Student Perspectives

I am William McGonagle, a current teacher at La Grange High School. I teach Senior English and due to the threat ofAI, I am forcing all of my students to write their papers in-class and on pencil and paper. The students are truly thinking for themselves, so I figured I would share their perspectives throughout the school year from their Writer’s Notebooks.

The following essay was written by Madilynn Wright in a 30 minute time-frame in class. She was excited for me to share her thoughts with the community concerning the prompt below that she chose from a list of various topics.

Essay Prompt: Movie-goers have long enjoyed (or maybe been disappointed by) seeing their favorite books, –plays, etc., come to life on the big screen. How do you feel about literatureturned- movies? Explain.

Recently, the movie industry has turned quite a few pieces of literature into live action television. The storylines from literature tend to be missing a few pieces of information in most movies. Sometimes it’s a missing character, sometimes it’s a different name than from the original story, and sometimes it’s just a few different actions. It tends to upset book-lovers who sometimes feel like the story isn’t being honored, remembered, or appreciated.

However, while I agree that sometimes it may be frustrating that it’s clearly different and oftentimes bland, I still enjoy watching it in real time. To be honest, I am not a big book reader to begin with, but I still have my opinions.

Another huge thing that I don’t appreciate is when it is a documentary about someone’s life and their personal words and experiences are far from accurate. I feel that takes away from the purpose of the story. It spreads false information to viewers and sometimes, in certain cases, it could be considered dangerous.

Furthermore, tons of people who love to read literature often refuse to watch the live action version, because they believe it takes away the authenticity of the book and the author’s words. People are so used to the original stories, fairytales, and fantasies that if the story is jeopardized it won’t be worth it. I strongly believe that credit is due to the original author. It is important because non-book readers may have never known there was a book that inspired the movie in the first place.

Another thing that can be frustrating is how directors cast the characters. Sometimes producers of a movie or TV show decide to change names of main characters, or change the physical appearance of a character that may be described differently than in the novel.

So while I still love to watch movies regardless of the accuracy from the original literature, I still understand how it can be upsetting to take away authenticity.