Monday, April 13, 2015

Well, that was just plain rude

So, I follow this v-blog of a man who loves movies and books. I first became aware of him through his heartfelt review of "A Little Life" by Hanya Yanagihara. I subscribe to his YouTube channel, and even though I don't watch his movie reviews, I am always interested in his book reviews.

Recently, he did a book review of Forrest Gump by Winston Groom, and hated it. He started by saying that the books from which movies are made are almost always better. However, in this case, the movie is better than the book by Groom.

I noticed that all of the comments that followed his v-blog were pandering "OMG - really?" comments, and not very thoughtful at all. So, I left this one:

Interesting perspective, and I certainly get that you are in love with the movie. However, don't you wonder why Groom portrayed his protagonist the way he did? Do you hate the book simply because it's not like the movie? For example, Capote's "Breakfast at Tiffany's" is really not much like the movie, but should be seen as two complete entities because of that. Do you think that this may be the case here? Hate the book because it's not well-written, not balanced, not complete ... but don't hate it because it doesn't meet expectations you have which were set by the cinema.

I thought it was well-said, and would incite some additional discussion on why he thinks the movie is better, and what he thinks about his view of specific shortcomings of the book.

Nope.

Instead, this is what I got:

Commenter: WOW
V-Blog guy: Yes, really haha

Was I really that far off base? Are his subscribers really so shallow that they don't want to discuss these things? Am I too smart for my own good (okay, scratch that one).

Where did I go wrong here?

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