Tuesday, February 3, 2015

Unit One Book Report

Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli

"She laughed when there was no joke. She danced when there was no music. She had no friends, yet she was the friendliest person in school....
"We did not know what to make of her. In our minds we tried to pin her to a corkboard like a butterfly, but the pin merely went through and away she flew" (Stargirl, 15).
 

Stargirl is a 2002 young adult novel by Jerry Spinelli, detailing a young man’s recollections of a year in a small-town Arizona high school, and the events set into motion by the arrival of an eccentric young woman. Her name is Susan Caraway, but she is known simply as “Stargirl.” In a homogenous school community, when Stargirl appears in her strange outfits and toting a pet rat, ukulele, and sunflower bag everywhere she goes, there is immediate stir. Leo, the narrator, finds himself smitten, and must decide whether to act on his feelings under the pressure of his classmates’ opinions. Under even greater pressure, Stargirl herself must decide whether she will conform to the other kids’ standards, or maintain her individuality. High School is a social microcosm, an idea reflected in a lot of great children’s literature, and in Stargirl, Spinelli treats that environment as a testing ground for moral and ethical lessons.
“Mica Area High School–MAHS–was not exactly a hotbed of nonconformity.  There were individual variants here and there, of course, but within pretty narrow limits we all wore the same clothes, talked the same way, ate the same food, listened to the same music.  Even our dorks and nerds had a MAHS stamp on them.  If we happened to somehow distinguish ourselves, we quickly snapped back into place, like rubber bands” (10).
Stargirl has been homeschooled all her life, and arrives at MAHS blissfuly unaware of the expectations placed on students to conform to certain social stereotypes. She is mysterious, strange, and completely outward-focused. She has personal files on everyone in town, tracking likes and birthdays. She sings happy birthday to students every day in the cafeteria. She leaves kind anonymous notes and gifts. Over the course of the year, she goes from unknown alien, to the most popular kid in school, and back again to social pariah in a backlash following a game in which she cheered for both schools’ teams. In the midst of this, she and Leo begin a tentative relationship.

Stargirl creates a constant tension between the characters’ longing for acceptance, and the desire to remain truthful to their individuality. The “just be yourself!” message so common throughout young adult literature is often quick to count the benefits of that kind of attitude, but slow to count the real-world cost. Stargirl’s eccentricity allows her to pursue many passions, make friends young and old, and explore her creativity. But as her character is revealed there is a tangible sense of loneliness surrounding her. That same loneliness may actually be a benefit, providing Stargirl with time for the quiet meditation and growth that define her. But loneliness can become disheartening.
“I had never realized how much I needed the attention of others to confirm my own presence” (126).
The choice is not an easy one, and the tension in Leo and Stargirl’s relationship builds until she drapes a sheet in front of the school with large letters reading “STARGIRL LOVES LEO” and Leo caves under the pressure. In an effort to make him happy, and in part to regain some of the friends she has lost, for a brief time Stargirl becomes simply “Susan,” blending into the crowd with everyone else. But she soon snaps back. Her and Leo drift apart. She makes a final, memorable appearance at the prom, and then disappears forever. Leo writes from years later, when the story of Stargirl has become legend, and former students that shunned her now remember her fondly. Leo concludes with the hope that they might someday meet again.

In many ways High School is unique. It’s a time when the need for acceptance his more overpowering than perhaps any other point in life. But in many ways it’s completely representative of adult life: people have essentially the same insecurities, the same predisposition toward self-centeredness. There's a reason similar books have captured the imagination of children; "Stargirl Societies" now exist in schools across the country, inspired by Spinelli's character. Media and literature like Stargirl develop resonant themes of individualism, kindness, open-mindedness, and persistence that kids can take from the stage of adolescence to apply throughout the rest of their lives.
"Stargirl Sketch" by Hannah, 17 years old.

Unit One Film Analysis

 Time Bandits
EVIL: God isn't interested in technology. He cares nothing for the microchip or the silicon revolution. Look how he spends his time, forty-three species of parrots! Nipples for men!
ROBERT: Slugs.
EVIL: Slugs! HE created slugs! They can't hear. They can't speak. They can't operate machinery. Are we not in the hands of a lunatic?


Time Bandits (1981) is the first installment of Terry Gilliams’ loose and named-in-hindsight “Trilogy of Imagination,” followed by Brazil (1985) and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988). It’s the story of young Kevin, who joins a larcenous band of dwarves on their journey though time to steal history’s most valuable objects. It’s marked by the kind of surreal, often dark imagery and absurd humor that Gilliam began developing in his Python days, which has since become his trademark. It’s episodic, following the band as they are pursued by “The Supreme Being,” leaping from historical time periods, to fantasy settings, toward an ultimate showdown with Evil. As an adventure, it’s wondrously bizarre tale who’s chapters might not exactly sum up to a cohesive whole—which might make it the perfect coupling of form and content for film about childhood dreams. It’s a fantasy about the power of imagination unleashed as a child’s means of coping with a perplexing and superficial adult world, and his disillusionment to hero worship.

IIn a vaguely dystopian suburban setting, Kevin observes his greedy parents obsessively compare their latest household appliances to those of the neighbors. Throughout the film, technology is vaguely associated with evil. After they order him to bed, Kevin sees a horsed knight burst through his closet door and ride away. Some time later, we see a knight appear among dozens of Kevin’s drawings on the wall. Gilliam’s filmmaking is marked by a certain refusal to intellectualize, and we’re never sure if Kevin’s adventures are real or imagined.

A much later sequence is representative of the adventure as whole. Kevin and his friends land aboard an ogre’s ship, fix his bad back while he wife makes fondue, and toss them overboard. The Ogre’s cough then creates a wind that blows the ship across the water, which turns out to be sitting on top of a giant’s head. They escape the giant by finding a sleeping potion on board, tearing a hole through the ship’s floor, and injecting it into the giant’s head using fireplace bellows. This entire sequence takes place in less than five minutes.

What unfolds is plotted as if by child’s logic, told from a child’s perspective, in a dreamlike haze. Much of the dialogue seems almost like it was written stream-of-consciousness. The cameras remain low for the entire film, a kid’s-eye-view just three or four feet from the ground. The character Evil is a child’s-cartoon version of the Devil. When great moral questions are presented, they’re answered offhandedly by authority figures who seem to be barely paying attention to the question. In the end, the Supreme Being—a suit-wearing, schoolmaster-type God—appears out of nowhere and quickly defeats Evil. He then reveals that the events, including lives lost, have been a part of his plan all along. Kevin asks him, “But why does there have to be evil?” Distracted, he replies “I think it has something to do with free will. “

What begins seemingly as simple escapism soon evolves into something more, as one after another of Kevin’s heroes begin to disappoint him. Robin Hood is an upper-class, narcissist twit; Napoleon comes up short, and Agamemnon declines to teach Kevin sword fighting in favor of “much more useful” magic tricks. In Kevin’s world, he has to learn that adults don’t have the answers. Kevin returns home in the midst of a house fire. His parents are scrambling to remove their most valued appliances. From outside, the mother yells,“I’m going in for the toaster!” After ignoring Kevin’s warning to not touch a bit of evil goo, they spontaneously explode, leaving Kevin alone with two billowing pillars of smoke. The film ends on that traumatic note. Though disturbing, Kevin has learned through his adventure of taking care of himself.

Time Bandits is part adventure fantasy, part social satire, part childhood existential nightmare. It was appropriately tag-lined “it’s all the dreams you’ve ever had, and not just the good ones.”  It’s certainly a child’s film—though whether or not it’s actually for kids is definitely up for debate—and the ease with which Gilliam accesses the childlike mindset it quite brilliant. Ideas are free-flowing, and sometimes a child’s solution truly is the best. Though often fantasy, adventure stories can help children learn about and cope with difficult realities.

“If I’d actually learned any of the lessons, I wouldn’t be making films anymore. I try not to learn. I spend most of my life unlearning.”
Terry Gilliam