Who wrote that “Benjamin Button” story?
Today I was browsing my local bookstore and happened to overhear something that made me shake my head in disbelief. A young girl (probably a teen) was with her mom, and the girl said:
"I didn’t know Fitzgerald wrote Benjamin Button"
I almost ripped my hair out right then and there out of sheer frustration. The girl was, of course, referring to the special-edition book The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (aff link) that was released to coincide with the movie (which I have not seen yet). The story was originally written by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
As I’ve said many times before: This was a great story over a decade ago when I first read it, and it’s still a good story today. No movie will change that.
Whether this particular girl is an isolated incident or representative of a larger problem, I don’t know. I have a sneaking feeling that it’s the latter. But it just goes to show that Hollywood has taken a great story, written by a great author and twist it into a watered-down, pop culture-ized piece of rubbish.
And then to add insult to injury, F. Scott Fitzgerald wasn’t even mentioned at the Oscars when the movie won a few awards (I wrote about previously in this post).
I think Mr. Fitzgerald is turning over in his grave: One of his stories (a fairly minor one at that) fianlly makes it to the big screen and he’s just a small name on the credits. Not even teenagers, who study Fitzgerald in high school seem to know he wrote the Benjamin Button story.
I hate to make myself sound old, but, "Damn kids!"
</end rant>
Related posts
- “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” has always been a great story!
- Short fiction meets Hollywood with Fitzgerald story
- The curious case of last night’s Oscars
- Rereading F. Scott Fitzgerald
- F. Scott Fitzgerald still trying for success in Hollywood
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