Yesterday’s post
discussed the importance of opposites
in creating tension within the writing.
In 1960s, Disney
released the film “Pollyanna” starring a then-child actress, Hayley Mills. The story line is: the orphaned child of missionaries comes to
live with her Aunt Polly Harrington, a wealthy bitter spinster who has an
iron-fist control over the town, of Harrington.
Pollyanna sets
about changing the town with her sweetness.
She falls from a window and is seriously injured; everyone unites and
become sweet people themselves; Aunt Polly hooks up with her old flame Dr. Chilton and she converts to sweetness. Sweet,
sweet, sweet.
I propose flipping
this movie on its head and creating an Oppositional-Defiant
Pollyanna.
The State Child
Welfare system places Pollyanna into foster care under her delightful Aunt
Polly. Pollyanna has been booted through
the system, after setting fire to one foster home and stealing the family
silver at another home.
Aunt Polly welcomes
the teen-age monster Pollyanna gladly, and the cheerful loving townspeople make
it their mission in life to help Pollyanna change. The character of Pollyanna undergoes a very
painful slow transition to niceness, but not before she steals the church
offering. When she is busted for buying
drugs, the kindly Dr. Chilton helps her into rehab where she discovers that
she is loved unconditionally.
Pollyanna tests the
town by driving Aunt Polly’s limo through the town square during a fund-raising
event to save the orphanage. Although
Pollyanna smashes all the charity booths, she inadvertently uncovers a devious plot to destroy the orphanage in order to build a Wal-Mart.
Pollyanna is the
hero, she is changed forever. She
marries the town doctor, Aunt Polly marries Reverend Ford, and Mayor Thomas is arrested for master-minding the Wal-Mart deal.
See the
change?! Doesn’t the presence of opposites improve the story
dramatically?
I rest my case.
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| courtesy of Wikipedia, God bless 'em |
