I asked you a simple question! Do you love her? YES! But don't hold that against me, I'm a little screwy myself!

Wednesday, July 08, 2009

Judy, Julie, and the Inevitable Creep Factor


Recently, I took a long road trip and, in the course of preparing for that road trip, I stumbled upon Librivox. It's a site that offers free downloads of audiobooks in the public domain. I downloaded and burned several books for my trip. One of these books was Daddy-Long-Legs by Jean Webster.

It's probably not a book I would have chosen to read the old-fashioned way. I was only slightly interested in it when I saw it on LibriVox because I'd seen the Fred Astaire movie of the same name and wanted to see how the two compared. The answer is that both book and movie hinge on a somewhat creepy premise (the main character falls in love with her much older benefactor), but the former actually does something a bit more interesting in the mean time.

In the book, Jerusha "Judy" Abbott is an American orphan who is sent to college by an anonymous benefactor and required to send him a monthly letter. With the exception of the first chapter, the book is narrated by Judy in the form of her letters to her Daddy-Long-Legs (the nickname deriving from her solitary imcomplete glimpse of him at the orphanage). As a result, we are given a fascinating slice of the life of a woman's college in the early 1900s (the book was published in 1912). Judy lists her subjects--French, Chemistry, Latin--and the traditions of the college, such as attending chapel and hearing visiting preachers. She is frank as she details her dislike of the orphanage she came from and her shame at being an orphan. Her letters reveal a good deal of spirit, as she rebels against her benefactor when he tries to control her unduly. All in all, Daddy-Long-Legs was a fascinating listen, if for nothing else than Judy's bald declaration that she's a Socialist.

Not that it's surprising, but the Hollywood adaptation of the book in 1955 leaves out most of what was interesting about the book. Judy has become Julie, a French orphan played by Leslie Caron. The awful American orphanage has become a delightful French one with adorably accented moppets singing along to their English lesson. And the focus of the film is not Julie Andre, but Jervis Pendleton, the benefactor and the part played by Fred Astaire. Julie's letters, her personality and voice, are sparingly meted out in the film, for the most part exchanged for colorful 50s-style dance numbers. Her college days (the main focus of the book) are telegraphed in passing scenes in her dorm and one school dance. Whereas Judy was an aspiring writer, we are left to wonder what, if anything, Julie plans to do with her life. In rewatching the film yesterday, I was struck by what was lost in that transition. Not only is the film far from feminist, any incidental critique of capitalism in the United States is excised. America is entirely a land of opportunity for the poor French girl, rather than a place where capitalism is kind to some and cruel to others. Of course, the film is a product of the time it was created--a time when women's rights were retreating under cultural attack while at the same time consumerism was on the rise.

Still, this comparison of book and movie makes me wonder what a more accurate adaptation would look like. Or even, how an adaptation that set the story in our time would play out. It could certainly be no more unfortunately creepy than a 56-year-old Fred Astaire romancing a 24-year-old Leslie Caron:


1 Comments:

Anonymous Erika S said...

Hmmm...the book sounds goods indeed. And how does one listen and drive. Dont you ever get put to sleep?

5:02 PM

 

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