X-Git-Url: http://unremediatedgender.space/source?p=Ultimately_Untrue_Thought.git;a=blobdiff_plain;f=content%2Fdrafts%2Fbook-review-johnny-the-walrus.md;fp=content%2Fdrafts%2Fbook-review-johnny-the-walrus.md;h=8e56daac4fc9226731ab83f466a76112079e5c3b;hp=bc0f60046ff517c0ebc2ee53c877b55aa2891ce6;hb=7934516ab39e428cc84481b768e91496b625069c;hpb=a970180a20f32e035f39ed035344eef514654391 diff --git a/content/drafts/book-review-johnny-the-walrus.md b/content/drafts/book-review-johnny-the-walrus.md index bc0f600..8e56daa 100644 --- a/content/drafts/book-review-johnny-the-walrus.md +++ b/content/drafts/book-review-johnny-the-walrus.md @@ -6,4 +6,8 @@ Status: draft This is a terrible children's book that could have been great if the author could have just [_pretended to be subtle_](/tag/deniably-allegorical/). Our protagonist, Johnny, is a kid who loves to play make-believe. One day, he pretends to be a walrus, fashioning "tusks" for himself with wooden spoons, and "flippers" from socks. Unfortunately, Johnny's mother takes him literally: she has him put on gray makeup, gives him worms to eat, and takes him to the zoo to be with the "other" walruses. Uh-oh! Will Johnny have to live as a "walrus" forever? -With competent execution, this could be a great children's book! The premise is not realistic—no sane parent would conclude their child is _literally_ a walrus _because he said so_—but it's a kind of non-realism common in children's literature, attributing simple, caricatured motivations to characters in order to tell a silly, memorable story. If there happens to be an obvious analogy between the silly, memorable story and an ideological fad affecting otherwise-sane parents in the current year ... +With competent execution, this could be a great children's book! The premise is not realistic—no sane parent would conclude their child is _literally_ a walrus _because he said so_—but it's a kind of non-realism common in children's literature, attributing simple, caricatured motivations to characters in order to tell a silly, memorable story. If there happens to be an obvious parallel between the silly, memorable story and an ideological fad affecting otherwise-sane parents in the current year, that's plausibly (or at least deniably) not the _author's_ fault ... + +But Matt Walsh completely flubs the execution by making it a satire rather than an allegory! The result is cringey right-wing propaganda rather than a silly, memorable story that I could read to a child without feeling ashamed. (It's well-known that the left can't meme, but that advantage doesn't secure the outcome of the culture war if the right can't write children's literature.) + +Rather than being a silly non-realistic children's-literature grown-up, Johnny's mother is portrayed as being duped by social media. ("But Johnny's mom's phone said it's not just pretend / 'Only a bigot would say that! How dare you offend!'", with angry emoji and inverted Facebook thumbs-up icons bubbling out of her phone into the scene.) \ No newline at end of file