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As far
as the material updates are concerned, Francine Pascal's team
of ghostwriters was pretty thorough with the rewritten Sweet
Valley High. Even the subtlest of word choices have changed
to reflect the times. Mr. Collins, the handsome young journalism
advisor, has chucked his strawberry blonde hair for a more
manly sounding sandy blonde. Meanwhile, local rock band the
Droids have skirted a George Lucas lawsuit by regrouping as
Valley of Death, which sounds like a bad screamo band, but
between their appearances at school functions and singer Dana
Larson's comment about "imperialistic social climbers," I'm
thinking they sound more like the bastard love children of
Rilo Kiley and the (International) Noise Conspiracy.
Contemporary
pop culture references are a little heavy handed, though,
with tons of blatant pop cultural name dropping throughout,
including references to Oprah, The Fast and the
Furious, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Roberto Cavalli. Brand names
are big, with Jessica strutting around school in Roxy dresses,
her nouveau riche best friend Lila Fowler carrying
a Louis Vuitton handbag, Liz buying skirts from J. Crew, and
even Liz's best friend Enid Rollins wearing Juicy Couture
sweats. It's like sifting through 50 pages of ads to read
a 20-page fashion magazine. I can't remember the originals
being so brand conscious—and they were written in the
'80s!
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| The
original 1983 cover (top) and the new 2008 cover of Sweet
Valley High #2: Secrets. |
I do,
however, recall the intense name checking of cars in the originals,
and the revisions again reflect the times. Now, the twins
drive a perky red Jeep Wrangler (which, I imagine, is roomier
than their old Fiat Spider but definitely not as luxurious),
while bad boy Rick Andover drives a tricked out VW Eos with
running lights and a racing stripe. Scandalously, Bruce Patman
trades in his ubiquitous black Porsche for a Cadillac XLR
Roadster. In and of itself, the swap makes sense. In the '80s,
driving a Porsche made Bruce a rich, hot yuppie; nowadays,
it makes him a rich, middle aged movie producer who still
wants to be Jake Ryan from Sixteen Candles. What's
treasonous is that the writers have dumped Bruce's infamous
"1BRUCE1" license plates. And I'm sorry, but arrogant Bruce
Patman does not go without his vanity plates!
Despite
all of the changes, the kitschy '80s stereotypes are still
surprisingly obvious. The names, for example, are fairly outdated
and sound even yuppier than they did the first time around.
Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield? Bruce Patman? Lila Fowler?
We're just one Blane McDonnagh away from our own exclusive
country club. Even Winston Egbert (the Screech Powers to Jessica's
Lisa Turtle) has a predictably '80s name to fit his dorky
class clown persona.
The plots,
of course, are still gigantic high school clichés.
Secrets, for example, revolves around Jessica conniving
her way into the homecoming crown and Bruce's shallow, self-absorbed
heart. Thinking ahead, most of the upcoming plots seem even
more like serialized afterschool specials than they did before.
Imagine getting an 11 year-old nowadays to sit through stories
with morals like "be true to your black best friend" (book
69, Friend Against Friend), "don't go fabricating rumors
because people will discover the truth in your slam book"
(book 48, Slam Book Fever), and "don't cheat on your
hot deaf girlfriend or else she'll go snort coke and die"
(book 40, On the Edge).
The problem,
it seems, is not the overhauling itself but rather the restrictions
of the overhaul. Even with the updated technology and vernacular,
the old storylines and behaviors keep the books firmly rooted
in the past. Moreover, the Wakefields are returning to a YA
market that is more candid and more daring. Today's teens
and 'tweens are not afraid to read racier storylines in their
slice of life books, and the authors are not afraid to write
them. The Gossip Girl characters openly drink, do drugs,
and flaunt their sexuality. Sara Zarr's National Book Award-nominated
Story of a Girl details the life of a teen who is caught
having sex with her older brother's friend. Even Stephenie
Meyer, that nice Mormon lady behind the wildly popular Twilight
series, writes about a teenage Bella Swan trying to get her
sex on with her hot vampire boyfriend. Bella doesn't even
want to go to her prom, let alone be voted prom queen!
Of course,
the racier books reflect the changing attitudes of their audience,
which is currently helping the YA market expand. The girls
nowadays were born in the '90s, during the time of riot grrrls,
Lilith Fair, and Girl Power, and most of their attitudes have
changed accordingly. I'd like to believe that if Rick Andover
attempted to carjack one of my female students and take her
on a drunken joyride, she'd take the heel of her strappy sandal
and ram it through his ear canal. Elizabeth and Jessica? They
buckled up. And screamed for help. To the football team.
It's kind of pathetic.
This
isn't to say that Sweet Valley High should be rewritten
so that Winston uploads a suicide note onto YouTube before
mowing down the cheerleading team in a hail of gunfire, or
that Cara should be birthing Steven Wakefield's baby in a
bathroom stall during her junior prom. Despite the differences,
my students still seem to enjoy the original books for what
they are: looks into a past they are too young to have experienced
themselves. Kids don't need to have lived through the Reagan
Years to identify with Elizabeth Wakefield, just as I don't
need to have lived through Edwardian England to identify with
Pride and Prejudice's Elizabeth Bennet. For that, I
like the idea of keeping the Sweet Valley High books
intact.
As for
the newly revamped versions, they're not without their merit:
I think they make good companion pieces to the originals.
Those who grew up with the series probably will enjoy, as
I have, seeing if my favorite characters hold up to current
times. And despite their inherent cheesiness, they do. Jessica,
Cara, and Lila could easily be that nasty trio from Mean
Girls, and Sweet Valley High School could be Gossip
Girl's Constance Billard School for Girls (except, you
know, with guys).
If anything,
the revised books serve as reminders that despite the evolution
of fashion and technology, teenagers don't really change that
much from generation to generation. The girls I teach today
still hope that high school will feature a "tall, dark, and
yum" Todd Wilkins smiling at her from across the lunch table
or a handsome, rich Bruce Patman driving that luxury convertible
in the parking lot. Having been there myself, I can identify
and share with them the similarities between our youths. It
doesn't matter if their Wakefields surf the World Wide Web
and mine crawled through the Dark Ages. They're still the
same set of impossibly gorgeous blond twins, and we all still
want their impossibly hot boyfriends.
(April,
2008)
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