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Tom Hitchner's avatar

THANK YOU! This idea that depictions of relationships must always be healthy and positive (or else stern and condemnatory, of the bad ones) is everywhere these days. I was deeply depressed when I learned that The Mountain Goats never play “Going to Georgia” anymore, probably my favorite song by them, because John Darnielle now finds its depiction of unhealthy, passionate love to be antisocial and regressive. Obviously he’s entitled to his feelings and his setlist but it just seems like such a loss for a performer who’s so skilled at capturing dysfunction to cut out that part of himself out of a sense of responsibility.

What’s more, the anti-GT critique seems like another example of the relentless modern attack on ambiguity or even subtlety in art. The Boy in Giving Tree immediately loses his happiness when he starts asking the Tree for material things (in addition to being about parenthood I think GT is an ecological story as well), and he only regains happiness when he’s too incapable to make use of the material and has to resort to pure communion with the loved one. But we apparently can’t trust kids to think, “Boy, seems like the Boy shouldn’t have done that!”

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Jenn's avatar

Thank you for your writing. It is a joy to read.

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