“Rich girls don’t marry poor boys, Jay Gatsby. Haven’t you heard?”
Director Baz Luhrmann’s rendition of the great American novel left out the phrase that pays. The third movie version of The Great Gatsby in the last 40 years opened this weekend, and it indeed left OUT the most important line of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s transcendent dialogue.
It’s THE phrase that defined the central theme of both Gatsby and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s timeless career. And Fitzgerald’s legendary life for that matter.
People complained about rap music being used in a 1922 period piece, but that is the least of this film’s problems.
It’s still worth seeing, but one must check his expectations at the door.
Right at the opening kickoff, the 2013 film version of The Great Gatsby strays exceedingly far from the book version of The Great Gatsby. It places the novel’s narrator, Nick Carraway, in a sanitarium, telling his tale to a psychiatrist, long after the fact. There is no sanitarium or any mental health specialists in the book.
And the opening prose of Gatsby is also misquoted and butchered for good measure.
Shortly after this moment, the viewer must decide to watch the film as either
a.) a movie Cliff Notes version of Gatsby/Intro to Gatsby 101
b.) a visual effects masterpiece, cautionary Jazz Age (Fitzgerald’s phrase) period piece LOOSELY based on Scott’s book. $130 million buys you an eye-catching movie; just not aesthetic integrity.
The movie-goer will get much more out of the experience by choosing b.
“Rich girls don’t marry poor boys, Jay Gatsby. Haven’t you heard?” is the most essential sentence in this book because that line encompasses everything that defined Jay Gatsby, Amory Blaine- the hero of Fitzgerald’s first novel This Side of Paradise, and the life of F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Historians claim the person who condescendingly told F. Scott Fitzgerald “rich girls don’t marry poor boys” in real life was the father of Ginevra King. She was a Lake Forest, IL debutante who had a relationship with Fitzgerald during the 1910s. Fitzgerald grew up somewhere between middle class and upper middle class while King was upper upper class. Upon visiting King in Lake Forest, Fitz was told -via this phrase- that he was no longer considered a legitimate prospect for King’s romantic affections.
Scott was pretty much told: “Hey, thanks for coming!”
Daisy Buchanan, the female protagonist of The Great Gatsby, is lively and beautiful.
Yet also shallow and self-absorbed.
She is Nick’s second cousin and the wife of Tom Buchanan. Tom is a racist, philanderer, and batterer of women. So the typical stereotype of the attractive woman going for the horrible immoral jerk certainly holds true. Daisy was inspired by Fitzgerald’s youthful affair with Ginevra King. Daisy had a romantic relationship with Gatsby, before she married Tom. Her choice between Gatsby and Tom, decided by financial security, is the central conflict of the novel. Daisy refused to marry Jay because he was poor. When Jay becomes rich, he believes he can attain her; and he goes for it.
Tom Buchanan has parallels with William Mitchell, the Chicagoan who married Ginevra King. Buchanan and Mitchell were both Chicagoans with an interest in polo. Like Ginevra’s father, whom Fitzgerald resented (for obvious reasons), Buchanan attended Yale and is a white supremacist. In This Side of Paradise, Fitzgerald’s artistically superior novel, the main character Amory Blaine loses his love because he is too poor for her tastes and standards. This first novel of Scott’s is semi-autobiographical.
During his young adulthood, Fitzgerald courted Alabama debutante Zelda Sayre. She agreed to marry him, but soon changed her mind due to his lack of financial prospects. Scott had no money, and therefore lost his love. Until This Side of Paradise was published. When it took off and sold like hotcakes, Fitzgerald had fame and money; thus prompting Zelda to change her mind and marry him.
Thus, the moral of the story of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s real life, his first (and best) novel, as well as his most well known, best-selling master work is…..if you don’t have any money, you’re not going to keep your woman.
So is it really that strange to hear Jay-Z’s “H to tha Izzo” coming out of a Ford Model T in Roaring ’20s Manhattan during this film?
Yes, it is.
No, it is not.
To quote Fitzgerald in the novel (as well as his ambivalent notions of social class in real life) “it is within and without.”
The work of Sean “Jay-Z” Carter and F. Scott Fitzgerald teach us similar lessons about what being an American man entails. That you must provide economically or else you know what happens.
If Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (yes, he is named after and descended from the Star Spangled Banner composer) were alive today, I’m not sure he’d be all that happy with what was made of his creation.
He’d probably leave the theater in the first five minutes and head for the bar.
Or he’d already be at the bar to begin with.
Paul M. Banks is the owner of The Sports Bank.net. He’s also an author who also contributes regularly to MSN, Fox Sports , Chicago Now, Walter Football.com and Yardbarker
Banks has appeared on the History Channel, as well as Clear Channel, ESPN and CBS radio all over the world. President Barack Obama follows him on Twitter (@PaulMBanks)