by Jillian Leigh, Ampersandology
In writing my most recent piece for the Scope, I was reminded how wonderful the 1996 adaptation of Roald Dahl’s Matilda is. It’s the story of Matilda Wormwood, a child genius who’s writing before she can speak and reading Charles Dickens in kindergarten.
Unfortunately, her parents couldn’t care less. They balk at her reading during “family hour” (which in reality is closer to “yelling at the TV hour”). They don’t even bother to send her to school until an option emerges that sounds more like a military training camp than a facility of learning.
The trailer does little to convey just what a cleverly subversive and smart children’s film Matilda is. I’d honestly say that until recently I hadn't seen the film in 9 or 10 years, but I never forgot how much I loved it. I’d read the book some years earlier, and admittedly, probably over-identified with the young heroine. But after rewatching the film, I think what I admired most was its unflinching faithfulness to the book. The film, transplanted from the book’s staunch British setting to the American suburbs, loses none of its viciousness towards narrow-minded people. In fact, it becomes a tidy little tirade against pride in lowbrow idiocy.
In theory, Matilda is a disturbing book, full of child neglect, abusive authority figures and gross injustice. During the introduction to the book’s villain, Headmistress Trunchbull, she is so offended by a student’s flaxen pigtails that she pitches the girl by her braids out of the schoolyard. Of course it’s absurd, but it confirms the very thing that most children have suspected at one time or another: that the rules and punishments that adults inflict upon them are arbitrary, uncontrollable, and beyond unfair.
Of course, I didn’t catch any of the disturbing bits when I was little. I just relieved to hear a story that finally admitted the unfairness of being a kid, especially a clever one.
Matilda was also my first Dahl, given to me by my mother who thought I’d find something to relate to in a little girl who loved to read. After that, there wasn’t much hope: Roald Dahl became THE beloved fixture from my formative years, able to uncannily pinpoint the precise fears a child believes is true even when grownups reassure them that all is well. I think that’s the lesson that stood out most for me from a steady diet of Dahl: the world is a scary and unfair place sometimes, but there are glimmers of wonder in even the bleakest situations. Dahl’s storytelling never deviates from this basic axiom, giving his tiny little readers the certainty that although it might get hairy, there’s usually something resembling a happy ending at the story’s close.
Of course, when little Matilda is left by her on the lam parents to live with her angelic, aptly named teacher Miss Honey, and you’re cheering for parental abandonment, you realize: with Roald Dahl, the definition of a happy ending is impressively broad.
*
Anyone else got a favourite? I’d hate to see offbeat treasures like Matilda be lost to the Disneyfication of childhood.
Unfortunately, her parents couldn’t care less. They balk at her reading during “family hour” (which in reality is closer to “yelling at the TV hour”). They don’t even bother to send her to school until an option emerges that sounds more like a military training camp than a facility of learning.
The trailer does little to convey just what a cleverly subversive and smart children’s film Matilda is. I’d honestly say that until recently I hadn't seen the film in 9 or 10 years, but I never forgot how much I loved it. I’d read the book some years earlier, and admittedly, probably over-identified with the young heroine. But after rewatching the film, I think what I admired most was its unflinching faithfulness to the book. The film, transplanted from the book’s staunch British setting to the American suburbs, loses none of its viciousness towards narrow-minded people. In fact, it becomes a tidy little tirade against pride in lowbrow idiocy.
In theory, Matilda is a disturbing book, full of child neglect, abusive authority figures and gross injustice. During the introduction to the book’s villain, Headmistress Trunchbull, she is so offended by a student’s flaxen pigtails that she pitches the girl by her braids out of the schoolyard. Of course it’s absurd, but it confirms the very thing that most children have suspected at one time or another: that the rules and punishments that adults inflict upon them are arbitrary, uncontrollable, and beyond unfair.
Of course, I didn’t catch any of the disturbing bits when I was little. I just relieved to hear a story that finally admitted the unfairness of being a kid, especially a clever one.
Matilda was also my first Dahl, given to me by my mother who thought I’d find something to relate to in a little girl who loved to read. After that, there wasn’t much hope: Roald Dahl became THE beloved fixture from my formative years, able to uncannily pinpoint the precise fears a child believes is true even when grownups reassure them that all is well. I think that’s the lesson that stood out most for me from a steady diet of Dahl: the world is a scary and unfair place sometimes, but there are glimmers of wonder in even the bleakest situations. Dahl’s storytelling never deviates from this basic axiom, giving his tiny little readers the certainty that although it might get hairy, there’s usually something resembling a happy ending at the story’s close.
Of course, when little Matilda is left by her on the lam parents to live with her angelic, aptly named teacher Miss Honey, and you’re cheering for parental abandonment, you realize: with Roald Dahl, the definition of a happy ending is impressively broad.
*
Anyone else got a favourite? I’d hate to see offbeat treasures like Matilda be lost to the Disneyfication of childhood.
3 comments:
Your blog keeps getting better and better! Your older articles are not as good as newer ones you have a lot more creativity and originality now keep it up!
You are right, it is exact
All about one and so it is infinite
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