For many young book worms, The Baby-Sitters Club was a must read at a certain age. Several generations of young girls have come of age reading and loving the series by Ann M. Martin.
In 1995, the books were made into a movie. The cast of then up and coming actresses included Larisa Oleynik as hippie Dawn, Rachael Leigh Cook as shy Mary Anne and Schuyler Fisk as tomboy Kristy. The premise of the movie is that while the girls are running a summer camp for the kids in the neighborhood, they are dealing with the growing pains that comes with early adolescence.
While some adult critics at the time might have dismissed the film, fans of the books (myself included) love it. Unlike other movies that are based on novels, The Baby-Sitters Club was true to its source material in narrative, character development and casting.
*Warning: This post contains spoilers about the new characters that were introduced to audiences for the episodes seven and eight in the Star Wars franchise. Read at your own risk if you have not seen The Force Awakens Or The Last Jedi.
There is something to be said about a well written, human character. They leap off the page and speak to us as if they were right in front us, as flesh and blood human beings, instead of fictional creations.
In this series of weekly blog posts, I will examine character using the characters from Star Wars to explore how writers can create fully dimensional, human characters that audiences and readers can relate to.
Hero worship is a funny thing. We may think that we know that person, but sometimes, the person behind the hero is two different people.
In The Last Jedi, a new character was introduced to the Star Wars Universe. Rose Tico (Kelly Marie Tran) is a mechanic who has toiled silently in the background for the rebellion. She is the last member of her family still living after her parents died in subjugation to the First Order and her sister died during the battle of evacuation and battle of D’Qar.
Rose’s hero-worship moment comes when she stops Finn from getting on one of the escape pods by knocking him out with an electro-shock prod. But, she does this after realizing that he is one of the heroes of the resistance. When Finn comes to, he convinces Rose to join him on the secret plan to stop the First Order by disabling the tracking device they are using to track the rebellion.
In the end, Rose becomes a hero herself. She not only sees Finn as a complete human being, but also rises to the occasion. She is no longer in the background, but in the foreground as one of the heroes of the rebellion.
To sum it up: Hero worship is a fine thing. But to understand a person, we have to look past their heroics and see the person. As writers, when we have a character who views another character through the lens of hero-worship, we have two options. We can either view that character through the rose-colored glasses of said hero worship. Or, we can take the time to reveal the human being underneath the hero.
Anyone who has lived and/or visited NYC will tell you that the public transit system is the lifeblood of the city. Without the MTA, New York City would not be New York City.
This week, it was announced that the cost of taking the trains and buses would be going up both next year and in 2021.
I get it, I really do. The MTA, like any organization, has expenses to pay. They have to maintain their payroll while getting their riders to their final destination in a reasonable amount of time. The subway system is more than a century old. The damage that Hurricane Sandy did to the system in 2012 is still not completely repaired.
The MTA is not the first company, nor is it the last company that will raise prices to insure that external and internal expenses are paid on time and in full.
But there is a catch here. The catch is that with the fare hike, the service improves. The MTA has been slowly raising the cost of riding the subways and buses for nearly a decade, but the service, for the most part, remains the same.
In the end, whatever the final total is on the price hike, we will pay it. We know it and the people who run the MTA know it. I just wish the quality of the service warranted the hike.
In television, there are two types of programs. The first type is engaging, entertaining and intellectually stimulating. The second type requires the least amount of brain cells and can often be described as demeaning. It’s therefore no surprise that some reality television shows fall into the second category.
The focus of Joe Millionaire was Evan Marriott. The female contestants vying for his affection are told that he is a wealthy man seeking a spouse. But the reality is that Mr. Marriott is far from wealthy, he is a construction worker. At the end of the series, the truth of his occupation was revealed. If the chosen woman stayed with Mr. Marriott, the couple would earn a million dollars.
The premise of Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire? was a cross between a Miss America like beauty pageant and a game show. The female contestants went through the motions of participating in a beauty pageant. But instead of earning the title that is ordinarily bestowed on the winner of such events, they earned the title of the wife of an unknown multi-millionaire. In the end, Darva Conger won the competition and instantly married Rick Rockwell. Let’s just say leave it as there was no happily ever after for this couple.
The problem with these shows is two-fold. The first issue is that it still spreads the idea that a woman’s only goal in life should be finding a husband. The second issue is that it says that some women, when they do marry, are for lack of a better term, gold diggers. They choose a spouse based on one’s fortune and not on one’s person.
I just find both shows to be despicable and a complete waste of my precious television viewing time.
Success in the entertainment industry in general and on television is sometimes like catching lightning in a bottle. You may get lucky once, but getting lucky twice is an opportunity that very few experience.
Nostalgia, especially in Hollywood is often the impetus for the creation of certain television shows and movies. These days, nostalgia for the 1990’s opened the door for both Will and Grace and Roseanne (that is, before the show was cancelled due to the Roseanne Barr’s Twitter foot in mouth disease) to be successfully rebooted. But that doesn’t mean that every rebooted movie or television show based on a classic will be a hit.
Back in the day, Buffy The Vampire Slayer and The Nanny were two of the most popular shows on television. So naturally the question came about from the studios about rebooting both Buffy and The Nanny.
As much as I would be interested in a reboot of both shows, the reality is that not every television show that was rebooted was successful. The modern reboots of Charlie’s Angels and Bionic Woman failed miserably.
Only time will tell if both shows are rebooted and how successful the reboots may be. But sometimes, it’s best to let the past remain in the past and that includes television shows.
For many in the first world, slavery appears to be a thing of the past. We read about it in history books and watch documentaries about it, but we think that it is no more in our modern world.
Sadly, slavery still exists. In Sudan, civilians were captured and enslaved the during the Second Sudanese Civil War.
Francis Bok was one of those enslaved. Captured as a young boy in the 1980’s, he escaped as a teenager and eventually found his way to America.
He recalls his experience in his 2003 memoir, Escape from Slavery: The True Story of My Ten Years in Captivity and My Journey to Freedom in America. Until the age of seven, Mr. Bok lived a happy life with his family in Southern Sudan. Then Arab raiders attacked his village and took him and hundreds of others as slaves. Successfully escaping at the age of seventeen after two previous attempts, Mr. Bok landed in Egypt before arriving in America.
I loved this book. It was both scary and thrilling at the same time. It was scary because I honestly believed the slavery no longer existed. It was thrilling as he finally made his way to freedom after years of treated as less than human.
When it comes to social reforms, there are two avenues: protest and amending the law.
When Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a young lawyer, the second wave of the feminist movement was at its height. While many saw the path to equality via protest, the future Justice Ginsburg understood that amending the law was just as important as public protest.
Her experience in this period of her life is documented in the upcoming film On The Basis Of Sex. Starring Felicity Jones as RBG and Armie Hammer as her late husband Martin Ginsburg, the film tells the story of the court case that would put RBG on the legal map and on the road to joining the Supreme Court decades later.
The problem with some biopics is that regardless of whether the subject is alive or dead, the facts don’t always make it to the final cut of the film. My hope (especially because RBG is still alive and kicking), is that the film (and Felicity Jones by extension) portrays RBG as she ought to be portrayed on the big screen.
On The Basis Of Sex hits theaters on December 25th.
Bullying in school has unfortunately been a part of many people’s educational experience for quite a few generations. The question is, can the young person being bullied rise above it or will the bullies win?
In the 2005 television movie, Odd Girl Out, (based on the book of the same name by Rachel Simmons) Vanessa (Alexa PenaVega) is part of the popular crowd. She is best friends with Stacey (Leah Pipes), the queen bee of the school. When Stacey finds out that they both have a crush on the same guy, Vanessa is not only kicked out of the popular crowd, but is also mercilessly bullied by her former friends. Can Vanessa regain her sense of self or will her bullies win?
The thing that strikes me about this television movie is that unlike other television movies about the high school experience, this movie felt real, raw and frankly quite painful. It is a reminder that bullying, especially in the school setting hurts and can potentially have life long negative consequences.
*Warning: This post contains spoilers about the new characters that were introduced to audiences for the episodes seven and eight in the Star Wars franchise. Read at your own risk if you have not seen The Force Awakens Or The Last Jedi.
There is something to be said about a well written, human character. They leap off the page and speak to us as if they were right in front us, as flesh and blood human beings, instead of fictional creations.
In this series of weekly blog posts, I will examine character using the characters from Star Wars to explore how writers can create fully dimensional, human characters that audiences and readers can relate to.
Becoming a hero is a wish that many have. Saving the day and receiving everything that comes with saving the day is a fantasy that has been the backbone of storytelling since the beginning of storytelling. But there is an unspoken reality of becoming a hero. Besides the danger that is involved, there may also be an ego trip and the inevitable fall that comes after the ego trip.
In the newest Star Wars films, Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) is a hero of the rebellion. The spiritual son of General Leia Organa (the late Carrie Fisher), he is not only one of the best pilots within the rebellion, but he is also being groomed as General Organa’s future second in command. In The Force Awakens, Poe is one of the core characters that is front and center in the war against The First Order.
Brash, passionate, emotional and a little reckless, Poe is everything the rebellion needs to prevent The First Order from taking over the entire galaxy.
In The Last Jedi, Poe is still the hero, but his recklessness becomes a negative attribute instead of a positive one. Disobeying orders, he leads a strike against the First Order that costs the lives of many and is promptly demoted. But even his demotion is not enough when he disagrees with the choices of his replacement, Admiral Holdo (Laura Dern). When he is working with Rose (Kelly Marie Tran) and Finn (John Boyega) to help the rebellion survive, his actions bring out the opposite result.
In the end, Poe redeems himself as a hero in the battle on the planet Crait, but not before having a few bumps and bruises along the way.
To sum it up: Being a hero and saving the day is not all fun and games. There is a reality to being a hero that is often not explored. When creating a character who wants to be a hero, making that character earn that hero title is in my opinion, necessary. It not only creates a realistic character arc, but it also keeps the audience or reader in their place, questioning when the character will become the hero they want to be.
No one goes through life without making at least one mistake. The hope is that most people learn from their mistake and try to prevent it from happening in the future.
But you know who is not most people. After the reaction of the American public to the speech in Helsinki earlier this week, a smart person would have thought twice about how to deal with Putin and the Russian government.
But you know who isn’t exactly the stable genius he publicly proclaims himself to be. After trying to save his skin by walking back on his speech, he decided that the smart thing would be to invite Putin to visit America in the fall.
If there was anyone else sitting in the Oval Office, this would be just another meeting between two world leaders.
But with you know who, this is not just a meeting between two world leaders.
Why don’t we just give Putin the American Presidency? Tear up the Bill Of Rights and throw the Constitution in a bonfire?
What Putin wants is to destroy the American democracy as we know it to be and you know who is stupidly playing into his hands.
Good job America, we really did vote for the best person for the job.
Writergurlny 
You must be logged in to post a comment.