2010
Mockingjay: an observation
It occurs to me, in mulling over Mockingjay (and my reaction to it), that the book makes a little more sense, and makes me feel better, if I think of it as a revenge tragedy in the best Jacobean tradition.
Because I think Mockingjay IS a revenge story, since I think Katniss is motivated largely by personal and/or selfish reasons - and most of what is selfish or personal to Katniss has to do with the people closest to her. She wants revenge: for Rue, for all the tributes, for Wiress and the morphling addicts and Mags, for herself and the Victors who have to live with what they've done, and what's been done to them. Her mission against President Snow is almost totally one of revenge.
And the classic revenge tragedy can really only have one set of outcomes: deaths. Lots and lots of deaths.
Which is precisely what Collins gives us.
So: Mockingjay = Jacobean Revenge Tragedy.
Because I think Mockingjay IS a revenge story, since I think Katniss is motivated largely by personal and/or selfish reasons - and most of what is selfish or personal to Katniss has to do with the people closest to her. She wants revenge: for Rue, for all the tributes, for Wiress and the morphling addicts and Mags, for herself and the Victors who have to live with what they've done, and what's been done to them. Her mission against President Snow is almost totally one of revenge.
And the classic revenge tragedy can really only have one set of outcomes: deaths. Lots and lots of deaths.
Which is precisely what Collins gives us.
So: Mockingjay = Jacobean Revenge Tragedy.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Mockingjay: all done [spoilers]
Putting the book cover here to blot out any unwanted spoilery things....I give most of it away, so if you don't want to know, STOP READING NOW. blindfold your tender eyes.
So I read Mockingjay in its entirety today, and I'm still a little shell-shocked. There was an awful lot I didn't expect - there's an awful lot that needed wrapping up, so Collins had her work cut out for her.
I had - and still have, five hours later - a sort of sickish, empty feeling as I reached the end of the novel. Not because I was unhappy with what Collins does with her characters and her plot, but because it's that kind of a book - that kind of a series.
One of the things that came up in class discussions about The Hunger Games - which the students always initiated - is the sheer violence of it. And how that violence is never gratuitous, and is necessary and profoundly affecting.
Collins seriously ups the ante on the violence in Mockingjay. This is a novel about war, about living in the heart of war; by the novel's final section, it's all ground-level guerrilla warfare, which makes me think that Collins is (intentionally or otherwise) referencing our everlasting and grim street battles in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Some of the main points that I especially moved/disturbed/interested me:
Finnick, and Finnick and Katniss's relationship.
The decimation, by novel's end, of the corps of Hunger Games Victors.
The death that tips Katniss past the point of endurance. It's ghastly. Some of those final scenes reminded me, in a terrible, terrible way, of Schindler's List, of the scene when Schindler sees the little girl in the red coat in the liquidation of the ghetto.
The terrible and relentless way that virtually everyone is revealed as untrustworthy, or as having ulterior (or at least more complex) motivations.
The hijacking of Peeta.
The epilogue.
The many, many children and young people (like early 20s and under) who die or are grievously injured.
This last item is of particular interest to me. Back in my youthfully ignorant early days of studying children's literature, Harry Potter & the Goblet of Fire came out. I read it voraciously, having been sucked into the HP machine. And at the end I was shocked. I remember saying, repeatedly; "Kids DON'T die in children's book. they just don't."
Well, actually - they do. And they seem to be doing it more and more frequently. I know Death is a common one for YA fiction, but the deaths seem to be growing more frequent, and more intense. It's not just an elderly great-aunt dying, or a sister with leukemia in hospice (hi, Lurleen McDaniel!) - it's protagonists. Or it's protagonist's closest friends/family/allies, dying brutally in front of the protagonist's eyes.
I wonder about this, a lot.
I am very unhappy about the turn that Gale takes, and unhappier at Katniss's reaction to it.
Katniss is selfish; this book made that abundantly clear, although it's not exactly a secret throughout the other two books. But it made me uncomfortable this time, especially in regards to Gale. Every decision Katniss makes, every action she takes, is done because it will protect or help her family and loved ones. She protects Gale and Peeta, her mother and Prim, the other victors, herself (sometimes, but only sometimes; she is willing to sacrifice herself for them). Katniss is resolutely not political. She doesn't care about the revolution, the uprising; she wants revenge for herself and those she cares about, and that drives her against President Snow. The compassion and loss and grief and anger she feels when the people she cares about suffer, or are killed, are real and deep and meaningful, but the fact remains: Katniss is simply not engaged in the larger political struggles. She is fortunate (?) in that her decisions and actions usually result in something positive for the many and not just for the few, but that's a secondary benefit, not her primary motivation.
Contrast this with Gale, who seems to grow more resolute, grimmer, harder, as each chapter passed. Gale is willing to do whatever it takes to defeat the Capitol. Even if it means killing everyone inside a mountain. Even if innocent people are hurt. He is not acting out of personal revenge (though he does also experience personal rage about the way he and his have suffered because of the Capitol) - Gale IS political, unlike Katniss. And while it's hard to feel good about some of Gale's choices, it's also hard to feel good about many of Katniss's. Gale is, essentially, utilitarian about the war, brilliantly so. You may kill 100 people, many of whom may be innocent, to save a country. It's the logic of the Bomb, of Hiroshima & Nagasaki. It's a cold, calculating, horrific logic, but if you can step outside your personal emotions, it's a logic that makes sense. And can even be a good thing.
The epilogue was, in the way of many epilogues, unsatisfying to me. I suppose it's better than ending on a "we looked into the clear bright future, my Love at my side." but.
the nightmares never go away. ever.
and the trick of evaporating time to age the protagonists, and give them children (you might as well just print HOPE in giant glittery letters, or perhaps REPRODUCTIVE FUTURITY!), is one that irks me. I am never sure why, except that suddenly, our protagonist/narrator is someone 10 or 20 or more years older. And that jump is unforgivable. What we lose in that jump is unforgivable.
This is a book about war - it's Hunger Games played large-scale, across a country. Katniss and Finnick realize this, when they see the obstacles and traps laid around the Capitol; they see it as just a huge games arena, though with higher stakes and more people. It's about survival, and death, and horror, and power - it is so much about power. The ways of hurting people that appear throughout this trilogy are mind-boggling. Collins doesn't back away from the fact that war - in any level, whether it is the annual Hunger Games or the Quarter Quell or full-on rebellion - was is a terrible thing that rips everyone and everything apart. No one is safe. No on comes out unscathed. The bright and shiny future never materializes. It is brutal and it is easy, this kind of battling and war.
This is not a happy book, and for this I applaud Suzanne Collins (loudly, and long). No one clasps hands and faces into the cold, clear light of a new day. No one faces the future bravely, with Love by their side, certain that the new world they've created will be a shiny happy gleaming tomorrowland. Collins make it plain that even "winning" is brutal - Haymitch is an alcoholic from start to finish. Annie is broken and disoriented and mad. The dead stay dead, the broken remain broken. There is no recovery, there is no "getting over" the Hunger Games and their aftermath. This is not a book about glorious happiness arising from the ashes of difficult struggle. We're not left on a happy note, at all - we're left with the Hunger Games, with the reminder of the terrible possibilities in the world. We're left with the fact that terrible things happen, and scar us for life. That sometimes, the nightmares never, ever end.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Mockingjay
I've been waiting for this one for quite awhile; I was lucky enough to read Catching Fire in advanced reader copy, which has meant I've been cliffhanging for a very long time now.
I'm very excited and quite a bit nervous about this concluding book to a very great series. The series has gotten so much buzz, too, in the last year - I have that vaguely snerky, totally immature feeling one gets when suddenly something you love becomes hugely popular. I was geeking out over these books over a year ago, and now suddenly, everyone I know is picking up The Hunger Games for the first time and going bonkers.
But!! No matter! I'm ready to discover Katniss's fate. And Cinna's - I adore Cinna.
I hope - gods I hope - this final book isn't all about the Love Triangle of Katniss, Peeta and Gale. I am not "Team Peeta" or "Team Gale," and I'm kind of irked that such things even exist. Those relationships are important, yes, but not central to the books' narrative.
And now! Off to get my Mockingjay.
Thursday, August 19, 2010
booking through thursday - auntie meme
I hate that "meme" has replaced the perfectly serviceable, though non-trendy, word "questionnaire." I ADORE filling out surveys and questionnaires and quizzes. I always have. I used to get very excited when we'd get comment cards from hotels or restaurants, and my mom would let me fill them out.
Booking Through Thursday has a reading/book questionnaire for today's Question, and I just cannot pass that up.
So, without further ado, here be my answers:
1. Favorite childhood book?
Race Against Death (the story of the dogsled relay that brought diphtheria serum to Nome, Alaska, and was the origins of the Iditerod).
2. What are you reading right now?
just finished Saving Francesca by Melina Marchetta
3. What books do you have on request at the library?
currently, none (I picked them all up this week)
4. Bad book habit?
leaving them open face-down, rather than using a bookmark.
5. What do you currently have checked out at the library?
ha. ha. ha. 75 dissertation related books. and about 15 titles from the public library, mainly YA fiction, Wodehouse and a couple of nonfiction titles that I probably won't read.
6. Do you have an e-reader?
no.
7. Do you prefer to read one book at a time, or several at once?
it varies. i usually get caught up in whatever i'm reading and just crank through it, but sometimes i have a couple going at once.
8. Have your reading habits changed since starting a blog?
nope
9. Least favorite book you read this year (so far?)
hmmm. The A-List by Zoey Dean.
10. Favorite book you’ve read this year?
Peter Cameron's SOMEDAY THIS PAIN WILL BE USEFUL TO YOU.
11. How often do you read out of your comfort zone?
semi-regularly
12. What is your reading comfort zone?
it's pretty broad. children and YA, especially fantasy; 19th century novels; nonfiction (usually, but not always, history or evolutionary biology); really good contemporary fiction (not so much bestsellers); Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers; literary criticism/theory/history; cultural studies kinds of stuff.
13. Can you read on the bus?
Yes
14. Favorite place to read?
my bed
15. What is your policy on book lending?
I loan freely but to trusted acquaintances.
16. Do you ever dog-ear books?
rarely
17. Do you ever write in the margins of your books?
very, very grudgingly rarely, and only in books that i have as teaching editions (and thus multiple copies) or a very few purpose-bought critical texts.
18. Not even with text books?
nope
19. What is your favorite language to read in?
english
20. What makes you love a book?
its style, its form, its content. do i learn anything, do i think about anything new, am i transported, do i recognize myself or the world, is it imaginative in interesting ways.....it's SO hard to pin this down!
21. What will inspire you to recommend a book?
usually a combination of "I think the book is good" plus "your taste leads me to think that YOU would think this book is good"
22. Favorite genre?
fiction. probably classic children's fantasy fiction.
23. Genre you rarely read (but wish you did?)
science
Favorite biography?
i'm totally cheating on this - Caroline Moorhead's DUNANT'S DREAM: history of the international red cross.
25. Have you ever read a self-help book?
not all the way through
26. Favorite cookbook?
don't really have one, though I use The Joy of Cooking fairly regularly.
27. Most inspirational book you’ve read this year (fiction or non-fiction)?
inspirational? i don't use that word lightly....SOMEDAY THIS PAIN WILL BE USEFUL TO YOU.
28. Favorite reading snack?
cheese & crackers
29. Name a case in which hype ruined your reading experience.
nothing comes immediately to mind, though i KNOW this has happened.
30. How often do you agree with critics about a book?
I don't usually read critics. i usually disagree on some level.
31. How do you feel about giving bad/negative reviews?
not a problem. it isn't personal.
32. If you could read in a foreign language, which language would you chose?
RUSSIAN.
33. Most intimidating book you’ve ever read?
hmmmm. Moby Dick, because I only had a week to read it; Andrei Bely's Petersburg, because it's insane and wonderful and complicated.
34. Most intimidating book you’re too nervous to begin?
Ulysses
35. Favorite Poet?
T.S. Eliot. ee cummings.
36. How many books do you usually have checked out of the library at any given time?
anywhere from 8-20, not counting dissertation/teaching related ones.
37. How often have you returned book to the library unread?
it happens semi-frequently, but not all that often.
38. Favorite fictional character?
too many to name, but I am extremely fond of Will Parry from His Dark Materials.
39. Favorite fictional villain?
the Smog in China Mieville's UN LUN DUN.
40. Books I’m most likely to bring on vacation?
something lengthy to last me.
41. The longest I’ve gone without reading.
maybe a couple of days? i really couldn't say.
42. Name a book that you could/would not finish.
i couldn't bring myself to read the final 25 pages or so of Twilight. I skimmed the final two or three pages then threw it across the room.
43. What distracts you easily when you’re reading?
people talking to me, or talking very near me.
44. Favorite film adaptation of a novel?
oh gosh. I really like Fantastic Mister Fox and The Series of Unfortunate Events
45. Most disappointing film adaptation?
The Lightning Thief; Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland
46. The most money I’ve ever spent in the bookstore at one time?
$80-$100.
47. How often do you skim a book before reading it?
almost never
48. What would cause you to stop reading a book half-way through?
It's terrible OR depressing OR I get distracted by another, more compelling book
49. Do you like to keep your books organized?
yep
50. Do you prefer to keep books or give them away once you’ve read them?
KEEP THEM FOREVER.
51. Are there any books you’ve been avoiding?
Ulysses. Dickens' Hard Times, because then I'll have read all the big novels. Tolkien. Inexplicably, Susan Cooper's Dark Is Rising series.
52. Name a book that made you angry.
Twilight
53. A book you didn’t expect to like but did?
Same Difference by Siobhan Vivian (more like was afraid I wouldn't like)
54. A book that you expected to like but didn’t?
Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart
55. Favorite guilt-free, pleasure reading?
all of it. i don't read anything that induces guilt.
and that's my list. i'm sticking to it.
Booking Through Thursday has a reading/book questionnaire for today's Question, and I just cannot pass that up.
So, without further ado, here be my answers:
1. Favorite childhood book?
Race Against Death (the story of the dogsled relay that brought diphtheria serum to Nome, Alaska, and was the origins of the Iditerod).
2. What are you reading right now?
just finished Saving Francesca by Melina Marchetta
3. What books do you have on request at the library?
currently, none (I picked them all up this week)
4. Bad book habit?
leaving them open face-down, rather than using a bookmark.
5. What do you currently have checked out at the library?
ha. ha. ha. 75 dissertation related books. and about 15 titles from the public library, mainly YA fiction, Wodehouse and a couple of nonfiction titles that I probably won't read.
6. Do you have an e-reader?
no.
7. Do you prefer to read one book at a time, or several at once?
it varies. i usually get caught up in whatever i'm reading and just crank through it, but sometimes i have a couple going at once.
8. Have your reading habits changed since starting a blog?
nope
9. Least favorite book you read this year (so far?)
hmmm. The A-List by Zoey Dean.
10. Favorite book you’ve read this year?
Peter Cameron's SOMEDAY THIS PAIN WILL BE USEFUL TO YOU.
11. How often do you read out of your comfort zone?
semi-regularly
12. What is your reading comfort zone?
it's pretty broad. children and YA, especially fantasy; 19th century novels; nonfiction (usually, but not always, history or evolutionary biology); really good contemporary fiction (not so much bestsellers); Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers; literary criticism/theory/history; cultural studies kinds of stuff.
13. Can you read on the bus?
Yes
14. Favorite place to read?
my bed
15. What is your policy on book lending?
I loan freely but to trusted acquaintances.
16. Do you ever dog-ear books?
rarely
17. Do you ever write in the margins of your books?
very, very grudgingly rarely, and only in books that i have as teaching editions (and thus multiple copies) or a very few purpose-bought critical texts.
18. Not even with text books?
nope
19. What is your favorite language to read in?
english
20. What makes you love a book?
its style, its form, its content. do i learn anything, do i think about anything new, am i transported, do i recognize myself or the world, is it imaginative in interesting ways.....it's SO hard to pin this down!
21. What will inspire you to recommend a book?
usually a combination of "I think the book is good" plus "your taste leads me to think that YOU would think this book is good"
22. Favorite genre?
fiction. probably classic children's fantasy fiction.
23. Genre you rarely read (but wish you did?)
science
Favorite biography?
i'm totally cheating on this - Caroline Moorhead's DUNANT'S DREAM: history of the international red cross.
25. Have you ever read a self-help book?
not all the way through
26. Favorite cookbook?
don't really have one, though I use The Joy of Cooking fairly regularly.
27. Most inspirational book you’ve read this year (fiction or non-fiction)?
inspirational? i don't use that word lightly....SOMEDAY THIS PAIN WILL BE USEFUL TO YOU.
28. Favorite reading snack?
cheese & crackers
29. Name a case in which hype ruined your reading experience.
nothing comes immediately to mind, though i KNOW this has happened.
30. How often do you agree with critics about a book?
I don't usually read critics. i usually disagree on some level.
31. How do you feel about giving bad/negative reviews?
not a problem. it isn't personal.
32. If you could read in a foreign language, which language would you chose?
RUSSIAN.
33. Most intimidating book you’ve ever read?
hmmmm. Moby Dick, because I only had a week to read it; Andrei Bely's Petersburg, because it's insane and wonderful and complicated.
34. Most intimidating book you’re too nervous to begin?
Ulysses
35. Favorite Poet?
T.S. Eliot. ee cummings.
36. How many books do you usually have checked out of the library at any given time?
anywhere from 8-20, not counting dissertation/teaching related ones.
37. How often have you returned book to the library unread?
it happens semi-frequently, but not all that often.
38. Favorite fictional character?
too many to name, but I am extremely fond of Will Parry from His Dark Materials.
39. Favorite fictional villain?
the Smog in China Mieville's UN LUN DUN.
40. Books I’m most likely to bring on vacation?
something lengthy to last me.
41. The longest I’ve gone without reading.
maybe a couple of days? i really couldn't say.
42. Name a book that you could/would not finish.
i couldn't bring myself to read the final 25 pages or so of Twilight. I skimmed the final two or three pages then threw it across the room.
43. What distracts you easily when you’re reading?
people talking to me, or talking very near me.
44. Favorite film adaptation of a novel?
oh gosh. I really like Fantastic Mister Fox and The Series of Unfortunate Events
45. Most disappointing film adaptation?
The Lightning Thief; Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland
46. The most money I’ve ever spent in the bookstore at one time?
$80-$100.
47. How often do you skim a book before reading it?
almost never
48. What would cause you to stop reading a book half-way through?
It's terrible OR depressing OR I get distracted by another, more compelling book
49. Do you like to keep your books organized?
yep
50. Do you prefer to keep books or give them away once you’ve read them?
KEEP THEM FOREVER.
51. Are there any books you’ve been avoiding?
Ulysses. Dickens' Hard Times, because then I'll have read all the big novels. Tolkien. Inexplicably, Susan Cooper's Dark Is Rising series.
52. Name a book that made you angry.
Twilight
53. A book you didn’t expect to like but did?
Same Difference by Siobhan Vivian (more like was afraid I wouldn't like)
54. A book that you expected to like but didn’t?
Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart
55. Favorite guilt-free, pleasure reading?
all of it. i don't read anything that induces guilt.
and that's my list. i'm sticking to it.
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Like the Red Panda - mixed feelings
On the recommendation of the wonderful Charlie, I read Andrea Seigel's Like the Red Panda.
And frankly, I do not know what to make of it.
Reviews online keep referring to the narrator's - Stella - and the author's humor and wit. But I didn't see a lot of this. Some, sure, and enough to make me think of Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak, which still makes me laugh, even after a dozen or more readings.
But there's almost too much weirdness in Stella's life, and a lot of it feels contrived and unevenly handled. Even the deaths of her parents - from coke cut with heroin - felt somehow odd. And the characters, even the quirkiest ones, felt flat. I have no idea who or what the foster parents, Shana and Simon, are. The ex(?) boyfriend Daniel - confusing. Ashley and Ainsley - irritating and perplexing. The grandfather, Donald - almost unbearable.
Stella's apathy is creepy. Once she makes her decision to kill herself, it becomes apparent that she's never made any effort in any of her interpersonal relationships, with the possible (but only possible) exception of Daniel. Everyone is a stranger to her, and it feels like Stella's fault. And not in a way that makes me feel sympathetic; in other ways, she's a very sharp, astute and self-aware thinker and observer. But she doesn't even seem to realize that she may have been able to change the relationship between herself and her foster parents, or kids at school, or anything. She rigorously over-achieves academically, and wears a collection of (very short) plaid skirts, but otherwise, Stella feels like a cipher. I don't know why she wants to kill herself, not really, except the more-or-less stated reason that she feels like she's peaked; that she's done living. But what this means and how one might know it at age 17 is not clear.
Ultimately, I ended up feeling angry at Stella, primarily on Ainsley's behalf. Poor Ainsley, the invisible girl - finally, she has a friend who seems to value her for herself and not because of her proximity to Ashley, finally someone seems to understand Ainsley - and within weeks, that someone intends to be dead. Likewise Daniel, who - whatever it actually means or consists of - seems to genuinely care about Stella; he'll be waiting at Del Mar for her, while she never shows (and instead, Ainsley will be showing up, an almost-nasty twist that Stella designs).
At the end of this book, I felt most annoyed with Andrea Seigel, a fact that was not helped by a visit to her website. My sense of the book is that Seigel wanted to write a book that would shock! people, not that she had something she wanted to say. There's a quality of hipster self-satisfaction that comes from both the book and Stella, and makes it hard for me to connect with or like either.
Like Jay Asher's catastrophe 13 Reasons Why, this book never made me really feel or understand why Stella wanted to die. Neither she nor Hannah (the suicide of Asher's book) came across as particular suicidal, particularly unhappy or ready to die. Stella instead feels a little bit clueless, a little too into herself. The way she chooses to stage her suicide is particularly telling. She researches the "warning signs," and devises a program of exhibiting them; she writes the entire book as a document to leave behind. She's incredibly interested in being seen, in performing Suicidal Teen Girl Who is Smart And Quirky (witness: plaid catholic schoolgirl skirts).
It's this performance that bothers me, I guess, because it feels like it comes from the author and from Stella. I get the feeling that Seigel is saying "Hey! LOOK AT ME! I WROTE THIS INTENSE, MEANINGFUL BOOK ABOUT SUICIDE WHICH WILL SHOCK YOU! I AM SO DEEP!"
and I feel like Stella is saying the same thing (and the same thing as Holden Caulfield): Look at me, I am so much deeper and intense than all the phonies around me.
While this is very much a part of teenage life (which I know from firsthand experience), it's also a pose, a stage, a performance, a phase.
Seigel doesn't back it up with anything that makes me believe in Stella's pose; I don't think she's particularly deep or insightful (though smart, and certainly more aware than many of her classmates).
Ultimately, I don't buy Stella as a girl who actually wants to kill herself. I don't think she's as interesting as she thinks she is, or as Seigel thinks she (stella and Seigel) is.
All the same, there is something about the book that is appealing, that did draw me in to a degree. I find I feel perplexed, more than anything, by the end of the novel - perplexed, and extremely anxious and sad on behalf of Ainsley. I care what happens to Stella because I care about Ainsley - and I think this is a failing of the book, and not a success.
And frankly, I do not know what to make of it.
Reviews online keep referring to the narrator's - Stella - and the author's humor and wit. But I didn't see a lot of this. Some, sure, and enough to make me think of Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak, which still makes me laugh, even after a dozen or more readings.
But there's almost too much weirdness in Stella's life, and a lot of it feels contrived and unevenly handled. Even the deaths of her parents - from coke cut with heroin - felt somehow odd. And the characters, even the quirkiest ones, felt flat. I have no idea who or what the foster parents, Shana and Simon, are. The ex(?) boyfriend Daniel - confusing. Ashley and Ainsley - irritating and perplexing. The grandfather, Donald - almost unbearable.
Stella's apathy is creepy. Once she makes her decision to kill herself, it becomes apparent that she's never made any effort in any of her interpersonal relationships, with the possible (but only possible) exception of Daniel. Everyone is a stranger to her, and it feels like Stella's fault. And not in a way that makes me feel sympathetic; in other ways, she's a very sharp, astute and self-aware thinker and observer. But she doesn't even seem to realize that she may have been able to change the relationship between herself and her foster parents, or kids at school, or anything. She rigorously over-achieves academically, and wears a collection of (very short) plaid skirts, but otherwise, Stella feels like a cipher. I don't know why she wants to kill herself, not really, except the more-or-less stated reason that she feels like she's peaked; that she's done living. But what this means and how one might know it at age 17 is not clear.
Ultimately, I ended up feeling angry at Stella, primarily on Ainsley's behalf. Poor Ainsley, the invisible girl - finally, she has a friend who seems to value her for herself and not because of her proximity to Ashley, finally someone seems to understand Ainsley - and within weeks, that someone intends to be dead. Likewise Daniel, who - whatever it actually means or consists of - seems to genuinely care about Stella; he'll be waiting at Del Mar for her, while she never shows (and instead, Ainsley will be showing up, an almost-nasty twist that Stella designs).
At the end of this book, I felt most annoyed with Andrea Seigel, a fact that was not helped by a visit to her website. My sense of the book is that Seigel wanted to write a book that would shock! people, not that she had something she wanted to say. There's a quality of hipster self-satisfaction that comes from both the book and Stella, and makes it hard for me to connect with or like either.
Like Jay Asher's catastrophe 13 Reasons Why, this book never made me really feel or understand why Stella wanted to die. Neither she nor Hannah (the suicide of Asher's book) came across as particular suicidal, particularly unhappy or ready to die. Stella instead feels a little bit clueless, a little too into herself. The way she chooses to stage her suicide is particularly telling. She researches the "warning signs," and devises a program of exhibiting them; she writes the entire book as a document to leave behind. She's incredibly interested in being seen, in performing Suicidal Teen Girl Who is Smart And Quirky (witness: plaid catholic schoolgirl skirts).
It's this performance that bothers me, I guess, because it feels like it comes from the author and from Stella. I get the feeling that Seigel is saying "Hey! LOOK AT ME! I WROTE THIS INTENSE, MEANINGFUL BOOK ABOUT SUICIDE WHICH WILL SHOCK YOU! I AM SO DEEP!"
and I feel like Stella is saying the same thing (and the same thing as Holden Caulfield): Look at me, I am so much deeper and intense than all the phonies around me.
While this is very much a part of teenage life (which I know from firsthand experience), it's also a pose, a stage, a performance, a phase.
Seigel doesn't back it up with anything that makes me believe in Stella's pose; I don't think she's particularly deep or insightful (though smart, and certainly more aware than many of her classmates).
Ultimately, I don't buy Stella as a girl who actually wants to kill herself. I don't think she's as interesting as she thinks she is, or as Seigel thinks she (stella and Seigel) is.
All the same, there is something about the book that is appealing, that did draw me in to a degree. I find I feel perplexed, more than anything, by the end of the novel - perplexed, and extremely anxious and sad on behalf of Ainsley. I care what happens to Stella because I care about Ainsley - and I think this is a failing of the book, and not a success.
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Booking through Thursday: evolution of a reader
This week's Booking Through Thursday is pretty awesome and children's lit appropriate!
Why yes, BTT, my reading choices HAVE changed. But maybe not drastically. I have very specific memories of reading - avidly, and on my own - the Childhood of Famous Americans "biographies" from our public library, when I was just a young pup in kindergarten. The first one I remember reading as my first real chapter book was the one about Martin Luther King, Junior, when I was still so young I didn't know who he was. Actually a lot of the Famous Americans that I read about were mysteries to me: Lucretia Mott, Liliuokalani, Babe Didrickson, Miles Standish [frankly, I'm still a little puzzled by him], Francis Marion, Virginia Dare.
I don't know what my elementary-school reading consisted of, really; I read a lot of the realist series that were cranked out - Babysitters Club, Sweet Valley books, good old Encyclopedia Brown, the Gymnasts, Sleepover Club. I'm sure I managed to read some actual quality in there as well, but on the whole, I'm a little mystified as to what I actually read as a kid. I did NOT read much fantasy, not until fairly late in the game - I picked up the Prydain books around sixth grade (years after my sister geeked out over them), and by late junior high had moved on to Narnia. Narnia, and Stephen King.
High school was a lot of Stephen King and Jack Kerouac.
College was a lot of classics from across the ages - Russian lit, British, American, some French.
But it was almost all fiction until after college, when I delved into nonfiction (though oddly enough, I've never been a fan of biographies. Perhaps all those childhoods of Famous Americans turned me off to the genre).
Now I read a fair bit of historical nonfiction, usually about fairly specific eras, events or problems. I like history of medicine-style books - Gina Kolata's Influenza, and a book on yellow fever, and the like. I also like history - most recently, London during the Blitz.
But the bulk of my fiction reading is children's and young adult stuff, very, very often fantasy. In the last year I've picked up Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers, and of course I read "grown-up" novels too (contemporary and older; I zipped through all of Sherlock Holmes in about a month once, and I've read nearly all of Dickens' novels, for example). But I'd say well over 50% of my reading, maybe more like 70%, is children's/YA.
Partly this is because it is my Profession, my Specialty, and so I read for teaching, and for my own work, and for keeping up with what's out there. But a lot of it is that I just really, really like good children's/YA fantasy (Diana Wynne Jones is my perennial exemplar and favorite).
I have no theories on why I somehow worked backwards, gravitating toward fantasy as I got older. It could be that the 1970s and 80s were not a phenomenal era in children's fantasy publishing (especially not in the US, though children's fantasy has always been a weak point in American fiction). Realism and Problem Novels were very much in vogue in the 70s and 80s, and so that was probably what was most prominently displayed in the library. Perhaps I had enough of a fantasy life going with my barbies and other dolls and toys, and my crayons and paints and markers, that i didn't need to also read fantasy.
Or perhaps - and most likely, as evidenced by the Famous Americans and the Babysitters Club - I just had crummy taste in books as a kid.
Have your reading choices changed over the years? Or pretty much stayed the same? (And yes, from childhood to adulthood we usually read different things, but some people stick to basically the same kind of book their entire lives, so…)
Why yes, BTT, my reading choices HAVE changed. But maybe not drastically. I have very specific memories of reading - avidly, and on my own - the Childhood of Famous Americans "biographies" from our public library, when I was just a young pup in kindergarten. The first one I remember reading as my first real chapter book was the one about Martin Luther King, Junior, when I was still so young I didn't know who he was. Actually a lot of the Famous Americans that I read about were mysteries to me: Lucretia Mott, Liliuokalani, Babe Didrickson, Miles Standish [frankly, I'm still a little puzzled by him], Francis Marion, Virginia Dare.
I don't know what my elementary-school reading consisted of, really; I read a lot of the realist series that were cranked out - Babysitters Club, Sweet Valley books, good old Encyclopedia Brown, the Gymnasts, Sleepover Club. I'm sure I managed to read some actual quality in there as well, but on the whole, I'm a little mystified as to what I actually read as a kid. I did NOT read much fantasy, not until fairly late in the game - I picked up the Prydain books around sixth grade (years after my sister geeked out over them), and by late junior high had moved on to Narnia. Narnia, and Stephen King.
High school was a lot of Stephen King and Jack Kerouac.
College was a lot of classics from across the ages - Russian lit, British, American, some French.
But it was almost all fiction until after college, when I delved into nonfiction (though oddly enough, I've never been a fan of biographies. Perhaps all those childhoods of Famous Americans turned me off to the genre).
Now I read a fair bit of historical nonfiction, usually about fairly specific eras, events or problems. I like history of medicine-style books - Gina Kolata's Influenza, and a book on yellow fever, and the like. I also like history - most recently, London during the Blitz.
But the bulk of my fiction reading is children's and young adult stuff, very, very often fantasy. In the last year I've picked up Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers, and of course I read "grown-up" novels too (contemporary and older; I zipped through all of Sherlock Holmes in about a month once, and I've read nearly all of Dickens' novels, for example). But I'd say well over 50% of my reading, maybe more like 70%, is children's/YA.
Partly this is because it is my Profession, my Specialty, and so I read for teaching, and for my own work, and for keeping up with what's out there. But a lot of it is that I just really, really like good children's/YA fantasy (Diana Wynne Jones is my perennial exemplar and favorite).
I have no theories on why I somehow worked backwards, gravitating toward fantasy as I got older. It could be that the 1970s and 80s were not a phenomenal era in children's fantasy publishing (especially not in the US, though children's fantasy has always been a weak point in American fiction). Realism and Problem Novels were very much in vogue in the 70s and 80s, and so that was probably what was most prominently displayed in the library. Perhaps I had enough of a fantasy life going with my barbies and other dolls and toys, and my crayons and paints and markers, that i didn't need to also read fantasy.
Or perhaps - and most likely, as evidenced by the Famous Americans and the Babysitters Club - I just had crummy taste in books as a kid.
adolescence will be represented thus
I've made my decisions, for the most part, for my Representing Adolescence Class.
Novels to be read:
Speak - Laurie Halse Anderson
The Boy Book - E. Lockhart
Someone Like You - Sarah Dessen (I finally picked a girl book!)
Will Grayson, Will Grayson - John Green & David Levithan
King Dork - Frank Portman
King of the Screw-Ups - K.L. Going
We will watch The Breakfast Club at the start of the term, as a way to just leap right in and also as a way to talk about stereotypes, adult/teenager power differentials, and the rise of teen-oriented media.
Television shows: My So-Called Life: two of the first three episodes, and "Life of Brian" (which is focalized by that adorable Brian Krakow and is the one where they go to the school dance). Glee: "Preggers" (the "single ladies" episode; Kurt joins the football team & comes out to his dad); "Wheels" (about life in a wheelchair; fundraising; Artie) and "The power of Madonna." Daria: episodes TBA Huge (if available): episodes TBA. I may only use one, maybe two episodes of Huge, but probably the very first episode.
We'll do some secondary reading as well - I may force them to read some of G. Stanley Hall's insanity-inducing Adolescence (he coined the term! and believes in Lamarckian evolution! and eugenics!). But we'll definitely read some other stuff: if I can find them, good essays on Fat Acceptance, Queer adolescence, Music & Adolescence.
I discovered a truly astonishing pop culture blog recently (made more astonishing by the fact that its incredibly prolific and talented writer was in college when he began it) with a brilliant essay on Brian Krakow as the best teenage loser of all time; it deals nicely with Brian in the context of the show, and in the larger context of teenage losers in media.
I have a jolly article from a few years ago about "Kids Today get an A+ in Narcissism," which should provoke SOME decent discussion. Unless the Kids Today in my class are so narcissistic that they can't even discuss something so....not about them, personally.
In the books and such we've got:
teen pregnancy death of teenager death of parent rape coming out to parents, friends, self Relationship Angst of the highest order girls being accused of being sluts girls being pressured to have sex girls having all their friends (and the whole school, even!) turn on them bullying of varying degrees of physicality, up to and including braining our protagonist and landing him in the hospital with possible (very minor) brain damage Fat Camp Body Image Issues
Queerness, queerness and more queerness
Disability
the perils of being Hot
the perils of being a Dork
Guns in School
Smoking pot
and more.
it's a fiesta of Issues.
For quite awhile, at New college, there was a dumpster behind the cafeteria. someone had spray-painted on it: WE'VE GOT ISSUES.
I think of this often. And it essentially sums up the Young Adult genre as a whole.
I am delighted and excited and absolutely, 100% geeked-out over my class. I haven't finished ordering the readings/viewings or selecting secondary readings, but the bulk of the class is in place, and I'm ecstatic.
let's hope the Kids Today don't let me down.....
Novels to be read:
Speak - Laurie Halse Anderson
The Boy Book - E. Lockhart
Someone Like You - Sarah Dessen (I finally picked a girl book!)
Will Grayson, Will Grayson - John Green & David Levithan
King Dork - Frank Portman
King of the Screw-Ups - K.L. Going
We will watch The Breakfast Club at the start of the term, as a way to just leap right in and also as a way to talk about stereotypes, adult/teenager power differentials, and the rise of teen-oriented media.
teen pregnancy
Wednesday, August 04, 2010
Reading Girl Books
Since early July, I've been on a mission to find suitable girl-protagonist novels to teach in my Representing Adolescence class. I decided early on that I would use Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak, because it is amazing and because it always gets good reception when I teach it. Then I read E. Lockhart's The Boy Book, and decided to teach that, because it seemed to be realistic and fairly well-written, and had several things worth talking about. I'm also interested in the way that both Melinda and Ruby end up as outsiders, exiled from their groups of friends for dubious (at best) reasons. And The Boy Book will make for good discussion about gender.
And then came the true Mission: finding a realist novel from the last 25 years or so, with a female protagonist, that wasn't a Trauma Novel, and/or wasn't about Boys.
I still have not settled on my third title. I skimmed bestseller lists and some blogs (teenreads, etc), always eliminating the Twilight related crap (it's fantasy, after all) and used that, plus my knowledge of what teenage girls buy at the bookstore to compile my collection of titles. Here, in no particular order, are the Girl YA books I have read since July:
Greengage Summer - Rumer Godden
Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret - Judy Blume
Fly on the Wall - E. Lockhart
The Boy Book - E. Lockhart
Tam Lin - Pamela Dean
Fire and Hemlock - Diana Wynne Jones
Hexwood - Diana Wynne Jones
The Boyfriend List - E. Lockhart
The Treasure Map of Boys - E. Lockhart
Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist - David Levithan and Rachel Cohn
Pop Princess - Rachel Cohn
The A-List - Zoey Dean
The Clique - Lisi Harrison
Keeping the Moon - Sarah Dessen
Sweethearts - Sara Zarr
Cracked Up to Be - Courtney Summers
Story of a Girl - Sara Zarr
Chasing Boys - Karen Tayleur
Getting Lost with Boys - Hailey Abbott
I Was a Non-Blonde Cheerleader - Kieran Scott
None of these satisfy me. the Judy Blume is, admittedly, a classic, but I felt mortified reading it - all the talk of bras and periods! ook. NOT my cup of tea, and almost certainly guaranteed to make everyone in my class uncomfortable (I have a lot of freshmen). On top of that, I don't know, really, what to DO with it, and it feels outdated. I don't want to spend half my life explaining tiny details about being alive in the 70s and grappling with my students' protests of "it's not relatable!!!"
Cracked Up to Be was surprisingly good, but was a whanger of a Trauma Book. Keeping the Moon was all right, and not a trauma story (not really, though in part it was about getting over Being Fat). It's just not as meaty as I'd like it to be. I'm contemplating a Dessen novel, though, because they're very popular, and while they are often about Boys, they are also (in my limited experience) also about friendships and family and self-discovery.
Tam Lin was incredible, absolutely fantastic, and helped me to (finally) truly understand and appreciate Fire & Hemlock. Both are out of the running due to length and complexity, and the fact that the source text(s) will break brains.
The A-List, The Clique and Getting Lost with Boys were absolutely reprehensible. Appalling. Badly written, hideously plotted, full of nasty unpleasant characters. Grrrrross.
I wanted to like Nick & Norah, but I felt irritated by it instead. I thought Norah was kind of a bitch, and Nick oddly emptied of personality.
The rest were all mediocre to middling. Chasing Boys wasn't especially about chasing boys, and that ended up making it relatively decent. Sweethearts was very odd and more than a little creepy; Story of a Girl was depressing, but valuable in that it concerns lower-class protagonists (which, frankly, after the A-List and the Clique, I was happy to encounter).
But there are certain formulae, certain tropes, that show up over and over and over and over, even in the best of these books: a New, Attractive Boy shows up, the protagonist fights with friends, the protagonist relocates and is the New, Attractive Girl, the protagonist struggles over some mysterious past trauma that is revealed slowly in flashbacks, or not until the very end of the book. The Journey Of Self-Discovery, in all of these books, happens through relationships - friends and Boys, occasionally formerly-estranged parents - with very little introspection. The characters live through events and dialogue, not through narration (think of Speak, then imagine the opposite).
By contrast, the Boy books I've read seem to focus much more on that interior monologue introspective narration. Events are important, and people are important, but it isn't through their relationships that the boys really change or learn anything. I hate to say this, and I hope I am making a gross generalization, but the Boy books seem more intellectual, while the Girl books are more emotional.
So I'm now reaching the end of my rope. I've read scads of mostly-terrible books, I've encountered way too many cute boys with hair falling into their eyes, eyes which are always blue or green (as are protagonist's eyes, when described), boys who somehow manage to be wise and caring and empathic and helpful to Protagonist girls with serious Issues. Often the boys are named Jake, or they have slightly more hip or nontraditional names: Tyler, Noel, Ethan, Cameron, Dylan, Liam. It's a fluke or a freak when a nice normal Paul or Daniel or Jason turns up.
I can rattle off Trauma scenarios in my sleep, I can identify love triangles before they've been formed, I can spot the Boy Who Turns Out to be A Jerk from a mile off, I can spot the Nice but Nerdy Boy who Turns Hot over a summer from several miles off. I know the Girl Heroine will learn to have Self-Confidence, will Patch Things Up with her siblings/parents/step-parents, will learn valuable lessons about living in the today because of her dead sibling/parent/friend, will stop drinking or cutting or skipping school, will, with the Love of the Nice, Cute Boy whose hair falls into his eyes, turn an eager, happy face to a shining future of awesomeness.
PUKE PUKE PUKE.
Obviously, these very cliches and stereotypes are worth thinking about, and it's making me root for Dessen, though frankly, Cracked Up to Be was probably the most interesting/best written of the list.
But this experience has made me think seriously about the bildungsroman, and its maleness; male protagonists come of age regardless of the relationships around them. Girls come of age because of those relationships. I also felt a tiny bit of shock when I tried to think historically, pre-1900, of representations of adolescents. Other than the occasional Little Women, or The Daisy Chain, the single strong protagonist bildungsroman seems to be a very exclusively male genre. Even Little Women and The Daisy Chain track the progress of a group of siblings, not a single strong character. But teenaged women go from child to debutante/wife in a turn of a page - they don't get their own bildungsroman, they just figure in someone else's.
I have a lot more to say on this subject - in fact, I could go on forever - but I'll draw my line now. Maybe I'll flip a coin to decide my third Girl Protagonist book - between Cracked Up to Be and a Dessen.
And then came the true Mission: finding a realist novel from the last 25 years or so, with a female protagonist, that wasn't a Trauma Novel, and/or wasn't about Boys.
I still have not settled on my third title. I skimmed bestseller lists and some blogs (teenreads, etc), always eliminating the Twilight related crap (it's fantasy, after all) and used that, plus my knowledge of what teenage girls buy at the bookstore to compile my collection of titles. Here, in no particular order, are the Girl YA books I have read since July:
Greengage Summer - Rumer Godden
Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret - Judy Blume
Fly on the Wall - E. Lockhart
The Boy Book - E. Lockhart
Tam Lin - Pamela Dean
Fire and Hemlock - Diana Wynne Jones
Hexwood - Diana Wynne Jones
The Boyfriend List - E. Lockhart
The Treasure Map of Boys - E. Lockhart
Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist - David Levithan and Rachel Cohn
Pop Princess - Rachel Cohn
The A-List - Zoey Dean
The Clique - Lisi Harrison
Keeping the Moon - Sarah Dessen
Sweethearts - Sara Zarr
Cracked Up to Be - Courtney Summers
Story of a Girl - Sara Zarr
Chasing Boys - Karen Tayleur
Getting Lost with Boys - Hailey Abbott
I Was a Non-Blonde Cheerleader - Kieran Scott
None of these satisfy me. the Judy Blume is, admittedly, a classic, but I felt mortified reading it - all the talk of bras and periods! ook. NOT my cup of tea, and almost certainly guaranteed to make everyone in my class uncomfortable (I have a lot of freshmen). On top of that, I don't know, really, what to DO with it, and it feels outdated. I don't want to spend half my life explaining tiny details about being alive in the 70s and grappling with my students' protests of "it's not relatable!!!"
Cracked Up to Be was surprisingly good, but was a whanger of a Trauma Book. Keeping the Moon was all right, and not a trauma story (not really, though in part it was about getting over Being Fat). It's just not as meaty as I'd like it to be. I'm contemplating a Dessen novel, though, because they're very popular, and while they are often about Boys, they are also (in my limited experience) also about friendships and family and self-discovery.
Tam Lin was incredible, absolutely fantastic, and helped me to (finally) truly understand and appreciate Fire & Hemlock. Both are out of the running due to length and complexity, and the fact that the source text(s) will break brains.
The A-List, The Clique and Getting Lost with Boys were absolutely reprehensible. Appalling. Badly written, hideously plotted, full of nasty unpleasant characters. Grrrrross.
I wanted to like Nick & Norah, but I felt irritated by it instead. I thought Norah was kind of a bitch, and Nick oddly emptied of personality.
The rest were all mediocre to middling. Chasing Boys wasn't especially about chasing boys, and that ended up making it relatively decent. Sweethearts was very odd and more than a little creepy; Story of a Girl was depressing, but valuable in that it concerns lower-class protagonists (which, frankly, after the A-List and the Clique, I was happy to encounter).
But there are certain formulae, certain tropes, that show up over and over and over and over, even in the best of these books: a New, Attractive Boy shows up, the protagonist fights with friends, the protagonist relocates and is the New, Attractive Girl, the protagonist struggles over some mysterious past trauma that is revealed slowly in flashbacks, or not until the very end of the book. The Journey Of Self-Discovery, in all of these books, happens through relationships - friends and Boys, occasionally formerly-estranged parents - with very little introspection. The characters live through events and dialogue, not through narration (think of Speak, then imagine the opposite).
By contrast, the Boy books I've read seem to focus much more on that interior monologue introspective narration. Events are important, and people are important, but it isn't through their relationships that the boys really change or learn anything. I hate to say this, and I hope I am making a gross generalization, but the Boy books seem more intellectual, while the Girl books are more emotional.
So I'm now reaching the end of my rope. I've read scads of mostly-terrible books, I've encountered way too many cute boys with hair falling into their eyes, eyes which are always blue or green (as are protagonist's eyes, when described), boys who somehow manage to be wise and caring and empathic and helpful to Protagonist girls with serious Issues. Often the boys are named Jake, or they have slightly more hip or nontraditional names: Tyler, Noel, Ethan, Cameron, Dylan, Liam. It's a fluke or a freak when a nice normal Paul or Daniel or Jason turns up.
I can rattle off Trauma scenarios in my sleep, I can identify love triangles before they've been formed, I can spot the Boy Who Turns Out to be A Jerk from a mile off, I can spot the Nice but Nerdy Boy who Turns Hot over a summer from several miles off. I know the Girl Heroine will learn to have Self-Confidence, will Patch Things Up with her siblings/parents/step-parents, will learn valuable lessons about living in the today because of her dead sibling/parent/friend, will stop drinking or cutting or skipping school, will, with the Love of the Nice, Cute Boy whose hair falls into his eyes, turn an eager, happy face to a shining future of awesomeness.
PUKE PUKE PUKE.
Obviously, these very cliches and stereotypes are worth thinking about, and it's making me root for Dessen, though frankly, Cracked Up to Be was probably the most interesting/best written of the list.
But this experience has made me think seriously about the bildungsroman, and its maleness; male protagonists come of age regardless of the relationships around them. Girls come of age because of those relationships. I also felt a tiny bit of shock when I tried to think historically, pre-1900, of representations of adolescents. Other than the occasional Little Women, or The Daisy Chain, the single strong protagonist bildungsroman seems to be a very exclusively male genre. Even Little Women and The Daisy Chain track the progress of a group of siblings, not a single strong character. But teenaged women go from child to debutante/wife in a turn of a page - they don't get their own bildungsroman, they just figure in someone else's.
I have a lot more to say on this subject - in fact, I could go on forever - but I'll draw my line now. Maybe I'll flip a coin to decide my third Girl Protagonist book - between Cracked Up to Be and a Dessen.
Tuesday, August 03, 2010
Course planning
I've been obsessed with my Representing Adolescence syllabus. What was supposed to be a week of intensive reading and planning turned into most of the month of July with my head stuck between the pink covers of girl books (and a handful of others, including Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You, possibly the best YA book I've ever read).
The Ongoing Problem of the Teen Girl Novel has yet to be resolved, though I'm rapidly approaching my absolute deadline for submitting my book order, so resolution is also rapidly approaching. So - a book with a female protagonist WILL be chosen by week's end.
I have decided, definitely now, to teach at least one episode of Huge. I've been dabbling in reading some Fat Acceptance/Fat politics stuff, on and off for over a year (pointed in that direction, actually, by Rebecca Rabinowitz's blog), and my reading of the stunningly smart and insightful Fatshionista has led me to be much more Fat-aware. Because of the Fatshionista's blog, I started watching Huge online (new episodes go up Tuesday mornings, following TV airing on Monday nights).
And it's great. The show is fantastic. There are some aspects of it that I don't care for (mainly concerning Hayley Hasselhof's acting ability or lack thereof, and her relationship with the boys' counselor), but on the whole - this is a great show. As of episode six, we've had a character who identifies as asexual; we've had an anatomical-boy (who is clearly queer) select a female name for his spirit name; we have some LARPing; we have Fat Pride (body fascism!); we have more queerness in about six different ways; we have a girl shamed for sexual activity with no mention of the boy's responsibility; we have a character in a 12-step recovery program; we have a mixed-race family.
And that's not even getting to any of the plot.
Part of what pushed me to give Huge a try was the discovery that it is developed and produced by the mother-daughter team of Winnie Holzman and Savannah Dooley. Holzman is the genius who brought us My So-Called Life, which should be all anyone has to say to convince people to give Huge a chance. Dooley clearly has talent of her own, in addition to being openly gay and engaged with queer issues.
It would have been really easy to make this show a catastrophe, but it's not. Part of what it does - as Fatshionista points out - is "normalize" fatness: we see a bunch of fat kids doing what every other set of kids in America does. There's lots of onscreen fat, no real fat-shame, unless it's part of the character's personality. Fat kids kissing, fat kids crushing on each other. Fat girls wearing tank tops unashamedly. Even more, fat kids standing around in bathing suits on the first day. And we're not meant to be grossed out by, or pitying of, these kids because of their fatness. Our empathies are engaged by who they are as characters, not by how they look, which is amazing.
Along with it's kickass politics (fat & queer especially), the show is very well written (with only a few slip-ups) and, aside from Hayley Hasselhof, very well acted. Nikki Blonsky is the lead as Will (who is misread as gay by the very boy on whom she has a crush), and she's phenomenal. I never did get around to seeing Hairspray, but this girl's got skills.
Gina Torres and Paul Dooley (Winnie's husband, Savannah's father, and the dad in Sixteen Candles) play the camp director and her long-estranged father.
But the kids are the real stars, of course - the teenagers, I should say [god, I'm old. Everyone under the age of 25 had become a "kid" to me].
Raven Goodwin plays Becca, who is a LARPing nerd (she's actually created an entire, complex role-playing fantasy world) and is constantly reading [in one episode, she's reading The Hunger Games, which is kind of a funny, ironic joke]. Raven Goodwin is also absolutely one of the most beautiful girls I've ever seen, far more attractive than Hayley Hasselhof's Amber.
My personal favorite, though, is Alistair, played by Harvey Guillen. Alistair is the queer boy, the one who knits and loves LARPing and selects a cat-hybrid as his character for the role play. Alistair's sexual identity is not clearly spelled out at this point, but he is breaking binaries every time he turns around. It's Alistair who selects a female name as his spirit name (he chooses Athena, goddess of wisdom), and insists on being who he wants to be, regardless of societal norms and expectations. This doesn't make life easy for Alistair, who is mostly an object of teasing and torment to the other (male) campers. But he's an adorable boy, a wonderful, wonderful character, and I really, really, really wish we'd get more of him. I want to know more about him as a character. Also, he sleeps with a stuffed animal, what appears to be a duck. Which is awesome.
There are so many things going on in Huge that my brain almost can't stand it. I think it'll give us, as a class, a lot to talk about, and I also think (and kind of hope) it will shake things up a bit. If nothing else, the first episode, with all those fantastic fat kids in their bathing suits, will make everyone a little uncomfortable, which is a good place to start.
The Ongoing Problem of the Teen Girl Novel has yet to be resolved, though I'm rapidly approaching my absolute deadline for submitting my book order, so resolution is also rapidly approaching. So - a book with a female protagonist WILL be chosen by week's end.
I have decided, definitely now, to teach at least one episode of Huge. I've been dabbling in reading some Fat Acceptance/Fat politics stuff, on and off for over a year (pointed in that direction, actually, by Rebecca Rabinowitz's blog), and my reading of the stunningly smart and insightful Fatshionista has led me to be much more Fat-aware. Because of the Fatshionista's blog, I started watching Huge online (new episodes go up Tuesday mornings, following TV airing on Monday nights).
And it's great. The show is fantastic. There are some aspects of it that I don't care for (mainly concerning Hayley Hasselhof's acting ability or lack thereof, and her relationship with the boys' counselor), but on the whole - this is a great show. As of episode six, we've had a character who identifies as asexual; we've had an anatomical-boy (who is clearly queer) select a female name for his spirit name; we have some LARPing; we have Fat Pride (body fascism!); we have more queerness in about six different ways; we have a girl shamed for sexual activity with no mention of the boy's responsibility; we have a character in a 12-step recovery program; we have a mixed-race family.
And that's not even getting to any of the plot.
Part of what pushed me to give Huge a try was the discovery that it is developed and produced by the mother-daughter team of Winnie Holzman and Savannah Dooley. Holzman is the genius who brought us My So-Called Life, which should be all anyone has to say to convince people to give Huge a chance. Dooley clearly has talent of her own, in addition to being openly gay and engaged with queer issues.
It would have been really easy to make this show a catastrophe, but it's not. Part of what it does - as Fatshionista points out - is "normalize" fatness: we see a bunch of fat kids doing what every other set of kids in America does. There's lots of onscreen fat, no real fat-shame, unless it's part of the character's personality. Fat kids kissing, fat kids crushing on each other. Fat girls wearing tank tops unashamedly. Even more, fat kids standing around in bathing suits on the first day. And we're not meant to be grossed out by, or pitying of, these kids because of their fatness. Our empathies are engaged by who they are as characters, not by how they look, which is amazing.
Along with it's kickass politics (fat & queer especially), the show is very well written (with only a few slip-ups) and, aside from Hayley Hasselhof, very well acted. Nikki Blonsky is the lead as Will (who is misread as gay by the very boy on whom she has a crush), and she's phenomenal. I never did get around to seeing Hairspray, but this girl's got skills.
Gina Torres and Paul Dooley (Winnie's husband, Savannah's father, and the dad in Sixteen Candles) play the camp director and her long-estranged father.
But the kids are the real stars, of course - the teenagers, I should say [god, I'm old. Everyone under the age of 25 had become a "kid" to me].
Raven Goodwin plays Becca, who is a LARPing nerd (she's actually created an entire, complex role-playing fantasy world) and is constantly reading [in one episode, she's reading The Hunger Games, which is kind of a funny, ironic joke]. Raven Goodwin is also absolutely one of the most beautiful girls I've ever seen, far more attractive than Hayley Hasselhof's Amber.
My personal favorite, though, is Alistair, played by Harvey Guillen. Alistair is the queer boy, the one who knits and loves LARPing and selects a cat-hybrid as his character for the role play. Alistair's sexual identity is not clearly spelled out at this point, but he is breaking binaries every time he turns around. It's Alistair who selects a female name as his spirit name (he chooses Athena, goddess of wisdom), and insists on being who he wants to be, regardless of societal norms and expectations. This doesn't make life easy for Alistair, who is mostly an object of teasing and torment to the other (male) campers. But he's an adorable boy, a wonderful, wonderful character, and I really, really, really wish we'd get more of him. I want to know more about him as a character. Also, he sleeps with a stuffed animal, what appears to be a duck. Which is awesome.
There are so many things going on in Huge that my brain almost can't stand it. I think it'll give us, as a class, a lot to talk about, and I also think (and kind of hope) it will shake things up a bit. If nothing else, the first episode, with all those fantastic fat kids in their bathing suits, will make everyone a little uncomfortable, which is a good place to start.
Sunday, July 25, 2010
find a new gimmick
If I come across one more "adult" book in which someone finds a mysterious book of fairy tales that sets them on a path to unravel a mystery from the past that will change their life, I am going to SCREAM.
I feel like Mysterious Books of Fairy Tales have become the attic in the suitcase, the trope that keeps getting used over and over to propel and organize a protagonist's quest to discover The Truth About Her Past, Her Family and Herself. The writers who use this always feel compelled to include several of the fairytales, bracketed somehow in the story, and the fairytales are usually nowhere near as mysterious or interesting as the writer or protagonist think. John Connolly has some good fairytale usage in The Book of Lost Things, and Diane Setterfield uses them well also in The Thirteenth Tale. But in each the authors are working with at least partly extant fairytales, not inventing them wholesale (and gods, the inventions! dark forests, mysterious men, forlorn little girls, blah blah blah blah). Pan's Labyrinth, of course, also uses a book of fairytales to marvelous effect. And then, of course, there are The Tales of Beedle the Bard, which serve quite a good purpose and somehow fit into the book in which they first appear.
But most of the books I come across that include Mysterious Unpublished Fairy Tale Books are pretty thin. Often, I flip through them and decide against even checking them out of the library. I tried - I tried hard - with Kate Morton's Forgotten Garden, but it just screams with every cliche imaginable. I couldn't get through it.
It feels cheap, to me, for adult authors to keep returning to the well of Old Fairy Tales, over and over, as if just by referencing them, some important childhood touchstone is reached. Like suddenly the narrative acquires a mystery and profundity by dipping into the realm of Fairy Tale. When in fact, most fairytales (if you read Grimm's or Perrault's, anyway) are rather prosaic, in a way, highly moralistic and often rather grisly (see for example "The Juniper Tree" in any collection of Grimms' Fairy Tales). The child/childhood + fairytales = MYSTERY!!!!!!!!!!!!!! formula that these writers keep reaching for is just tired. It relies on some boring assumptions about both childhood and fairytales and in its way, is as bad as the nostalgic myth of childhood innocence. And fairytales are already so freighted with their own metaphorical and historical weight, adding a new layer into a new work of fiction often just tips the scales way too far. You need a very, very deft touch as an author to pull this off (Setterfield and Connolly both do this, I think), but it takes a very skilled writer to do so, and one with a real sense of the scope of literature - including that too-easily-ignored field of children's literature.
So - writers! find a new trope, and leave the fairy tales alone. Unless, of course, you happen to be Mother Goose herself.
I feel like Mysterious Books of Fairy Tales have become the attic in the suitcase, the trope that keeps getting used over and over to propel and organize a protagonist's quest to discover The Truth About Her Past, Her Family and Herself. The writers who use this always feel compelled to include several of the fairytales, bracketed somehow in the story, and the fairytales are usually nowhere near as mysterious or interesting as the writer or protagonist think. John Connolly has some good fairytale usage in The Book of Lost Things, and Diane Setterfield uses them well also in The Thirteenth Tale. But in each the authors are working with at least partly extant fairytales, not inventing them wholesale (and gods, the inventions! dark forests, mysterious men, forlorn little girls, blah blah blah blah). Pan's Labyrinth, of course, also uses a book of fairytales to marvelous effect. And then, of course, there are The Tales of Beedle the Bard, which serve quite a good purpose and somehow fit into the book in which they first appear.
But most of the books I come across that include Mysterious Unpublished Fairy Tale Books are pretty thin. Often, I flip through them and decide against even checking them out of the library. I tried - I tried hard - with Kate Morton's Forgotten Garden, but it just screams with every cliche imaginable. I couldn't get through it.
It feels cheap, to me, for adult authors to keep returning to the well of Old Fairy Tales, over and over, as if just by referencing them, some important childhood touchstone is reached. Like suddenly the narrative acquires a mystery and profundity by dipping into the realm of Fairy Tale. When in fact, most fairytales (if you read Grimm's or Perrault's, anyway) are rather prosaic, in a way, highly moralistic and often rather grisly (see for example "The Juniper Tree" in any collection of Grimms' Fairy Tales). The child/childhood + fairytales = MYSTERY!!!!!!!!!!!!!! formula that these writers keep reaching for is just tired. It relies on some boring assumptions about both childhood and fairytales and in its way, is as bad as the nostalgic myth of childhood innocence. And fairytales are already so freighted with their own metaphorical and historical weight, adding a new layer into a new work of fiction often just tips the scales way too far. You need a very, very deft touch as an author to pull this off (Setterfield and Connolly both do this, I think), but it takes a very skilled writer to do so, and one with a real sense of the scope of literature - including that too-easily-ignored field of children's literature.
So - writers! find a new trope, and leave the fairy tales alone. Unless, of course, you happen to be Mother Goose herself.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Owl Post
A good friend of mine lives in central florida, and has, evidently, invested in annual passes so she can hang out in Hogsmeade regularly. this pleases me inordinately.
I'm a fan of Harry Potter, less so than I used to be, but still quite a fan. Even more, I'm a fan of immersive theme parks; even more still, I'm a fan of ephemera and mail (it's no coincidence that one of my favorite "grownup" books is The Crying of Lot 49).
I'm delighted that Owl Post is a thing one can do at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Hogwarts stamp, and a Hogsmeade/Owl Post postmark and everything. And the postmark design is, to my mind's eye, just about perfect.
The flip side of the envelope is almost as awesome. I love the ink-print that gives the effect of a wax seal; it's a clever touch and I love it. The stationery inside mimics school paper: it's got the multicolored Hogwarts coat of arms on it, and the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry text, along with the image of the castle and what seems to be a hippogriff (only the head and neck are visible). It's pretty fantastic, and refrains from heaps of self-promotion or cheap jokeyness. The reverse of the stationery does say WIZARDING WORLD OF HARRY POTTER Universal Orlando Florida, but it's in quite small print at the foot of the page. I appreciate this and approve of it; it's part of that immersive theming I mentioned earlier (which, in a nod to my dissertation, I must say originated with Disneyland, which celebrated its 55th birthday on 17 July).
Just receiving this bit of Owl Post has piqued my interest in seeing the park for myself; I was interested before, but in a very lazy sort of way: "I'd like to go sometime, I guess." Now, I feel more of an urgency: "I need to go see this, soon!" So Owl Post is perfect advertising, too.
Sunday, July 18, 2010
comparative YA
I'm bingeing on YA novels this week, in a mad effort to read, or re-read, everything in order to plan my syllabus and get my book order submitted for my Representing Adolescence class. It's very hard to decide how one wants to represent Representing Adolescence, and I have far more ideas than I do weeks in the semester. Winnowing out, and developing some coherence from what remains, is the real challenge.
I just finished The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole by Sue Townsend, which is and is not a YA book, but certainly does represent a certain kind of adolescence. I enjoyed the book but don't plan teaching it; other considerations aside, I know my students would just fall apart at all the British slang (and this despite the American edition "glossary" in the back of the book).
Not much to say about Adrian Mole at the moment except the experience of reading it was very like my experience of reading The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time. The britishness, yes, the split-parents sideplot, but more than anything, the painfully naive narrators. Any book where the reader knows more than the narrator - or rather, understands more than the narrator - is both endlessly fascinating to me, and intensely painful. it makes me feel dreadfully sorry for the narrators, because it's so clear that they don't get what's going on, and everyone else around them does. And so the narrators become unwitting butts of every joke imaginable.
Cringe-worthy and empathy-inducing. But still good, and fascinating, because of all the codes and nuances that the reader must be able to decipher to produce the effect of the unknowing narrator. These kinds of books are maybe the clearest example, to my mind, of the way that both author and reader construct the novel - because the effect of the book depends on the reader knowing more than the narrator. If she doesn't, if she and the narrator are precisely in the same place, then the book is entirely different.
amazing, amazing. But now I have to scurry into reading some girlie girl books - I have The A-List and The Boyfriend Book on tap. I'm learning an awful lot about YA and gender: books with boy protagonists are all about the boy protagonists; books with girl protagonists are all about boys, in one way or another. This is obviously not an absolute, brightline categorization; but it does seem to be an awfully substantial trend. We'll pick it apart in class. I'm so excited about teaching this class it is almost pathetic.
I just finished The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole by Sue Townsend, which is and is not a YA book, but certainly does represent a certain kind of adolescence. I enjoyed the book but don't plan teaching it; other considerations aside, I know my students would just fall apart at all the British slang (and this despite the American edition "glossary" in the back of the book).
Not much to say about Adrian Mole at the moment except the experience of reading it was very like my experience of reading The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time. The britishness, yes, the split-parents sideplot, but more than anything, the painfully naive narrators. Any book where the reader knows more than the narrator - or rather, understands more than the narrator - is both endlessly fascinating to me, and intensely painful. it makes me feel dreadfully sorry for the narrators, because it's so clear that they don't get what's going on, and everyone else around them does. And so the narrators become unwitting butts of every joke imaginable.
Cringe-worthy and empathy-inducing. But still good, and fascinating, because of all the codes and nuances that the reader must be able to decipher to produce the effect of the unknowing narrator. These kinds of books are maybe the clearest example, to my mind, of the way that both author and reader construct the novel - because the effect of the book depends on the reader knowing more than the narrator. If she doesn't, if she and the narrator are precisely in the same place, then the book is entirely different.
amazing, amazing. But now I have to scurry into reading some girlie girl books - I have The A-List and The Boyfriend Book on tap. I'm learning an awful lot about YA and gender: books with boy protagonists are all about the boy protagonists; books with girl protagonists are all about boys, in one way or another. This is obviously not an absolute, brightline categorization; but it does seem to be an awfully substantial trend. We'll pick it apart in class. I'm so excited about teaching this class it is almost pathetic.
Monday, May 03, 2010
notes on a syllabus: ADOLESCENCE
for kicks, I plan syllabi. In fact, making up courses and syllabi (all in my head, never committed to paper) is how I discovered/decided that I was interested in teaching in the first place. I got all geeked out and excited about planning how I would teach certain books, what kinds of assignments I'd create, and I realized that - though all my life I'd resisted the idea of teaching [in large part, I think, because both of my parents were teachers, and I saw firsthand the nonsense they had to put up with] - I was actually really excited by and attracted to the possibilities of teaching.
Now that I have taught for five years - a total of thirteen classes, I think, all but two of them entirely of my own design - I get to make real syllabi. At present, my future teaching opportunities while still in grad school are uncertain, so I'm kind of back to making up imaginary classes and syllabi. Which is fun.
I've been thinking seriously about an adolescence/YA syllabus - there's a course at Pitt called Representing Adolescence that I'd love to teach. So I'm jotting down some ideas here, in the event that this - or some other - YA class comes my way. Because it's "representing" adolescence, I'm thinking film, television, etc in addition to YA books.
Representing Adolescence:
My So-Called Life (selected episodes, at least 2)
King Dork by Frank Portman
Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (?)
something from the Judy Blume oeuvre
I haven't read/seen any, but Gossip Girls, I think
Slam by Nick Hornsby (?)
I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith, maybe
what movies would work? I keep thinking of Labyrinth, because I really do think that's quite a good female-adolescence - coming-of-age story. The movie Thirteen is hugely obnoxious and problematic, and therefore pretty interesting to talk about, though painful to watch. It would be awesome to include some MTV - shows like Beavis & Butthead, or my personal favorite Daria; there are also the "Doug" sketches on the old MTV show "The State" - Doug is the rebellious teenager who has nothing to rebel against.
Catcher in the Rye seems like an obvious choice.
I really, really, really want to include at least one queer title - maybe Will Grayson, Will Grayson
I could just do representing adolescence in my childhood and throw in Heathers, or Pump up the Volume.
I wonder, too, how fantasy would or could fit in to a course on representing adolescence. I keep thinking - horrifically enough - of Disney's A Little Mermaid, which is a movie I hate, but which really insists on the teenageriness of Ariel.
I'd need to include some secondary/critical sources. G. Stanley Hall's Adolescence, of course, excerpted, but what else?? I'd LOVE to have a collection of newspaper or periodical editorials and such about Kids These Days that would cross a broad historical period.
what else?
Now that I have taught for five years - a total of thirteen classes, I think, all but two of them entirely of my own design - I get to make real syllabi. At present, my future teaching opportunities while still in grad school are uncertain, so I'm kind of back to making up imaginary classes and syllabi. Which is fun.
I've been thinking seriously about an adolescence/YA syllabus - there's a course at Pitt called Representing Adolescence that I'd love to teach. So I'm jotting down some ideas here, in the event that this - or some other - YA class comes my way. Because it's "representing" adolescence, I'm thinking film, television, etc in addition to YA books.
Representing Adolescence:
My So-Called Life (selected episodes, at least 2)
King Dork by Frank Portman
Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (?)
something from the Judy Blume oeuvre
I haven't read/seen any, but Gossip Girls, I think
Slam by Nick Hornsby (?)
I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith, maybe
what movies would work? I keep thinking of Labyrinth, because I really do think that's quite a good female-adolescence - coming-of-age story. The movie Thirteen is hugely obnoxious and problematic, and therefore pretty interesting to talk about, though painful to watch. It would be awesome to include some MTV - shows like Beavis & Butthead, or my personal favorite Daria; there are also the "Doug" sketches on the old MTV show "The State" - Doug is the rebellious teenager who has nothing to rebel against.
Catcher in the Rye seems like an obvious choice.
I really, really, really want to include at least one queer title - maybe Will Grayson, Will Grayson
I could just do representing adolescence in my childhood and throw in Heathers, or Pump up the Volume.
I wonder, too, how fantasy would or could fit in to a course on representing adolescence. I keep thinking - horrifically enough - of Disney's A Little Mermaid, which is a movie I hate, but which really insists on the teenageriness of Ariel.
I'd need to include some secondary/critical sources. G. Stanley Hall's Adolescence, of course, excerpted, but what else?? I'd LOVE to have a collection of newspaper or periodical editorials and such about Kids These Days that would cross a broad historical period.
what else?
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