Hollywood, Hollywouldn't

Dear MC and Keri,

While I'm a little fuzzy on historical fiction, I have encountered many books that take events that have happened to real people and destroyed real lives (I tend to enjoy depressing books). Many of these events, while well researched, are often exaggerated/warped for the pleasure of the publishing company sake of art. In Jodi Picoult's 19 Minutes, we follow the mindset of a school shooter. He takes the perspective that he is in a video game, shooting at his enemies. He is portrayed as mentally ill (which is the case for basically every mass shooter), but his circumstance doesn't follow that of every shooter.

Grey's Anatomy, a medical drama, portrays what may seem like a typical surgeon's life--seeing as there are scalpels and scrubs and paddles, oh my--but if we applied the TV doctors to real life doctors, everyone would be running around in on-call rooms having sex, waking up at 3A.M. to do hair and makeup, and having a bunch of beautiful people removing hearts that are actually lamb brains.

Yeah. They use lamb brains on sets. No wonder actors are so thin. 

So we certainly should take portrayals of professions and mental issues with a grain of salt. Sure, television shows have consultants, and (good) authors research until their brains feel mushy, but novels and TV shows have creative freedom.

Which brings us to the tricky definitions. How far does creative freedom really go? While there's no textbook definition for the term, dictionary.com defines "freedom" as "exemption from external control, interference, regulation, etc."

So, basically think Maryann from True Blood, and you got yourself a nice dose of freedom.

However, once you start portraying actual people, the situation gets fuzzier. And not the teddy bear kind of fuzzy.

There is probably somebody out there who now thinks that Abraham Lincoln hunted vampires. Or worse, that there is someone who invented an internet sensation and still had a lot of sex. We can say with fair certainty that Lincoln did not kill blood-suckers. This film, to me, oversteps creative freedom. However, The Social Network stayed mostly true to Zuckerberg's life. Zuckerberg did, in fact, go to Harvard; he did begin Facebook as a poorly executed strategy to score hot women (in more ways than one). The events of Zuckerberg's career did make it into the film; however, Zuckerberg's personality may be such that he sings to small children and is using Facebook to stop world hunger. Aaron Sorkin, the screenwriter of The Social Network, wrote, "what is the big deal about accuracy purely for accuracy's sake, and can we not have the true be the enemy of the good?"

Even if people did try to stay 100% true to someone's character, we all have different perspectives. What someone may see as sarcastic and cold, another may see as a strong trait. So, as long as the majority of a person's actions are accurately portrayed, creative freedom can successfully lay in the portrayal of one's personality.

Sometimes the changes to a real person's personality are made because the writer believes that to the best creative decision. Maybe they want to experiment with an internet monger who starts as a hero, but ends up as a villain. I have no problem with genuine creative experimentation, as long as it doesn't hurt anyone too terribly. However, many times, things are dramatized for the sake of the fancy Hollywood executives sitting around on leather couches with their martinis, wiping their Indie-film induced sweat off with hundred dollar bills.

Okay. So perhaps I'm exaggerating. But sometimes changes to film/television (even books) are made without the purest intention. Which makes me wonder: Are we being subjected to a majority of entertainment because of the way large corporations wish it to be? Or is artistic integrity still going strong?

Peace and Ponies,
Kira

The Dramatization of the Actual

Dear Keri & Kira (together, you're Kiri),

I totally agree with you, Keri. I came from a reading family and was encouraged to read from an early age and I think that this has had a huge, positive impact on my life. I read constantly, and I read everything, from non-fiction biographies of civil war heroes to the Game of Thrones series, but there are some books which just don't live up to my standards. I have no problem not finishing a book.

Sometimes, I feel bad about abandoning a book (like, when I tried to read The Hunchback of Notre Dame, which was so very boring), but usually, I'm able to justify my decision. Sometimes, it's hard to admit to yourself that you've failed with a book (which is why I've been reading The Age of Innocence for almost two years and I probably should just start at the beginning again). In my mind, there are two good reasons to stop reading a book.

Firstly, if the book is poorly written, cliched or just plain bad, it's not worth reading. There are some books that are so bad that it causes you mental anguish to try to read them. I think you both know the sort of book I'm talking about; a disproportionate amount of these books happen to be about vampires. Although I'm in favor of light, fun reads, I still think that you should make an effort to find non-serious books that are well written. The way I see it, a poorly written book is doing you more harm than good. Everyone knows that writers improve with reading, if you go from reading Shakespeare to reading Twilight, your writing will certainly suffer.

The second reason to abandon a book is if it's just not making any sense to you. It's okay to admit that you're not in a place where you can understand or appreciate a book. There are some books that are just never going to make sense to you because you have no interest in the subject matter or you just can't identify with the characters. That's all right; that's why there are so many different books. Somewhere out there, there's a book for you. However, I think that, in most cases, if you don't succeed with a book the first time you try to read it, you should put it down for a year or two and then try again. Sometimes, you just need to gain a little perspective and maturity before you can understand what the writer was trying to do. For example, after taking an Ancient Civilizations class last fall, I now have a much greater appreciation for Greek Drama.

When this happens, I wouldn't say that I've 'quit' on a book, I'm just taking a break. Don't get me wrong, sometimes its worthwhile to struggle through a book, but you have to know yourself as a reader first. If you find yourself giving up on a lot of books, however, you may need to pull up your literary socks, buckle down, and do some power reading.

This sort of ties back to Keri's last post. I think that kids these days give up to easily on books. Increasingly, children expect instant gratification from their sources of entertainment. It breaks my heart when I see kids playing on their iPads and phones instead of reading books. While I'm as guilty of enjoying Angry Birds as the next person, I know that there is nothing like the satisfaction of reaching the end of a nice, thick book (unless, there's a sequel and the author has left everything on a cliff hanger, then, you just get angry). For example, for me, Tale of Two Cities did not come together until the last two or three chapters. The last few lines of the book break my heart, but, in order to appreciate them, you must first wade through several hundred pages of hefty, Victorian prose. However, in the end it's a lot more satisfying than any app or mindless TV show.

Speaking of TV, I'd like to move on to my next question for the two of you. As you both know, I've been watching a lot of 'historical' television drama series lately. I put 'historical' in quotation marks because shows like The Borgias and The White Queen are more 'based on real events' than hard and solid textbook facts. Of course, I also read a lot of historical fiction as well. I am currently reading a novel about The Borgia family that differs significantly from the TV show in the way it portrays some of the main characters. Of course, this makes you wonder, what were these people really like? Is it even possible to know? In the case of people who have been dead for hundreds of years, like the Borgia family, I think that the answer is no, but what about more modern historical figures.

For example, I recently read a novel called Z about Zelda Fitzgerald. The book portrays her as a woman who struggled to find her own voice in a household that she shared with one of the greatest writers of her generation. This is a more sympathetic view of her than other books about the same people/time period that I have encountered. In The Paris Wife, for instance, Hadley Hemingway is juxtaposed with Zelda. The message seems to be that while Hadley is tough and dependable, Zelda is flighty and vapid. Which book is correct? Obviously, neither author could truly know what it was like to be Zelda Fitzgerald, but it makes me upset when authors present a view of a historical character that is so obviously skewed.

I recently wrote a post about Shakespeare's malignant of Richard III on one of my other blogs. While I understand that authors, especially greats artists like Shakespeare, are entitled to a little artistic license, is it fair to completely destroy the image and reputation of a real, flesh and blood person in the way Shakespeare destroyed King Richard? Where do we draw the line when it comes to dramatizing real life?

Maria