crash diet kill me

hi, i’m john green, this iscrash course literature, and today we continue our discussionof to kill a mockingbird. so the takeaway from last week’s video aboutmockingbird was this: “you never really understand a person until you consider thingsfrom his point of view--until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” and forme, at least, that’s one of the great pleasures

crash diet kill me, of reading. we get to escape the stricturesof our narrow lives and travel through time and space, imagine the world from other people’sperspectives. and by accessing this wide range of human experience, we can understand thatother people are really real and isn’t that an amazing thing to be able to do while you’realso eating cheetos?!?

downside, you stain all your books with cheetofingers, but it’s worth it! [theme music] so some people argue that the empathy andunderstanding that we can get from reading is in fact, like, the point of all culture.in 1875, the english poet and critic matthew arnold argued that culture: "…seeks to doaway with classes; to make the best that has been thought and known in the world currenteverywhere; to make all men live in an atmosphere of sweetness and light." if that’s the point ofculture, i’m not sure that we’ve done that well, especially since in that quote, matthew arnold said,“men” when i presume he meant, you know, people. so to kill a mockingbird didn’t “do away”with class structure, but it does critique

social and racial divisions in the americansouth. and like chinua achebe’s things fall apart, to kill a mockingbird is a story aboutthe past, but it is also very much a product of the time in which it was written. all right,let’s go straight to the thought bubble today. so lee wrote to kill a mockingbird in the1950s—a decade of huge changes in the social landscape of the united states: rosa parksrefused to give up her seat on a bus (precipitating the montgomery bus boycott). riots broke outafter two african-americans were admitted into the university of alabama. and that wasjust in lee’s home state! in mississippi, emmett till, a 14 year old african-americanboy, was killed for allegedly whistling at a white woman, and the supreme court decidedthat “separate but equal” schools are

inherently unequal in the brown v. board ofeducation case in 1954. congress passed a civil rights act in 1957 to support the integrationof schools. in arkansas, the governor used the national guard to prevent nine african-americanstudents from entering little rock high school, and president eisenhower sent federal troopsto integrate that school. lee reflects on her 1930s childhood from theperspective of the conflict-ridden 1950s. so yes, lee is nostalgic for the sweetnessand light of her youth, for summer days playing outdoors, lemonade on front porches, readingon a father’s lap, but she’s also unflinching in her critiques of the bitterness and ignorancethat characterized social and race relations. that combination of nostalgia and criticismmakes mockingbird both endearing and enduring.

thanks, thought bubble. so our hero and narrator,scout, is confused by the hatred and violence she witnesses in her town. at the start ofmockingbird, jem explains the social order of maycomb: “the thing about it is, ourkind of folks don’t like the cunninghams, the cunninghams don’t like the ewells, andthe ewells hate and despise the colored folks.” scout doesn’t like this, she argues thatthere is, “just one kind of folks. folks.” scout, i don’t wanna cast aspersions, butthat’s literally the definition of communism. but class is deeply entrenched in maycomb;like, when scout asks her aunt alexandra if she can invite a poor classmate named waltercunningham home, alexandra tells her: “…you should be gracious to everybody, dear. butyou don’t have to invite him home.” and

when scout pressures further, alexandra finallysays: “… he—is—trash, that’s why you can’t play with him. i’ll not haveyou around him, picking up his habits and learning lord-knows-what.” but in the logicof the novel, alexandra’s thinking isn’t just mean-spirited, it’s flat-out dangerous, becausescout and jem have actually already hosted walter cunningham—a fact that saves atticus froma beating and (briefly) saves the life of tom robinson. because, remember when a mob converges onthe jail to lynch tom, they find atticus waiting outside, right? scout and jem then arriveon the scene and when scout innocently mentions to mr. cunningham, a leader of the group thatwants to lynch tom, that his son is “a real nice boy,” a humbled mr. cunningham tellsthe mob to disperse. so it’s by not honoring

the class structure of maycomb that scoutis able to achieve a small measure of justice. it’s also telling that it’s not atticus, or anyother member of their white upper middle class social order, who taught scout how topay young walter cunningham proper respect. it’s the family’s african-american housekeeper,calpurnia, because in fact, scout’s really rude to walter when he eats at her house.she asks walter “what the sam hill he was doing” after he pours syrup all over hisfood, and then calpurnia summons scout to the kitchen and lets her have it. calpurniaexplains that guests, no matter who they are, must be treated well and then tells scoutthat if she is not going to behave, she won’t eat at the table, she has to eat in the kitchen.

and scout really respects calpurnia, who,by the way, is a fascinating character. unlike most african americans in 1930s alabama, calpurniareads, writes, she has excellent grammar. and scout notices that calpurnia chooses tospeak differently with white people than she does with african-americans. when scout asksher about this, calpurnia replies, “….now what if i talked white-folks’ talk at church,and with my neighbors? they’d think i was puttin‘ on airs to beat moses.” and scout’sawestruck by the notion that calpurnia “led a modest double life… the idea that shehad a separate existence outside our household was a novel one, to say nothing of her havingcommand of two languages.” this is again a moment of scout learning to imagine otherscomplexly, which, after all, is her real education.

so calpurnia’s “double life” is a textbook example of what w.e.b. du bois called a “double-consciousness” in his famous book the souls of black folk (published in 1903). du bois describes “double-consciousness” as the “sense…of always looking at one’sself through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that lookson in amused contempt and pity. one ever feels his two-ness,—an american, a negro; twosouls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose doggedstrength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.” and calpurnia is acutely aware of how shelooks in the eyes of others. she has internalized the racism of whites as well as the classisminside her own community, and she treads carefully in both worlds. and she’s also a woman,so she has to navigate gender expectations.

like although calpurnia usually allows scoutto wear overalls, she dresses her up for church. and i think that gesture represents more thanprofessional pride. it also demonstrates how deeply ingrained ideals of southern femininityare in calpurnia’s life: it’s one thing, and certainly this heroism shouldn’t bedismissed, to allow a girl to “act like a boy” at home. but when it comes to herchurch and her community, calpurnia ultimately forces scout to conform to the gender rolesthat we discussed last week. so that’s one way that race and gender discriminationmanifested itself in maycomb. another is the experience of tom robinson. despite being proveninnocent beyond a shadow of a doubt, tom is sentenced to death. so how is scout supposed to makesense of that? well for this, we turn to atticus finch.

he’s sort of a gregory peck -- oooh. it’stime for the open letter. oh, look at that, it’s the movie tie-inedition of my own book, the fault in our stars. an open letter to movie adaptations. i justwant to state, for the record, that this was meredith’s idea. it’s not like i needcrash course to inform you that the paperback edition of my book is now available for just$12.99. dear movie adaptations,why are you so often so bad? the standard narrative is that movie adaptationsare bad because you can’t fit a whole novel into a movie. but one, that doesn’t explainwhere the wild things are, which is, like, 32 pages long. and two, you will rarely inamerican literature come across a more interesting

and complex book than to kill a mockingbird, whichhad, like, the greatest movie adaptation of all time! i think it’s ultimately because movie peopleknow that they need to make something that will appeal to millions and millions of people,whereas books don’t have to have that broad of an audience. because let’s face it, notthat many people read them. but, movie adaptations, when you’re good,and i think i’ve been lucky enough to get a good one, you’re not obsessed with gettingthe broadest possible audience, you’re obsessed with trying to make a good movie. so moreof that, and less pandering with gratuitous sex scenes and explosions. oh stan, always pandering with explosions.best wishes, john green.

right, but atticus is magnanimous. i mean,he waves at old mrs. dubose, the morphine addict who screams insults at jem and scout.like although atticus knows that mrs. dubose doesn’t approve of his own actions, he still recognizes that she has, quote, “real courage”—something he defines as, “…when you know you’relicked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what.”real courage, seeing it through even when you know you’re doomed, like the demi moorescarlet letter adaptation. they knew it was gonna suck, but they just kept going. no oneknows who demi moore is anymore, stan. we gotta update our references. did mila kunismake any terrible movie adaptations? meredith has informed me that mila kunis is also old.

but this is precisely the kind of couragethat atticus displays when defending tom robinson. like before the trial, atticus tells his brotherthat he knows he is already “licked”: “you know what’s going to happen as wellas i do.” but atticus still defends tom passionately, although to be fair, it’snot that difficult to argue in court that a man with a damaged left arm would have hada difficult time punching someone on the right side of their face. now that was his job,but outside the courtroom, he also holds an all-night vigil near tom’s cell. atticusis fighting for more than abstract principles of social justice. he wants to serve as anexample that will prevent his children from, quote, “catching” racism, which he calls,“maycomb’s usual disease.”

astoundingly, atticus even has compassionfor bob ewell, the drunkard who beat (and likely raped) his own daughter, mayella. imean, ewell successfully pinned this on tom robinson, knowing full well that a convictionwould lead to the death penalty. and ewell stalked tom’s wife, spit in atticus’ face, andthreatened, then later attacked, jem and scout. and when jem’s a little incredulousthat atticus is able to empathize with ewell, atticus replies, “jem, see if you can standin bob ewell’s shoes for a minute. i destroyed his last shred of credibility at that trial,if he had any to begin with. [….] so if spitting in my face and threatening me savedmayella ewell one extra beating, that’s something i’ll gladly take. he had to takeit out on somebody and i’d rather it be

me than that houseful of children out there.”that may seem like almost over-the-top in terms of heroism, but let’s remember this is asouthern gothic novel. it has to have its knight. all right, let’s close today with atticus’line that gives the novel its title: “it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.” when scoutasks miss maudie why, she learns: “mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for usto enjoy. they don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corncribs, they don’t doone thing but sing their hearts out for us. that’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.”so who’s the mockingbird in this novel? is it the elusive boo radley, confined tothe nest of his home, but generous in his love for the finch children? is it tom robinson,whose kindness to mayella ewell was literally

the death of him? is it the author herself,singing her heart out about the imperfect gardens of her youth? or is it scout herself,whose education in empathy is also an education in race, class, and gender oppression? (itcould also be katniss everdeen.) but regardless of how you answer that question,to kill a mockingbird leaves us with a timeless takeaway: it requires courage to try on theproverbial shoes of others, to try to walk around in their skin. it’s difficult butimportant to listen to other peoples’ voices and to try to empathize across the barriersof sex and class and race. and ultimately, that’s the great heroism of atticus finch. he’s ableto seek and find the essential humanity of others. thanks for watching, i’ll see you next week.

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