In Defense of Kristy Thomas
Sep. 6th, 2012 05:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
impy There's a post over on the bsc comm that is basically someone venting the numerous reasons they hate Kristy Thomas. You might recall her as the president of the BSC. You might not. We will assume you do, but if not you can totally fake it out along with the rest of us.
Kristy was never my favorite character growing up. She was outspoken and sporty. She also had a habit of creating situations that would mean my secondhand embarrassment meter would be forced to kick in at any moment. Thing is, Kristy is one of the two characters to suffer the most under the rule of the ghostwriters. (Dawn would be the other, if you wondered.) This means my more grown up self feels the need to look deeper than my childish self did most of the time. Curse you, maturity!
She began the series as the girl most likely to say it before thinking it through but also the girl who would meticulously (for a twelve/thirteen year old) plan out her big idea before even sharing it with her best friend. She was unapologetically a tomboy who also looked forward to a one-off occasion to wear something dressy since it was a special occasion. She had to learn and relearn that just because someone's actions hurt you, it doesn't give you the right to hurt them in return, even if it's unintentional. She strives to learn to better control her mouth while still retaining that honest quality that is truly rare in reality. (If you ask Kristy if that dress makes your butt look big, she's going to tell you the truth one way or another, k?)
And that's all before you get to the sympathy card that is played and overplayed throughout the series. When we meet her, Kristy's just managed to find her footing in her personal life after her father abandoned her family, causing her mother to have to go back to work full time, which caused the older kids in the family to have to step up and lose a bit of their childhood in an effort to keep David Michael's childhood as intact as possible.
Then her mother goes and throws her world into upheaval with her agreeing to marry Watson Brewer, a man Kristy barely knows (by choice and also, if you count The Summer Before, because Watson/Elizabeth haven't been dating all that long). Kristy's not stupid and she knows that millionaire Watson's mansion is far more likely as their home than their small house on Bradford Court, so she'll be leaving behind the house she grew up in. She'll be leaving her best friend and by the time Kristy DOES move, she's started to lose her best friend to another girl (whether you choose to read more into that than originally intended, it still sucks when you feel replaced in someone else's life) who has things Kristy herself would dearly love. (Namely, Dawn's father actually wants her around.)
So they're shuffled off to a new neighborhood where Kristy feels completely out of place and isn't exactly welcomed with open arms. To be fair, she reacts in a fairly normal way in that she's not thrilled at the move or the prospect of meeting new people so far out of her comfort zone, so she rejects them before they can reject her. But! But she learns not to do that! Growth, people!
And then her dog dies. Which, with the time warp, happens the same year that most of the rest of the events of the series happens. Losing a pet at that age, especially one who meant so much to Kristy is traumatic. Hell, it's traumatic at any age.
So yeah, she goes into a bit of a hyper-controlling tailspin. But it makes sense, given how much her life has been changed without her having a say in much of any of it. I gather some of the other sitters feel the same way as they're forever mentioning the changes in the oft-skipped chapter 2s of the series.
Still, she attempts to correct the super bossy behavior when called on it. It's fairly believable that someone with bossy tendencies coupled with the extreme changes going on behind the scenes would have to be reminded not to overstep her bounds every so often. She's still a kid and if adults have to be reminded, I really think a thirteen year old girl is allowed to be cut some slack.
But then... things shift, and for the life of me I can't figure out where the dividing line is. I want to say it's before Dawn leaves the 'Brook permanently but that might just be my line for where the BSC ended for my actual enjoyment of the series in any form. (Sorry, Abbers.) If you've got a suggestion, I'm all ears.
Kristy goes from being very structured in how the BSC is run to being tyrannical. What starts as a bit of a joke is then turned into Very Serious Business. (The Look, guys. The LOOK.) She's obsessive about the club and possibly it's Stacey's first defection from the group that sets things off for Kristy.
Again, she's not stupid; everyone else in the club is interested in dating to one degree or another, and if Stacey's going to dump them all for new friends (and she does before even quitting/getting fired) it's not hard to imagine that many of the others would as well. Kristy's left holding on to what little bit of control she feels she has, only since it's never presented as this in the books themselves, she tends to come across as insane. (See: Abby's takeover and the breakup of theband club)
I'm a little torn on the whole overly inclusive of the kids thing. I think Kristy genuinely likes children and likes to organize events for them. The 'Brook doesn't seem to have a shitton of things for kids to do, and these kids are frequently left in the care of people they aren't related to... so maybe they do need some consistency in the form of Kristy's scheme of the month. Some kids probably don't really care all that much, but others seem to enjoy the various fairs, parades, and other things cooked up for them by the club.
I'm going to see this as less of a "Kristy's obsessed with small children! Weirdo!" and more of a Kristy's a kid friendly type who occasionally needs to be brought back to reality.
Anyway, Kristy's negative traits were amplified to such a degree that it was very hard to find her likable when certain ghosties were at the helm. Especially when her positive traits were pretty much obliterated by the loss of subtlety in the writing. When everything seemed to switch to "Kristy is bossy and sporty! Claudia can't spell and likes art! Stacey is mathematically inclined in a Sophisticated way! Dawn is an eco-terrorist in training!" stereotypes, Kristy got shafted.
She's more than the later books allow her to be and I think you're cheating yourself if you judge her solely on her missteps rather than the whole picture.
Btw, I'm not even going to start on the general fandom's characterization of Kristy. It's about as fabulous as the ghostwriter's depiction of her after Kristy's Worst Idea. Which is to say do not want. Also, her sporty side is mostly ignored in this because I don't care all that much.
Tomorrow we finally share something we love. I'd originally planned on that being today's post, but photobucket was finally up (woo!) and then I got bitten by the desire to defend Kristy. Go figure.
Kristy was never my favorite character growing up. She was outspoken and sporty. She also had a habit of creating situations that would mean my secondhand embarrassment meter would be forced to kick in at any moment. Thing is, Kristy is one of the two characters to suffer the most under the rule of the ghostwriters. (Dawn would be the other, if you wondered.) This means my more grown up self feels the need to look deeper than my childish self did most of the time. Curse you, maturity!
She began the series as the girl most likely to say it before thinking it through but also the girl who would meticulously (for a twelve/thirteen year old) plan out her big idea before even sharing it with her best friend. She was unapologetically a tomboy who also looked forward to a one-off occasion to wear something dressy since it was a special occasion. She had to learn and relearn that just because someone's actions hurt you, it doesn't give you the right to hurt them in return, even if it's unintentional. She strives to learn to better control her mouth while still retaining that honest quality that is truly rare in reality. (If you ask Kristy if that dress makes your butt look big, she's going to tell you the truth one way or another, k?)
And that's all before you get to the sympathy card that is played and overplayed throughout the series. When we meet her, Kristy's just managed to find her footing in her personal life after her father abandoned her family, causing her mother to have to go back to work full time, which caused the older kids in the family to have to step up and lose a bit of their childhood in an effort to keep David Michael's childhood as intact as possible.
Then her mother goes and throws her world into upheaval with her agreeing to marry Watson Brewer, a man Kristy barely knows (by choice and also, if you count The Summer Before, because Watson/Elizabeth haven't been dating all that long). Kristy's not stupid and she knows that millionaire Watson's mansion is far more likely as their home than their small house on Bradford Court, so she'll be leaving behind the house she grew up in. She'll be leaving her best friend and by the time Kristy DOES move, she's started to lose her best friend to another girl (whether you choose to read more into that than originally intended, it still sucks when you feel replaced in someone else's life) who has things Kristy herself would dearly love. (Namely, Dawn's father actually wants her around.)
So they're shuffled off to a new neighborhood where Kristy feels completely out of place and isn't exactly welcomed with open arms. To be fair, she reacts in a fairly normal way in that she's not thrilled at the move or the prospect of meeting new people so far out of her comfort zone, so she rejects them before they can reject her. But! But she learns not to do that! Growth, people!
And then her dog dies. Which, with the time warp, happens the same year that most of the rest of the events of the series happens. Losing a pet at that age, especially one who meant so much to Kristy is traumatic. Hell, it's traumatic at any age.
So yeah, she goes into a bit of a hyper-controlling tailspin. But it makes sense, given how much her life has been changed without her having a say in much of any of it. I gather some of the other sitters feel the same way as they're forever mentioning the changes in the oft-skipped chapter 2s of the series.
Still, she attempts to correct the super bossy behavior when called on it. It's fairly believable that someone with bossy tendencies coupled with the extreme changes going on behind the scenes would have to be reminded not to overstep her bounds every so often. She's still a kid and if adults have to be reminded, I really think a thirteen year old girl is allowed to be cut some slack.
But then... things shift, and for the life of me I can't figure out where the dividing line is. I want to say it's before Dawn leaves the 'Brook permanently but that might just be my line for where the BSC ended for my actual enjoyment of the series in any form. (Sorry, Abbers.) If you've got a suggestion, I'm all ears.
Kristy goes from being very structured in how the BSC is run to being tyrannical. What starts as a bit of a joke is then turned into Very Serious Business. (The Look, guys. The LOOK.) She's obsessive about the club and possibly it's Stacey's first defection from the group that sets things off for Kristy.
Again, she's not stupid; everyone else in the club is interested in dating to one degree or another, and if Stacey's going to dump them all for new friends (and she does before even quitting/getting fired) it's not hard to imagine that many of the others would as well. Kristy's left holding on to what little bit of control she feels she has, only since it's never presented as this in the books themselves, she tends to come across as insane. (See: Abby's takeover and the breakup of the
I'm a little torn on the whole overly inclusive of the kids thing. I think Kristy genuinely likes children and likes to organize events for them. The 'Brook doesn't seem to have a shitton of things for kids to do, and these kids are frequently left in the care of people they aren't related to... so maybe they do need some consistency in the form of Kristy's scheme of the month. Some kids probably don't really care all that much, but others seem to enjoy the various fairs, parades, and other things cooked up for them by the club.
I'm going to see this as less of a "Kristy's obsessed with small children! Weirdo!" and more of a Kristy's a kid friendly type who occasionally needs to be brought back to reality.
Anyway, Kristy's negative traits were amplified to such a degree that it was very hard to find her likable when certain ghosties were at the helm. Especially when her positive traits were pretty much obliterated by the loss of subtlety in the writing. When everything seemed to switch to "Kristy is bossy and sporty! Claudia can't spell and likes art! Stacey is mathematically inclined in a Sophisticated way! Dawn is an eco-terrorist in training!" stereotypes, Kristy got shafted.
She's more than the later books allow her to be and I think you're cheating yourself if you judge her solely on her missteps rather than the whole picture.
Btw, I'm not even going to start on the general fandom's characterization of Kristy. It's about as fabulous as the ghostwriter's depiction of her after Kristy's Worst Idea. Which is to say do not want. Also, her sporty side is mostly ignored in this because I don't care all that much.
Tomorrow we finally share something we love. I'd originally planned on that being today's post, but photobucket was finally up (woo!) and then I got bitten by the desire to defend Kristy. Go figure.
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(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-07 03:55 pm (UTC)I think I may be the only person in the fandom who doesn't get a gay vibe from Kristy. So she's a tomboy who likes sports. So she's bossy and loud. That doesn't mean she's gay. I have many gay friends who are nothing like Kristy, so to an extent I kind of feel that saying Kristy is "obviously" gay is stereotyping gay people. I'm sure there are some sporty, loud, and obnoxious gay women. But it's not a blanket description that can or should be applied to ALL of them. Actually, in my short lived fanfic that I started I made Stacey a lesbian, with my reasoning being that she jumped from boy to boy as a teenager because she wasn't finding the happiness and satisfaction she was looking for (and then she found her girlfriend in college and all the pieces fell into place). Anyway, that's my own little tangent. :P
Back to Kristy, I always liked that she came up with fun things to do with the kids in every book. I like the sitting chapters (I've never understood the people who claim to love the BSC but hate the babysitting...that's rather a huge part of the series!) I like how creative Kristy can be with her events. Yes, they do tend to repeat events and let's not focus on how much money it would actually cost to have all these carnivals and pet shows and sundry, but the fact that she thinks them up (and Kid-Kits! I still have the Kid-Kit I made and it was always a HUGE hit) in the first place is pretty amazing. While I agree that her "TV is evil" stance is extreme I still agree with the principle of it, especially as I just recently spent a couple of weeks with my 8 year old nephew. He is obsessed with his Wii and will play it literally all day if he's allowed. He has a gazillion other toys but he doesn't really play with them. He never reads unless he's forced to. I think he'd benefit from someone like Kristy in his life.
...and I just realized this comment is ridiculously long, so I'm going to end it here. :P
(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-08 12:14 am (UTC)You're not =) I've always hated that sporty = lesbian stereotype everyone reaches for. I think it's perfectly understandable that she wasn't ready to have the sort of relationship with Bart (or any boy) that, say, Stacey had with her boyfriends. They're thirteen, for goodness' sake! Of all the characters, Stacey always read as the most 'mature' (ie, like a sixteen or seventeen-year-old) to me.
(I've never understood the people who claim to love the BSC but hate the babysitting...that's rather a huge part of the series!)
LOL, ditto! :P
(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-08 07:17 pm (UTC)I didn't get the Kristy's totally gay vibe either, which in retrospect is kind of odd given that the only two out lesbians I knew in middle/high school were taller versions of Kristy.
I just wish that when people were going off into the Kristy = gay arena, they'd lead with something other than "the sports!" Some people have well thought out theories/fics but for a loooooooong while all I managed to find was "lol, sports/hates fashion!"
I think the sitting chapters depending on who was writing them, which kids were involved, and my mood of the day as to whether I liked/loved/tolerated/hated them.
Kid-Kits are awesome and truly Kristy's greatest idea. Ever.
And all hail the long comments!
(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-08 12:11 am (UTC)I did go back and read the comments and I'm glad people called OP on her shit, but still. This BLOWS THEM ALL out of the water. I grew up with the BSC. They were some of my best friends (well, until I stopped read the series at #99 :P), and to this day one of the reasons why I like writing BSC fic is precisely because there is so much subtlety to explore. I gravitate towards the early books because the characters feel a helluva lot more real and sympathetic. Hell, even now, when I'm reading about diabetic patients for my job, I think about Stacey's Emergency and how much that book got RIGHT. Lasting impression, indeed! =)
If'n you don't mind, I'm gonna pimp this on my journal because I don't think we share BSC fandom friends, and I think they'd appreciate it as much as I do ♥
(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-08 07:22 pm (UTC)And awww ♥ I feel loved. :D