I just finished reading the YA novel Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews. The plot is
basically Greg and Earl befriend Rachel (a girl who has cancer) and make a film
for her. The movie based on this book was released last summer. I read it this
week, and I was surprised by how much it made
the black characters stereotypes. The first thing that struck me was when introducing the “jocks” Greg, the main
character, says “they’re pretty much all black, and many of the white kids are
afraid of them.” It only gets worse from there.
When Greg introduces his friend Earl, the fact that he is black
is one of the first things he tells the reader. Pretty much the only things Earl says are
profane and/or violent. Earl’s family is even worse. There are no men in Earl’s
house. Earl’s dad is “in Texas or something” and his half brothers’ dad is in
prison. Greg’s dad, however, is a college professor who is an active part of
Greg’s life. When Greg goes to visit Earl’s house, Earl’s brother breaks Greg’s
arm over a small disagreement because Earl’s family is just that violent. Greg
has trouble in school, and a teacher arranges with his parents for Greg to stay
after school every day for tutoring. Greg says Earl is in classes where “you
could staple a dead animal to your homework and still pass”. Earl’s aspirations
for life are to be a manager at Wendy’s. Greg isn’t sure what he wants to do,
but the book ends with his hopes of going to film school and it’s clear that he
has a lot of options.
This is really troubling, especially because the film
adaptation was widely acclaimed and received awards at the Sundance Film
Festival. Not surprisingly, I’m not the only one to write about Earl’s
portrayal. If you’re interested check out these links:
http://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/whats-missing-from-me-and-earl-and-the-dying-girl
Movies and books, that are a part of the "slice of life" genre that portrays the life and perspective of a white male main character can really perpetuate and exaggerate the stereotypes within that character's mind which could be the author or writer's intent. Not to glorify the stereotypes but show the character's flawed humanity and inference of the social world around him. Many different authors have done this; F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Steinbeck, William Faulkner, and many others have used this unstable, flawed, sometimes racist main white male character not to perpetuate stereotypes but exhibit the flawed way a majority of privileged society thinks about the world around them.
ReplyDeleteThis is so great... I was so aggravated with how Earl was portrayed in the film, but the book seems even more stereotypical. He's, in my opinion, the most important character and is meant to be a kind of moral compass in Greg's narcissistic world-view, showing him that he is very privileged in comparison to Earl. But I didn't like how they went about this. They should have made it more obvious that Greg is an asshole (who is wrong) in his depiction of Earl if that was the author's intent.
ReplyDeleteI have yet to see the movie for this, and I probably won't read the book, but I have heard some people discussing the issues you brought up in your post. I think it's an important issue to discuss because it's so prevalent in almost every form of media today which is a real shame.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to be that more attention needed to be paid to genuine character development. When the building of one character is completely dependent on the development of another character, there is a fundamental flaw in the ability to portray characters consistent to their nature.
ReplyDelete