rant inspired by Aliteracy

[Amy Z]

CMC wrote:

> These words from the WP article should be pretty chilling for HP 
> lovers:
> 
> "[Aliteracy is]  the parent who pops the crummy movie of "Stuart 
> Little" into a machine for his kid instead of reading E.B. White's 
> marvelous novel aloud. Or the teacher who assigns the made-for-TV 
> movie "Gettysburg" instead of the book it was based on, "The Killer 
> Angels" by Michael Shaara."

I had an English teacher who did this a lot.  The movies were very 
good ones--Washington Square (from Henry James's The Heiress, or is it 
the other way around?), Billy Budd--but it is absurd that she showed 
us the movies without even assigning the books/stories.  I think she 
was pretty burned-out, though, and was in search of easy lessons that 
she could justify as exposing us to great literature.

I would never allow a child of mine to watch Stuart Little until 
he/she has read or been read it.  Even if the movie is a masterpiece, 
it's robbing the child of a terrific trip of the imagination to do 
otherwise.

> In just a little less than a year, parents will be able to do the 
> same thing with Harry Potter - that is pop a crummy movie into the 
> VCR rather than read the story aloud.  
> 
> I've sometimes wondered if Harry Potter is print-culture's last 
> hurrah - the final time that a work of such merit will achieve 
> sufficient popularity *on its own* (without tie-ins to other media) 
> to a degree that its phrases and characters enter into common 
> discourse. Think of all the references you've seen to HP in comic 
> strips, TV shows, news articles, etc.  It's never surprising to hear 
> such references to movies, TV shows, pop groups, etc. - but how many 
> other books written in the last decade have achieved such currency?
> 
> Alas, the Harry Potter who lives, like his arch-enemy Tom Riddle, 
> inside the pages of a book, is about to meet the real (reel?) world. 

One of the most heartening things about the whole HP phenomenon, to 
me, has been hearing kids' anxiety about the movies and even about the 
illustrations.  If thousands of today's 10-year-olds absorb the lesson 
that reading is an experience that cannot be replicated by visual 
media, and that can even be diminished by them, it's a good thing.  

I think the key to this and many other related issues is awareness.  
For all that we are saturated in media, we are not at all media-savvy 
in this culture--I can't speak for others.  Television, movies, even 
advertising are not bad in and of themselves, but we need to view them 
critically and pay attention to the agenda of the presenters and the 
effect of the medium.  It's okay to say no.  But we need to tell 
children that--everything else in this culture is telling them that 
this is a "must-see movie," just as it's always telling them that this 
or that toy or item of clothing is a "must-have" item.  (It's also 
told them that HP are "must-read" books, and I would resist that as 
well.  Read them, by all means, but read them because they sound like 
the kind of books you would enjoy or because someone you respect likes 
them, not because some marketing person or reviewer thinks you 
should.  They don't know fiction any better than you do.  Just look 
at their so-called qualifications if you think otherwise.)

Chris Columbus may be interested in creating art, or at least 
wholesome entertainment.  I don't know.  I do know that WB has no 
interest in doing either.  Their mission is to make money for their 
investors, period.  If they entertain or even enlighten along the way, 
it's because they think that doing so will help them sell Coke and 
action figures and movie tickets.  They're not going to sort out the 
good from the bad for us; we need to take charge of doing it for 
ourseves.

I gave a sermon last week that, to my own surprise, ended up being 
about consumerism--how we are told (by those who stand to make a 
profit from us, of course) that our deepest desires, our spiritual 
needs, can be satisfied by buying things.  Geez, that sounds pretty 
obvious; I assure you that it was a better sermon than I'm making it 
sound!  Anyway, we always have a response time in our services, and 
someone commented that our consciousness has not kept up with the 
change in media.  We don't know how to look critically at advertising, 
for example.  Children can learn this; all it takes is a thoughtful 
adult who will watch TV with them and say, "that toy looks really good 
to you, doesn't it?  Shall we check it out?  [then, in the store] Is 
it really as cool as it looked on TV, or did it only seem so cool 
because of the good lighting, sound effects, setting, etc.?  Is it 
worth the money?  How long will the batteries last? etc."  And 
children can also learn that even though the ads seem just like the 
shows, the people who make ads are not trying to entertain them or 
make them happy; they are trying to convince them to give them their 
money.

Amy Z
who didn't preach yesterday so has a need to do a little preaching 
this morning ;-)