Apparently today is everyone-smoke-pot day, so i don't know if that's just my school or a standard of everywhere. Which is, you know, fun, I guess....that is, if I'd ever done it...which unfortunately, I haven't. You know. The perks of being a boring girl.
So...You know what really bothers me? When adult writers try to write from the perspective of, say, a thirteen year-old and end up making the kid sound like he/she is seven, and then the critics all laud the sensitive and realistic portrayal of a young adolescent. Uh, yeah, fuck off. I mean, I understand that it was a loooong time ago for these people, but being not even sixteen yet, I remember what it was like to be thirteen, and it certainly wasn't all "My Daddy and Mommy didn't like each other too much, and I wished they would and I was so scared and sad when they fought" or "when I had to leave home, I got really sad," or other very innocent-sounding little phrases. Which is, you know, what Alicia Erian makes it out to be in her novel Towelhead.
I saw the movie earlier this year and thought it was rather interesting--disturbing, yeah, though by casting Aaron Eckhart as a child molester they sort of made statutory rape look okay--except, you know, that the thirteen-year-old protagonist Jasira was innocent and shy to the point of being creepy. It was like every time anyone in the movie said anything to her, she'd just look back with those big brown eyes of hers (the character's supposed to be Lebanese but they cast an Indian, well that's Hollywood for you) and like, not say anything. Honestly? Thirteen year-olds are young, not socially retarded. And, when Aaron Eckhart asks her why she likes looking at his porno, she answers quite shyly, "they make me have orgasms." Uhm, yeah. Okay. I don't think any thirteen year old is that innocent to whabam, give an answer like that. Again, young, not socially retarded.
I guess the movie Thirteen would be a more accurate portrayal of that age, although maybe it's overshooting into the other spectrum. Though, then again, maybe not, as I've met some pretty fucked up thirteen year-olds when I was in middle school...Let's see, one girl got two abortions in the eighth grade, a couple others were very fond of their drink and hookah, another had a 21-year-old boyfriend, etc. etc...But I'm not even talking about the actions they do, it's more about their mannerisms. I mean, hell, Jasira was screwing her boyfriend and Aaron Eckhart, at the same time (!), so she had no lack of fucked-up-ness, but it was just the way her personality was portrayed that I totally did not agree with, the whole seven-year-old's shyness and naivete. I haven't seen Thirteen, but from the clips that I've viewed, Nikki Reed and Evan rachel Wood seem to have gotten the attitude down pat. I mean, I'm a sight more jaded now than I was in middle school, but even then I was pretty cutthroat. I mean, considering, you know, that i was thirteen...But yeah, none of this nonsense like these first few paragraphs from Towelhead:
My mother's boyfriend got a crush on me, so she sent me to live with Daddy. I didn't want to live with Daddy. He had a weird accent and came from Lebanon. My mother met him in college, then they got married and had me, then they got divorced when I was five. My mother told me it was because my father was cheap and bossy. When my parents got divorced, I wasn't upset. I had a memory of Daddy slapping my mother, and then of my mother taking off his glasses and grinding them into the floor with her shoe. I don't know what they were fighting about, but I was glad that he couldn't see anymore.
I still had to visit him for a month every summer, and I got depressed about that. Then, when it was time to go home again, I got happy. It was just too tense, being with Daddy. He wanted everything done in a certain way that only he knew about. I was afraid to move half the time. Once I spilled some juice on one of his foreign rugs, and he told me that I would never find a husband.
My mother knew how I felt about Daddy, but she sent me to live with him anyway. She was just so mad about her boyfriend liking me. I told her not to worry, that I didn't like Barry back, but she said that wasn't the point. She said I was always walking around with my boobs sticking out, and that it was hard for Barry not to notice. That really hurt my feelings, since I couldn't help what my boobs looked like. I'd never asked for Barry to notice me. I was only thirteen. At the airport, I wondered what my mother was so worried about. I could never have stolen Barry away from her, even if I'd tried. She was 100% Irish. She had high cheekbones and a cute round ball at the end of her nose. When she put concealer under her eyes, they looked all bright and lit up. I could've brushed her shiny brown hair for hours, if only she had let me.
Ooh, scandal. Anyway. Whatever. I realized the other day that I haven't read a novel set in high school since, like, junior high, and all the novels that I currently possess that take place in high school are of the crappy sappy teen variety, like Meg Cabot and etc...Yes, I went through one of those phases, too, although mine took place when i was nine or ten. So anyway, I'm now on the lookout for a high school-set novel worth reading. As in, like, you know. Serious reading of actual substance...
Anyway. I should probably be thinking about art, but eh. I have one or two unfinished paintings that aren't really screaming to be done, and a few drawings...did I mention that I spent my entire weekend watching seasons 1-3 of Robin Hood, the one with Richard Armitage as Guy of Gisborne? He's such a babe. To be fair, I just skipped to all the parts that had him, and to be honest, it's a pretty shitty show and it totally would be better if the Sheriff weren't so totally repulsive and icky and if Guy had a sight more humanity to show. I know the whole Armitage Army says that, omg, the Guy of Gisborne in the show has so much depth, but...he really doesn't, not under that current script. He's a creepy, cruel, obsessive romantic, so.
Oh, and I watched the two seasons of Secret Diary of a Call Girl, and can I say that Iddo Goldberg is my hero.
And also--we just finished reading A Streetcar Named Desire in school, and I am happy to report that I absolutely loved it. Just the way everything played out, very predictable, but that's the beauty of it, because everything was just SO meant to be. So. Love!
And there was an update
