Like most of you, I am hugely disappointed by the fact that Scarlett Johansen is not going to be portraying Jenna Jameson in the biopic based on her bestseller as was rumored. I am also rather saddened at the state of modern society when a) Jenna Jameson could write (ok, talk to someone who was writing) a bestseller and b) they would decide to make a movie from it. Isn’t a movie kind of redundant? I’m pretty sure her entire life is available on VHS or DVD as it is.
Switching topics, I read an article in USA Today on the movie Stardust. (Hey, someone left the paper in the cafeteria, it’s not like I bought a copy.) Anyway, Stardust is one of those films that I am pulling for to be successful this summer as it is based on a graphic novel by one of my favorite writers, Neil Gaiman. Anything that makes more people aware of his writing is a good thing. One of the points that he made was that he intentionally set the story in Victorian England because he wanted that conflict between the mystical middle ages and the scientific age. And that made me once again think of Harry Potter, or more accurately how there could not be an American version of Harry Potter.
Ever think about that? It seems so natural that the books are set in England. Magical trains taking young wizards and witches off to a castle that serves as a boarding school seems perfectly sensible in that setting. You couldn’t write that same story in Pennsylvania or New York or at least not without making it a lot darker. Characters can learn magic in the states but it would be in back alleys and darkened rooms. Someone could conceivably learn to be a wizard in New Orleans but you wouldn’t want to send a twelve year old there.
(Did I tell the story of the parents pushing their baby stroller down Bourbon Street at ten in the evening yet? Saw that when I was down there last month. Damndest thing I ever saw.)
It’s a very interesting point, England still has a natural connection to its magic while in America it is long gone. It’s been paved over for a strip mall whereas in England you tend to uncover large stones standing in a field for no reason or a hill that may or may not exist. Part of that is the nature of history. America is a young country (ok, not really but we made the mistake of running all of the people with history off the land) and as a result it doesn’t really have a past. I’ve always used that as a reason to explain why sports are so important in our culture. We don’t have a mythology, there are no stories of King Arthur or St. George and the Dragon, so instead we needed to create a Babe Ruth and a Muhammed Ali. We need archetypes and where they don’t exist we will create them.
That’s probably why I’m drawn to England in a lot of ways. There is something about having history, especially a history where myth and fact are intertwined, that fascinates me. It’s probably why I like New Orleans so much, it is the only place in this country that I’ve found where you feel that you are truly in a place and not a movie set or a collection of buildings called a town. But mainly I think I like the fact that it is a place where you can place the magical and have it seem commonplace. It’s nice to know that some of those places have made it to the present day.
1 comment:
...Characters can learn magic in the States, but it would be in back alleys and darkened rooms.
Or, as I did it twenty-five years ago, in libraries and used bookstores. And, more recently, as software bundled with the family's new computer. ...But US wizardry is DIY, with mentors and coaches rather than disciplinarian teachers... at least, in my world.
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