The Bijoux List for March
Curated by Natasha Lester, the Bijoux List is full of things to inspire & things to ponder. This month: Daisy Jones & screen adaptations, the magic of live events, the blurb for my next book & more!
Before we kick off, can I just say that while April is supposed to be the cruellest month, February gave it some stiff competition. Did anyone else feel like February was a landslide of stuff pouring down on them? I’ve had to take on the phrase “think before you say yes” as my motto for March, and thus refuse stuff that my heart would love to do to help people out, but my tired mind knows I don’t have space for. Here’s hoping next month’s motto can be something more uplifting!
Onto the Bijoux List for March!
What’s Bijoux for March?
Daisy Jones, and the seemingly thorny question of the portrayal of women on screen
The blurb for my next book, The Disappearance of Astrid Bricard!!
Some vintage 70s
The magic of the live show
Stealing Emily Brontë’s genius
A must-read recommendation
This week’s awesome women
The Lipsdick (no, that isn’t a typo)
My contemporary fashion fix
And my historical one too
The quick list
1. Daisy Jones
Like many people, I loved Taylor Jenkins Reid’s book Daisy Jones and the Six. I thought the story was nuanced, the characters were unique and surprising, and it was a damn good read. I don’t know if that means I shouldn’t have watched the Prime series currently streaming – but I’m glad I did, even if I can’t say I’m a fan of the series.
I want to preface all of this by stating – my opinion is in no way a critique of Jenkins Reid and her book. Like I say, I love the book. I love that it’s sold well and she’s been part of making it into a series, which is something so many writers dream about. Rather than just writing about rock stars, she’s a rock star herself!
And there are many, many good things about the adaptation. Graham’s character, for a start. He might just be my fave. But there’s one thing that really bothers me.
Usually I accept that a book and a screen adaptation are two different creatures and there’s no point comparing the two. But I’m going to do a little comparing this time because I’m worried there’s something of a disappointing trend in adaptations right now where strong, interesting and unconventional female characters are turned into generic people who are just on the edge of cliché.
In the book, Camilla was a bad ass. She did not follow Billy out to LA the second he moved there. She did not call record producers on behalf of the band. She was impressively self-contained and existed as something more than Billy’s girlfriend. The series takes that power away and all but turns her into another groupie-girlfriend (cliché) and, as if that’s not bad enough, lets the situation devolve into a jealous love triangle (cliché).
The brilliance of the book was that Camilla was the one who, out of both self-interest and compassion, (SPOILER ALERT!) saved her marriage at the same time as presuming to know what was best for Billy and for Daisy too. She was complicated, and therefore interesting. It was to her benefit to get Daisy to quit the band at the end of the book and thus leave Billy’s life forever. But it was more than that. It was a gutsy gamble with a drug addict who was probably hard to trust – but Camilla did trust.
The book might have been called Daisy Jones, but Camilla was arguably as potent and powerful a character as Daisy.
It makes me mad when I see female characters made ordinary, as if any complexity or layered motivation will make them too hard for the viewer to like. And in trying to make them appeal to everyone, these women end up losing all of their power.
This is exactly what happened in the recent screen adaptation of Jane Austen’s Persuasion. Sure, the series was lighthearted and entertaining. A real crowd-pleaser. But the original Anne Eliot was so much more than what she was allowed to be on the screen.
What are we so afraid of? What do we think might happen if we unleash onto the screen women who act out of multiple conflicting interests, who can’t be neatly summed up in a five word pitch, who are occasionally hard to like and difficult to understand but who have guts and hearts one thousand times the size of the thinly veneered characters we’re being served now?