Hello there friends, and welcome to today's Young Adult literature pet peeve.
I know I'm not the only one who has noticed this over the past few years, and I can't be the only one who is annoyed with this trend either. I am referring of course to the trend wherein movies, TV shows and books are titled "Confessions of a ....." or "The Secret Life of...." etc.
I mean setting aside the obvious fact that all of the movies, shows and books I've ever seen with these titles are, like FICTIONAL, isn't it kind of dumb to name something "The Secret Life of x" when in fact it's no longer secret? Could we rename it "The Formerly Secret, and Now Very Public and Embarrassing Life of x?" Wouldn't that be more apt?
A casual Google search of "Confessions of" returns several interesting results including "Confessions of a Shopaholic," "Confessions of a Call Girl," and so on. (Side note did anyone else ever see that one LiLo movie, Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen?) One is pretty appropriately named, "Confessions of an Innocent Man." So let's take the first one for example, probably the most well known of these movies, which features Isla Fisher being crazy for some stupid green scarf. I don't know. I don't even really like scarves, but anyway, I feel like she doesn't really confess anything in this movie. She joins a support group and then talks about how much she loves shopping, and then like gets better because, Hugh Dancy. I think a series of ACTUAL confessions can be an interesting way to relate a character's narrative, if they ever ACTUALLY confessed anything.
Moving on to "The Secret Life of..." there are a number of results including, "The Secret Lives of Bees," "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" and most notably "The Secret Life of the American Teen." So let's talk about that last one, I mean now that Shailene Woodley is going to be in every movie from now to doomsday. Which is fine! She is pretty cool! But seriously, this show was awful. Let's be honest, there were no secrets! No secret lives of anyone, I mean like EVERYONE on this show got pregnant at some point! Even the guys! There was no attempt to hide that fact from the other characters. On the other hand though I did read somewhere that they wanted to name this show, "The Sex Life of the American Teenager" but ABCFamily was like NOOOO. Which, is understandable. But like, they couldn't find a better replacement word? I feel like a better title for this show would've been, "Drink every time someone says sex. Or gets pregnant." Those are actually rules for the SLotAT drinking game, but STILL. Let's just all be grateful that it's over and that Shailene Woodley has found better material out there.
I know I'm not the only one who has noticed this over the past few years, and I can't be the only one who is annoyed with this trend either. I am referring of course to the trend wherein movies, TV shows and books are titled "Confessions of a ....." or "The Secret Life of...." etc.
I mean setting aside the obvious fact that all of the movies, shows and books I've ever seen with these titles are, like FICTIONAL, isn't it kind of dumb to name something "The Secret Life of x" when in fact it's no longer secret? Could we rename it "The Formerly Secret, and Now Very Public and Embarrassing Life of x?" Wouldn't that be more apt?
A casual Google search of "Confessions of" returns several interesting results including "Confessions of a Shopaholic," "Confessions of a Call Girl," and so on. (Side note did anyone else ever see that one LiLo movie, Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen?) One is pretty appropriately named, "Confessions of an Innocent Man." So let's take the first one for example, probably the most well known of these movies, which features Isla Fisher being crazy for some stupid green scarf. I don't know. I don't even really like scarves, but anyway, I feel like she doesn't really confess anything in this movie. She joins a support group and then talks about how much she loves shopping, and then like gets better because, Hugh Dancy. I think a series of ACTUAL confessions can be an interesting way to relate a character's narrative, if they ever ACTUALLY confessed anything.
Moving on to "The Secret Life of..." there are a number of results including, "The Secret Lives of Bees," "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" and most notably "The Secret Life of the American Teen." So let's talk about that last one, I mean now that Shailene Woodley is going to be in every movie from now to doomsday. Which is fine! She is pretty cool! But seriously, this show was awful. Let's be honest, there were no secrets! No secret lives of anyone, I mean like EVERYONE on this show got pregnant at some point! Even the guys! There was no attempt to hide that fact from the other characters. On the other hand though I did read somewhere that they wanted to name this show, "The Sex Life of the American Teenager" but ABCFamily was like NOOOO. Which, is understandable. But like, they couldn't find a better replacement word? I feel like a better title for this show would've been, "Drink every time someone says sex. Or gets pregnant." Those are actually rules for the SLotAT drinking game, but STILL. Let's just all be grateful that it's over and that Shailene Woodley has found better material out there.
