It's a vexing subject, because the urge to protect one's kids from the uglinesses out there is so strong. And at times kids seem so recklessless unafraid, and dash straight into pain.
My guess is that some of the "how could you write that" responses are knee-jerk responses to a desire to do the impossible -- protect people from pain.
I'm wondering if those who shake sticks at authors who contain edgy elements are conflating the presentation of these elements with the glamorizing of them.
Sometimes it's hard to differentiate between the two. I liked Valiant, for what it was worth, but I put it into a category with the movie "Ray" -- a few hundred pages/a couple hours on Why Not To Do Drugs. Definitely not glamorized. But I had a slight more problem with Westerfeld's Uglies. I understand it wasn't intended as glamorization; I'm just finding the differentiation a little harder to parse.
A lot of people are going to disagree with me, I'm sure.
(I totally deal with Dark Times by rereading Anne of Green Gables. I remember staying up half a night to reread it because I knew if I fell asleep I'd have nightmares. It worked!)
The only authors I'd suspect of picking subjects or elements just to be "edgy" or something like that are the ones who write Problem Novel after Problem Novel. Now we will dispatch the problem of eating disorders in 200 pages or less! Tomorrow, the death of a parent! The next day, drunk driving!
Bingo. At least, the two or three i tried were soapers--high octane emotion for the sake of emotion, without any of the quiet or ordinary moments of life. meh.
The quick-fix story is another sort of cheat: bringing in the heavy duty emotion and all it evokes, then after the quick fix, the protagonist who is supposed to seem so wise is praised by the other characters as being so.
Just one thing I thought well handled (coming from my own experience) was just how unattractive people high on drugs are. There is no preaching here, no ham-handed hammering of a lesson. The action shows vividly what "high" looks like to the non-high, as well as what it leads to. I don't know that such scenes act as a deterrent for those who are hell-bent on doing stuff, (snip) but reading such scenes can give good intel to a kid curious about those things, and aware that the reality is really close by.
Yeah. Hell, yeah. Which is why I steered the mini-me in that direction. Because it's very close to us here, and she's a smart girl and willing to learn the serious lessons from others.
If only there was some way to teach her some common sense. *facepalm*
I can't remember Valiant awfully clearly, but I remember thinking that it also showed taking drugs as fun in the short term, before moving on to showing why people who are high are boring etc. I like this message as at some schools (mine anyway) only the negative aspects of drug use are shown until you think only absolute idiots and masochists would take them, instead of explaining why some people find them attractive (including people we are likely to know!) and then pointing out why they're a bad long term strategy. I'm tired so I hope that long sentence is comprehensible.
Comments 52
My guess is that some of the "how could you write that" responses are knee-jerk responses to a desire to do the impossible -- protect people from pain.
Reply
and also moral or cultural revulsion
Reply
Sometimes it's hard to differentiate between the two. I liked Valiant, for what it was worth, but I put it into a category with the movie "Ray" -- a few hundred pages/a couple hours on Why Not To Do Drugs. Definitely not glamorized. But I had a slight more problem with Westerfeld's Uglies. I understand it wasn't intended as glamorization; I'm just finding the differentiation a little harder to parse.
A lot of people are going to disagree with me, I'm sure.
(I totally deal with Dark Times by rereading Anne of Green Gables. I remember staying up half a night to reread it because I knew if I fell asleep I'd have nightmares. It worked!)
Reply
Reply
Reply
Reply
The quick-fix story is another sort of cheat: bringing in the heavy duty emotion and all it evokes, then after the quick fix, the protagonist who is supposed to seem so wise is praised by the other characters as being so.
Reply
Yeah. Hell, yeah. Which is why I steered the mini-me in that direction. Because it's very close to us here, and she's a smart girl and willing to learn the serious lessons from others.
If only there was some way to teach her some common sense. *facepalm*
Reply
Yeah. Common sense doesn't come with the teen card, alas.
Reply
Reply
Reply
Leave a comment