Lonely Girls?

The Shangri-las. Mary Weiss was about 15 when they recorded this song.





"My mother kind of signed my life away when I was 14"

Girls, Lost and Lonely: Links

Alice
Alice II
Persephone
Ophelia
Laura Palmer
Lilly Kane
The Vigin Suicides
The Lost Girls, about the movie 13
Lost Girls an "adult" graphic novel
Little Girl Lost, twilight zone ep.
Little Girl Lost, little house on the prarie ep.
The Lost Girl, by DH Lawrence
Tess
Diary of a Lost Girl, film
A review of Factory Girl

A Little Girl Lost
by William Blake

Children of the future age,
Reading this indignant page,
Know that in a former time
Love, sweet love, was thought a crime.

In the age of gold,
Free from winter's cold,
Youth and maiden bright,
To the holy light,
Naked in the sunny beams delight.

Once a youthful pair,
Filled with softest care,
Met in garden bright
Where the holy light
Had just removed the curtains of the night.

Then, in rising day,
On the grass they play;
Parents were afar,
Strangers came not near,
And the maiden soon forgot her fear.

Tired with kisses sweet,
They agree to meet
When the silent sleep
Waves o'er heaven's deep,
And the weary tired wanderers weep.

To her father white
Came the maiden bright;
But his loving look,
Like the holy book
All her tender limbs with terror shook.

'Ona, pale and weak,
To thy father speak!
Oh the trembling fear!
Oh the dismal care
That shakes the blossoms of my hoary hair!'

William Blake

annotated bib for this poem

Lonely Girls, Pt. 1.5

So because I've been out of the loop and not reading very many blogs lately, I'm just now catching up on the blog discussions around LonelyGirl. Thanks go to zp who pointed me in the direction of this post at the churty experiment. At the time this entry was written, the mystery around the authenticity of LG was just about to boil over, and the degree to which LG's use of "new media" was instrumental in the hoax was the subject of much discussion. In a comment on this post zp observes that LG, despite its use of new media, is in fact an "old story."

I think what really bothers me is that, in this case (like, probably, the previous cases of the early novel and the fairy tale) the reader-consumer is solicited as an agent that is allowed to imagine that he might intervene and "save" the girl in all her princessly virginity.

That this experience (the experience of belief/participation in this particular narrative suspense) is being realized (because, in all the media and regardless of whether the story is fiction or claims to be something real, the reader-consumer's experience IS real) yet again, in a "new media" just makes me tired. If new media does new things, now that would be interesting.

Can we please become invested, as an audience, in something other than a young woman's purity now?

This comparison of LonelyGirl to fairy tales seems especially salient. The series was developed under the title The Children of Anchor Cove, and this sounds pretty fairy tale-ish to me. The lack of parents is reminiscent of fairy tale, as are the themes of entrapment and "being lost." I'm also reminded of the depiction of real-life lost girls -- girls like Jon Benet Ramsey in her pageant/red riding hood outfits.

What especially interests me about zp's comment is the observation of how the audience is solicited to intervene -- to mediate. Is the impulse to intervene separate from an impulse to judge and evaluate Bree? Is it a response to the absence of parents? Is it a recognition of the world as a cruel and sinister place? Does it inspire a radical critique of power?

Next: the use of the occult and magical in these types of stories