Bridge to Misrepresentation

(Warning: Contains partial spoilers.)

I'll admit up front that I have neither seen this movie nor read the book myself. My comments are based on what I've read about it.

My children saw the trailer for Bridge to Terabithia and asked if we could see it--it looked interesting to me, too. When I mentioned it to my husband he said that the daughter of one of his co-workers was reading it in school this year (6th or 7th grade). Hmmm, I thought. School boards don't generally cozy up to pure fantasy works. So I did a little research.

Ah, the book is a "beloved children's classic" (written by Katherine Paterson, published in 1977, and also made into a previous film for tv in 1985). I was immediately suspicious. I've found that "beloved children's classics" are often real downers. After reading up on the plot of the book and investigating some reviews I knew it was not the movie that the trailers had lead us to believe. The fantasy elements are apparently incidental to the story, which revolves more around being an outsider, dealing with unexpected tragedy, and finding inner strength.

Now, there is nothing wrong with those themes at all. But be up front about them in the movie trailer. The trailer presents this story 100% as a fantasy about a magical land. I don't necessarily have to know beforehand that a main character is going to die, but there should be an indication that the story deals with real-world events, themes and problems.

Maybe one could argue that I should be doing my research on any film so that I'll know what to expect. Possibly that's true. But when the target audience is children and young adults, I think that there should be some effort to present a truer representation of what the film is about, and not just pull out the elements that will sell tickets. And if fantasy sells tickets, then make more good fantasy movies.

I also found out that this book is number 9 on the American Library Association list of the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990-2000. Mostly for what I consider ridiculous reasons, by the way. Ah, the wonders of Wikipedi.