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this ya-ya girl thing and other academic rants


well, steve of the hill people, we might be related.
where are you from?  only a few generations back of
the halls we have lots of hills.


No, it's just what my brother calls me because I'm big and fuzzy.

anyway :), you said:

>disposal.  They cut the heart
>of suffering out of the characters in the book and
>turned it into melodrama.  

i haven't read the books so i can't make the
comparison.  what did they take out?


Well, it's not just one thing.  I mean when you adapt a book to the screen there a large number of decisions that must be made.  The problem arises when what you do to adapt the book is in an effort to make it more palatable for a mass audience and supress the original intent of the novel.  But this doesn't answer your question.  here are a few examples of  the things they changed:  they moved Sidda from a vacation in Washington State where she is seeking to understand herself and her mother in order to work on a play that is very important to her to Louisiana where she does not seem to really be looking to find herself at her 40s like in the book.  The filmmakers take most of the passion and interest out of the relationship of Sidda and Connor.  In the book, there are a number of passages that describe how much she loves him physically, emotionally, and ! spiritually.  The film turns the Ya-Yas into a bunch of weird but lovable characters from the Deep South, but in the book their oddities are VERY firmly rooted in their past together a need for all their goods to stick together and support one another despite intrinsic differences.  In addition to these substantial  differences, the film almost completely omits the darkness that weaves in and out of the novel.  Sidda was abused by her mother.  She was beaten severely, but she also loves her mother, and her mother loves her.  The whole point of the story is for the two of them to really discover who they are by exploring who the other is.  It is not a tale of a group of excentric old ladies from Lousiana primarily.  That is only a small fraction of Wells' intent.

But don't take my word for it.  Read the book.  I did it in a day so it shouldn't take more than a week or so if you read 20-40 pages a night.

>They no longer were real people with motivations but
>characatures of the South and continually shown to be
>idiots in comparison to their calm and rational
>menfolk.

i didn't walk away with the impression that they were
only types, but they did play up the southern thing
(which was hilarious!  i know many people like them).


I also know people like them, but I really didn't get the impression that they WERE real people.  I got the idea that they REPRESENTED real people which I think is a huge difference.

moreover, one of the greater powers of a novel is a
singular story, while specific to various characters
and motivations, that reaches _many_ who nod and
identify somewhere in their lives, thoughts and/or
hearts.  a prototypical southern woman (of the setting
presented) very well could have experienced similar
issues.  i know a few :)


Sure, that goes without saying, but you would have to read the book to really understand how different Teensy and Necie are from how they are depicted on screen.  There is a whole third dimension that is left out, and I think that it would not have been that hard to include it, but it might have made it a slower film and not as commercially acceptable.

as for the dichotomy of men and women in the film
(that whole rational thing or being ashamed to be
represented by such women): in some families such is
the case, no matter how awful or strange it is.  i'm
not saying it's intrinsically feminine :)


True, but the issue of "chick flicks" is that there is some fundamental essence that these films claim to hold that reaches the experience of every female audience member.  Sure there might be a number of people who have the experience that the men are rational farmer types and the women flip out, but I think that the more common experience is that it is a mixture of the two.  This is more difficult and subtle to display on the screen, but it is that much more powerful when it comes across.

i'm not offended b/c i don't think the motivation of
ya-ya was some classic feminist move anyway.  so i try
to take it for what it is.  as a movie viewer, i'm
hardly looking for every social implication and
widespread panic available in suce fare.


No, it is because it is not a classic feminist move that it is so dangerous.  A film like this has something for everyone, and it sucks its audience in with an expectation for more of the same.  For me, I loved the book because I recently got engaged, and I struggle with much of the same drive of how to look at a coming marriage in reflection of my parents.  Now my parents never beat me (well at least any more than I deserved at the time), but there are emotional issues that I carry with me into marriage, and I have to deal with that to some extent before I am married.  The movie is not this.  It does not hold true to the spirit and essence of the book which is not about wacky Southern women but about how the past can get heavier and heavier as you carry it with you until you beak down and lose it.  Both female leads in the book have moments of crisis when they bat! tle themselves and those around them to recognize who they really are.  The director of the film does not bring this forward at all in the film and instead settles for pap, feel-good mushiness that does not really describe or enlighten the human experience.

i'd be a wreck if i did.

I suppose you might.

>  I am confused how a woman  could go to this film
>and feel a good deal of pride in their gender as
>described in the film.

it may sound funny, but i don't look to examples round
about me (or in movies for heaven's sake) to validate
my gender and make me proud.  that's my job.


No, interaction with media representation of oneself is usually not a conscious search for identity.  I have been working for a couple years on a thesis that deals with teen representation in film aimed at teen audience, and I have found a number of reputable critics who accurately, I think, describe the process as much more subtly interactive.  One goes to a film and sees a version of themselves on the screen.  After all if there was nothing for a member of the audience to connect to then why bother watching the film?  They take and slightly alter their conception of themselves and others and relationships based on what they see on the screen.  You learn not only about people and situations that you will never be in, such as saving the Earth from a meteor, but you learn about issues of maintaining a relationship in the face of distance and difficult life situations, to! just name two examples that might be pulled out of either "Deep Impact" or "Armageddon"  This is not to say that these films properly instruct how one should deal with life situations, but they show how one might do so.  It is this might that can slightly alter what we might know to this point

have a wonderful day!,


I'll try, and I'm sorry that this e-mil went on and on.  I've had a couple whiskey and sodas, and I tend to become verbose in such situations.

Steve