Subject: RE: Ghost World
From: horanp (horanp@kenyon.edu)
Date: Fri Jul 20 2001 - 10:55:09 GMT
>two young ladies whose "main activity, though, is mocking--with a
>callow conviction worthy of Holden Caulfield--the phoniness and
>hypocrisy that surrounds them."
I have three younger sisters, ages 17, 15, and 13, and THEIR main
activity is mocking as well, I'm afraid, except not with the same wit and
adolescent catharsis that Holden maintains. They mock simply to mock
(ruthlessly at times) and it is really quite terrible. Friends of the
17-year-old one have actually been asked to leave their high school because of
how cruel they were to their peers. Does anyone else feel unable to
pass this off as a "phase" and fear that it may become a "tendency" or
"norm" in female teenage life? I cannot help thinking that life is
beginning to imitate art, in a sense, as young girls continue this trend
because they think they have to. It makes me sick and depressed
when, for instance, my sister defends her using the word "gay"
pejoratively because "it's slang."
I don't mean to rant like this, but Will's excerpt from the pretty
well-written article prompted me to think
about all this, especially when listening to the NPR show when callers asked
about how teenagers might
relate to Holden. The way I did, personally, was to see a bigger picture:
there are many things to be
cynical about and mock, but to do so leaves on desperate to find love
anywhere, often without prevail.
Man does not live on criticism alone.
pete.
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