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Gidget

Ranb

Penultimate Amazing
Ranb
Joined
Jul 25, 2003
Messages
11,190
Location
WA USA
I was reading about Sally Field on Wikipedia and clicking on various links. I eventually ended up on the Gidget TV series and to the link about the novel it was based on. I was surprised to find that Frederick Kohner based the short novel on his then 15 year old daughter back in 1956.

I had watched the Sandra Dee movie a while back and thought it was a piece of fluff and that Ms. Dee really needed to eat a few donuts if she was going to wear a form fitting swimsuit that emphasized her anorexic frame. I found the TV show online and tried to watch it but only made it about ten minutes in; very boring.

The book was as much about teenage lust as about surfing. It was somewhat profane and contained some potentially offensive slang. But I could not imagine writing anything like that about my own daughter. :)

I've heard Gidget called "Catcher in the Rye for teen-aged girls". I think this means I need to read Salinger's novel.

Ranb
 
Ranb said:
...I've heard Gidget called "Catcher in the Rye for teen-aged girls". I think this means I need to read Salinger's novel.

Ranb
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No, you do not!

Beelzebuddy said:
I was well into adulthood before I realized the protagonist of The Catcher in the Rye being a smarmy little jagoff who needed to grow up was the entire point of the book. Seen in that light, it makes more sense that they'd assign it to kids who stand to learn the most from it, but they really ought to lead with that moral instead of assuming the kids'll catch on. At the time I was too busy being a smarmy little jagoff to possess that level of self-awareness...
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P.S. You're too old anyway.

You're welcome!
 
The interesting bit to me about the movie (missing in both the novel and the TV series) is that The Big Kahuna has what we would now recognize as a form of PTSD.

He was a Korean War combat pilot, who on return went to work for an Airline. He failed at the civilian job, and eventually dropped out of society. This may be from that feeling that nothing in his present life really mattered, compared to what he had been. At the end he takes back control of his life.

I suspect that Cliff Robertson, himself a combat veteran, added this aspect to the character.
 
I found the theme of youthful sexuality pretty squirmy for being based on the author's daughter, too. I was expecting a pretty lighthearted Beach Party read, considering it was from the 1950s, and was more than a little shocked at her talking about how she looked good naked but didn't fill out a sweater well.
 
Elagabalus said:
No, you do not!




P.S. You're too old anyway.

You're welcome!
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I'd actually like to hear a study group on this. My take was that he was a spoiled little punk, and my Lit teacher told me I needed to look deeper. I did, and thought he was an obnoxious spoiled little punk dreaming of catching the kids running off a cliff.
 
Thermal said:
.... and was more than a little shocked at her talking about how she looked good naked but didn't fill out a sweater well.
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Or the lotion for bust enhancement. Did coozie mean the same thing in the 1950's as it does now? :)
 
Ranb said:
Thanks for the advice. :)
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There's more critiques, chills and spills in theprestige's lighthearted and excellent Books Not to Read thread available to view in this section!

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=332145

another example by alfaniner.

alfaniner said:
Two classics I've read (or reread) in the last couple years --

The Catcher in the Rye
A Separate Peace

-- makes me wonder why anyone would want to read these without having been assigned to. Well, I guess I did, but it was only to find out why they are considered so important in literature. I didn't.
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I loved Catcher in the Rye. Brilliant book.

I have to say though, as soon as I hear the words or genre of 'coming of age', I groan and steer well clear. I downloaded the latest Man Booker Prize, Milkman. I thought it was really great - and recommended it to all my friends - before it dawned on me it was the dreaded 'coming of age' theme. Visions of the ghastly tedious film 'Boyhood' flashed before my eyes and I am afraid it remains only one-third read.
 
And if you hate 'coming of age', avoid Karl Ove Knausgård with his interminable 500-page ramblings about 'My Struggle' x four volumes. I made the mistake of picking this up and by the time I got to the section wherein he lists his favourite guitarists I was loudly snoring, having once swapped my own 'top 100' best rock-style lists. Yes, it's all new to the kids, I'm sure. Yes, you invented sex. And electric guitar. Now get over it.
Zzzzzzz
 
The Gidget TV series with Sally Field only lasted one season and was not renewed for a second. However during spring and summer reruns the then cancelled series did really well and the network involved was nonplussed. It was too late to try to revive Gidget and get another season of the show. (By then most of the people involved had moved onto other things.) So they decided they should get Sally Field into a new TV show. The result was The Flying Nun which ran for three seasons. The show was so - well- stupid, that Sally Field got pregnant to get out of it. (Can't have a pregnant Nun on a TV show!)

Anyway Sally Field's entrance into acting fame was so absurd that it took her years to be taken seriously has an actress.
 
Thermal said:
I found the theme of youthful sexuality pretty squirmy for being based on the author's daughter, too. I was expecting a pretty lighthearted Beach Party read, considering it was from the 1950s, and was more than a little shocked at her talking about how she looked good naked but didn't fill out a sweater well.
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I recall reading Gidget when it first came out. It seems my sister had sneaked a copy in, and read it for any naughty parts we could find. I believe I was very early teens, and was quite fascinated! I did not know the rather creepy father/daughter thing.
 
wasapi said:
I recall reading Gidget when it first came out. It seems my sister had sneaked a copy in, and read it for any naughty parts we could find. I believe I was very early teens, and was quite fascinated! I did not know the rather creepy father/daughter thing.
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I read it in the '90s after hearing it referenced in surfing literature so many times that I figured I should finally read it.

A good, if melancholy, surfing/coming of age book is Thad Zoilkowski's (sp?) On a Wave.
 
Thermal said:
A good, if melancholy, surfing/coming of age book is Thad Zoilkowski's (sp?) On a Wave.
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If you like coming of age surfing books with gratuitous sex added for no particular reason, try Breath by Australian author Tim Winton, about two 14 year old kids who wanted to become surfers and found a mentor to teach them. I hated it.


Norm
 
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