(no subject)
My take on Winter Vacation is shelved for a few weeks so the current one can have its time. Then I'll post it. In the meantime, one of my other favorites, Starring the Babysitters Club!
The cover is actually just fine for this one, nothing snarkworthy. Boo
Believe it or not, the prologue doesn't begin with someone speaking. Well, unless you count Jessi speaking to us to tell us how wonderfully perfect her life is in every way. We also fine to seven sentences into the very first paragraph that she's black. This must be a record. Then she tells us no useful info about her family, and promises to tell us all about the BSC later. Oh goody.
Oh gawd, a paragraph about how wonderful she is at ballet and Mme Noelle (which I used to thing was pronounced "M-me," two quick m-sounds, or "Mimi") tells her, "“Work hard and zen harder, and someday I sink you weel donce wiss a major ballet company.”" Way to set the kid up for disappointment. Eben if Jessi were a white chick, her chance of dancing anything other than corps is about the same as getting a roll on a tv show. Mimi should know this, but it's obvious she thinks that highly of herself.
Just when her life couldn't get more perfect, she gets to write an article a month for the school paper, which will surely launch her to fame in the journalism world. (Was anyone else a member of the school newspaper staff and now pretty embarrassed about the horrible stuff you wrote that you thought was so wonderful at the time? No? No one wants to admit it? All right, I'll deny it too.) And a school production of Peter Pan is coming up and she'll be starring! She's so certain of it that she's already envisioning the encore. I wonder if her conceit isn't readily apparent and if this isn't why she's not liked very much. Non-white Claudia had no problem with racism aside from one family, but she also doesn't think her shit don't stink, like Jessi. She also thinks acting will be a great way for people to get to know "the real Jessi." No. No it's not. Acting like someone you're not is a great way to prevent people from getting to know you.
Chapter 1. Of course it's a Jessi-chapter.
After a pointless writing, the chapter opens with an onomatopoeia. My alarm clock doesn't tell me "bring bring." Does yours? Jessi's does. She might want to get that checked out.
At the end of the day, her classmates jump up yelling, "Okay! School's over!" WTF is this noise? Kids don't talk like that. "Okay!" Is that a stand-in for "hell yeah, time to blow this joint"?
She darts to her locker, now claiming to be as good as a football player. Oh dear, you'd be smashed into the turf is you even tried playing. Mal wants to know what's up, but Jessi wants to tell everyone at once, which Mal says is "mysterious." For a girl who loves to read, she couldn't come up with something better? This isn't mysterious at all.
She introduced us to Mal, and we know everything already, except she says Mal loves to sew. Since when? It only matters in this book.
Oh no, beaten to the punch about Peter Pan! Kristy broke the news as soon as everyone was out front! Jessi don't think anyone else could read? Signs are up all around school, but she thought she would be the one to break the news. Worse, Kristy has the gall to want to try out. How dare the wench. Dawn and Stacey too! And Claud knows that kids from other schools are trying out. Jessi ain't so hot now!
She did get congratulated for new newspaper article, and refrained from taking a bow. But then she decided she'll ask the editor if she could cover the production "as an insider." She is that sure she's getting the lead role. "Who's more on the spot than Peter Pan?" She tells them playing Peter and writing about it will be a lot, but she can handle it.
And...nobody said a word. See, auditions haven't been announced, and no one knows who will get the role, but Jessi is so sure she's got it in the bag that, when the others tried telling her this, she brushed it off. This is causing some awkwardness. Stacey managed to save them from it by suggesting they get going.
Jessi ran to Editor Emily to ask about writing about the play and gets the go-ahead. At least one person is sure Jessi will get the lead role, and her name is Jessica Ramsey.
Chapter 2, KRon, pre-insanity
Aw, Kristy's note is about keeping notes not being her favorite thing to do, but she will do it for Jessi. This is sweetness we don't usually see. Why didn't this Kristy stay for the series?
Her self-intro is remarkable only in that she didn't mention Watson's money. I re-read that paragraph a few times. Stunned, I am. Also Jessi said she was going to tell us all about everyone, but Kristy does that. And I'm not going to read it. If you don't know the typical chapter 2 stuff, go pick up aaaaaaanny random BSC book.
How can I snark the last page or two that is not only not snarkworthy, but pointless? We know Mary Anne won't try out, we know Karen will. Duh. It is in their single personality traits.
And cut.
Chapter 3, Dawn
Auditions are in 4 days, she she's worried that's not enough time to audition for the parts they all want. For being a SoCal girl on the in with Hollywood and local TV, you'd think she'd know you don't waltz in and tell then the part you will play. The only time that worked was for the little girl who played the youngest sister in Sound of Music. It did. Watch the extras on the collector's edition DVDs sometime.
Ew, school lunches. Those things are nasty in 99% of schools and should be considered a form of child abuse. They just got worse with "pink slime" being in school now. Yay, ammonia-sprayed beef bi-products that used to be destined for dog food.... Sadly I'm not joking at all about that.
We learn the underside to Kristy. She wants to audition for Nana because Nana looks after the kids...but what makes her smile big is that she'd wear a dog costume. This is setting us up for the adult-series book on Kristy's life as a furry.
Stacey wants a small role, and has concerned she won't seem committed if she asks for a small role.
There's awkward discussion about Jessi's certainty that she'll get the role. Stace has make the keen observation that Jessi thinks auditioning will be just a formality, and that the director has already decided she'll get the role. She can dance. She's one-up on them for that, but she can't really sing or act any better than anyone else, and they all know that. But Jessi doesn't.
Mary Anne saves them from this awkwardness by asking Dawn what she wants to do.
Tiger Lily, of course.
When I was a kid and watched the Mary Martin version, it never clicked with me how a lily-white blonde girl was the worse possible choice to play a Native America. Worse, the blonde hair was a wig. Even if the best actress for the role was white, couldn't they have given her a dark brown or black wig? It happens sometimes that non-white people just don't audition, or those who do can't act their ways out of a paper bag and directors shouldn't be blamed in those instances for casting outside of a race. But giving Tiger Lily a blonde wig is white-washing a role to the extreme.
Yeah yeah yeah, everyone likes to pan the Disney version for the song "What Makes the Red Man Red", sung in response to the youngest Darling kid having never seen a non-white person. So the Indians (at that time, it was NOT derogatory to refer to Native Americans as Indians, and even today, that's a common term and is rarely meant derogatory) sang about their legend. Yeah, there's a total pass on this compared to the deliberate and inexcusable white-washing of Tiger Lily in the live-action stage version filmed for broadcast.
Where was I? Oh, um, let me get back to the book.
So they, minus the widdle sixth gwadows, have a rational discussion about the parts they want, and realize they may not get them, and they're fine with that. Suddenly KRon tells them to be quiet, Cokie's at the table over. Dawn has no clue why the two groups dislike each other. Does anyone?
Cokie's plan to try out for the same role put a damper on Dawn's excitement, and her friends, in a show if true friendship for once, encouraged her to still audition and not worry about Cokie getting pissed.
And more talk about who else will try out. That is nothing but filler at this point.
Guys, this is not even scratching the surface. Just...get alcohol ready for the rest. :)
Edit: Enjoy some bonus snark-material about Tiger Lily-white! http://gawker.com/mary-martin/ I shall hang my head in shame for enjoying this musical, first as a kid who didn't pick up on the things wrong, and now as an adult chuckling at how screwed up this is. Oh, but no one ever gets their panties in a twist over Peter Pan being a cross-dresser. I guess that just goes with theater though since cross-dressing on stage is as old as theater itself.
The cover is actually just fine for this one, nothing snarkworthy. Boo
Believe it or not, the prologue doesn't begin with someone speaking. Well, unless you count Jessi speaking to us to tell us how wonderfully perfect her life is in every way. We also fine to seven sentences into the very first paragraph that she's black. This must be a record. Then she tells us no useful info about her family, and promises to tell us all about the BSC later. Oh goody.
Oh gawd, a paragraph about how wonderful she is at ballet and Mme Noelle (which I used to thing was pronounced "M-me," two quick m-sounds, or "Mimi") tells her, "“Work hard and zen harder, and someday I sink you weel donce wiss a major ballet company.”" Way to set the kid up for disappointment. Eben if Jessi were a white chick, her chance of dancing anything other than corps is about the same as getting a roll on a tv show. Mimi should know this, but it's obvious she thinks that highly of herself.
Just when her life couldn't get more perfect, she gets to write an article a month for the school paper, which will surely launch her to fame in the journalism world. (Was anyone else a member of the school newspaper staff and now pretty embarrassed about the horrible stuff you wrote that you thought was so wonderful at the time? No? No one wants to admit it? All right, I'll deny it too.) And a school production of Peter Pan is coming up and she'll be starring! She's so certain of it that she's already envisioning the encore. I wonder if her conceit isn't readily apparent and if this isn't why she's not liked very much. Non-white Claudia had no problem with racism aside from one family, but she also doesn't think her shit don't stink, like Jessi. She also thinks acting will be a great way for people to get to know "the real Jessi." No. No it's not. Acting like someone you're not is a great way to prevent people from getting to know you.
Chapter 1. Of course it's a Jessi-chapter.
After a pointless writing, the chapter opens with an onomatopoeia. My alarm clock doesn't tell me "bring bring." Does yours? Jessi's does. She might want to get that checked out.
At the end of the day, her classmates jump up yelling, "Okay! School's over!" WTF is this noise? Kids don't talk like that. "Okay!" Is that a stand-in for "hell yeah, time to blow this joint"?
She darts to her locker, now claiming to be as good as a football player. Oh dear, you'd be smashed into the turf is you even tried playing. Mal wants to know what's up, but Jessi wants to tell everyone at once, which Mal says is "mysterious." For a girl who loves to read, she couldn't come up with something better? This isn't mysterious at all.
She introduced us to Mal, and we know everything already, except she says Mal loves to sew. Since when? It only matters in this book.
Oh no, beaten to the punch about Peter Pan! Kristy broke the news as soon as everyone was out front! Jessi don't think anyone else could read? Signs are up all around school, but she thought she would be the one to break the news. Worse, Kristy has the gall to want to try out. How dare the wench. Dawn and Stacey too! And Claud knows that kids from other schools are trying out. Jessi ain't so hot now!
She did get congratulated for new newspaper article, and refrained from taking a bow. But then she decided she'll ask the editor if she could cover the production "as an insider." She is that sure she's getting the lead role. "Who's more on the spot than Peter Pan?" She tells them playing Peter and writing about it will be a lot, but she can handle it.
And...nobody said a word. See, auditions haven't been announced, and no one knows who will get the role, but Jessi is so sure she's got it in the bag that, when the others tried telling her this, she brushed it off. This is causing some awkwardness. Stacey managed to save them from it by suggesting they get going.
Jessi ran to Editor Emily to ask about writing about the play and gets the go-ahead. At least one person is sure Jessi will get the lead role, and her name is Jessica Ramsey.
Chapter 2, KRon, pre-insanity
Aw, Kristy's note is about keeping notes not being her favorite thing to do, but she will do it for Jessi. This is sweetness we don't usually see. Why didn't this Kristy stay for the series?
Her self-intro is remarkable only in that she didn't mention Watson's money. I re-read that paragraph a few times. Stunned, I am. Also Jessi said she was going to tell us all about everyone, but Kristy does that. And I'm not going to read it. If you don't know the typical chapter 2 stuff, go pick up aaaaaaanny random BSC book.
How can I snark the last page or two that is not only not snarkworthy, but pointless? We know Mary Anne won't try out, we know Karen will. Duh. It is in their single personality traits.
And cut.
Chapter 3, Dawn
Auditions are in 4 days, she she's worried that's not enough time to audition for the parts they all want. For being a SoCal girl on the in with Hollywood and local TV, you'd think she'd know you don't waltz in and tell then the part you will play. The only time that worked was for the little girl who played the youngest sister in Sound of Music. It did. Watch the extras on the collector's edition DVDs sometime.
Ew, school lunches. Those things are nasty in 99% of schools and should be considered a form of child abuse. They just got worse with "pink slime" being in school now. Yay, ammonia-sprayed beef bi-products that used to be destined for dog food.... Sadly I'm not joking at all about that.
We learn the underside to Kristy. She wants to audition for Nana because Nana looks after the kids...but what makes her smile big is that she'd wear a dog costume. This is setting us up for the adult-series book on Kristy's life as a furry.
Stacey wants a small role, and has concerned she won't seem committed if she asks for a small role.
There's awkward discussion about Jessi's certainty that she'll get the role. Stace has make the keen observation that Jessi thinks auditioning will be just a formality, and that the director has already decided she'll get the role. She can dance. She's one-up on them for that, but she can't really sing or act any better than anyone else, and they all know that. But Jessi doesn't.
Mary Anne saves them from this awkwardness by asking Dawn what she wants to do.
Tiger Lily, of course.
When I was a kid and watched the Mary Martin version, it never clicked with me how a lily-white blonde girl was the worse possible choice to play a Native America. Worse, the blonde hair was a wig. Even if the best actress for the role was white, couldn't they have given her a dark brown or black wig? It happens sometimes that non-white people just don't audition, or those who do can't act their ways out of a paper bag and directors shouldn't be blamed in those instances for casting outside of a race. But giving Tiger Lily a blonde wig is white-washing a role to the extreme.
Yeah yeah yeah, everyone likes to pan the Disney version for the song "What Makes the Red Man Red", sung in response to the youngest Darling kid having never seen a non-white person. So the Indians (at that time, it was NOT derogatory to refer to Native Americans as Indians, and even today, that's a common term and is rarely meant derogatory) sang about their legend. Yeah, there's a total pass on this compared to the deliberate and inexcusable white-washing of Tiger Lily in the live-action stage version filmed for broadcast.
Where was I? Oh, um, let me get back to the book.
So they, minus the widdle sixth gwadows, have a rational discussion about the parts they want, and realize they may not get them, and they're fine with that. Suddenly KRon tells them to be quiet, Cokie's at the table over. Dawn has no clue why the two groups dislike each other. Does anyone?
Cokie's plan to try out for the same role put a damper on Dawn's excitement, and her friends, in a show if true friendship for once, encouraged her to still audition and not worry about Cokie getting pissed.
And more talk about who else will try out. That is nothing but filler at this point.
Guys, this is not even scratching the surface. Just...get alcohol ready for the rest. :)
Edit: Enjoy some bonus snark-material about Tiger Lily-white! http://gawker.com/mary-martin/ I shall hang my head in shame for enjoying this musical, first as a kid who didn't pick up on the things wrong, and now as an adult chuckling at how screwed up this is. Oh, but no one ever gets their panties in a twist over Peter Pan being a cross-dresser. I guess that just goes with theater though since cross-dressing on stage is as old as theater itself.