Previously, on Save the Peals: Eden and Bramford arrived at a Huaorani village. When two young Huaorani girls saw Eden, they repeated the name “Rebecca” way too many times, prompting Eden to ask Bramford WTF they’re talking about. After escalating to accusations of violence, Bramford throws Eden into a dilapidated prison hut. Eden decides that she will remain calm and collected in an attempt to “tame him”.
Continue reading “Save the Pearls: Chapter 20 (Or, Never go full BEAST MODE)”
So Lani Sarem did an interview with Idobi Network, an Internet radio station last night. The only reason I listened to it was because I checked her twitter and it was happening in like five minutes, and I had nothing better to do than listen along. In my defense, it’s been a while since we’ve heard any developments on the HfM movie front, and I was thirsty for answers.
EDIT: To listen to the interview yourself, click HERE
Right off the bat, the interviewer asked Lani about her history as a creative person, and, unsurprisingly, she brought up her history as an amateur screenwriter. As you probably know, Lani Sarem began writing her own screenplays (in which she would naturally cast herself as the lead) at the age of 11. However, instead of saying “why wait for someone to write a role for me” as she did in her ThreeGeeks interview, this time, she said something about how even at the age of 11 she knew there weren’t a lot of great roles for women, and therefore wanted to write her own:
My dream and desire as a child was to make movies and I began writing scripts at 11 because I knew that there weren’t a lot of great female roles. As an 11 year old, way before this was like a bog topic of discussion, so that’s why I started writing scripts (3:48)
Later, while talking about the production of the film that is supposedly actually happening (color me skeptical), the interviewer followed up on Lani’s assertion that there would be a female director by asking if there were any directors officially attached to the project.
The official answer is. . . No. This movie does not yet have anyone attached. They are, however, “in talks” with a few female directors, one of whom, according to Lani, has directed a female-led movie in a franchise before. No names were specifically mentioned.
But Lani is super psyched about her #feminist movie, say something along the lines of
“When have we had a brand-new project with a female character? Probably Hunger Games.“
I don’t have the interview on-hand, so I don’t know if that’s an exact quote as of yet. I wrote it down as she said it. It was in the context of how Wonder Woman just came out, but Wonder Woman’s been around forever. What I love about this bit though is that it shows how narrow Lani’s cultural radar is. The first Hunger Games film came out in 2012. Since then we have had three female-led Star Wars, a female-led Pixar film, Hidden Figures, HBO’s Big Little Lies, Westworld, and the last two seasons of Game of Thrones have been really fucking big on Stronk Empowered Wimmin. Lady Bird has been nominated for best picture, as has Three Billboards(. . .). There was Atomic Blonde, and then this year we’ve got Ava DuVernay doing A Wrinkle in Time (GET HYPE). Not all of these were feminist works. I didn’t even like all of them. And I’m not even saying that women have reached equal representation in film. My point is just that having a female lead isn’t exactly novel.
And this is how we ended up with Jackson Rathbone as the lead vocalist in the Plain White T’s:
Originally (as I FUCKING CALLED), Jackson was not a significant character. In fact, Jackson was initially ACTUALLY JACKSON RATHBONE.
You see, originally, Jackson Rathbone and his band 100 Monkeys were imagined to have a cameo role in Lani’s screenplay. Then, I guess when Lani went on to manage the Plain White T’s, she changed the cameo band to that. I guess Jackson had a minor role, though, so Jackson Rathbone was kept in. BUT THEN the Love Triangle was introduced (again, as I FUCKING CALLED) and that must be when Jackson Rathbone became Jackson Milsap. She didn’t even bother changing his first name:
If I’m gonna write a script, why shouldn’t I—originally I’d written it kinda a small cameo idea, and then really like the idea of—originally it was less of a love triangle and then just kinda really liked the idea of—once you start writing, characters kind of have a life of their own, so as I kept writing and writing they kind of became their own sorta characters. And then actually when the band became no longer 100 Monkeys I had changed that character’s name from Jackson and then just really changed it a couple times and then realized that his name was Jackson, that this character was supposed to be Jackson, so I changed it back. So at that point it wasn’t really related to Jackson Rathbone at all anymore. (9:03)
When the interviewer asked if the Plain White T’s would have a cameo in the film, Lani replied that she thinks so, barring “scheduling conflicts.” (7:57)
Finally, someone asked her about the conspicuous similarity of HfM’s cover art to Gill Del-Mace’s The Knifethrower.
Lani’s rationalization:
“We didn’t do anything illegal”
According to Lani, she had the idea of a girl sitting in front of a “death wheel” and thought that Del-Mace’s piece looked better than other reference images she could give to her artist (or something?). She talked about how there are only so many ways for someone to sit on a stool (or something) and about a heuristic for figuring out if you’re veering too close to plagiarism (make a list of similarities and differences, if there are more differences than similarities you’re good? Something like that), and how she’s talked to lawyers and they’ve all given her the OK. Then she said something about it being an intentional homage. She also said something about how comic book artists rip each other off all the time, so yeah.
She also said that she doesn’t think anyone would have cared if the book hadn’t gotten such negative attention.
So we’ve all heard Lani’s many retorts to her detractors. Basically, she doesn’t think that any of her critics have ever read her book. Or they’re specifically looking for reasons not to like it. Or they’re getting bent out-of-shape about a few typos here and there. And there are people who hate Twilight and 50 Shades, but those are still massively successful franchises.
Oh, but
“I get fan mail from girls about how they love Zade and want to be her!”
Suuuuuure.
She also talked about the Facebook writer’s group drama, making it seem like people were looking down on her for having written HfM as a screenplay first, rather than, you know, publishing a book with zero redeeming qualities as a stepping stone to movie stardom:
I noticed sometimes that even in writer’s groups—I’m a part of one writer’s group on Facebook and there’s like 75000 members—and you know we all talk about our projects sometimes and I was talking about my project, and somebody got really angry and was like “SHE’S JUST A SCRIPT WRITER! She doesn’t belong in here” and the admin was like “this is for any kind of writers. We don’t care what you write. (11:50)
As you may remember, there has been controversy over exactly what genre HfM falls under. Is it Young Adult? Is it New Adult? What is “Young Adult,” anyway? Is it “New Adult” if the most salacious it gets is a knee-popping kiss and the language puts it at a weak PG? Lani and the interviewer seem thoroughly perplexed. It’s kind of cute. It’s like watching people become postmodern Cultural Marxists in real time. Maybe one day we’ll get Lani Sarem’s woke views on how gender is a social construct.
Basically, Lani argues that the NYT classified it as Young Adult, but in her heart of hearts, she agrees. She talked about how, like, age of the character is super arbitrary. And like, if age of the protagonists defines the target audience, then isn’t Pixar’s Up for senior citizens? (Fun fact: According to someone who went to her “How I Navigated the NYT Bestseller List panel at Agile Writer’s Conference,” she touched on this there as well. )
I’m not going to argue the point that genre is a horribly imprecise, ill-defined taxonomy. I’m fairly sure that anyone who has done much reading has thought about genre and how arbitrary it is, so it’s kind of funny to hear someone wrestling with it for the first time.
That was everything vaguely interesting from this interview. There was a lot of victim-complex-ing on display, and the only way anyone could ever hate her book is because they were prejudiced from the start, etc. She did a lot of rationalization about how people bought the books at cons because the just love Thomas Ian Nichols so much (I’d literally never heard of him before this drama started). But we’ve heard all that before.
Previously, on Save the Pearls: Eden ducked away from camp to look for a hidden Life-Band in her backpack, but then some adorable, mischievous monkeys stole the backpack! Eden chased after them and ended up falling off a cliff into a river, but Bramford was able to save the day by carrying her to safety. When the two made it ashore, they cuddled up together for a romantic nap.
Lol, remember when I said I’d be updating more regularly? I lied. Oh well.
Previously, on Save the Pearls: Eden arrived at a shitty little village where indigenous Amazonian tribespeople speak Spanish. She thought about how rap music heralded humanity’s downfall, and threw a tantrum about the gross food. Her dad was condescending, and Eden sneaked away to check if by some miracle a Life-Band was smuggled into her luggage.
Continue reading “Save the Pearls: Chapter 16 (Or, Sexy Slapstick!)”
Apologies this recap’s delay. Shit in real life got busy.
Previously, on Save the Pearls: The Crew landed in the Amazon, and Bramford was greeted as a Aztec Jaguar Messiah by the Huaorani, who are native to the Amazon. Somehow Eden and her father didn’t spontaneously combust when they stepped into the equatorial sunlight. Now, they’re off to “La Zona Intangibale” which is bafflingly translated to mean “No-Man’s Land.”
Continue reading “Save the Pearls: Chapter 15 (Or, Rap Artists did Climate Change)”
Previously on Save the Pearls: Eden was hankering for a Life-Band, and she harassed the flight attendant Daisy into telling her where they were going. The answer? THE AMAZON. Also she had rape fantasies about Bramford, etc. You know the drill.
Continue reading “Save the Pearls: Chapter 14 (or, Aztecs in the Amazon)”
Previously, on Save the Peals: Eden whined about how her dad doesn’t love her, and whined about Bramford taking her cell-phone earing, and whined about how sexy he was, and whined and whined and whined.
Continue reading “Save the Pearls: Chapter 13 (or, Chimney-Sweep Chic)”
Previously, on Save the Pearls: Eden, Bramford, and Dr. Dad escaped on an airplane. then they escape on another airplane at Mach 20! Eden thinks Bramford is a major fucking hottie, but also thinks about how he’ll be rejected from society due to his new catface? Then she went on an Oxy bender. Yeah, it’s kind of all over the place.
Continue reading “Save the Pearls: Chapter 12 (or, Sex, Drugs, and A Goddamn Nerd)”
Previously, on Save the Pearls: In the span of one minute and thirty seconds, Bramford and Eden scared off the FFP, evacuated the lab, got on Bramford’s airplane, and took off. Then the lab exploded, and Eden was sad about her dog probably dying in the explosion.
Continue reading “Save the Pearls: Chapter 11 (Or, A Compelling Case for Bestiality)”
Previously, on Save the Pearls: Captured by Jamal and his FFP communist/terrorist/racist pals, Eden had to think fast to fuck up their plans. Her solution? Burn fucking everything. While this allowed her to escape, the FFP caught up to her. When all was lost, Bramford completed his transition to being a literal cat man, and Eden was totally into it.
Oh, and even though this chapter doesn’t escalate the rascism past what we’ve seen, it still manages to be the worst chapter yet!
Continue reading “Save the Pearls: Chapter 10 (Or, Alpha Male Pwns Beta Leftists)”
Blandbook for Chortles 