Subject: Re: My So Called Life & Salinger
From: David L. White (d-white@nwu.edu)
Date: Thu May 08 1997 - 13:06:21 GMT
At 09:51 AM 5/8/97 -0700, you wrote:
>I loved My So-Called Life also, for one main reason: it was the most real
>representation of life I have ever seen (on the big screen or the small
>screen). I couldn't help but feel that these were all people I knew, that
>went to my high school.
Same here. It occasionally fell into schmaltz, but I remember one episode
in particular that had to do with "who was taking who to the dance" that
treated adolescent suffering with such respect and honesty that it felt
epic. A lot like Salinger. I've been thinking a lot about this; I've
only recently discovered that many people no longer view Salinger as valid
literature and I can't help but think that it has to do with the fact that
he dealt with adolescence in a non-condescending way. Someone on this list
a while back, wrote about his college professor critiquing the ending of
CITR and it just sounded so... pompous. (not the person on the list, but
the professor he was describing) Childhood and adolescence have their own
internal logic and, it seems, that unless writing dealing with childhood is
somehow made "adult friendly", many people just don't respond to it. It's
the same with pop music, I think. Because it caters to the emotions of
youth, it is written off as invalid once people pass the age of reason. I
had the same problem with a production of Romeo and Juliet that I just
directed. So many people said they hated the play because they wanted to
tell R&J to stop whining, already, and get on with their lives.
How tragic that some people choose to forget what it was like to be that age.
D.
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