I was doing the usual mom of 3 thing around bedtime a few nights ago; issuing threats to lollygaggers, helping break up fights over toothbrushes, yawning, and flicking through the channels looking for something everyone could agree on.
One of the channels was showing THE OUTSIDERS. It took me just a few seconds to be 13 years old again, a 7th grader who'd just discovered literary angst through S.E. Hinton. "Mom!" (The time trip never lasts long.) "Mom! What are you watching?" They're so used to the sounds of the Food Network or ESPN this time of day, they didn't recognize the smooth voice of Matt Dillon or the sounds of shouting during a "rumble."
"Is that The Outsiders?" hubby asked. All of a sudden, the family was gathered around the television. I started my son on The Outsiders book a few months ago. He's outgrown Magic Tree House and Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and I felt 5th grade was a good time to introduce class struggles, social dynamics, tough (sorry, "tuff") hairstyles and cars, and everything else that comes with the book. Really, I was shuffling through a stack of books one day when he was rejecting every suggestion I had, and The Outsiders was the only book that didn't look like all the others, wasn't part of a repetitive series, and hadn't been transformed into a blockbuster movie that had every kid dressing in similar Halloween costumes. So he agreed to read it. My son and his teacher thereafter began a regular discourse about the book. (I didn't know that until the other night.)
When he shrugged his shoulders and said "Sure" when I offered it up, I felt triumphant, but not because he'd get his 30 minutes of reading done that day and the current battle was over. It was as if I was sneaking in a right of passage under an unrecognized author name and unassuming book cover. I was certain my son would begin talking about social injustice within the next day or so.
But he was quiet about the book until the movie came on. I tuned in during the part of the movie where the church burns down. It's further ahead in the book than he has read, and I had to explain a lot to not just my son but the other kids. When we got to the rumble part on the television screen, my son asked "Are those the soc's?" but pronounced soc's "socks." "It's pronounced so-shes, baby."
"Is that Darry? Is that Dally? Where is Johnny? Are they getting along now?" "Does anybody die in the fire?" "Why are they fighting?" they badgered.
Good questions, all. I think I had the same questions when I saw the book adapted to the silver screen.
When I was in 7th grade, I memorized Nothing Gold Can Stay by Robert Frost. I remembered and never forgot this quote from the book, said by Johnny: "There is still lots of good in the world. Tell Dally, I don't think he knows."
Other things I remember from 7th grade are carrying my beat-up paperback of The Outsiders with me from class to class, not even putting it in my backpack. And C. Thomas Howell. I remember waiting for the nextTiger Beat issues to come out on the news stands with 8x11 glossy shots of The Outsiders movie stars so I could tack them to my bedroom wall.
Watching the movie twenty-six years ago, I took notice of Rob Lowe's chest, Tom Cruise's muscles (he did have them), and Tommy Howell's sweet, shy demeanor. The movie, based on a great book, made us grade school girls boy crazy.
That night watching the movie with my own kids, the (once) young, fresh faces and well-timed bare-chest scenes of Hollywood's up-and-coming in the 1980s were just a backstory to me. A faint memory of teenage celebrity crushes. All I noticed, and all I thought about while mumbling movie quotes under my breath, were the Johnny Cade's and Dallas Winston's of the world.
There are still too many of them. And not enough Ponyboy's.
When Patrick Swayze ("Darry") had a scene with Tommy Howell and Rob Lowe, I became even more melancholy; he is the first "Outsider" to die. "That's the guy that plays Bodhi in Point Break, guys," I told the kids. My kids know that movie pretty well - we're big wave watchers, live and filmed.
Darry in The Outsiders > Sam Wheat in Ghost > Johnny in Dirty Dancing > Bodhi in Point Break, that seems like a lifetime...how many years in between The Outsiders and Point Break? Answer: 9.
Those were 9 years that I should have been reading Robert Frost. I did a lot of growing up from 1983-1991, and not. Nine years in between being a boy crazy 7th grader and a wide-eyed college student, counting down the days until I could legally walk into a bar and order an outrageous, flourescent drink with an umbrella. By the time the cast of The Outsiders had grown up, I was otherwise absorbed, but the undercurrents, themes, and lessons in The Outsiders were still somewhere in my mind during that time, I just didn't know it.
A few months ago my friend Jane who teaches writing at UCB posted an article about S.E. Hinton, and how The Outsiders was now 4 decades old.
It has taken me 26 years to really understand the book (and movie). It was near impossible to get it when I was 13 and loving Tommy Howell. I had to pass the book on and be a mother - I hate to admit that - to feel the misfortunes of, and be so sad and afraid for, the characters. To see how much there is to lose, which I had a surface understanding of then, but hope my kids realize on a deeper level now.
That is the beauty of The Outsiders. It takes gritty subject material and makes it conceivable, non-romanticized, and comprehensible for just about anybody. It was written by a teenager, not an adult trying to remember what it was like to be, or trying disingenuously to get inside the head of, a conflicted kid. With symbols and events you could apply to society today, the book takes on questions of belonging and issues of survival.
S.E. Hinton captured empathy and through dialogue that pulls you, nearly denied that anyone was a lost cause. She drew literary lines in society without using cliches. She gave us a poignant speech by a tragic character on why "fighting is useless, ain't no good" but also snuck in a juxtaposition of bad boy and good girl, that inevitable attraction, appropriately.
The Outsiders was so well written that in my 9 year gap of lucid thoughts, I almost missed some real characters in my search for stereotypes I had found in fiction.
Fiction?
With the combination of S.E. Hinton books and John Hughes movies, I practically had a users' manual for my teenage years.
Too bad I don't have one for parenthood. The next best thing I have is my collection of books and movies that got me through awkward stages, the books and movies that answered questions and replaced discussions I didn't want to have with my parents, the books and movies which reminded me of fictitious characters who felt the same way I did. So I pass the collection on (I do it for Johnny!).
When I stepped out into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie house...
Samantha Gianulis, Editor-in-Chief and Columnist, writes from Southern California. Read more at www.samanthagianulis.com.
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