Young Americans - YA's narrative perspective: present reality, memory, or dream? - Page 4

Finnegan · 01-18-2012, 01:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wolkenfuehlen (View Post)

^ I wasn't aware that 'dream' was actually used that frequently in the dialogue of the show! Is there any more of it after episode 5?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Finnegan (View Post)

No, Anja, there's not, either in the episodes as aired or in the material that Jeweliana cut from the production scripts to make them more like the episodes as aired.

The only other dream reference is Will's self-description in his essay in the unaired pilot: "I am the dream of a better life." That literally says it all.

Sorry, Anja, I'm an idiot.

Indeed, there's no reference to dreams in the dialogue of Young Americans after episode 5. But the last episode, like the first episode, closes with an incredibly powerful reference to dreams in the soundtrack -- with Israel K's rendition of "Over the Rainbow," from the 1939 film classic, The Wizard of Oz (to which YA 3 and YA 5 also allude):

Somewhere over the rainbow, way up high,
There's a land that I heard of, once in a lullaby.
Somewhere over the rainbow, skies are blue
And the dreams that you dare to dream, really do come true.

The whole drama ends with that. As we see the Dean's note, telling Will he can come back, posted on a mirror. Because it's us who can go back to Rawley, whenever we please, the same way that Will went there -- by dreaming. Dreaming of becoming better than we are by loving better than we do.

wolkenfuehlen · 01-21-2012, 12:02 PM

But of course! I had completely forgotten about the 'dream' mention in the lyrics!

s e r e n i t y · 01-24-2012, 02:22 PM

Aww and thats such an important and significant use of dream, how could we have missed it?

Finnegan · 02-08-2012, 03:32 AM

Is there a case for considering Young Americans as magical realism?

Quote:

Very briefly defined, magical realism combines realism and the fantastic so that the marvelous seems to grow organically within the ordinary, blurring the distinction between them.

-- Wendy B. Faris, Ordinary Enchantments: magical realism and the remystification of narrative. Vanderbilt Univ. Press, 2004, p. 1

Quote:

One of the unique features of magical realism is its reliance upon the reader to follow the example of the narrator in accepting both realistic and magical perspectives of reality on the same level. It relies upon the full acceptance of the veracity of the fiction during the reading experience.

-- Maggie Ann Bowers. Magic(al) Realism. New York: Routledge, 2004. p. 3

Perhaps why we aren't told either that Krudski is not narrating from the present about the present (and that Bella and Scout aren't half siblings) under the end of the final episode?

Quote:

Magical realist works do not seek to primarily satisfy a popular audience, but instead, a sophisticated audience that must be attuned to noticing textual "subtleties." ... There are two modes in postmodern literature: one, commercially successful pop fiction, and the other, philosophy, better suited to intellectuals. A singular reading of the first mode will render a distorted or reductive understanding of the text. ... The magic realist writer with difficulty must reach a balance between saleability and intellectual integrity. ...

The reader must let go of preexisting ties to conventional exposition, plot advancement, linear time structure, scientific reason, etc. ...

-- Magic realism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Does Steven Antin think in these terms? Oh yes:

Quote:

Gilchrist: This movie [Burlesque] could have been like Chicago—something that doesn't necessarily take place in the real world. Why was it important to you to have a real world outside of the Burlesque club?

Antin: It had already been done in Chicago, magical realism.

-- Todd Gilchrist, "Interview: Steven Antin," BoxOffice Magazine, March 3, 2011

A boy that turn into a girl when another boy kisses him .... But in YA, sheer goodness is the real magic: it's all too good to be true ... unless one believes that that's an oxymoron, that veritas est virtus.


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