GUESTS:

SARA SHANDLER Editor, Ophelia Speaks (Harper Perennial l999) Freshman at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn.

EMILY CARMICHAEL Contributor to Ophelia Speaks (wrote “Fight Girl-Power”) Junior at Stuyvesant High School in New York City

SHAKIRA VILLANUEAVA Contributor to Ophelia Speaks (wrote “A Silent Rush to Hope”) Freshman at Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida

Reviving Ophelia, a bestseller about the difficulties adolescent girls experience coming of age in a “girl-poisoning” society, inspired Sara Shandler to edit another book called Ophelia Speaks because she wanted the voices of teenage girls themselves to be heard. Issues such as eating disorders, reactions to old style feminism and the newer girl power, dealing with depression, sexuality and self-image as well the special issues of minority girls are all represented. Join guest host, Melinda Penkava and a panel of teens to discuss Ophelia Speaks .

Ophelia Speaks : NPR.

THURSDAY, SEP 16, 1999 4:00 PM UTC

Sells like Teen Spirit

Savvy about the media, steeped in pop psychology, today’s kids have problems the experts still don’t understand.

BY ALISSA QUART (excerpt)

Carmichael’s essay is scathing and outward-looking as well as inward-looking.

“Ophelia Speaks,” a bestselling collection of writing by teenage girls, doesn’t gloss over adolescent angst. Many of the book’s agonized authors write freely about their eating disorders (the book’s teen editor writes that each meal she eats is a decision not to be anorexic). As one girl puts it: “All of a sudden I’m insecurity-laden, nervous and dedicated to becoming Miss Skin ‘n’ Bones Teen USA.” Others write of depression and addiction and pregnancy: “After the suicide attempt, I grew stronger. The reality of the situation became clear to me. I found a purpose to live for — my baby.” Meanwhile, coddled girls rage at their mothers.

There are a number of quite moving essays in this collection. The best is by 15-year-old Emily Carmichael. In her sophisticated, painful and amusing meditation on girl power, she writes, “‘Girl power’ is a product, like for instance peanut butter, not a movement, like for instance suffrage … why do we buy this shit? … It’s something about being beautiful, that’s what it is. We want to be happy, to be surrounded by boys who lend us sweaters and girls who share their Slurpees.” Her rant against girl power’s beauty myth takes on a personal note as well: “Did you know that when I was anorexic and looked like a beanpole, I felt more powerful than I do now?”

Carmichael’s essay is scathing and outward-looking as well as inward-looking. Many of the other writings in “Ophelia Speaks” are more strictly self-involved. “Ophelia Speaks” is understandably intoxicated by its own youth, and the writing in it is often raw and true. But the book’s problem-oriented chapters reflect a less appealing aspect of adolescence: generational myopia. Shandler and her writers are appalled by high school drinking and teen pregnancy, and seem to believe that these dilemmas are not only difficult personal struggles, but radically new social problems. I was surprised by some aspects of “Ophelia Speaks,” but not these. What startled me was how readily most of the contributors have adopted a confessional, “problem memoir” mode. I was surprised to find that they take both pop psychology lingo and adolescent anorexia for granted. The chapters march to the rhythm of a self-help manual, with titles like “Self-Inflicted Wounds” and “Depression and Therapy.” Shandler doesn’t seem to consider these elements of her anthology surprising. Like brand-mania, they’ve become part of the adolescent landscape.

Animation Block Party (www.animationblock.com) is the premier animation festival of the East Coast. In this interview series, the founder of ABP, Casey Safron will be introducing Animation Magazine readers to some of the award winning animators who have screened at past ABP festivals.

Emily Carmichael’s recent live-action short, The Hunter and Swan Discuss Their Meeting, screened at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival and ABP has been lucky enough to show some of her past animated shorts from The Adventures of Ledo and Ix series. You can check out Emily’s films athttps://kidcandrive.com/

Emily Carmichael: First off, I owe the fans of Ledo and Ix a bit of an explanation for the long hiatus the show has taken. Fans! I get your e-mails! They warm my heart. I have been hard at work on a live-action feature called Arrow. There definitely IS a second season of Ledo and Ix coming. I’m deciding where it should air, and a few other details. There will be a Kickstarter for it in the near future!

Casey Safron: So, how has your animation process changed since the first Ledo/Ix film in 2008?

HARVARD GAZETTE ARCHIVES

‘Is this a puppet which I see before me?’:

Handmade characters bring pathos, hilarity to ‘Macbeth’

By Beth Potier 
Gazette Staff

Staff photos by Kris Snibbe

Just a few hours before showtime, Macbeth was undergoing some last-minute plastic surgery.

“We realized he looked too much like George W. Bush,” said co-director Emily Carmichael ’04, wielding a knife over the would-be king’s ears.

Carmichael and co-director Moss Bittner, a second-semester senior, were putting the final touches on “Macbeth: The Puppet Shakespeare,” a production of the Adams House Drama Society that was staged last weekend at Adams House’s Kronauer Space. Shakespeare’s tragic drama gets a faithful, if fanciful, telling with handmade puppets voiced by student actors.

READ MORE

Very proud to see a Ledo and Ix page on TV Tropes, that venerable compendium of conventions, devices and conceits.