The Producers
Mel Brooks is more than just Space Balls amazingly enough. Not that I don't know this, but he's one of those guys that I'm always surprised is behind whatever work he happens to be behind. Except Robin Hood: Men in Tights. That's the kind of thing I expect Mel Brooks to have done. And I don't know why! Because he's done so much great stuff: Young Frankenstein, Blazing Saddles, and The Producers to name a few. Of course, The Producers may be the best of his work (although I am very partial to Get Smart. That TV show was a work of genius).
Brooks won an Oscar for the original iteration of The Producers back in 1968. It was his first movie. It was adapted as a Broadway musical in 2001, and a film was adapted from the musical in 2005. In 2012, my son was involved in a production of The Producers (the musical) at his high school.
It was magnificent.
In fact, it was the best high school production I've ever seen. It was better than any college production I've ever seen. It was better than many professional productions I've seen including the production of The Pirates of Penzance that my son was in last summer. I wish you could all come and see it. (There's one more weekend of shows.)
My son is only part of the chorus (because he didn't try out for it despite urgings to do so), but that's okay, because he was a great part of the chorus. Especially his performance as a little old lady in the song and dance number with the walkers. The leads, however, were tremendous. The guy, a senior, that played Max was... well, I have no words. I would not have believed he was in high school; I'll just put it like that. And the entire show was choreographed by students. Amazing!
All of that to say, this musical production is an example of why we need to support the arts in our schools. The ArtQuest program at my son's high school is superb; it's sad that there is a constant need to defend the arts and such a struggle to get funding for them.
Anyway, like I said, I wish you could all come see this show and be as blown away by it as I was. Short of that, go rent the movie. The one adapted from the musical. It has Matthew Broderick and Will Ferrell. Although, even with Broderick, I'm not sure I can say that it's actually better than the high school production I just saw.
In the Heat of the Night
Sticking with our (not) theme of movies from the late 60s, I just watched In the Heat of the Night. It was the 1967 winner of the best picture Oscar, and, I have to say, it was well deserved. I've seen 4 of the 5 films nominated for that year, so I'm not just saying that.
Here's the thing that most impressed me about the movie in comparison to movies like, say, There Will Be Blood. It's about something and it has a story. As opposed to many newer movies (like Blood) which are clearly about something but don't have a story, a vehicle, for telling what the movie is about.
In the Heat of the Night is about civil rights and the racial inequality that was still clearly present in much of the United States at the time. Inequality that is still present even if it isn't present to the same degree. Still... drive through the deep south sometime, and I bet you can still find scenes that seem right out of the movie. I know you could 20 years ago, because I was still in the deep south back then. However, the story is a murder mystery. And a good one. (I'm used to pegging the killer in these kinds of things within the first 1/3 of the story, but I had no idea about this one right up until they showed whom it was.)
Sidney Poitier is quite good as Virgil Tibbs. I don't think he had to stretch much for the role (meaning he seemed much like he does in other movies I've seen him in), but there's probably not anyone else that really could have done that role at the time.
Rod Steiger got best actor for his role as Bill Gillespie. His was an interesting character to watch, and Steiger really pulled off the ambivalence he felt in dealing with Tibbs. The struggle between his dislike of blacks and his growing respect for this one particular black man. In that, Steiger was excellent.
It's a great movie, a movie that deserved its Oscar, and people still need to see it. Especially considering that it's more than 40 years later, and a movie like Red Tails can't get studio funding.
Showing posts with label Red Tails. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Red Tails. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Red Tails and the Lucas Syndrome
There have been many underappreciated films throughout the years. Generally, these are just due to not being able to market them to their potential and no one goes to see them. Occasionally, the reasons are much more insidious.
Red Tails went into development way back in 1988, and the original intended release date was two decades ago. You'd think that when the creator of Star Wars and Indiana Jones says he wants to make a movie that movie studios would listen, right? Realize, this was before all the crap that has rained down on Lucas' head since the re-release of Star Wars as the Special Edition. However, no one would touch Red Tails. Not a single studio. Why? It was a story about black men with a primary cast made up entirely of black men. Hollywood wouldn't touch it.
They say there are financial reasons.
This may be true. In fact, it probably is true, because Hollywood is all about the money, but it doesn't make it okay. In the end, Lucas financed the movie himself. Marketed the movie himself. He only didn't distribute because Fox, grudgingly, finally agreed to do it. IF Lucas paid the distribution costs, so he paid for that, too. All totaled? Nearly $100 million. But Lucas believed in the worthiness of the movie and was willing to pay the costs even though he knew, he knew, the movie would take a loss. Probably a large loss. I can't help but admire that.
When it came time for Lucas to screen the movie to studio execs, he was snubbed. People literally just didn't show up to the screening. This was in 2011, so a lot of that had to do with the full-on hate that Hollywood and most of the world has going for Lucas, right now, but you can't deny that there is some part of it that's due to the fact that Lucas made a movie about blacks that's full of blacks. An action movie, not a drama. Something that hasn't ever been done before. We'll see if it happens again. As Lucas said in an interview, that's just not right. It's their job to show up for the screening, and these guys, a lot of them, chose to not do their jobs. It was calculated and insulting.
And completely undeserved.
Red Tails is getting bad reviews pretty universally. Before I went to see it, I did, actually, read some reviews, something I almost never do anymore. But, honestly, I was scared it wouldn't be good, so I wanted some information. My favorite (by far) review, started something like this, "George Lucas, destroyer of childhood dreams, has a new movie..." This was a professional reviewer, mind you, someone whose job it is to approach movies as objectively as possible and evaluate them for their individual merit. Maybe that was as objective as the reviewer should be, but, if that was the case, he shouldn't have been reviewing the movie. I'll leave it to your imagination as to what he went on to say about Red Tails, because it's probably worse than anything you'll imagine.
I finally got a chance to go see Red Tails the other night (I really wanted to go see it at Skywalker Ranch, but, despite the fact that they had several screenings of it, they filled up so quickly (with stars and "important" people) that the regular employees at Lucasfilm were never extended an invitation). I won't lie and say that I wasn't apprehensive. I didn't see a single good review for it. I didn't want it to be bad but was scared it would be. My fear was misplaced, Red Tails was spectacular.
Saying it like that, I could just be saying that the visuals were spectacular, and, believe me, they were. Extraordinary. It felt like watching aerial footage from WWII. But in color. Seeing that Lucas immersed himself in WWII dogfight footage when he made A New Hope, this is not surprising. This was not new territory for Lucas. But the rest of the movie is good, too.
I'm not saying it's the best movie ever, but it's solid. And it is certainly better than There Will Be Blood. By a lot. Yet, Blood was a best picture contender? And Red Tails is snubbed. Not just by critics but by everyone that currently has a beef against Lucas for "destroying their childhood dreams." At least, Red Tails is about something! An important something, I think. The movie, of course, is based on the Tuskegee airmen. I don't think there is anyway to stress how important the whole Tuskegee thing is to African Americans. Prior to that, the US military, based on "professional" psychological and medical testing had stated that blacks were both not intelligent enough or physically capable enough to ever be able to fly an aircraft.
The biggest issue with the movie is that Lucas started in the middle. The original treatment was too long for one movie, so Lucas had it expanded into a trilogy. Looking at the story, he felt that part 1 and part 3 were not movies he could make. More drama, less action. At least, he knows his strengths, I guess. The issue is that there really isn't a lot of background information given beyond a quote at the beginning of the movie. It picks up with primary characters, Easy and Lightning, in Italy at the Negro airbase there. If you don't know your history, especially your race history, I could see this being rather confusing. I don't know if it's because I grew up in the south or if it's just that they don't cover this stuff in schools anywhere anymore, but we've had to have many conversations with our children about racism and the history related to it, because they haven't covered it in school. At any rate, a lot of the subtext behind what's going on is left to viewer knowledge. And, honestly, at this point, while we're still dealing with race issues and other hate issues in the US and the world, it should be common knowledge. Too bad it isn't.
The other weakness with the movie is something I don't know if it's a weakness or not. When Ang Lee made his version of the Hulk 10 years ago, there was much derision of Eric Bana's lack of acting ability. I didn't find it to be bad acting. I'm pretty sure the "woodeness" of Banner in Ang Lee's Hulk was a directing decision to show how emotionless Banner kept himself. How in control he had to always be. I've seen Bana in other movies, and his role in Hulk is the only time I've seen him so... flat, so I think it was a concious decision. Cuba Gooding, Jr. and Terrence Howard are the "star power" in Red Tails, and both of them are very deliberate, slow speakers in the movie. It's difficult to tell if this was purposeful or not. Both of them felt very flat to me, but it may be that this was an appropriate way to speak for black men in their positions that had to deal with white men. So... maybe, it was actually great acting, but, without knowing, it came off as bad acting on the parts of the two "names" in the movie.
However, they are both supporting characters, and the leads don't suffer from this issue. Both Easy and Lightning are strong characters and easy to like and engage with. The movie, really, focuses on the relationship between the two men with the war and race issues supporting what's going on. I didn't find any issues with the dialogue, which has been the major criticism of the movie. I think, with the assumption that Lucas was responsible for it. But he didn't write the script or do any of the writing.
To be clear, this is a movie that deserves to be seen. It's good. Good enough that I sat with my hands balled into fists almost throughout the entire movie with the tension of the action. That's not normal for me. But from the opening, and it opens with a combat sequence, I cared about the characters, and I didn't want anything bad to happen to them. No, it's not a "deep" film, but it's not meant to be. It's an action movie. Maybe that's the issue for a lot of people. So far, any movies that have dealt with race issues have all been dramas. All been "deep." As with writing, it keeps "black" movies a sub-genre. Black movies go in their special section just like books by black authors go in their special sections. It's just like sitting on the bus. Or drinking from the water fountain. Racism doesn't end while there are still distinctions, financial or not.
Red Tails went into development way back in 1988, and the original intended release date was two decades ago. You'd think that when the creator of Star Wars and Indiana Jones says he wants to make a movie that movie studios would listen, right? Realize, this was before all the crap that has rained down on Lucas' head since the re-release of Star Wars as the Special Edition. However, no one would touch Red Tails. Not a single studio. Why? It was a story about black men with a primary cast made up entirely of black men. Hollywood wouldn't touch it.
They say there are financial reasons.
This may be true. In fact, it probably is true, because Hollywood is all about the money, but it doesn't make it okay. In the end, Lucas financed the movie himself. Marketed the movie himself. He only didn't distribute because Fox, grudgingly, finally agreed to do it. IF Lucas paid the distribution costs, so he paid for that, too. All totaled? Nearly $100 million. But Lucas believed in the worthiness of the movie and was willing to pay the costs even though he knew, he knew, the movie would take a loss. Probably a large loss. I can't help but admire that.
When it came time for Lucas to screen the movie to studio execs, he was snubbed. People literally just didn't show up to the screening. This was in 2011, so a lot of that had to do with the full-on hate that Hollywood and most of the world has going for Lucas, right now, but you can't deny that there is some part of it that's due to the fact that Lucas made a movie about blacks that's full of blacks. An action movie, not a drama. Something that hasn't ever been done before. We'll see if it happens again. As Lucas said in an interview, that's just not right. It's their job to show up for the screening, and these guys, a lot of them, chose to not do their jobs. It was calculated and insulting.
And completely undeserved.
Red Tails is getting bad reviews pretty universally. Before I went to see it, I did, actually, read some reviews, something I almost never do anymore. But, honestly, I was scared it wouldn't be good, so I wanted some information. My favorite (by far) review, started something like this, "George Lucas, destroyer of childhood dreams, has a new movie..." This was a professional reviewer, mind you, someone whose job it is to approach movies as objectively as possible and evaluate them for their individual merit. Maybe that was as objective as the reviewer should be, but, if that was the case, he shouldn't have been reviewing the movie. I'll leave it to your imagination as to what he went on to say about Red Tails, because it's probably worse than anything you'll imagine.
I finally got a chance to go see Red Tails the other night (I really wanted to go see it at Skywalker Ranch, but, despite the fact that they had several screenings of it, they filled up so quickly (with stars and "important" people) that the regular employees at Lucasfilm were never extended an invitation). I won't lie and say that I wasn't apprehensive. I didn't see a single good review for it. I didn't want it to be bad but was scared it would be. My fear was misplaced, Red Tails was spectacular.
Saying it like that, I could just be saying that the visuals were spectacular, and, believe me, they were. Extraordinary. It felt like watching aerial footage from WWII. But in color. Seeing that Lucas immersed himself in WWII dogfight footage when he made A New Hope, this is not surprising. This was not new territory for Lucas. But the rest of the movie is good, too.
I'm not saying it's the best movie ever, but it's solid. And it is certainly better than There Will Be Blood. By a lot. Yet, Blood was a best picture contender? And Red Tails is snubbed. Not just by critics but by everyone that currently has a beef against Lucas for "destroying their childhood dreams." At least, Red Tails is about something! An important something, I think. The movie, of course, is based on the Tuskegee airmen. I don't think there is anyway to stress how important the whole Tuskegee thing is to African Americans. Prior to that, the US military, based on "professional" psychological and medical testing had stated that blacks were both not intelligent enough or physically capable enough to ever be able to fly an aircraft.
The biggest issue with the movie is that Lucas started in the middle. The original treatment was too long for one movie, so Lucas had it expanded into a trilogy. Looking at the story, he felt that part 1 and part 3 were not movies he could make. More drama, less action. At least, he knows his strengths, I guess. The issue is that there really isn't a lot of background information given beyond a quote at the beginning of the movie. It picks up with primary characters, Easy and Lightning, in Italy at the Negro airbase there. If you don't know your history, especially your race history, I could see this being rather confusing. I don't know if it's because I grew up in the south or if it's just that they don't cover this stuff in schools anywhere anymore, but we've had to have many conversations with our children about racism and the history related to it, because they haven't covered it in school. At any rate, a lot of the subtext behind what's going on is left to viewer knowledge. And, honestly, at this point, while we're still dealing with race issues and other hate issues in the US and the world, it should be common knowledge. Too bad it isn't.
The other weakness with the movie is something I don't know if it's a weakness or not. When Ang Lee made his version of the Hulk 10 years ago, there was much derision of Eric Bana's lack of acting ability. I didn't find it to be bad acting. I'm pretty sure the "woodeness" of Banner in Ang Lee's Hulk was a directing decision to show how emotionless Banner kept himself. How in control he had to always be. I've seen Bana in other movies, and his role in Hulk is the only time I've seen him so... flat, so I think it was a concious decision. Cuba Gooding, Jr. and Terrence Howard are the "star power" in Red Tails, and both of them are very deliberate, slow speakers in the movie. It's difficult to tell if this was purposeful or not. Both of them felt very flat to me, but it may be that this was an appropriate way to speak for black men in their positions that had to deal with white men. So... maybe, it was actually great acting, but, without knowing, it came off as bad acting on the parts of the two "names" in the movie.
However, they are both supporting characters, and the leads don't suffer from this issue. Both Easy and Lightning are strong characters and easy to like and engage with. The movie, really, focuses on the relationship between the two men with the war and race issues supporting what's going on. I didn't find any issues with the dialogue, which has been the major criticism of the movie. I think, with the assumption that Lucas was responsible for it. But he didn't write the script or do any of the writing.
To be clear, this is a movie that deserves to be seen. It's good. Good enough that I sat with my hands balled into fists almost throughout the entire movie with the tension of the action. That's not normal for me. But from the opening, and it opens with a combat sequence, I cared about the characters, and I didn't want anything bad to happen to them. No, it's not a "deep" film, but it's not meant to be. It's an action movie. Maybe that's the issue for a lot of people. So far, any movies that have dealt with race issues have all been dramas. All been "deep." As with writing, it keeps "black" movies a sub-genre. Black movies go in their special section just like books by black authors go in their special sections. It's just like sitting on the bus. Or drinking from the water fountain. Racism doesn't end while there are still distinctions, financial or not.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Why You Shouldn't Trust Traditional Publishing (or Why Kids Should Be in Charge of the Slush Pile)
This isn't one of those posts where I talk about all of the very famous (or merely famous) writers that started out with tons of rejections. No, they weren't really "tons," but any rejection is a heavy load, and, when they start piling up, they certainly seem to weigh tons. If you want one of those posts, there are plenty of them out there, so go find one somewhere else.
This isn't a post that is supposed to make you feel better. Make you want to work a little harder. Make you want to try that one more time. That one more time that will be the time. I'm not really much of a cheerleader, so, if you want that, go look at any of the dozens upon dozens of cheerful blogs that are all about making you feel better about yourself as a writer.
This post might do some of those above mentioned things but not because that's the plan here. It's not what I'm setting out to do. This post is about making you think. If, in making you think, it prompts you to work a little harder or to apply yourself in new ways, well, good, but that's not what I'm trying to do here.
Yeah, I know. I can be kind of a jerk. But, really, I'm just not here to make you feel better about your writing goals. Not that I won't give you advice (if you ask) or tell you what I think about... well, whatever, but I'm not emotional support. I'll help you get the job done, but I'm not going to make you feel good about doing it.
So... here's the thing:
We all know about the subjectivity of the publishing industry. At least, we think we do. Emotionally, however, we are still invested in the idea that traditional publishing is the Gatekeeper of who is and who isn't a writer. That, somewhere, they have some secret measuring stick that they apply to manuscripts to see if they measure up. We know this isn't true, but we don't believe it. If we would come to believe that the "professionals" don't know any more about what's good or what will sell than, say, the troll under the bridge down the path from my house, we would ALL abandon traditional publishing forever. But we cling to this... idea... that we can't really be writers unless the publishing industry bestows that title upon us.
And it will... if we just keep at it long enough. As Jim Butcher says about getting published, "You don't have to be faster than the bear, you just have to be faster than the guy next to you." I have to say, though, that getting published doesn't make you a writer. I don't care who's dubbing you "Sir Author." Have you seen some of the crap that's being published these days? And not just these days. Have you seen some of the crap that has always been published? And why is crap published? Because publishers don't know crap from gold. Nor do editors. Nor do agents.
See, I was thinking (and that's the phrase that generally causes my wife to say "uh oh")... Wait a minute, before you think any of this is about me, it's not. You'll kind of have to follow my separate trains of thought to where they collide in a crash almost as spectacular as the one in Super 8.
I had just come home from reading The House on the Corner in my younger son's class (6th graders), and I was out taking the dog for a walk. [Note: I read in some class or other every morning of the week.] They had been upset when it was time for me to stop. They feel like I "always end on a cliffhanger." The thing is, I wasn't reading from one of the "exciting" parts. But, whenever I have to stop, they don't want me to. I'm in the middle of something happening even if it's just exploring. Or a game of hide-and-seek. And there are groans every time.
See, kids have a different way of looking at books than adults do. And I think kids have it right. The publishing industry is really big right now on starting in the middle of the action. Why? Because they say you have to do that to grab a child's interest, but that's just not so. Kids actually have the patience to allow something to unfold in its own time and enjoy it. It's adults that want to just get right into things. Adults who sacrifice story for action. Sacrifice empathy with the characters, knowing the characters, for immediate thrills. It's adults that want to just jump straight into bed and skip the getting to know the other person and the making out. That's not how kids are.
Hold on... I'm going somewhere with this. See! You're all out there thinking, "just get to the point!" Where's the blood? Where are the explosions?
Another thing: kids are pretty honest. This is not to say that they don't lie, but they're not going to come up and tell you they like something that they don't. If you stick a pile of spinach in front of them, they're going to tell you how they feel about it. Even if you are a guest at someone else's house. They don't have the whole lying for the sake of politeness thing down.
Kids like my book. The closest I've had to any of them not liking it is one boy (2nd grade) asking me when I was going to make The House on the Corner into a movie. I asked him why, of course. Didn't he like the book? Oh, yes, he likes it very much, but he likes movies better than books.
This is where I was in my head when my thoughts strayed over to Tolkien. Did you know that The Hobbit and, by extension, The Lord of the Rings only exist (as published works) because of a child? Before I go on, let me state that I've read numerous biographies about Tolkien and C.S. Lewis including one about the two of them together and how their friendship influenced their writings. However, I don't have any of these books available to me at the moment as they are still in boxes in the garage [Yes, only unread books have been unpacked, at the moment. >sad<], so I'm going off of memory here. I'm not remembering exactly why Tolkien was seeking publication for The Hobbit, but it probably had to do with Lewis. Lewis was the impetus for pretty much all of Tolkien's fiction getting published, so it was probably Lewis back there saying, "You need to get this published." However, no one wanted The Hobbit. I don't mean there were a lot of rejections and, finally, someone said, "Yeah, I like it." No one wanted the The Hobbit. It was too different, and no one believed there would be an audience for it. Kind of like with the whole home computer thing.
At any rate, after no one wanted the book, the manuscript was sitting around someone's house. A big someone's house. Like the owner of the publishing company that eventually published The Hobbit. They had already said no to it. But something happened then. Something unexpected. The man's son got a hold of the manuscript, and he read it. He told his dad he should make it into a book. I think there was some discussion involved, but the son was firm in his opinion that The Hobbit be published. So, more to mollify his son than anything else, The Hobbit got published with a small print run of only 1500 copies. That was all. It has never been out of print since.
So here we are at the point. The climax, as it were. Traditional publishers didn't want The Hobbit. At all. It was a child. One boy who believed in a book with a father willing to humor him. The Hobbit is now considered the most influential piece of children's literature of the 20th century, and it almost never was. And this is why you shouldn't trust traditional publishing. The truth is that they don't know what they're doing. They don't know what's good and what's bad. They're not reading the books; they're just comparing aspects of them to what's popular and making judgements on what they think will sell. Any time anything slightly different comes along, they don't know what to do with it, and they tend to just say "no."
Kids should be reading through the slush pile. At least through the piles of things that are age appropriate. Kids don't care about what's popular (they do in that they are attracted to those things, but they don't evaluate new things based on the popularity of other things, not until they're teenagers, generally); they don't care about "how things are done;" they enter each new thing just as it is, a new thing, and they form their opinions based upon their interactions with that thing. It's unfortunate that, as adults, we can't enter into each new experience with those same sets of open eyes. That ability to not pre-categorize everything. That ability to not have made up our minds before an experience as to whether or not we'll like it.
As Yoda says, "Truly wonderful the mind of a child is."
So, really, don't take those rejections the wrong way. Even after the success of The Hobbit, the publisher (the same publisher, mind you) didn't want The Lord of the Rings. The wanted The Hobbit II. Tolkien really tried to give them what they asked for, but he just couldn't do it, and they kind of just published The Lord of the Rings because they knew they weren't going to get anything else, and they demanded severe changes in the text before even that happened. Like dividing it up into 3 volumes, which Tolkien hated and had to do extensive rewrites to accommodate. Of course, The Lord of the Rings is now considered the most significant piece of fiction of the 20th century. So, really, what do traditional publishers know?
It makes me wonder what pieces of literature the world has never seen because there was not a child available to advocate for it. It makes me sad.
[Note: In similar situation, none of the Hollywood studios would support Lucas' new movie Red Tails, which I really wanted to go see last weekend but didn't get to. Several of them completely snubbed the screening and didn't show at all. Lucas said they treated Red Tails the exact same way they treated Star Wars back in 1976. It's something different. Something that hasn't been done before. Even though it's Lucas, they won't support it. Fox grudgingly agreed to act as the distributor but only if Lucas footed the entire bill. What's the point, at that point? Hopefully, I'll have a review of this one soon, as Lucas says it's going to be his last "blockbuster" movie (other than one more Indiana Jones (if they do it)).]
This isn't a post that is supposed to make you feel better. Make you want to work a little harder. Make you want to try that one more time. That one more time that will be the time. I'm not really much of a cheerleader, so, if you want that, go look at any of the dozens upon dozens of cheerful blogs that are all about making you feel better about yourself as a writer.
This post might do some of those above mentioned things but not because that's the plan here. It's not what I'm setting out to do. This post is about making you think. If, in making you think, it prompts you to work a little harder or to apply yourself in new ways, well, good, but that's not what I'm trying to do here.
Yeah, I know. I can be kind of a jerk. But, really, I'm just not here to make you feel better about your writing goals. Not that I won't give you advice (if you ask) or tell you what I think about... well, whatever, but I'm not emotional support. I'll help you get the job done, but I'm not going to make you feel good about doing it.
So... here's the thing:
We all know about the subjectivity of the publishing industry. At least, we think we do. Emotionally, however, we are still invested in the idea that traditional publishing is the Gatekeeper of who is and who isn't a writer. That, somewhere, they have some secret measuring stick that they apply to manuscripts to see if they measure up. We know this isn't true, but we don't believe it. If we would come to believe that the "professionals" don't know any more about what's good or what will sell than, say, the troll under the bridge down the path from my house, we would ALL abandon traditional publishing forever. But we cling to this... idea... that we can't really be writers unless the publishing industry bestows that title upon us.
And it will... if we just keep at it long enough. As Jim Butcher says about getting published, "You don't have to be faster than the bear, you just have to be faster than the guy next to you." I have to say, though, that getting published doesn't make you a writer. I don't care who's dubbing you "Sir Author." Have you seen some of the crap that's being published these days? And not just these days. Have you seen some of the crap that has always been published? And why is crap published? Because publishers don't know crap from gold. Nor do editors. Nor do agents.
See, I was thinking (and that's the phrase that generally causes my wife to say "uh oh")... Wait a minute, before you think any of this is about me, it's not. You'll kind of have to follow my separate trains of thought to where they collide in a crash almost as spectacular as the one in Super 8.
I had just come home from reading The House on the Corner in my younger son's class (6th graders), and I was out taking the dog for a walk. [Note: I read in some class or other every morning of the week.] They had been upset when it was time for me to stop. They feel like I "always end on a cliffhanger." The thing is, I wasn't reading from one of the "exciting" parts. But, whenever I have to stop, they don't want me to. I'm in the middle of something happening even if it's just exploring. Or a game of hide-and-seek. And there are groans every time.
See, kids have a different way of looking at books than adults do. And I think kids have it right. The publishing industry is really big right now on starting in the middle of the action. Why? Because they say you have to do that to grab a child's interest, but that's just not so. Kids actually have the patience to allow something to unfold in its own time and enjoy it. It's adults that want to just get right into things. Adults who sacrifice story for action. Sacrifice empathy with the characters, knowing the characters, for immediate thrills. It's adults that want to just jump straight into bed and skip the getting to know the other person and the making out. That's not how kids are.
Hold on... I'm going somewhere with this. See! You're all out there thinking, "just get to the point!" Where's the blood? Where are the explosions?
Another thing: kids are pretty honest. This is not to say that they don't lie, but they're not going to come up and tell you they like something that they don't. If you stick a pile of spinach in front of them, they're going to tell you how they feel about it. Even if you are a guest at someone else's house. They don't have the whole lying for the sake of politeness thing down.
Kids like my book. The closest I've had to any of them not liking it is one boy (2nd grade) asking me when I was going to make The House on the Corner into a movie. I asked him why, of course. Didn't he like the book? Oh, yes, he likes it very much, but he likes movies better than books.
This is where I was in my head when my thoughts strayed over to Tolkien. Did you know that The Hobbit and, by extension, The Lord of the Rings only exist (as published works) because of a child? Before I go on, let me state that I've read numerous biographies about Tolkien and C.S. Lewis including one about the two of them together and how their friendship influenced their writings. However, I don't have any of these books available to me at the moment as they are still in boxes in the garage [Yes, only unread books have been unpacked, at the moment. >sad<], so I'm going off of memory here. I'm not remembering exactly why Tolkien was seeking publication for The Hobbit, but it probably had to do with Lewis. Lewis was the impetus for pretty much all of Tolkien's fiction getting published, so it was probably Lewis back there saying, "You need to get this published." However, no one wanted The Hobbit. I don't mean there were a lot of rejections and, finally, someone said, "Yeah, I like it." No one wanted the The Hobbit. It was too different, and no one believed there would be an audience for it. Kind of like with the whole home computer thing.
At any rate, after no one wanted the book, the manuscript was sitting around someone's house. A big someone's house. Like the owner of the publishing company that eventually published The Hobbit. They had already said no to it. But something happened then. Something unexpected. The man's son got a hold of the manuscript, and he read it. He told his dad he should make it into a book. I think there was some discussion involved, but the son was firm in his opinion that The Hobbit be published. So, more to mollify his son than anything else, The Hobbit got published with a small print run of only 1500 copies. That was all. It has never been out of print since.
So here we are at the point. The climax, as it were. Traditional publishers didn't want The Hobbit. At all. It was a child. One boy who believed in a book with a father willing to humor him. The Hobbit is now considered the most influential piece of children's literature of the 20th century, and it almost never was. And this is why you shouldn't trust traditional publishing. The truth is that they don't know what they're doing. They don't know what's good and what's bad. They're not reading the books; they're just comparing aspects of them to what's popular and making judgements on what they think will sell. Any time anything slightly different comes along, they don't know what to do with it, and they tend to just say "no."
Kids should be reading through the slush pile. At least through the piles of things that are age appropriate. Kids don't care about what's popular (they do in that they are attracted to those things, but they don't evaluate new things based on the popularity of other things, not until they're teenagers, generally); they don't care about "how things are done;" they enter each new thing just as it is, a new thing, and they form their opinions based upon their interactions with that thing. It's unfortunate that, as adults, we can't enter into each new experience with those same sets of open eyes. That ability to not pre-categorize everything. That ability to not have made up our minds before an experience as to whether or not we'll like it.
As Yoda says, "Truly wonderful the mind of a child is."
So, really, don't take those rejections the wrong way. Even after the success of The Hobbit, the publisher (the same publisher, mind you) didn't want The Lord of the Rings. The wanted The Hobbit II. Tolkien really tried to give them what they asked for, but he just couldn't do it, and they kind of just published The Lord of the Rings because they knew they weren't going to get anything else, and they demanded severe changes in the text before even that happened. Like dividing it up into 3 volumes, which Tolkien hated and had to do extensive rewrites to accommodate. Of course, The Lord of the Rings is now considered the most significant piece of fiction of the 20th century. So, really, what do traditional publishers know?
It makes me wonder what pieces of literature the world has never seen because there was not a child available to advocate for it. It makes me sad.
[Note: In similar situation, none of the Hollywood studios would support Lucas' new movie Red Tails, which I really wanted to go see last weekend but didn't get to. Several of them completely snubbed the screening and didn't show at all. Lucas said they treated Red Tails the exact same way they treated Star Wars back in 1976. It's something different. Something that hasn't been done before. Even though it's Lucas, they won't support it. Fox grudgingly agreed to act as the distributor but only if Lucas footed the entire bill. What's the point, at that point? Hopefully, I'll have a review of this one soon, as Lucas says it's going to be his last "blockbuster" movie (other than one more Indiana Jones (if they do it)).]
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