Where the Wild Things Were

"Where the Wild Things are" is now a movie. It's a sign of the times. My generation is officially growing up and looking back. I always thought it was just me who was overly nostalgic but I find I'm not alone. Throughout any given day I am met with a number of signs that my generation is now in the nostalgic, adult chapter. Buying lunch I find myself bobbing my head to "My Jones" by Counting Crows or something off No Doubt's "Tragic Kingdom." I'm reminded of the first time I may have heard these. The high school track during a meet, marching band practice or my first car's radio as I rushed from school to work.

Looking through the newspapers I see advertisements for the "High School Prom" event, a way for us late 20 somethings to relive our prom I suppose. I watch "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" and realize that these characters are my age and were my peers in high school and they reflect that scared, selfish, lost feeling many of my generation struggle with right now.

The trailer for Where the Wild Things are recently came out. I can't complain, it looks like it's going to be a beautiful, nostalgic movie. The trailer is complete with wide shots of a perfect Max look-alike and all his adventurous, shy glory and Arcade Fire's song "Wake Up," a song about growing up, loss of innocence and, ironically, released in 2004, when most of my generation was finishing undergrad and feeling those first anxious pulls of life. The first time we looked back instead of forward and wondered, "was it better then; do I want now?"

My mother could not help but compare me to Max, the main character of Where the Wild Things are and It'd be foolish of me to think that I was the only little boy of my generation who was compared as such. Max was a symbol to us all that though we had eternity in our hearts we still longed for our mothers come day's end. I was also compared to Alexander of "The Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day." I had the same perpetually messy hair (which I still have, go figure), the same little scowl during a bad day and of course, bad days (no good, very bad days). I'm really waiting for this one to be made into a movie too, but I also hope this never happens. A movie would ruin the simplicity. A movie would need to add more personality and depth to Alex and his family when this is not the point of the book. The point is simply that there are bad days and you will have them, even if you go to Australia.

Now that Where the Wild Things are is a movie, I fear for it for similar reasons. It's a simple story, short, to the point and beloved. Most of us could identify with Max and we had our favorite wild thing and there were those few wild things we could never quite figure out or place. So what happens when the attributes we've inputed into a beloved story are rocked by the awesome force that is 21st century surround sound, computer generated glory and really well made wolf pajamas?

I have always argued the side of literature that states stories are about something specific, have specific points and purposes and should not be openly interpreted to meet one's own needs and convictions. Only those blindly post-modern or simply ignorant would venture into the "it's whatever you want it to be about" camp. Short children's stories such as Where the Wild Things are are no different as far as I'm concerned, however the characters in these stories are often left open to more reader interpretation and imputation. Of all the wild things in the book, Max is the only one with any depth. The other wild things are a tad more than cool drawings, left wide open for the reader to decide what they're like, which ones are scary, which are cute, which are happy, which are lost.

The attributes we give these "blank" characters are pieces of us, our attributes, spread out where they can be managed and dealt with. After stating that these characters are open to our interpretation, I cannot say that a movie producer does not have the same right to impute characterizations. However, once a movie is made our own imputations are challenged. Perhaps some of the movie characterizations don't fit our own. The scope and range of a movie's interpretations are so far reaching, it's a dangerous power, a hideous strength.

We are simply left to wait it out and hope the beauty of the movie does not destroy our memories, but at the same time, may our own memories not make us hard and cynical to another's art and expressions. Who are we to withhold praise where it is due because of our own insecurities?

May we recent adults learn to love what we've got and continue forward. Looking back to our memories as beginning markers allowing our nostalgia to grow into wisdom and not fester into regret and longing for what no longer is. May the eternity in our hearts someday find rest, may our mothers' ancient words lead it there.