Wuthering Heights x 4

Picture from http://goo.gl/BdoK

However any of us may feel about the Twilight Saga by Stephanie Meyer--which I admit, I have read--it is interesting to see how the release of the novel has an effect on what teens are reading. According to an article in the Telegraph (it's been in my inbox for a week and I've just now had time to get to it), sales for Wuthering Heights has quadrupled over the past year because Edward and Bella refer to it in Twilight. These teens are beginning to do what I do, as an avid reader: go read whatever it is characters are referencing so they have a working knowledge of the references. This is the first step to understanding allusions.

Publishers are taking flak for changing the cover of Wuthering Heights to this, which appeals to the vampire romance-loving teens. According to the Albuquerque Examiner article from April 11, 2010, the covers of Romeo & Juliet and Pride and Prejudice have also received a Twilight make-over.
Rachel Harcourt, a buyer at Tesco, which seems to be the Wal-mart or SuperTarget of the UK, says,

The new sleek black gothic-style covers of Wuthering Heights clearly appeal to lovers of vampire romance stories and are helping them to try out a different read. Anything that encourages teenagers to read good books is welcome as there are so many distractions which prevent today’s youngsters from developing reading as a hobby.

I'm inclined to agree. Anything that encourages teens to read at all is fantastic in my book, whether it be the newspaper, or graphic novels, the Twilight Saga, or captions on the television.

Classic Fairy Tales

A point that caught my attention from the introduction of Classic Fairy Tales by Maria Tatar came from the Brother’s Grimm discussion of why they wrote the stories they wrote. They are quoted in Tatar as saying that their tales “tried to capture the pure, artless simplicity of people not yet tainted by the corrupting influences of civilization” (Tatar, 1999, p. xi). It seems as if the brothers are arguing for nurture over nature, like children are blank slates and the stories are written to shield them from the harsh reality that exists outside the walls of their parents’ house.

The brothers, when writing, however, “must have recognized that fairy tales were far from culturally innocent, for they extolled the ‘civilizing’ power of the tales and conceived of their collection as ‘manual of manners’ for children” (Tatar, 1999, p. xi). While these fairy tales were exalted, the brothers took the main points of the stories and recrafted the tales into a handbook of sorts for children, guiding them to be moral citizens. The question is, who defined those morals the brothers were trying to ingrain in children? Were they determined by the brothers themselves, or are they extending morality based upon the morals with which they were raised, those determined by a particular class as important to be a productive member of the social structure?

The conversation about how children are influenced before they have a chance to truly interact within society makes me wonder about children today, so many of whom are not read to, be it fairy tales, Mother Goose Rhymes, or the newspaper. How are the morals and ideas children are inculcated with in the present due to their preoccupation with electronics and reality television? When I wonder about how fairy tales have changed with the present time, the first thought I have is of Neal Shusterman’s Dark Fusion series. Shusterman fuses the Medusa myth with “The Three Little Bears” in Dread Locks, fuses werewolf and vampire mythology with “Little Red Riding Hood” in Red Rider’s Hood and the legend of the Fountain of Youth with “The Ugly Duckling.” Many of the themes are the same, but Shusterman adds discussion of self-sacrifice, family values and revenge to his mix.

Shusterman, N. (2005). Dread Locks. New York, Speak.
Shusterman, N. (2005). Red Rider’s Hood. New York, Speak.
Shusterman, N. (2006). Duckling Ugly. New York, Speak.
Tatar, M., ed. (1999). The Classic Fairy Tales. New York: W. W. Norton & Co

For Teens, Hello Means 'How About a hug?'

A few days ago, the New York Times posted an article about teens and hugging. It's an interesting article about how hugging, for many, has become a standard form of greeting. As I was reading, and it was mentioned in the article as such, perhaps these teenagers are starving for physical contact as most of their communication is electronic. Interesting thought.

Duckling Ugly

Duckling Ugly is the third in the Dark Fusion series by Neal Shusterman, the first two being Dread Locks and Red Rider's Hood. Duckling Ugly fuses the stories of "The Ugly Duckling" and "The Fountain of Youth." There's one particular piece of this novel that struck me. The protagonist says

How do you judge beauty? They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but that's not true. Beauty is in the spirit of the world in which you live. It's where the world tells you it is...and if your world finds beauty in the black pit of ugliness, then that's where your beauty lies. (Shusterman, 2006, p. 200)

With the discussion of commodification in my media class first semester last school year, and the stock that teenagers take on what they see on television, striving to be what can only be achieved with airbrushes, I'm inclined to agree with Shusterman here. I had a discussion with a friend of mine before school let out for the summer about Marilyn Monroe. We saw a picture of her on the wall at Dairy Queen. The question ended up being, at the time of The Seven Year Itch, how much did she weigh?

The idea is that people's perception of what is beautiful is what the media says is beautiful. So if Marilyn Monroe (who is still considered beautiful) is put next to one of the skinny models of today, who do you think people want to look more like?

Shusterman, N. (2006). Duckling Ugly. New York: Speak.

Sex Sells

Which came first? The chicken or the egg? The talk about the commercialization of hip hop reminded me of the Taye Diggs, Sanaa Lathan movie Brown Sugar. Diggs's character had problems staying in the industry after his firm signs a multi-racial group Rin and Tin, the Hip Hop Dalmations. This after finding Mos Def's character, who is a "real" emcee. Daniels talks about the commercialization of hip hop, how it perpetuates the ghetto lifestyle, talking about "babymamas" and having "on the side" relationships, and how that is deemed acceptable more than something to be ashamed of (thank you Usher). It makes emcees like Aesop Rock and Flobots (interestingly, neither group is of African-American heritage).

Hip hop isn't the only music being commercialized. Are there any people dedicated to an art form anymore? Daniels's brother is a jazz musician. If I play Bird or Mingus in my classroom, I usually meet some sort of protest. But its the most exposure many students get to a dying music. Two guys I played with when I was a kid have died already. And as they're dying, the music is dying with them. I've even seen the change in the music. When I was a kid, my dad used to take me to the Jazz Kitchen in Indianapolis. There, I was introduced to some great players -- be bop, latin, big band, vocal. But now, the market has changed, and that's not what people want to hear anymore, and like a good business, it changed its music to cater to what the masses want. "Jazz" now is what I always called "elevator music." You know (or maybe you don't) the saccharine sounds of Candy Dulfer, Dave Koz or Kenny G.

But I teach the mindless youth of America. When they say "Miss, play hip hop," and I play Aesop Rock, they say "Play good hip hop." Of course, I think Aesop Rock is good hip hop. But they want Akon (Konvicked) or Usher (Confessions). Anything that perpetuates the misogynistic ideals of a disintegrating culture of TV raised children. That's ghetto.

Ghetto Is a Mindset

One of my many current undertakings is Ghetto Nation by Cora Daniels. Through the introduction and the prologue, she asserts that ghetto has moved from being a place, most notorious for housing Jews during the Holocaust then for being where the poor Blacks lived, to being a mindset - a set of thought processes that cross cultural boundaries and has eeped into the mainstream.

People use the phrase "that's so ghetto" with the same frequency that they use "that's so gay." I think because ghetto doesn't refer to a specific group of people anymore, that it's become part of everyone's everyday, people aren't insulted by they derogatory use of the word as frequently as they are for the other assertion.

When I think "ghetto", I think AAE but it's called Ebonics. I think Kool-Ade on the front steps either in cups or on popsicle sticks. I think streetball and trash talk. When I think "ghetto" I think going to the movies with my sister and my cousin or being in a theatre with a whole slew of Black folk and how they holler at the movie the entire time. I think fried chicken and bar-b-qs.

And it's interesting to live in a small town and hear them talk about ghetto. Daniels says that every area has "ghetto" on lock. Theirs is what ghetto really is. Everywhere, it's the same and it's different, even though Atlanta gave us crunk.