Is this book about making intelligent decisions?
Speak is a film based on a book and, well, this was some interesting shit. Part of I think a film or book’s impact or how it comes across to the reader is just looking at the sort of questions we pose in discussions, in classrooms, to ourselves. In the DVD of speak, in the bonus features, there is a “Penguin Books Study Guide” Provided by Associate Professor Grant T. Smith of Viterbo University. He asks the question,
Is this book about making intelligent decisions? List three decisions that Melinda makes and tell why tou think she made the decisions. What are the consequences of these decisions and were there any consequences of her decisions that she could not have reasonably expected?
Now what the fuck is that shit? What the fuck kind of question is that especially considering this is a book for teens? Excuse the massive spoilers here, but this is a story about a teen girl who is raped by a teen boy. She meets this boy at a party where they’re both sorta drinking alcohol and he convinces her to go off to his car and then the rape occurs in his jeep. For some time, she does not tell anyone and a chunk of the story is her being a “selective mute” and not telling those around her about the rape. At the end of the story, when she is attacked and nearly raped again by the same rapist but this time she wounds the rapist with some paint thinner or some shit, has him by the throat with some sharp glass and then has a dozen girls come to her aid when they hear the commotion, she realizes that she is ready to “speak” and tell someone, namely, her mother.
So what, I ask you, is the guy trying to get at when he asks about “intelligent decisions”? What, that Melinda shouldn’t have been drinking? That she shouldn’t have gotten in that car with the rapist? That she shouldn’t have even been at that party or started to make out with the guy? That she should’ve told someone immediately after the rape? His entire question is completely pointed in such a way that leads the person answering the question to blame Melinda and see a billion reasons for why she was raped and how she could’ve gotten help, gotten justice, gotten revenge, or gotten out of the situation (read: it must be all her fault).
And then there’s this gem of a study guide question:
Melinda demonstrates many of the symptoms of clinical depression. What behaviors does she manifest that would cause you concern if you were her friend or teacher? What would you do to help her?
I don’t know how you write a study guide with questions about a book where the central character is raped by a man and then you don’t have a question talking specifically about the actual rape but instead chalk it up to “clinical depression.” You think kids are going to just forget those hundreds of pages of the story? Why ask this ridiculous question to kids? Kids aren’t equipped to deal with this. I don’t know what I would have said if a female friend told me in high school that she’d been raped. I would like to hope that i’d have been smart enough to have listened to her, provided an ear and then helped her figure out where she wanted to go from there, maybe helped her find different resources but I was a pretty stupid kid. I’m afraid that when kids hear “clinical” they’re going to think that it’s something wrong with them in their heads…that they need mental help because they’re the problem. Of course, there are always benefits to counseling and such but when you say “clinical” that has a very medical and sort of prescriptive, drug connotation to it, doesn’t it?