Every August, one of the theaters in downtown Cleveland puts up a big movie screen and shows a series of classic films throughout the month. Today, I went and saw The Muppet Movie there with my daughter.
I thought it would be fun to share the movie with her. She didn't know anything about the Muppets and I had always loved them as a kid, so it seemed like the perfect opportunity for both of us.
I gotta say, I did not love it as much as I did when I was little. It was just so slow. It just seemed like all the characters and the action moved at a snail's pace and there were points where I was really bored with it.
But then I thought maybe, just maybe, I was judging The Muppet Movie by today's standards. Movies like Shrek and Toy Story move at a quick pace, piling joke upon joke, action upon action. Maybe it's a reflection of a world that moves faster, where we can find any information we need within seconds. I just don't have time to watch Kermit play his banjo and sing Rainbow Connection (oh, whatever, yes I do).
It made me realize why it's so important for writers to be well-read in contemporary fiction. The classics are great (in fact, they're incredible), but they're not going to teach you much about what modern readers are interested in. If you're using Jane Austen as a model for pacing in your writing (and I pretty much use Jane Austen as a model for everything), it's just not going to be quite right, just like the Muppets weren't right for me today, even though I thought they were awesome back in 1986.
This is something I really struggle with. I am too in love with the classics and I always have to remind myself that, while there is something to be learned from Steinbeck and the Brontës (a whole lot to be learned, in fact), if I don't read what living writers are producing I'm not going to be creating something that living people want to read.
So, thanks Muppets. Oh, and I'm still singing this.
-- Lisa
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