Thursday, December 30, 2010

Tales from the Darkside: "The Word Processor of the Gods"

"The Word Processor of the Gods," written by Stephen King.

First published as "The Word Processor", Playboy, January 1983.
Reprinted as "The Word Processor of the Gods" in Skeleton Crew, NY: G.P. Putnam's Sons, June 1985.

Adaptation for Tales from the Darkside by Michael McDowell, directed by Michael Gornick. First aired 25 November 1984.

Summary: Struggling writer Richard Hagstrom inherits a home-made word processor from his dear departed nephew Jonathan, and soon realizes that by typing simple statements he can alter reality. He is faced with the opportunity to change his life by deleting his nagging wife Lina (Linda in the TV version) and their absent son Seth.

King's short story appears at first a simple fantasy to adapt, yet an important aspect of Richard and Lina's relationship is not well translated and the moral aspect of the story becomes completely skewed. The story is adapted in a fairly straightforward approach, even faithfully transcribing some of King's own lines. The adaptation was produced a year after the story's publication, and able therefore to remain undated in terms of the early 1980s novelty of word processors.

The story presents us with an interesting moral dilemma: is it right to delete the existence of two "unworthy" characters by replacing them with better people? King's short story is satisfying and makes the trade-off welcome, but McDowell's adaptation is morally dented, since the hero of the story is no longer the victim, and deletes the two victims of his own spineless existence.

In the Darkside version, hero Richard is presented immediately as a spineless loser trapped in a marriage to a compulsive eating and nagging wife Linda, while son Seth is locked away in his room incessantly pounding on his electric guitar. We meet Seth only in a photo and, really, the photo of the kid strikes me not as a hopeful guitarist but rather as someone planted on a couch playing video games (I guess at that time it would be the Commodore 64). This is presented to us as average middle American modern man's worst nightmare.

What fails in this rendition of the story is the characterization of both Richard and Linda. "Hero" Richard has clearly done nothing to make a life for himself. He was destined to marry his sister-in-law Belinda but was too spineless to propose, and his wife is fully aware of this. Imagine being married to someone you know is in love with someone other than you, and has married you because there was no emotional involvement? Of course she will be unhappy and nagging, even compulsively eating to fill a void created by a husband who still pines for an earlier love. Hero Richard has not taken any initiative to make something of his life, and has in the process managed to drag another down and produce a son who will likely contribute little to this world. He takes no responsibility whatsoever yet feels he has the right to wipe these two victims off the face of the earth, so that he can be with the woman he loves and seems to love only because she is beautiful (so it would appear; it is the only thing we learn of her). It is true he brings Belinda and Jonathan back from the dead, but in this scenario he should be sacrificing himself for their resurrection.

Richard is presented as a victim because he has a fat wife and a self-interested fifteen year-old son. He takes no responsibility for what he has himself made of his life, does absolutely nothing to redeem himself in any way, and manages to find a way to gain his childhood dream. I was unable at the onset to sympathize with Hero Richard, and wonder what kind of message we are expected to gain from this drama. We choose our paths and make our own mistakes; it is up to us to try and better the world we live in. The philosophy presented to us is that we can still achieve the ideal by doing nothing, or rather by actively sacrificing the victims of our life mistakes. It is likely this apathetic belief-system that has made modern man so lethargic.

This adaptation: 3/10

Director Michael Gornick here revisits Stephen King material which he did, just as poorly, with Creepshow 2. As with the material selected for the movie anthology, King's short story is infinitely better than its adaptation. Though the episode is fairly faithful to the source, King is adept at giving character back-story, and we learn quickly that the marriage between Richard and Lina was once a good thing.

Young and filled with great expectations, their aspirations for the future were quashed when, the one thing they were both relying on, Richard's writing career was sidetracked at the outset by a poorly-received first novel. The couple had placed too much importance on this, unable to accept the possibility that life might require hard word and not offer the anticipated riches that lie in the hearts of most youths. Disappointed by this failure they soon grew apart, and Lina holds what she believes to be a failed marriage against Richard's inability to achieve the riches of such authors as, let's see, Stephen King. Richard is not a failed writer, able to bring in about five grand a year on stories and articles; he has simply not written a bestseller.

We learn early on that Lina is the one unwilling to take responsibility for her unhappiness. Rather than be content with a marriage to a high school teacher and part-time writer, indeed to the man she seemed to have loved a few years ago, she is still hanging onto her dream and reminding her hard-working husband that she "backed the wrong horse." Whatever they believed when young, Lina is responsible for the unhappy state of their marriage. There are clearly no guarantees in life, and Lina's inability to get off her cloud and live in reality is what has destroyed the relationship. She did not marry Richard "for better or for worse," but because he was her ticket to a life of splendid idleness.

In essence, Richard is replacing two selfish people who refuse to serve society in any capacity, and replaces them with two caring, intelligent and creative people whose lives ended too early, and who were victims to Belinda's marriage to Richard's mean-spirited older brother Roger. Unlike the Darkside version, Hero Richard has the sense to understand why he never married Belinda to begin with. Richard did once date Belinda, but forever threatened and bullied by his older brother he gave up the chase out of cowardice and notions of self-preservation. Richard admits this flaw, his cowardice, and recognition of one's flaw is the first step in making amends.

The original short story: 7/10

Comparing the short story with the television adaptation is not entirely fair. Short stories have greater opportunity in sharing information, such as spending even a short paragraph giving back-story, while a twenty-two minute script has various inherent limitations.

It is not, however, impossible.

There is no need in the script for Linda to make certain accusations, such as Richard being in love with beautiful Belinda and not having the guts to propose. This we can eliminate entirely. Rather than be aware of Richard's love for Belinda, she can accuse him of failing in not providing her with the ideal she had not only hoped for, but had expected to achieve through their marriage. "Had I known your novel would fail I would never have married you." Ouch! Now that's a bitch. It's small details such as these that can affect the whole of a work.

Moreover, casted to play Richard was character actor Bruce Davison (best known as Senator Kelly in X-Men). Davison here is overly soft, expected to appear as a victim since he seems like such a nice guy. In reality he would appear haggard, frustrated and depressed. A better bet would be not a visually accepted "nice guy," but rather a visually recognised overworked and exhausted guy.

The choice to adapt King's short story was a good one, but the handling of the shady moral areas transforms the episode into an uncomfortable portrait of suburban America. Perhaps it is precisely that which makes this a tale from the Dark Side.


9 comments:

soggybottom said...

CasualDebris, I enjoy reading (and I often agree) with your writings on these episodes. However, I do not agree what you have to say here.

I admit that I haven't read the short-story, so I don't have the same perspective as you, but I have always enjoyed this episode.

You keep referring to Richard as a hero, but I've never seen him that way. Don't heroes stop evil and save the day? He basically kills off his wife and son (which hardly qualifies as a hero).

I've never seen him as a victim either--He's just the product of his own poor decisions in life.

And you wonder what moral it's trying to tell? It's not trying to tell any moral. Tales From the Darkside has never been about that. Who watches a horror anthology to learn lessons? I sure don't. Each episode tells a quick little short-story, and then we can make with it whatever we choose.

This episode is simply one man's fantasy. His life isn't going the way he wanted, and he wishes to turn back time and do things differently.

He gets his wish, and people like me (whose lives also didn't turn the way we wanted), are happy to see it for a change (a rarity in this show).

That's why people like to escape with stories like these. We all know that word processors can't bring gold or change your family.

But wouldn't it be cool if it could?

soggybottom said...

Okay, I get it now. You only post comments from people who agree with you.

That would have been nice to know before I spent all of that time on my post.

Look--I was just trying to give you (and your readers) another perspective (from someone who is NOT biased by the original short-story).

But apparently, we're only allowed to comment if we kiss up and worship every word that you say.

Casual Debris said...

Thank you Soggybottom for your considered response. I am glad you enjoy my reviews & appreciate that you've taken the time to post your own impressions.

Admittedly it has been some time since I have read the story & watched the episode, so I cannot in fairness respond to your points about the episode, at least not before some consideration. In terms of morals, however, I believe every story, tale or anecdote has an inherent moral scope. We do not watch television or read or listen to storytellers with the purpose of learning lessons or debating moral standards, but often I like to take this standpoint in my reviews, particularly with tales that deal with unusual human situations. Just look at my recent review of Edmond Hamilton's story "The Man Who Saw Everything."

I will try to find the time to re-visit the episode & perhaps we can debate further. I do appreciate such dialogue as it generates ideas.

Casual Debris said...

Hello again... I am a little surprised to see your follow-up message since your original one was posted only three days prior to my response. You might have noticed my activity on this site has been limited over the past year, this due to life commitments leading to time constraints, therefore I am not able to monitor activity daily. The reason I decided to moderate responses was simply a result of the increase in spam coming through Blogger.

While I do not expect kissing up or worshiping, I would appreciate a little respect. Note that an email is posted on the site. It would have been appropriate to send me a note along the lines of "Hey what's up dude? Wondering if you've had a chance to read my message." Since you have no link provided I must post this response publicly.

Having said this, I do appreciate your original response & invite you to contribute in the future, when appropriate.

soggybottom said...

Hello CasualDebris. It's been a while, but I just wanted to let you know that I did have a chance to read your response, and I want to sincerely apologize for what I said.

I must say (in this internet-world of immediate results) that I jumped to conclusions. I went to this site for three straight days after I posted it, and since my post never showed up, I immediately made the completely-wrong assumption that you weren't going to post it. You're right--Three days isn't long at all, but at the time, it seemed like forever.

You deserve all the respect in the world. You did this great web-site (that I've thoroughly enjoyed reading), and you handled my rude-ness with pure class. You showed me how it's done, and I thank you so much for that.

We're going to have to agree to disagree on this episode (because I'm always going to love it). As I read back through this conversation, I think I've said enough, but if you don't mind, I want to make one last point regarding what you said here...

He was destined to marry his sister-in-law Belinda but was too spineless to propose, and his wife is fully aware of this.

She's not aware of it. At that point of the movie, Richard just deleted Seth and is freaking out over what Lena is going to do when she gets home, and what we see is him imagining the worst-case scenario.

There's no way that she would stick with him for a second had she known that he wished he'd married someone else, and we can see from this scene that he's totally petrified of her ever finding out.

This is my favorite scene of the movie as it shows that he might not be all there mentally and that what transpires after might be all in his head (since realistically you can't "delete" anybody).

Thanks again for posting my thoughts, for putting up with me, but most of all, for doing one heckuva web-site!

Casual Debris said...

Thank you Soggybottom partly for the apology, but mostly for coming back to visit. I completely understand you were hoping for a response & that, on my part, maintaining a blog should preclude that the author be responsive; I only wish I can be as timely as I once was. My daughter turned one and is still keeping me busy, but I do peek in here from time to time.

When I have a chance I will re-visit the episode; you are certainly not the only one who appreciates it. Having done so I will re-visit your comments as well.

All the best,
Frank

NYCJapaneseTeacher said...

CasualDebris nailed it. Because somebody’s wife is fat and nagging and their son is annoying, they get to murder them? Nothing in the universe will ever make that ok.

Saving Jonathan and Belinda means that Richard gets a chance to sacrifice HIMSELF. Nobody gets to sacrifice another person, just to get what they want. Richard is easily one of the most evil characters in TFTD (and that includes vampires, demons and Satan!)

Maybe in the next one, a teacher can shoot failing students in the head to replace them with high-achievers? The difference is that if TFTD did an episode like that, it wouldn’t even pretend to justify the teacher’s actions and there would be a comeuppance! If anything, “Word Processor of the Gods” reminds me of “The Stepford Wives”.

Unknown said...

Can someone give me answer as soon as possile ..
What did the title suggest you before you read the story "word processor of gods" ?

Casual Debris said...

Hello "Unknown."

Because I first read this story some years ago as a kid, I can't at this time recollect what I had thought beforehand, of if I even had any thoughts. Perhaps if you were more specific with your question. This sounds like a school assignment.

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