Cheap Marketing Ploy

Semi-recently I was wandering around one of my favorite hangouts in Silver Spring, the Borders next to the movie theater. When I want to hang out somewhere or go on a date but have nowhere in particular to actually go, I end up there a lot. I like being able to browse the new books in the Young Adult section, read graphic novels that I'd love to buy but can't afford, see if there are any hidden gems on the clearance rack, or sometimes just chill out with a cup of the best hot chocolate in town (that I've yet to find anyway). I usually feel pretty zen when I'm lounging around Borders.

Unless, of course, I see something that makes me want to up-end display racks and scream like a banshee, which happened on this particular day.

On this day, as I was walking down one of the aisles, I came upon a table with a collection of some of the books they were highlighting in that moment, including, I was thrilled to see, Pride and Prejudice. Except that this copy of Austen's masterpiece looked like this:

Brand new cover art that's awfully similar, you might say, to the original cover art of this little number:

Now, I get it, Twilight's in right now, and as a marketing professional, you want to capitalize on that craze any way you can. Perhaps the ends justify the means if the result is that more young women are going to give Jane Austen a look.

But that doesn't keep me from being really annoyed that Elizabeth Bennet, one of the strongest female protagonists in all of canonical literature, is being compared to Bella Swan, a spineless mopey child who decides she's nothing without her man. Elizabeth Bennet is an amazing role model for young women everywhere, and it's just wrong that someone somewhere decided P&P should be grouped in the same category as the Twilight saga for the sake of pushing a few more books.

I mean, it's a lovely flower and all, but come on.

You're Dead Now. Movie Over.

I recently sat down with a few friends to watch/listen to the guys over at Rifftrax (the same geniuses who brought us Mystery Science Theatre 3000) skewer the first two Twilight movies. (I don't regret it. They were hilarious.)

I knew I was in for some mediocre film experiences. But while there were thousands of eye-rollingly bad parts of the movies, only one small scene made me so furious that I was compelled to write a blog post about it.

In the middle of the second movie, New Moon, the anti-feminist anti-heroine, Bella, decides to go cliff diving. Unsurprisingly, she sucks at it. But spoiler alert! She doesn't die. Unfortunately. Her friend Jacob pulls her out of the water just as she's about to drown, and then revives her. By doing something with his arms. Something that is definitely not CPR.

"OK, Jacob, think back to your Red Cross training. Step 1 was not take off your shirt."

Twilight is by far not the only movie I've seen that's egregiously ignored that there actually is a correct way to do CPR. (I'm sad to say that even my beloved Buffy, the Vampire Slayer, was [SPOILER ALERT] revived after drowning in Season One with a really piss-poor example of CPR.)

I just have to believe that SOMEWHERE on the set of a multi-million dollar movie, SOMEONE is certified in CPR and First Aid. In fact, I'd go so far to make the claim (based only on the assumptions my brain has made and no facts that I've researched whatsoever) that with that many people shooting a movie, including highly paid celebrities, it'd be REQUIRED to employ someone who knows how to perform rescue services in case bad shit went down on set. What I'm trying to say is, couldn't SOMEONE have stepped in and said, "Hey, actually, let me show you the right way to resuscitate her. You know, so it'd actually work and her revival wouldn't be complete bullshit."

"Oh, you saw it on the Internet? Well nevermind then, let me just step aside."

Now, the argument could be made that the director of the movie doesn't want his character to be an expert in CPR. Maybe he doesn't think it's realistic that he'd be able to do it correctly. And I'm torn on that interpretation. On one hand, I'd like my movies to contain real characters. On the other hand though, we all know how much what we see in the movies can affect what we believe to be reality. And the last thing I'd want to hear is that a person in distress died because someone thought they knew how to do CPR because they "saw it in Twilight."

There's also the counter-argument, of course, that if your character doesn't actually know how to do CPR correctly, that it likely WON'T WORK, and your character will die. Or wake up with a number of broken ribs. Sucks.

In Bella's case though, maybe that would mean she'd have to take a break from being a COMPLETE IDIOT ALL THE TIME, which might make it all worth it.

So I'm putting this to you, Hollywood directors and producers: CPR is not all that difficult to do correctly. It is oh so easy, though, for anyone who's had any training to recognize when ur doin it wrong. So maybe spend $75 out of your $50 million to have someone come in and show you how it's done. More living, less flailing. It just makes sense.

Read a Mother****ing Book

At St. John the Evangelist School, every student has to participate in the Accelerated Reader program. If you're not familiar, Accelerated Reader assigns a grade level and a number of points to each novel in a school's library. After reading a book, students take a computerized quiz on what they've read and, depending on the number of questions they get right, are awarded points for reading the book. Each grade was expected to earn a certain number of points per trimester, thereby ensuring that every student read and absorbed at least some material each year.

If you're anything like me, though, you've never really put much stock in the "grade levels" 

assigned to books. The Hobbit and the LOTR trilogy were considered a 6th grade reading level, and yet, they reside on the book lists of college courses around the country (if not the world). Therein lies the subject of this post: Young Adult (or Adolescent) Literature.

Young Adult literature is typically defined as literature written specifically for the audience of readers aged 12-18, with themes that are pertinent to that age group. It also happens to be my favorite type of literature to read. At 23 years old, I find that the 'adult' part of Young Adult holds as much sway over me now as it did when I was 13. I've become used to the weird looks I get when I answer that age-old question, "What are you reading?" My response is usually followed by, "Isn't that book for little kids?"

You'd be surprised, though, the depth in these books that you didn't notice when you were younger, and the extent to which "adolescent" themes still apply to us old people. Plus, they're usually quick reads that are wicked engaging. I got back into YA lit when I took a course in it the summer after sophomore year of high school at Western MD college (before it was McDaniel), and since then, I haven't been able to stop reading it. It usually gets a bad rap among adults, though, as worthless kid stuff (see above re: reactions). So I'm going to start giving brief reviews of the YA books that I read throughout the year, hoping that I'll convert a few Gentlemanly readers.

In the meantime, go ahead, grab that favorite book from your early teen years and give it another read. I bet that you find hidden depths in it that you couldn't notice when you were younger, because you didn't yet have the life experience, but that resonate with you now.

Don't have a favorite? Here's a starting point: The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton, 1967) is 

considered the first true YA novel, and the genre has exploded in the past 40 years. Give it a try. Or check out Robert Cormier's The Chocolate War (not to be confused with the more juvenile The Chocolate Touch). Guys, there's Chris Crusher, and girls, Judy Blume, though I find most YA lit crosses gender lines easily. Into sci-fi? I finally got around to reading Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card a few months ago, and it really is as good as everyone says. My heart almost stopped when I read the big reveal. Fantasy buff? Try Stardust or Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman. I could go on, but I won't.

I'm currently reading Eragon, the first book in the Inheritance trilogy by Christopher Paolini, so that will be my first official review, coming soon. But...

... I know the comment has to be coming, so I'm going to get this out of the way first thing: the Twilight series. Yes, I've read them. Yes, I saw the movie. Yes, I want to get the DVD. And yes, I think it's creepy that a bunch of middle-aged women are now obsessed with Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner (he's SIXTEEN, for crying out loud!). 

That being said, I'll be the first to admit that the books are pretty bad. The writing style is juvenile, grammatically they leave much to be desired, and their message to young women is borderline deplorable. (Gee, I wish I could meet a guy who fixates on me to the point that he creeps into my bedroom to watch me sleep without permission and kidnaps me when I want to visit my guy friends!) If you read Twilight looking to get anything intellectually stimulating out of it, you're going to be sorely disappointed. I'm not going to lie, though - as far as brain candy goes, it's an EXTREMELY entertaining story. I couldn't wait to find out what happened next, and so I was willing to overlook its many many (MANY) transgressions.

If you're looking for a romantic beach read of the supernatural variety, give Twilight a go, but for your sake and mine, don't think too much.

And if you don't immediately get the title of this post, go here: Read a Book by D'Mite