Featured Post

WELCOME TO RUSSELL ARBEN FOX'S HOME PAGE

If you're a student looking for syllabi, click the "Academic Home Page" link on your right, and start there.

Wednesday, December 02, 2009

Somebody Tell Me is This is How Normal 13-Year-Olds Flirt These Days

[Update, 12/4/09: In response to a couple of comments below, I have decided to edit this post slightly.]

So Megan, our oldest daughter, thirteen years old, comes up to show me something funny a friend at school made for her. It's a little book. A picture book.

The main character is Megan the Cannibal. She is stalking her friend. His drawings of Megan and himself are crude, but funny and effective, in a cartoonish sort of way.

There is a brief narration which attends each page in the little book. Megan is a vicious cannibal, tracking her prey through the hallways of their school. Her prey flees; she follows. He hides in his bedroom at home, but Megan follows him, breaking into the house through the roof. She confronts him, binds him, blindfolds him, then takes him to her lair.

There, using previously unannounced superpowers, Megan shrinks him with her powerful Shrinking Ray Eyes. He runs for it. He hides somewhere in the kitchen. Eventually, however, Megan the Cannibal finds him and, in one gulp, consumes him.

The final scenes of the book show a satisfied Megan the Cannibal, smacking her lips, while her friend stews (literally, I suppose) with a worried expression on his face, surrounded by Megan's stomach acids. The End.

She finds it silly and hilarious and laughs about it. I find myself perplexed. My wife looks at me curiously, wondering what I'm reading into the story. I'm not sure. Suggestions, anyone? Parents of 13-year-olds, particularly those skilled in literary deconstruction and/or child psychology, are encouraged to reply.

11 comments:

Latter-day Guy said...

Wow. I have no idea (though I'm pretty sure it must have something to do with Freud and penises).

Karen C said...

This falls under "things I really didn't care to know," but there's a fetish called "vore."

I know no more details and I hesitate to recommend you Google it, so it may not help you much.

Anonymous said...

It means your kid and her friend read a lot of manga or something else like that. Flirting by comic is common in the geekier sets. Or see XKCD.
Western Dave

sister blah 2 said...

He definitely likes her. Hello, that much effort? Normally guys that age can barely be bothered to bathe adequately.

But I wouldn't read anything into the content. Some pedestrian piecing together of elements from pop culture, manga, etc.

john f. said...

Russell, this likely implies that your daughter's friend has seen the new Megan Fox horror flick "Jennifer's Body".

http://movies.nytimes.com/2009/09/18/movies/18jennifer.html

I think there is very possibly some unwholesome innuendo going on here so you're not crazy or necessarily reading anything into it for thinking so. But of course you know the lay of the land and the people involved so you are better able to judge whether that is, in fact, the case.

Russell Arben Fox said...

Thanks for the thoughts, everybody, both those who have commented here and those who have e-mailed me. I'm going to follow the counsel of some to try get to know this kid and his family; even if he hadn’t given her the bizarre home-made comic book, Melissa and I should see that as part of our parental responsibility. But beyond that, I’m basically going to put it out of my mind. Megan is terrifically embarrassed that I posted this, as it is; she has no idea why I'm looking at her gift as anything except a bit of geeky, Monty Python-esque humor. (Love the XKCD reference, David.) And she's probably right. Most of those who have contacted me have basically said the same thing: dude, that’s one creative 13-year-old boy. Whether his inspiration was Japanese magna or some movies or who knows what, he’s still just a kid, trying to impress a friend with something clever and/or unique and/or purposefully stupid. With four daughters, no doubt I will see plenty of this over the next 15 years, so I might as well start getting used to it now.

Johnna said...

I have daughters in that age range.

That's normal (though intelligent and creative and time-invested) flirting.

Johnna said...

But I think you should take down the post., If my kid made what is essentially a greeting card and sent it to a friend, I wouldn't think it cool if my kid's friend's dad posted a detailed description on the internet. Under his real name, so that my kid would be identifiable to those in the know.

Matt said...

Eventually, however, Megan the Cannibal finds him and, in one gulp, consumes him.

Whether his inspiration was... some movies

Hmm, a little man, consumed by a "lip smacking" woman... He's not a fan of certain Pedro Almodovar movies, is he? I'm thinking in particular of certain scenes (that I think are meant to reference each other) in Talk to Her and Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! You can get just a glimps of one (though not the "consumption" part) in the trailer here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfIiNeeu8iY

and at the very end of this trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WT391JArVt0&feature=related

It would be an odd 13 year old who was an Almodovar fan, but I would certainly approve.

(I think that when I was that age I would have likely made a mix tape, but I couldn't really draw that well.)

Bob said...

Russell

I go totally with Johnna on this one and don't fret too much at this stage as there will undoubtedly (voice of experience)be more to come as she reaches the teens.
You will find you are having to think on your feet an awful lot as there is no set agenda to deal with any issue and who knows what they will be in this ever changing world!

Lucy said...

daughter, 19, says Johnna's right, sounds normal and please take the post down.

also says boy drew cartoon of her as thor destroying him with lightening bolts and wonders if it may have something to do with feeling powerless...