I just don't understand why bella thorne wanted to die in her boyfriend's arms on a boat?? Like, yeah I wanna traumatise my boyfriend for life and let him hold my dying body and then have to stare at it while he rows that boat back to the shore!!
@@nohope5920 that must have been such a slap in the face to the parents lmao. Sorry mom and dad, I know you spent your whole life taking care of me, but I want my last moment to be with this dude I've known for like two weeks
I'm so tired of people commercializing and romanticizing terminal illnesses. If my partner was going to die eventually I'd be torn, It wouldnt be romantic, it wouldnt be hot, it would be horrifying. Like if your family members got cancer you dont think "Wow! That's so romantic".
@MissCreative Gamer Breaking news!!! Sick people are allowed to be happy! Shocker I know :) Maybe its because they deserve happiness like every other person!! WHO WOULDA THOUGHT.
@@denofentropy You misunderstand. When someone close to you is on the brink of death, any sane person around them would feel torn, pain etc. The teenage protagonists do not show that. There can be happiness, yes, but it is bittersweet and it should permeate through the work.
@@denofentropy @Adrian Black I... really don't think they were saying sick people couldn't be happy, just that being sick shouldn't be romanticized or glorified. It's a a horrible thing a lot of people need to deal with, and it's great to have stories featuring sick people being happy, but it's another thing entirely to make the actual sickness something romantic. It's not romantic or cute, it's just an illness
I think it would be good if it was written by people that have some experience with illness themselves and what that trauma is like because I think other chronically ill people should be allowed to see themselves in love stories and see themselves in happy situations. But I don’t think middle aged men/woman that are perfectly healthy and have always been perfectly healthy should be writing them because it is weird as a healthy, grown person to just take sick teens and make them sexy.
@@denofentropy yes, sick people di deserve to be happy and they deserve to experience Romance if they wish, but being ill isn't romantic, it isn't something that should be looked at as something desirable, because people suffer. These movies glorify illnesses, and I've seen way too many young girls wishing they'd have cancer, and literally crediting movies like this foe giving them them the idea of wanting to have cancer.
people should be ashamed of the harassment they sent caleb over this, it’s clearly a critique of the fetishisation of disability and illness in media post the fault in our stars and also the over-saturation of said media. he isn’t being ableist in any way...
The "dying cute girl" genre is so bizarre. I think Five Feet Apart is where it really hit it's peak annoyance for me with the whole "take one foot back" thing, being irresponsible with your health and literally putting your life in danger for the sake of flowery sounding sentimentality is not cute, it's inane on top of being a dangerous attitude to promote to its audience of pre teens and early teenagers. I'm not gonna say what someone can and cannot write, you can totally write a good romance story involving a dying person, it's just that particular genre is super prone to insane childish concepts of love and also plays into that whole weird "forever young" romanticizing of dying young.
dude. Everything, Everything had that to an even more obscene level. she literally thought she had an illness that would kill her if she even stepped foot outside her house and then she decides to run off on a vacation with a boy she had just met. like girl. you’re under the impression that this will kill you and you don’t care?
I have cystic fibrosis and the five feet apart movie, especially book, really, really annoy me. Risking your health & the person you like's health IS NOT romantic and NOT cute & it's the worst omg. I hate the concept. I ALSO hate that they show EVERYONE with CF actively DYING at the age of 18, I'm 17, and I'm still relatively healthy, & most people with cf aren't actively dying when they reach adulthood.
Robin Librodo Tropes are often a singular event/action in a story. These stories are too derivative and follow the same exact plot structure to just be a trope. If you were to describe these stories by taking out the character names and specific terminal illnesses, they would literally be the exact same story. Therefore it’s more of a genre and not a trope.
Why couldn't Fault in the Stars just have been a mother-daughter story... Laura Dern's chiropractor deserves a raise because her shoulders must be ACHING from carrying that movie
Because John Green needs to have a self-insert that does nothing but say one-liners the entire time (and fuck his manic pixie dream girl that he made up)
@@stanleysmooth I actually think the book was alright. It was not that sad, but some scene about all that "going to die" situation did fuck me up. And the whole point of whether or not you can leave a mark in the world, and the argument with that author asshole was amazing. Im a pretentious book nerd who loves deep shit, and even tho the fault in our stars isn't that great in my opinion, I didn't like some bits for how hard hitting they were, spoilers but gus' death didn't make me cry lol, but every thing else did.
The next movie like this is going to have teenagers with covid. They need to socially distance but they can't be apart. A whole subplot of their masks getting in the way of them kissing.
So actually... there's already a book about that, kind of. I work at a Barnes and Noble and we've gotten a quarantine romance novel already lmao. It's called "Quarantine: A Love Story"
Kate Ravenscroft Hollywood did the same with YA Dystopians since 2012 (Hunger Games). It’s less rip-offs and more Hollywood rips off one book adaptation by making 5+ more from the same YA book genre
Simplified plot: Sick white girl have been sick almost her entire life she meets white boy who is not like other boys by being sick as well or just being plain weird. They do happy stuffs in a montage with happy no copyright music. White girl pass out for some reason and realize she's going to die as if she never knew that she will eventually before. She makes the dumbest decision to "experience life" with white boy instead of getting frickin medication. White girl dies, white boy cries in a long montage with white girl's voiceover.
honestly what irks me the most about these kinds of movies is the overwhelming implication that living with a chronic illness or disability isnt "really living" and that its better to die than to live disabled. it's incredibly frustrating as a disabled person to see these narratives paraded around by abled people.
THIS! It’s so frustrating that all disabled plot lines end in death with the characters whole personality being they hate living and their life is so hard. Sure life is a little more challenging and can be frustrating at times but shit I don’t want to end my life because of it.. it’s so extra - I get that some people unfortunately really can’t cope with their circumstances but able bodied writers just stereotype and generalise us
Yesss, people can live with chronic illnesses and disabilities AND be happy, AND have a full life, AND have happy romantic relationships. The way they romanticise the death of these characters and frame them like a relief or a regain of dignity... Like??? No??? We want to be alive, thank you??? Also the fact that when they don't die it's cause they are suddenly cured and NOW they can live a happy life... Pfff
Parker Puck Oh my god that is one of the most dangerous movies I’ve ever seen. It’s basically telling people that they can have literally everything that a person could ever need and want, but if they’re handicapped then they aren’t shit.
@@criticalthinkingconcubus Yeah, and honestly as a chronically disabled person who's already pretty unhappy about it-- what the fuck. Even more disheartening, a lot of abled people don't see the problem. 🙃
so i’m an actual teenage girl with a terminal illness and i absolutely hate tfios because every other person associates me with it. one time, i shared my diagnosis to someone and she had the audacity to tell me that “maybe i’ll find an augustus waters out there”. like, girl??? imma focus on not dying first??? lmao
Mannn, can I relate. Well, I'm 21 and terminal so technically not a teen grill anyone :') but yeah, if I had an extra year of life for everyone who tells me I just need to find the person to hold me when I die, then I wouldn't be terminal anymore lmao. How bout I spend this time working on self acceptance, and not having to rely on someone else to feel 'satisfied' with my life??!
Speaking as someone with cystic fibrosis -- Five Feet Apart did a really good job of making me absolutely fed up and annoyed with the main characters. Like, I really, honestly get not wanting to take your meds, but that shit is fucking expensive! And a LUNG TRANSPLANT? Dude if I ever had the chance for a new set I'd be thrilled and the fact that she completely ignores it and they both risk their own health repeatedly for some Hot Teen Romance is actually so frustrating to see. I'm glad that cystic fibrosis is getting more attention, of course, but Jesus, dude.
In the book, it’s said that the main dude has a really rich mom who literally tries bribing the nurse for something I don’t remember. So the medicine doesn’t seem like that much of a waste to him. The book also kind of shines a light on how he hates when his mom buys him super expensive shit for affection. It’s not fantastic, but at least it explained a little more than the movie. I can totally understand why you can find the end where she chooses to waste two PERFECTLY GOOD organs infuriating. She’s an idiot.🙄
I have Cystic Fibrosis AND had a double lung and liver transplant. Please don’t judge another CFers who struggle finding purpose in taking care of themselves. Even while going through the transplant process, depression is a monster! I was on the waiting list for 4 years (AT THE VERY TOP) loosing hope bc I couldn’t find a match, in pain everyday, struggling to find a reason to fight. Yes the movie makes it a lot more dramatic, but there are people like this. I hope you’re staying safe! If you ever need a CFer to vent to, I’m here! 💜
You underestimate the power of love and teenage stupidity, obviously is a teen love drama, emphasis on drama and yeah, that's something YOU would, people are weird mate, don't try to look for logic there
The thing you said about John Green’s characters all being the same is so true. Honestly they are all quirky smart teenagers with perfect comedic timing. It’s tired.
also the main protagonist is a typical nerdy, introverted person who haas like 1 best friend /and the best friend might have a small friend group with him but the MC is never close with them/ and is in love with the love interest, who's a mainc pixie dream girl/boy / and not like other boys/girls, extroverted but thinks others are ordirary or whatever/ who most likely either dies or goes somewhere and never comes back and at the end of the book the MC learns some new phillosophical stuff about life or smth
@@yonicorn1641 yes exactly. Don’t forget how the best friend of the MC is (similar to the love interest) also always quirky and extroverted, and often trying to talk sense into the love sick MC.
@@yonicorn1641 paper towns is literally about subversing these tropes lol you should read that one. It talks about how boys look for their manic pixie dream girl but girls are human beings, not your prize at the end of a quest, they want to live their own lives and you can fuck off about idealising them. It's really cool
@@yonicorn1641 i agree with most of this to an extent, except about the love interest always being a “manic pixie dream girl”. To me most John green books seem very anti manic pixie dream girl trope.
I’m glad that Caleb feels confident venturing out of book content. I love his commentary on literally anything and movies are such a great place for that. Well watch anything he makes tbh. I’d read his grocery lists
Agreed!! Caleb makes everything good and nice and delightful! Most of the young adult fiction I have never read or even heard of, but I’ll gladly watch and rewatch 40 min long videos he did about it!
Honestly Caleb has gone right in hand with my journey out of realizing a lot of the YA books I worshipped were kinda shit lol. Like we’re going through the same thing at the exact same time.
New concept: Give the lovers disabilities instead of death. Disabled people who love each other should be more normalized than dying people falling in love. But that's just my opinion
Yes! I actually have a lot of disabled original characters that I don't ever do anything with lol mainly I draw them and project my own issues onto them
A Walk to Remember is probably the best one from this genre, because it focuses more on the friendship/romance and character development without romanticising sickness. The girl's illness is not discovered for a really long time, so it's rightfully tragic when it's revealed, instead of emotion porn.
Yes!!! I mean it's pretty cheesy at times but it's a sweet movie. And I appreciate that it's told from the guy's perspective for once. Plus the actor who played Landon, Shane West was so handsome!! :3
I think it works because we are in the perspective of the person who doesnt have the illness and so we’re basically kinda led to believe it is a normal relationship. And when they finally reveal it, i guess we’re impacted more? Idk ive never watched the movie but definitely I’ll check it out
It makes me feel so old remembering it when everyone else seems to think that John Green invented the 'dying teen' romance. There was also 'Keith' with Jessie McCartney.
When my boyfriend got diagnosed with cancer it wasn't cute. It was incredibly terrifying and we're glad it's gone now and he'll be okay. It's not romantic at all.
“And he’s just ‘trying not to make anybody mad’ but he failed, because he made _me_ mad-“ **continues talking as if he hasn’t just made the funniest joke EVER**
I hated the fault in our stars movie and book when it came out and everyone thought i was weird 🥴. John Green seriously said "and then we made out in the Anne Frank house and everyone clapped ahah".
YES. I wrote this huge critical rant on the novel back in 2014 on my tumblr--it blew up, but I literally got death threats from fans, just for saying things like "JG didn't do enough research" "nobody talks like this" and "why are these two american gentiles kissing in anne frank's attic"
But I felt like the character he was using as an example might have been autistic coded? Being unsociable, saying what comes to the top of his head, making sounds and moving to get his energy out... I think not like other boys exists, but this character didn’t seem like he was trying to be different. I didn’t know where else to comment this 😅
@@createdtogaze it's been a while since I read the book or watched the movie, but I don't think the character from Me, Earl, and the Dying girl is framed that way. In the book it's mostly that he's immature.
As someone who does have a sensitivity to sunlight (I won’t die when I go out in the sun, but I will throw up and/or pass out) Midnight Sun makes me roll my eyes. It’s an everyday thing for me to casually remind people “hey I have sunlight issues so if you want to hang out, we have to be indoors and with the windows covered.” And most of the time the response people give back is “oh okay cool that’s fine.” No one really judges me for it. So for her to actively put herself at risk by not telling him just feels so stupid and contrived
That screaming car scene tho like... aren't there lots of ways to avoid the sun? Can't she just get into the trunk real quick or like hide under a coat?
Timothea Haider that’s what I was thinking! I hide under coats all the time in the car. It’s really not THAT hard to hide from the sun, especially when it hasn’t even risen fully
@@rachelday5406 And that idea that her "plight" is so terrible that she'd has to sacrifice herself for love? Like no. The sun sucks ass. Her basic boyfriend can shift his sleep schedule a little. There's no inevitability or romance there, its just teenage suicide with an insta filter pretty soundtrack.
Not that it’s a hot take that “young dying girl” is a popular and frankly disgusting trope, but it’s so nasty that we think youth, beauty, virginity, and grace are made better or more apparent when the girl is sick, dead, or dying. Like there’s so much classical poetry that’s JUST about how bad people wanna boink the corpses of cute dead girls.
Also how many times in mystery stories have pretty, semi-popular, troubled white girls who end up getting murdered? I think Twin Peaks subverted the trope well, but it also spawned a lot of clones lacking nuance.
And how in Victorian times having tuberculosis was seen as being super sexy because being fragile and delicate and slowly wasting away is sexy I guess??
@@reeseewhitfield1734 I did remember Kurtis Conner when I watch TFIOS last week. The moment they just clapped at Anne Frank's house was so fake. Would never happen in real life hahahaha
had a thought. ain't it suspicious that all these girls choose reckless relationships over their own life? sounds kind of toxic ngl and straight up misogynistic. idk i can't explain it.
I get what you mean. It's similar to the stories of women who sacrifice their own happiness/comfort for the microscopic promises of a man. And it's something very prevalent in film and TV. Maybe self-depreciation or -degradation? I don't know if there's a term for it.
For some people trying everything not to die just to try and live a little longer is way worse than living in the moment and dying more early. It doesn’t have to be toxic. I thinks it’s more about taking control over your own life.
As a dermatopathologist, I have to make sure you all understand that people with XP will not just drop down dead as soon as the sun touches them. Sufferers are far more prone to skin cancer because of their sensitivity to UV light, and that is what will eventually lead to their premature deaths. They are not vampires. Great representation, such research.
Me, Earl, and the Dying girl does not deserve to be considered a rip-off of TFiOS, since it literally tried to subvert the trope, but I'm biased cause I really liked the book.
I think it's still fair to consider the movie something of a tfios ripoff because it was only made to ride the wave of sick kid movies that tfios started. That really is a disservice to the book though, I agree with you.
I actually know someone who is allergic to the sun in real life, and it's not the least bit romantic. She can't go outside at all during the day and can't find a job because of that. She's lives fully on government assistance and is severely depressed.
Yea, i knew a girl who had cancer and she ended up committing suicide because she didn't want cancer to be the death of her. I hate seeing movies romanticize these illnesses like they're some cute sub plot for a romantic movie🤦♀️
@@dollnoir It may sound horrible but i understand her. A few years back I got in an accident ( i was lucky and only my foot was hurt), the pain was so big i couldn't function without pain medication. My Doctor did not know if i will be able to walk normally ever again or if pain will last. After 4 weeks i was so tried I started considering suicide if this pain never stops. I started getting better during 3 or 4 months ( i could finally sleep through the night without waking up from pain), lasting pain eats you slowly from inside. You do pretty much everything to make it finally stop.
@@Jessjwhitak Yeah, my friend could probably also find night work if she really wanted to, but she's been too depressed to work properly for a long time.
As a disabled person I appreciate Caleb understanding that disabled people DONT want movies about how if someone is sick their life should revolve around it and if you’re lucky some guy might find your sick super sexy. Like eww.
The Bella Thorn movie is so bad because Xeroderma just doesn’t work like that. She wouldn’t get pale with circles around her eyes, she would get horrible sun damage. They just did that because they didn’t want her to look ugly. And it wouldn’t kill her instantly. That movie just sucks so much. Edit: I hadn’t finished the freaking video, the last one is WORSE. You know that transplant organs have a time limit where they are viable, so this chick is letting two perfectly good organs that could go to someone better just waste...because she is in love.
It's so funny how they make this "the sun kill her" plot so dramatic like okay girl you just live at night, a lot of people work at night and sleep during the day your life isn't over because of that :')
@@tereziamarkova2822 oooh thanks for the info! Hmm I see, dying middle age because of this condition isn't too bad, sure it's short, but you still can live a pretty good life I think
I’m gonna say this: I lost my uncle to cancer in 2020. I watched him completely wither away. He suffered A LOT. By the time he passed away his tumours had blocked off his intestines that he hadn’t eaten for 2 months. That shouldn’t be glamorised. People with illnesses deserve to be represented, but they also deserve to be represented tastefully. So anyone who did send Caleb hate: shame on you. People suffer from these illnesses and instead of having sympathy, you harassed someone. Grow up.
i had a similar situation this year with my uncle too. he also withered away to the point where he was barely awake. he wasn’t even awake for me to say my goodbyes. and now i see the romanticisation of cancer EVERYWHERE. thor love and thunder’s ending kind of ruined the movie for me because i liked literally everything else. i also found that movies i liked before were hard to watch, like deadpool. my thought is: is there literally nothing else you can write about? why is it always cancer? maybe it’s because it’s so fresh but i just don’t understand
Can i just say: Isaac is UNDERRATED!!!!! Everyone always remembers Hazel’s speech about their little infinity, but forget Isaac’s where he says that *“in the future when scientists create robotic eyes that could restore his vision he won’t accept it bc he doesn’t want to see a world without his best friend in it”* Bro that gets me every time
as a black girl i can confidently tell you that earl is indeed a stereotype lmao i watched the film and every time he came on screen i was like oh goodie how are they gonna be offensive this time 😐
I read the book and I remember it being different and like rlly delving into his issues and like y but it was a while ago and this isn’t my place to decide. The book is much much better tho, explains everything rlly well that they j left out in the movie.
Hey, someone with Cystic Fibrosis here! I haven’t seen the movie, but I’ve read part of the book. The part about her ignoring the Lung Transplant is absolutely INSANE. I’ve gone through 2 transplant evaluations before (but luckily never listed yet)- they are a HUGE DEAL. We wait months upon MONTHS for a compatible pair of lungs- and most CFers die on the waiting list. The moment they say they have lungs, you drop everything at the chance to breathe once again. (Of course everyone copes with it differently. But from my experience, it’s kinda unrealistic)
I don't know literally anything about medical stuff but the second the girl in everything everything said she couldn't go outside I was like "ya her mom is making that up" lmao. Also the line "Just when I thought this movie couldn't get anymore clownish my rainbow shoes showed up from Amazon prime." Is the funniest thing on the planet and Caleb deserves at least 10 oscars for it.
I’m a med student! SCID is actually a real (and horrible) condition. It’s the condition that the “bubble boy” had (if you know about that story). The funniest part is that people that do even a little bit of research will know that the prognosis is typically
You’re probably right honestly...but my point was that the movie specifically stated that the chick had SCID.... Only sharing what I know about that condition 🤷♀️
I feel like the scene when bella thorns love interest is looking up what her disease is has the same type of energy as bella looking up if Edwards is a vampire
Oh my god the five feet apart one PISSED ME OFF. Like, the life expectancy for people with CF used to be six years old before they realized that the nurses were cross-contaminated and spreading different bacteria strains. Now it's thirty-six. Keeping away from him is keeping you alive, sweetie, please value yourself more than this!!
As someone who has two chronic illnesses, Midnight Sun is so overdramatic and ridiculous lmao. If I decided to die every time I felt sick, which is all the time, I'd be dead 1000x over.
As a sick teenager who’s been sick since I was 12 I’m 19 now I kinda vibe with these movies/books. I know a lot of them aren’t good but the representation for me is important. It’s kinda cool seeing people with declining health happy in relationships. The last guy I was seeing decided I was too ill for him to date or see anymore. Sometimes I’m so depressed over my illness and how it’s only going to get worse from here on out and feel it’s not worth living this sick life and I turn to movies like these...idk that’s just one sick teens perspective. A lot of these also glorify illness and are made so healthy people can watch and feel good about their lives at the end of it because “wow thank god that’s not me thank god im not sick like that” and that’s super hurtful lmao
another chronic illness teen here! i actually enjoyed 5 feet apart for this reason. yes it was cheesy and the ending was ridiculous, like you don't just "give up" a transplant for a guy. but out of all of them it was the best representation of life in a hospital. it did a fairly ok job at the parent dynamics of your child living in hospital and the connection you can make with nurses, plus it gave cystic fibrosis a lot of recognition outside of the movie. the movie made me (who's spent a great majority of my life in a hospital) feel a little more seen.
Both of you guys should take a crack at writing your own stuff inspired by/loosely based on your own experiences! Then we would have more media on this subject which is more accurate and less hurtful, and the millions of other people with chronic illnesses would definitely appreciate it! I know writing isn't for everyone, but who knows? :D
I'm a writer, so I'm curious if there's something missing from a lot of these kinds of stories that you want to see included in the future. I agree with fiddblebirdblue about writing your own stories if you can. But if you're not up to writing it yourself, just sharing your experiences and opinions with others can be helpful. If you share these things with writers, we'll be able to write better representation for you. We can write the stories you really want. Not enough writers actually listen to the people they're writing about.
We really need to have this conversation as a society tbh. I'm really sorry about your bad experiences. Everyone deserves love and support, which is why I'm sending you tons of it and a virtual hug!! Take care ❤
You totally should have added that anorexia movie starring Lily Collins. Then talk about how much they were trying to hype it up when: 1. Lily Collins admitted to having/being an anorexia survivor. 2. She actually lost all that weight for the movie and they promoted it has "losing weight to be anorexic the healthy way because I did it with a bunch of doctors" 3. Had the generic we exploit the possibility of you dying for a movie from an illness you more or less can't control to "start a conversation" That movie was trash and the comments/script was damned awful.
Honestly, if you delve into ED movies, you'll realise in that genre, making it "aesthetic" is one of the lesser crimes. Watch Starving In Suburbia for context, if you hated To The Bone, you will be HORRIFIED by that one.
You can tell that movie was made without a spare thought about actual ppl with ED watching it, ive never had one but those scenes where they just focus on her malnourished body as a “shock”, i feel like theyd be so triggering to someone who suffers from it..
first off i can’t believe keanu reeves was in there and second off it really glamorizes eds and it’s really dangerous because younger people are gonna watch it and take notes
i remember going to the see five feet apart with a date and us repeatedly chanting “two bros, five feet apart because they have cystic fibrosis” until the girls in front of us told us to shut up
also can we talk about the fact that in all of these it's the girl who's dying, vulnerable, and in a way 'needs saving/romance"' . If it's not the girl then it's both of the characters. Just again playing into the 'girls weak' stereotype and it's like the people making these films are thinking, 'this girl is sick so only way to make them feel better is man'. (I am in no way saying that people who have illnesses are weak, what I'm trying to say is that Hollywood likes the trope that vulnerable girls need strong men to save them. My comment is about how the media portrays women period.I'm not good with wording so if someone thinks this is worded poorly please let me know! Now my explanation is longer than my comment lmao)
i decided to search on Twitter what was going on because apparently some people thought this video was ableist I'm not disabled so I really cannot speak for disabled people, but Caleb didn't joke about anyone's actual illnesses at any point (?), he was making fun of the romanticization these movies always include I also read a tweet from a person talking about how five feet apart was an important movie for them to cope with their aunt's death from cf and so they were offended with the video - I feel really sorry for this person and I think we can all be happy that the movie helped them deal with such a sad thing, but at the same time, Caleb is criticizing the movie itself, not the illness, and if this person got offended by this, it gives off really big "I'm just offended because you don't like what I like" energy (obviously as this person used this movie as a coping mechanism, the movie itself has a huge meaning to them and seeing criticism being made about it might be hard, but they should still respect other people's opinions and not just scream "ableism" for no reason)
I'm disabled, though not terminally ill, and I wasn't overly offended by anything here? Disability only being explored as a cheap plot point through an abled lens has always been a big problem and this is just the YA-ified version of it.
as a person with CF able-bodied people calling ableism makes me veeery uncomfortable. i can respect their relationship with the movie to an extent, but i personally can't stand it lol
I'm sorry but I despise Augstus Walters, he is literally the male version of "I'm not like other girls". For example, he wastes money on cigarettes for the fun of it??? For a mEtApHoR?
I revisit this video a LOT. As someone who was chronically ill and disabled from my younger teenage years, these movies were a LOT for me. As a fourteen year old, seeing TFIOS was really special to me in a way that made me feel alienated from the rest of the fandom. I felt like I wasn't part of the mainstream audience of "healthy people" romanticizing the movie; I was a PART of the movie, in a strange way. Not to get too personal online, but I thought I was going to die at fifteen years old because I was THAT sick. At the time, I felt really cynical about alcohol and sex and stuff, because I was never going to be old enough to do that. And TFIOS addressed THAT by having underage characters drink champagne and have sex because it's better to live a "complete" life than Die a Virgin. And now, as an adult, I realized it was a really toxic influence on me! It's weird to say the "heteronormativity" or whatever was the last straw for me, but like. Terminally and chronically ill children should've had representation that deconstructed irrelevant societal "milestones" that define a life being "fulfilled" or not. Not only that, but these movies did Nothing to help people's understanding of illness. If you don't respect your needs, you don't just Die; you more often suffer long-term worsening of your illness or permanent damage and disability that you'll have to live with for the rest of your life. These movies trivialize illness in a way, and it worsened healthy people's understanding of chronic illness in general. Most people can't understand that you can be permanently sick but not dying. I don't know. I never commented before because this video and these movies give me SO many thoughts that I can never trim down to one comment one time. I could write a different essay in the comments every time I watch this video, but just being able to think about it to myself helps. This video kind of helps me compartmentalize and unpack some of the harm these movies did to me, and to my "community" of chronically/terminally ill and disabled people. Even if the video doesn't address that harm outright. (And I don't expect that of Caleb anyway because he's young, healthy, and not the kind of content creator that makes that kind of content, and that's okay!) It's nice to have just ONE long-form video about how shitty these movies are from the perspective of someone who respects sick people a hell of a lot more than these movies ever did to begin with.
I genuinely despise sick lit. When I was in 3rd grade my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer and it was a long, drawn out, and painful experience. Not just for her, but for our whole family. Even after she was cancer free she got sick all the time. Terminal illness, especially cancer is not anything romantic or pretty. You slowly wither away over time. My mom was either in the hospital or in bed while she had cancer because she was just that sick. She wasn't able to go on these "fun getaways with her lover", SHE WAS SLOWLY DYING. I can't believe I have to say this, any fatal illness is not beautiful or meant to be romanticized. Depending on what illness it is it can be gross, painful, traumatic (my mom has been diagnosed with ptsd from her cancer treatment), and ofc deadly. It's a horrible experience for everyone. Fuck anyone that romanticizes it.
my mom also had breast cancer (she is ok now) but seriously i hate these movies even more now that i and my family have actually gone through that traumatising ordeal
And the ending has her give birth to a mixed-baby and it's a metaphor I guess? I do admire her as a person but she needs to.....read the scripts of whatever movie she is doing. Or fire her agent.
I feel like that film is either a rip off or inspired by the book where a female black nurse and a nazi german fell in inlove I think the title of it is "Enemies Inlove" and there's even a documentary about it where they interviewed the author of the book and where did she get That story which actually pretty lovely and here's the docu of it if you're wondering: th-cam.com/video/Jyyg2OPMTvg/w-d-xo.html
Did they TRY to make Midnight Sun’s “research google scene” look like the one from Twilight??? Straight up they looked like they were about to “Say it. Out loud.” “Vampire.” at me
i think hazel’s issue with the support group guy is that his cancer got removed right away and he was never terminal like a lot of the people in the group...like having a little bit of cancer and getting is removed and being completely okay is very very different than hazel or augustus’s cancer that is literally destroying their bodies and they know theyre going to die it’s just a matter of when
As a teen with cancer, I do have to say TFIOS and Five Feet Apart did so much for me. I loved TFIOS in 2014 for all of the flowery language and "metaphors" but expected to hate it when I reread it in 2018 while in treatment. But I was wrong. It felt like coming home to an old friend that "got it". John Green does an amazing job of hitting what it's like as a teen with cancer - both the extremely real parts (facing mortality at a young age, struggling with missing out on teen years, dating???, and knowing that the worst thing that is happening to you is also the worst thing that could ever happen to your parents), as well as taking the piss out of it (the make a wish trope, people using their cancer stories as forms of ~inspiration~). Was TFIOS a perfect book/movie? No. Was it a wonderful representation of a touchy subject? Yes. So I hate when people shit on it on the behalf of people like me.
Yeah, I don't think demands not to "romanticise" disability and illnesses are a good idea for this reason. People are ignoring that it's a representation issue. BTW glad you were able to have that representation from an author who "got it"!
@@siginotmylastname3969 There definitely needs to be a balance between stigmatization and fetishisation. Disabled people and those with terminal illness should have a say in how they're portrayed in media because able bodied people suck at it 9 times out of 10.
i have cancer too and i cannot stand tfios and five feet apart. i think some of it comes from the fact that these characters had the privilege of not caring about the financial matters. i would not risk my life and all that my parents invested their time and money in just so i could experience more. i did not suddenly unlock the secret wisdom of life and death. also, when i tell people my age about my diagnosis, a lot of the information comes from these books (which is not a lot of information). they think every cancer patient gets a make-a-wish, goes through chemo and radiotherapy, things like that. i never got a make-a-wish, and my parents couldn’t afford any of the treatment i was required to take. i did not feel represented, i did not feel like hazel grace. but to each her own, i guess.
Not to take away from the "ripoff" label, but Midnight Sun is actually a remake of a 2006 Japanese film, A Song to the Sun. So, the original story of Midnight Sun actually came BEFORE The Fault in Our Stars. Could John Green have ripped off the Japanese film, just changing the disease to cancer from Xeroderma Pigmentosum (XP is a real disease, but it's much less "pretty" than the film makes it. The body can't repair damage to the DNA, especially in regard to UV light). Because I guess a genetic disorder is less "sexy" than cancer? Oh, Fun Fact: A 2006 review of A Song to the Sun stated that the film was "sweet", but suggested that Western audiences would be lukewarm towards the romance themes. How interesting that 2012-2018, in America, was full of "teenagers with deadly diseases fall in love" books/films. (P.S. the Japanese original is actually a fairly simple and sweet story - no deaths on boats.)
Yeah, I saw the pictures on Wikipedia of children with untreated XP, it's pretty horrific - especially when you read in the article that most of them die young (like in their thirties) of skin cancer. Which makes the whole thing with her killing herself by negligence even worse, like, gurl, you only have like three more decades on this Earth if you're lucky, why make your life even shorter?!
I literally made this comment before I scrolled down, lol. The original is so much sweeter and more gut-wrenching when she dies. When she just wants to walk on the beach and her parents let her. That broke me.
yeah but i think the midnight sun movie is still a ripoff of the fault in our stars because an american studio wouldn’t have made it for teens audience if that trope/genre (???) wasn’t popularized by tfios
John Green based the story around his young friend who died from cancer though. Maybe he did plagiarize from that movie but he didn't choose cancer because it's "sexy". There's a dedication in his book so I feel it's deeply personal to him. That not to say that we can't criticize him but it feels insensitive to criticize it like that.
@@bananaboatcharlie they changed the movie to be infinitely more stupid but in the book, it wasn't a matter of her not "looking sick", certain autoimmune disease like the one she thought she had don't show symptoms until you actually catch something, plus she lived in a literal bubble for years to prevent any infection, so the point wasn't that she was dying, but she was willing to take the risk to try and have a normal life which is beyond stupid but it works out so whatever.
Banana Boat Charlie I hated that they spoiled it in trailer, literally ruined the whole movie. Good think I read the book first so I wasn't spoiled lmao
Not sure why munchausen by proxy has become such a popular movie trope/twist but it’s been used in soooo many shows and movies lately. Many much better than Everything Everything. Go watch/read Sharp Objects or The Act
The reason teens loved TFIOS and adults didn’t/ don’t is because it really accurately portrays a certain type of teen. I was that pretentious teenager and had a dark sense of humor about my problems like they were about their cancer. It’s cringe as hell as an adult but I don’t think it’s because it’s shit, I think it was a well written portrayal of some teenagers of the time.
It’s totally understandable if you’re just over it at this point, but it would be amazing to see you come back to TH-cam!! You have such a unique sense of humor and even when I’m not that familiar with the topics you’re talking about, you manage to make it so entertaining.
the sexy stripping makes me laugh so hard because actual teenagers would just be like "so what procedures have you done" "oh I did this, this, and this and I got a WICKED SCAR * lifts shirt to reveal scar *" do writers even talk to people, at all, period??
Ehh it's actually quite different when you have a chronic illness and have many medical procedures. It isn't the same as having a scar from an injury, or from a single operation. Being chronically ill gives you serious insecurities with your body, and it can be really hard to feel comfortable getting naked with a new partner. I haven't actually watched the movie so idk how "sexy" the scene is played, but it seems like one of the only realistic aspects of the whole thing. It's 2 people being vulnerable with each other.
This best part about Me Earl and The Dying Girl book was the fact it didn’t want to tell me a message, nobody’s death was a lesson. It was just “awful shit happens, people can die and it’s painful, and there is no lesson to learn from that, other than awful things happen, people can die, and it’s painful”
If you don't like the "Me and Earl and the Dying Girl" movie, imagine the BOOK. It was awful. The main character talks about what he wants to do to the popular girl constantly, saying he wants to motorboat her. It's all from his perspective, so his humor is the humor of the book and his thoughts are the whole thing. And they're bad thoughts.
@@booktales1687 It wasn't funny at all. It was the first book that I actively hated that I made myself read all the way through. There are a lot of people who hate the book, but they're only smaller channels for some reason
@@Emma_smith I don't think so. But maybe you're leagues ahead of me, so maybe? I do like the movie and he's such more acceptable in it. I'll have to read his other book to see if it's a pattern
I'm not disagreeing at all. When I read it I thought he was supposed to come across as a shallow and lowkey misogynistic teenage boy whose friendship with his sick friend helped him grow and realize the several forms of love and attraction. I mean even as I type it that doesn't really make it better but I read those parts as purposely annoying and unlikable. There are also parts in the book where his friends call him out on his behavior. I also appreciated that they never had an explicitly romantic relationship, at least in the book. The movie tried to highlight that part a lot. But yeah, still weird.
Writers were like: Let’s make books and movies about teenagers dying for fully healthy able bodied people to read or watch 😀 Even though teenagers who are actually going through these things have no say in to what their experiences are like 😀
The thing I hate about these movies is that the characters are reduced to their illnesses. They have no character progression outside of who they r as a sick person. I am not sick myself, but all of these characters are reduced to being sick and that is their whole life. I guess if u have a chronic illness just like they do it would be your whole life, idk cause i don’t have one, but i have to expect that someone who is chronically sick has a personality outside of being sick. That they have a hobbies and likes and not everything about who they are as a person is them being sick. Also, these movies use their sickness as a plot device to engineer a tragic ending. I’ll be a kind of not really at all advocate for 5 feet apart because they tried developing Stella’s character more than just her being sick or falling in love but that ended up happening anyway (idk about Cole Sprouse’s character) and Stella’s representation was based on Claire Wineland and I immensely respect her but i think they still ended up glorifying her and especially Cole Sprouse’s charaacter , but it was a small but still utterly botched attempt at not creating just another ‘sick person who tries to live life and inspire other sick people but instead romanticizes the illness and shits on it instead movie’, but i always saw these movies as just a way of engineering trauma without actually developing the character behind their illness. It felt lazy and disrespecting to actual people who had these chronic illnesses.
It's kinda like if you've read one, you've read them all! Self-absorbed, pretentious, pompous characters that make stupid decisions with no legit reason just for the heck of it causing unnecessary drama.
I have read papertowns and thought it was good because of the a human is not more than a human thing. But then I tried to read looking for Alaska and I was like:... Did I read this before or?
I get how 5 feet apart was kinda cliche but when THAT friend died I SOBBED in the theater it was so embarrassing, cuz I was with my boyfriend and we had only been together for a few months. Then after, I went to the restroom to compose myself, came back all good, then he asked "So what did you think of the movie?" And I started crying again. Composed myself, went to the car where my mom was waiting, where she asked "How was the movie?" Cried again. And that is why I will never watch any sad movies ever again.
I don't really think Me and Earl and the Dying Girl was a rip off of tfios. The books were released 2 months apart and Me and Earl wasn't about a star crossed lovers situation.
I just don't understand why bella thorne wanted to die in her boyfriend's arms on a boat?? Like, yeah I wanna traumatise my boyfriend for life and let him hold my dying body and then have to stare at it while he rows that boat back to the shore!!
Omg I'm going to hell for laughing at that last line 😭
omg girl lmaooooooo literally
lmao true, that's horrible
Also surely you’d want your family there when you die not a boy you met a few days ago
@@nohope5920 that must have been such a slap in the face to the parents lmao. Sorry mom and dad, I know you spent your whole life taking care of me, but I want my last moment to be with this dude I've known for like two weeks
Them kissing in Anne Franks home has the same energy as Justin Bieber saying she would've been a belieber 💀💀💀
H Hy I’m not saying he was right for saying it but having read the diary was he wrong thoo
I think he said “I hoped she would have been a belieber” which is a little better I guess
@@sobaankhan7094 No not really
OMG I remember that lmaoooo
She would have probably been a belieber tho
the irony of cremating the girl who died because she's allergic to the sun is absolutely amazing.
Wait what's the irony in that??
@@Zalkenn because you cremate people by using intense heat and uv light (I think) and she was allergic to the sun. Which is uv light.
It was almost like she was a vampire...
Midnight sun was actually a Japanese 2006 film this one is an American remake :/
@@anjanettechan714 thanks for letting me know 🤎
Or else I would never have known
I'm so tired of people commercializing and romanticizing terminal illnesses. If my partner was going to die eventually I'd be torn, It wouldnt be romantic, it wouldnt be hot, it would be horrifying. Like if your family members got cancer you dont think "Wow! That's so romantic".
@MissCreative Gamer Breaking news!!! Sick people are allowed to be happy! Shocker I know :) Maybe its because they deserve happiness like every other person!! WHO WOULDA THOUGHT.
@@denofentropy You misunderstand. When someone close to you is on the brink of death, any sane person around them would feel torn, pain etc. The teenage protagonists do not show that. There can be happiness, yes, but it is bittersweet and it should permeate through the work.
@@denofentropy @Adrian Black I... really don't think they were saying sick people couldn't be happy, just that being sick shouldn't be romanticized or glorified. It's a a horrible thing a lot of people need to deal with, and it's great to have stories featuring sick people being happy, but it's another thing entirely to make the actual sickness something romantic. It's not romantic or cute, it's just an illness
I think it would be good if it was written by people that have some experience with illness themselves and what that trauma is like because I think other chronically ill people should be allowed to see themselves in love stories and see themselves in happy situations. But I don’t think middle aged men/woman that are perfectly healthy and have always been perfectly healthy should be writing them because it is weird as a healthy, grown person to just take sick teens and make them sexy.
@@denofentropy yes, sick people di deserve to be happy and they deserve to experience Romance if they wish, but being ill isn't romantic, it isn't something that should be looked at as something desirable, because people suffer. These movies glorify illnesses, and I've seen way too many young girls wishing they'd have cancer, and literally crediting movies like this foe giving them them the idea of wanting to have cancer.
... They are most definitely gonna make a romantic movie about someone dying from COVID 😣
No, it’s gotta be the love interest who wasn’t sick to begin with to add to the Angst and Tragedy.
"6 feet apart"
Five Feet Apart would’ve been such a great title for that 😂
@@commentsforthealgorithm 😹😹😹😹
Bruh I hope not
people should be ashamed of the harassment they sent caleb over this, it’s clearly a critique of the fetishisation of disability and illness in media post the fault in our stars and also the over-saturation of said media. he isn’t being ableist in any way...
LITERALLY
Completely agree! Miss you Caleb
THANK YOU.
I know! How could people be so stupid?
They’re from twitter. Of course they lack critical thinking ability.
The "dying cute girl" genre is so bizarre. I think Five Feet Apart is where it really hit it's peak annoyance for me with the whole "take one foot back" thing, being irresponsible with your health and literally putting your life in danger for the sake of flowery sounding sentimentality is not cute, it's inane on top of being a dangerous attitude to promote to its audience of pre teens and early teenagers. I'm not gonna say what someone can and cannot write, you can totally write a good romance story involving a dying person, it's just that particular genre is super prone to insane childish concepts of love and also plays into that whole weird "forever young" romanticizing of dying young.
After My Sisters Keeper I was so over "the dying cute girl" cliche lol
im really glad the sicklit trend is sort of dying out now, i never liked it and now that im older i can definitely see the glaring issues w it
It is childish.. Because they are children lol
dude. Everything, Everything had that to an even more obscene level. she literally thought she had an illness that would kill her if she even stepped foot outside her house and then she decides to run off on a vacation with a boy she had just met. like girl. you’re under the impression that this will kill you and you don’t care?
I have cystic fibrosis and the five feet apart movie, especially book, really, really annoy me. Risking your health & the person you like's health IS NOT romantic and NOT cute & it's the worst omg. I hate the concept. I ALSO hate that they show EVERYONE with CF actively DYING at the age of 18, I'm 17, and I'm still relatively healthy, & most people with cf aren't actively dying when they reach adulthood.
It’s crazy how “dying/sick teenagers” became its own genre of movies & books
its even got an unofficial name, sicklit (obviously short for sick literature)
Tbh, the fault in our stars should have been the only one of its kind...everything else just seems like a poorly rendered clone
Similar to the whole "romance against the backdrop of a tragedy" thing. See: Titanic, Pearl Harbor, etc.
Robin Librodo Tropes are often a singular event/action in a story. These stories are too derivative and follow the same exact plot structure to just be a trope. If you were to describe these stories by taking out the character names and specific terminal illnesses, they would literally be the exact same story. Therefore it’s more of a genre and not a trope.
@@denofentropy fault in our stars definitely took a lot of inspiration from Nicholas Sparks so they're the only TWO movies that should have existed.
Why couldn't Fault in the Stars just have been a mother-daughter story... Laura Dern's chiropractor deserves a raise because her shoulders must be ACHING from carrying that movie
The book has more depth and jokes so I like it better than the movie
That's actually not a bad idea.
That already sounds like a far better story than what we got...but then I am perhaps biased against the "making out in Anne Frank's house"
Because John Green needs to have a self-insert that does nothing but say one-liners the entire time (and fuck his manic pixie dream girl that he made up)
@@stanleysmooth I actually think the book was alright. It was not that sad, but some scene about all that "going to die" situation did fuck me up. And the whole point of whether or not you can leave a mark in the world, and the argument with that author asshole was amazing. Im a pretentious book nerd who loves deep shit, and even tho the fault in our stars isn't that great in my opinion, I didn't like some bits for how hard hitting they were, spoilers but gus' death didn't make me cry lol, but every thing else did.
The next movie like this is going to have teenagers with covid. They need to socially distance but they can't be apart. A whole subplot of their masks getting in the way of them kissing.
And at the end the whole family dies bc of them!!
Its scary how I can see it
don’t give them ideas...
"Quarantined with the bad boy" is like their go to title
So actually... there's already a book about that, kind of. I work at a Barnes and Noble and we've gotten a quarantine romance novel already lmao. It's called "Quarantine: A Love Story"
I literally never even noticed how many movies like that there were...
Same......
almost all of them were books first. it’s called sick lit.
If they make enough of them, Hallmark can make a channel to show them year round.
Kate Ravenscroft Hollywood did the same with YA Dystopians since 2012 (Hunger Games). It’s less rip-offs and more Hollywood rips off one book adaptation by making 5+ more from the same YA book genre
Ikr think it’s coz I only watched everything everything
Simplified plot:
Sick white girl have been sick almost her entire life she meets white boy who is not like other boys by being sick as well or just being plain weird. They do happy stuffs in a montage with happy no copyright music. White girl pass out for some reason and realize she's going to die as if she never knew that she will eventually before. She makes the dumbest decision to "experience life" with white boy instead of getting frickin medication. White girl dies, white boy cries in a long montage with white girl's voiceover.
👏👏👏👏👏
But wait.....wasn’t he the one who died in the end?
amalaina louis they’re talking about all off these movies in general
Shockingly accurate.
"White girl dies, white boy cries" 💀💀
honestly what irks me the most about these kinds of movies is the overwhelming implication that living with a chronic illness or disability isnt "really living" and that its better to die than to live disabled. it's incredibly frustrating as a disabled person to see these narratives paraded around by abled people.
THIS! It’s so frustrating that all disabled plot lines end in death with the characters whole personality being they hate living and their life is so hard. Sure life is a little more challenging and can be frustrating at times but shit I don’t want to end my life because of it.. it’s so extra - I get that some people unfortunately really can’t cope with their circumstances but able bodied writers just stereotype and generalise us
Yesss, people can live with chronic illnesses and disabilities AND be happy, AND have a full life, AND have happy romantic relationships. The way they romanticise the death of these characters and frame them like a relief or a regain of dignity... Like??? No??? We want to be alive, thank you??? Also the fact that when they don't die it's cause they are suddenly cured and NOW they can live a happy life... Pfff
The entire plot to Me Before You in a nutshell
Parker Puck Oh my god that is one of the most dangerous movies I’ve ever seen. It’s basically telling people that they can have literally everything that a person could ever need and want, but if they’re handicapped then they aren’t shit.
@@criticalthinkingconcubus Yeah, and honestly as a chronically disabled person who's already pretty unhappy about it-- what the fuck. Even more disheartening, a lot of abled people don't see the problem. 🙃
so i’m an actual teenage girl with a terminal illness and i absolutely hate tfios because every other person associates me with it. one time, i shared my diagnosis to someone and she had the audacity to tell me that “maybe i’ll find an augustus waters out there”. like, girl??? imma focus on not dying first??? lmao
As you should!!! Some people have good intentions but need to back up and mind the business that is theirs!
wow that was really insensitive and ignorant of her.
Mannn, can I relate. Well, I'm 21 and terminal so technically not a teen grill anyone :') but yeah, if I had an extra year of life for everyone who tells me I just need to find the person to hold me when I die, then I wouldn't be terminal anymore lmao. How bout I spend this time working on self acceptance, and not having to rely on someone else to feel 'satisfied' with my life??!
Hey, I hope your condition improves and that you have a really good day/night.
What’s tfios?
and when the world needed him the most, he disappeared
yeah, where is Caleb????
I’m literally so upset. I miss him so much.
@@theabsoluteworst1882 dude same. I'm confused more than anything though
@@theabsoluteworst1882 he's back! th-cam.com/video/9PTtxZbP0AI/w-d-xo.html
Please come backkkkkkkk 😢
Speaking as someone with cystic fibrosis -- Five Feet Apart did a really good job of making me absolutely fed up and annoyed with the main characters. Like, I really, honestly get not wanting to take your meds, but that shit is fucking expensive! And a LUNG TRANSPLANT? Dude if I ever had the chance for a new set I'd be thrilled and the fact that she completely ignores it and they both risk their own health repeatedly for some Hot Teen Romance is actually so frustrating to see. I'm glad that cystic fibrosis is getting more attention, of course, but Jesus, dude.
In the book, it’s said that the main dude has a really rich mom who literally tries bribing the nurse for something I don’t remember. So the medicine doesn’t seem like that much of a waste to him. The book also kind of shines a light on how he hates when his mom buys him super expensive shit for affection. It’s not fantastic, but at least it explained a little more than the movie. I can totally understand why you can find the end where she chooses to waste two PERFECTLY GOOD organs infuriating. She’s an idiot.🙄
I have Cystic Fibrosis AND had a double lung and liver transplant. Please don’t judge another CFers who struggle finding purpose in taking care of themselves. Even while going through the transplant process, depression is a monster! I was on the waiting list for 4 years (AT THE VERY TOP) loosing hope bc I couldn’t find a match, in pain everyday, struggling to find a reason to fight. Yes the movie makes it a lot more dramatic, but there are people like this. I hope you’re staying safe! If you ever need a CFer to vent to, I’m here! 💜
You underestimate the power of love and teenage stupidity, obviously is a teen love drama, emphasis on drama and yeah, that's something YOU would, people are weird mate, don't try to look for logic there
The fact that he just keeps calling them “the white guy” because they are all literally the same in these movies.
😭
Him constantly referring to Cole Sprouse as Zac Cody was so hilarious.
“It’s like a Shane Dawson video... please say sike” AHA I snorted
Plot twist: Bella's parents lied to her and she's actually a vampire. And that's why she died. It's the only way that plot makes sense.
for a second here thought this was about twilight
it always comes back to twilight
WE HAVE COME FULL CIRCLE
That's what i was thinking when I watched the movie lol
@@cuervus_ I mean it was called "midnight sun"
Chelsea S was this foreshadowing 𝘧𝘰𝘳 ‘Midnight Sun’ by Stephenie Myers??🤔😂
The thing you said about John Green’s characters all being the same is so true. Honestly they are all quirky smart teenagers with perfect comedic timing. It’s tired.
also the main protagonist is a typical nerdy, introverted person who haas like 1 best friend /and the best friend might have a small friend group with him but the MC is never close with them/ and is in love with the love interest, who's a mainc pixie dream girl/boy / and not like other boys/girls, extroverted but thinks others are ordirary or whatever/ who most likely either dies or goes somewhere and never comes back and at the end of the book the MC learns some new phillosophical stuff about life or smth
@@yonicorn1641 yes exactly. Don’t forget how the best friend of the MC is (similar to the love interest) also always quirky and extroverted, and often trying to talk sense into the love sick MC.
@@yonicorn1641 paper towns is literally about subversing these tropes lol you should read that one. It talks about how boys look for their manic pixie dream girl but girls are human beings, not your prize at the end of a quest, they want to live their own lives and you can fuck off about idealising them. It's really cool
@@yonicorn1641 i agree with most of this to an extent, except about the love interest always being a “manic pixie dream girl”. To me most John green books seem very anti manic pixie dream girl trope.
I like John Green as a person but from what I know of his writing, this seems pretty accurate
I’m glad that Caleb feels confident venturing out of book content. I love his commentary on literally anything and movies are such a great place for that. Well watch anything he makes tbh. I’d read his grocery lists
Agreed!! Caleb makes everything good and nice and delightful! Most of the young adult fiction I have never read or even heard of, but I’ll gladly watch and rewatch 40 min long videos he did about it!
LMAOOOOO HIS GROCERY LISTS
Honestly Caleb has gone right in hand with my journey out of realizing a lot of the YA books I worshipped were kinda shit lol. Like we’re going through the same thing at the exact same time.
His grocery lists are probably hysterical like:
1)milk (for my bones)
2) eggs (not the smooth ones yucky)
3)cheese (for the eggs duh)
I don’t know what bothers me more: the fact that you made that reference, or the fact that in 2020 I still got it 😔
New concept: Give the lovers disabilities instead of death. Disabled people who love each other should be more normalized than dying people falling in love. But that's just my opinion
Definitely! So sick and tired of people not taking disabled relationships seriously, at most they’re seen as “cute” relationships
CF and XP are disabilities :S
preferably, written by disabled authors so we don't get more ableist bullshit
@@keilygrimes369 there's been some books with disabled characters written by able bodied and done absolutely brilliantly
Yes! I actually have a lot of disabled original characters that I don't ever do anything with lol mainly I draw them and project my own issues onto them
A Walk to Remember is probably the best one from this genre, because it focuses more on the friendship/romance and character development without romanticising sickness. The girl's illness is not discovered for a really long time, so it's rightfully tragic when it's revealed, instead of emotion porn.
Yes!!! I mean it's pretty cheesy at times but it's a sweet movie. And I appreciate that it's told from the guy's perspective for once. Plus the actor who played Landon, Shane West was so handsome!! :3
I think it works because we are in the perspective of the person who doesnt have the illness and so we’re basically kinda led to believe it is a normal relationship. And when they finally reveal it, i guess we’re impacted more? Idk ive never watched the movie but definitely I’ll check it out
Why did you reveal it!!!!thats the bigest spoiler ever!!!
but anyway ill still know they will cry
@@kathleenbrigole478 Eek sorry whoops. My bad.
THE WAY AUGUSTUS STARES AT HAZEL GRACE WITH THAT CREEPY ASS SMILE - - -
The scary music that Caleb inputed just adds to the creepy vibe 😥
But I won’t lie that I laughed when that happened though 😂
Even worse after hearing about those allegations against Ansel Elgort...
and the way the smile gradually expands 😼
Paige Oschwald he rlly said 🥴🙂😗😌😁😍
Why is no one talking about *"A Walk To Remember"* thats literally what all these movies are based off!!
It makes me feel so old remembering it when everyone else seems to think that John Green invented the 'dying teen' romance. There was also 'Keith' with Jessie McCartney.
And before that, "love story"
The Fault In Our Stars wasn't even a start to a new age of these type of movies as Restless /2011/ and Now Is Good /2012/ came out before it.
Don't forget "Beaches".
Restless probably added the "quirky person" sidestory to the characters from Walk To Remember, and that's how allll these were created 😂
When my boyfriend got diagnosed with cancer it wasn't cute. It was incredibly terrifying and we're glad it's gone now and he'll be okay. It's not romantic at all.
I hope of you are still doing good!!
“And he’s just ‘trying not to make anybody mad’ but he failed, because he made _me_ mad-“ **continues talking as if he hasn’t just made the funniest joke EVER**
I howled from this, I'm so glad you noticed it. Calebs sarcasm is peak humour
10:08 for anybody who wants to go to referenced point 😊
"This movie follows Maisie Williams in an ugly wig" I died here
Also, the scary Ansel scenes are just perfect LMAO
I hated the fault in our stars movie and book when it came out and everyone thought i was weird 🥴. John Green seriously said "and then we made out in the Anne Frank house and everyone clapped ahah".
YES. I wrote this huge critical rant on the novel back in 2014 on my tumblr--it blew up, but I literally got death threats from fans, just for saying things like "JG didn't do enough research" "nobody talks like this" and "why are these two american gentiles kissing in anne frank's attic"
@@helen.faunway Oh geez that's horrible. Your rant sounds legit to me
@@wangkong905 I'm honestly still proud of it?? If you google "Fault in Our Stars rant" my post is legit one of the first result LOL my legacy
@@meghan______669 Exactly! It's not that deep, Hazel 🤦♀️
@@helen.faunway oh dang! I'll check it out, sounds fun haha.
Calling out the "not like other boys" trope is FACTS!
But I felt like the character he was using as an example might have been autistic coded? Being unsociable, saying what comes to the top of his head, making sounds and moving to get his energy out...
I think not like other boys exists, but this character didn’t seem like he was trying to be different. I didn’t know where else to comment this 😅
I hate when writers make basically an incel or a stalker but it's okay because he's a nerd (Not saying it applies to any character in these movies)
@@createdtogaze it's been a while since I read the book or watched the movie, but I don't think the character from Me, Earl, and the Dying girl is framed that way. In the book it's mostly that he's immature.
I'm sorry but the fact that these two also played siblings in divergent-
ik that fuuuucked with me when i first watched it
@@elliot4024 lol hi....
@@elliot4024 we have similar taste
I was like what the hell are those two doing? Stepbro and Stepsis energy
@@BoneBrothLover hi i’m stupid and don’t know what you mean :)
As someone who does have a sensitivity to sunlight (I won’t die when I go out in the sun, but I will throw up and/or pass out) Midnight Sun makes me roll my eyes. It’s an everyday thing for me to casually remind people “hey I have sunlight issues so if you want to hang out, we have to be indoors and with the windows covered.” And most of the time the response people give back is “oh okay cool that’s fine.” No one really judges me for it. So for her to actively put herself at risk by not telling him just feels so stupid and contrived
@nan Hey exactly
@nan Hey well, her name *is* Bella so...
That screaming car scene tho like... aren't there lots of ways to avoid the sun? Can't she just get into the trunk real quick or like hide under a coat?
Timothea Haider that’s what I was thinking! I hide under coats all the time in the car. It’s really not THAT hard to hide from the sun, especially when it hasn’t even risen fully
@@rachelday5406 And that idea that her "plight" is so terrible that she'd has to sacrifice herself for love? Like no. The sun sucks ass. Her basic boyfriend can shift his sleep schedule a little. There's no inevitability or romance there, its just teenage suicide with an insta filter pretty soundtrack.
Not that it’s a hot take that “young dying girl” is a popular and frankly disgusting trope, but it’s so nasty that we think youth, beauty, virginity, and grace are made better or more apparent when the girl is sick, dead, or dying. Like there’s so much classical poetry that’s JUST about how bad people wanna boink the corpses of cute dead girls.
We need a "hot dying sluts who are " trope/genre of movies...it can still have youth, beauty, and grace. Just no virgins.
I hated that one “if I die young” song that got so popular for that reason.
Also how many times in mystery stories have pretty, semi-popular, troubled white girls who end up getting murdered? I think Twin Peaks subverted the trope well, but it also spawned a lot of clones lacking nuance.
And how in Victorian times having tuberculosis was seen as being super sexy because being fragile and delicate and slowly wasting away is sexy I guess??
Oh my lord. I loved The Fault In Our Stars and John Green dearly, but when you put spooky music over the scenes of Gus trying to be flirty. It SENT ME
the kiss scene in tfios is literally just one of those "then everyone clapped" fake tumblr stories
Kurtis conner
@@reeseewhitfield1734 I did remember Kurtis Conner when I watch TFIOS last week. The moment they just clapped at Anne Frank's house was so fake. Would never happen in real life hahahaha
had a thought. ain't it suspicious that all these girls choose reckless relationships over their own life? sounds kind of toxic ngl and straight up misogynistic. idk i can't explain it.
You explained it just right.
I love your username for a band to be called that
I get what you mean. It's similar to the stories of women who sacrifice their own happiness/comfort for the microscopic promises of a man. And it's something very prevalent in film and TV. Maybe self-depreciation or -degradation? I don't know if there's a term for it.
For some people trying everything not to die just to try and live a little longer is way worse than living in the moment and dying more early. It doesn’t have to be toxic. I thinks it’s more about taking control over your own life.
Fuck relationships, friendships are better!
As a dermatopathologist, I have to make sure you all understand that people with XP will not just drop down dead as soon as the sun touches them. Sufferers are far more prone to skin cancer because of their sensitivity to UV light, and that is what will eventually lead to their premature deaths. They are not vampires. Great representation, such research.
"It's especially uncomfortable since he's an alleged rapi-"
What was he referring to there?
@@csakegyjedi Recent assault allegations against Ansel Elgort
The way I forgot about that 👁👄👁
@@bookofdaisy9124 Damn not Ansel Elgort 😔
amii_1218 oh shit, I didn’t know about that
Everything Everything could have been a killer horror movie.
Like the Gypsy Rose story.
Allison Miller i read book (mostly because it was cheap) and at some point i thought that this was what it was about, like that she wasn’t sick at all
no it’s just rapunzel if u think about it
@@emscnpck that's a good take. I'm all for a horror version of rapunzel!
Unemployed Philosopher i mean the true story really is
Me, Earl, and the Dying girl does not deserve to be considered a rip-off of TFiOS, since it literally tried to subvert the trope, but I'm biased cause I really liked the book.
Finally someone said it! Thank you
And both books came out in the same year! Not one after the other!
Yes! I loved that book WAY more than the fault in our stars.However the book was way better than the movie.
I think it's still fair to consider the movie something of a tfios ripoff because it was only made to ride the wave of sick kid movies that tfios started. That really is a disservice to the book though, I agree with you.
honestly i’m like did u even read the book?!
I actually know someone who is allergic to the sun in real life, and it's not the least bit romantic. She can't go outside at all during the day and can't find a job because of that. She's lives fully on government assistance and is severely depressed.
Yea, i knew a girl who had cancer and she ended up committing suicide because she didn't want cancer to be the death of her. I hate seeing movies romanticize these illnesses like they're some cute sub plot for a romantic movie🤦♀️
@@dollnoir It may sound horrible but i understand her. A few years back I got in an accident ( i was lucky and only my foot was hurt), the pain was so big i couldn't function without pain medication. My Doctor did not know if i will be able to walk normally ever again or if pain will last. After 4 weeks i was so tried I started considering suicide if this pain never stops. I started getting better during 3 or 4 months ( i could finally sleep through the night without waking up from pain), lasting pain eats you slowly from inside. You do pretty much everything to make it finally stop.
Angelika potree oh wow i’m so sorry that happened to you :( i hope you’re okay now and that you’re happy and healthy and there’s no more pain ❤️
My friends boyfriend has the same allergy luckily he can still work (night shift work) but it’s crazy the amount of stuff he just can’t do
@@Jessjwhitak Yeah, my friend could probably also find night work if she really wanted to, but she's been too depressed to work properly for a long time.
"basically he's love simon but with long hair and he looks like he smells for some reason" I CHOKED ON MY WATER-
As a disabled person I appreciate Caleb understanding that disabled people DONT want movies about how if someone is sick their life should revolve around it and if you’re lucky some guy might find your sick super sexy.
Like eww.
The Bella Thorn movie is so bad because Xeroderma just doesn’t work like that. She wouldn’t get pale with circles around her eyes, she would get horrible sun damage. They just did that because they didn’t want her to look ugly. And it wouldn’t kill her instantly. That movie just sucks so much.
Edit: I hadn’t finished the freaking video, the last one is WORSE. You know that transplant organs have a time limit where they are viable, so this chick is letting two perfectly good organs that could go to someone better just waste...because she is in love.
It's so funny how they make this "the sun kill her" plot so dramatic like okay girl you just live at night, a lot of people work at night and sleep during the day your life isn't over because of that :')
True! And side note you name is 😘👌*Top Tier* We don't deserve her!!!😭😭😭
If Wikipedia is correct she would die young anyway of skin cancer, but if she's careful she could live to middle age.
@@starranderson5 eheh thanks, I love Tohru with all my heart!
@@tereziamarkova2822 oooh thanks for the info! Hmm I see, dying middle age because of this condition isn't too bad, sure it's short, but you still can live a pretty good life I think
literally why couldn’t she have told her boyfriend that she had an illness and couldn’t go out during the day?? why was it this huge secret/ mystery
I’m gonna say this: I lost my uncle to cancer in 2020. I watched him completely wither away. He suffered A LOT. By the time he passed away his tumours had blocked off his intestines that he hadn’t eaten for 2 months. That shouldn’t be glamorised. People with illnesses deserve to be represented, but they also deserve to be represented tastefully. So anyone who did send Caleb hate: shame on you. People suffer from these illnesses and instead of having sympathy, you harassed someone. Grow up.
May he rest in peace ❤️
I am extremely sorry but your uncle not having eaten for 2 months and then saying "deserve to be represented tastefully" is painfully ironic 💀
i had a similar situation this year with my uncle too. he also withered away to the point where he was barely awake. he wasn’t even awake for me to say my goodbyes. and now i see the romanticisation of cancer EVERYWHERE. thor love and thunder’s ending kind of ruined the movie for me because i liked literally everything else. i also found that movies i liked before were hard to watch, like deadpool. my thought is: is there literally nothing else you can write about? why is it always cancer? maybe it’s because it’s so fresh but i just don’t understand
Can i just say: Isaac is UNDERRATED!!!!!
Everyone always remembers Hazel’s speech about their little infinity, but forget Isaac’s where he says that *“in the future when scientists create robotic eyes that could restore his vision he won’t accept it bc he doesn’t want to see a world without his best friend in it”*
Bro that gets me every time
then he said he would put them on again lmao
Lol yea but it still made me feel sooo much more than hazel and her infinity tbh.
Yes! I wish writers and filmmakers focused more on how loving and fulfilling true friendships are instead of going for the cliche teenage romance.
Dude 😭😭
YESSSSS I CRY EVERYTIEM
as a black girl i can confidently tell you that earl is indeed a stereotype lmao i watched the film and every time he came on screen i was like oh goodie how are they gonna be offensive this time 😐
As another black girl, wholeheartedly agree 😪
They did earl dirty in that movie
fellow black girl here. he most definitely was a walking stereotype but i still loved him nonetheless lmao
I read the book and I remember it being different and like rlly delving into his issues and like y but it was a while ago and this isn’t my place to decide. The book is much much better tho, explains everything rlly well that they j left out in the movie.
Very true
-Another Black girl
Hey, someone with Cystic Fibrosis here! I haven’t seen the movie, but I’ve read part of the book. The part about her ignoring the Lung Transplant is absolutely INSANE. I’ve gone through 2 transplant evaluations before (but luckily never listed yet)- they are a HUGE DEAL. We wait months upon MONTHS for a compatible pair of lungs- and most CFers die on the waiting list. The moment they say they have lungs, you drop everything at the chance to breathe once again. (Of course everyone copes with it differently. But from my experience, it’s kinda unrealistic)
If I'm not mistaken didn't the author base it off her life?
@@athenajaxon2397naur she didn’t. from what i know, she was inspired to write the story by Claire Wineland, an activist who had CF
I don't know literally anything about medical stuff but the second the girl in everything everything said she couldn't go outside I was like "ya her mom is making that up" lmao. Also the line "Just when I thought this movie couldn't get anymore clownish my rainbow shoes showed up from Amazon prime." Is the funniest thing on the planet and Caleb deserves at least 10 oscars for it.
I’m a med student! SCID is actually a real (and horrible) condition. It’s the condition that the “bubble boy” had (if you know about that story). The funniest part is that people that do even a little bit of research will know that the prognosis is typically
I think you should do more research bc there are multiple illnesses that make it so people can’t leave sterile environments.
That line sent me 😂😂
You’re probably right honestly...but my point was that the movie specifically stated that the chick had SCID.... Only sharing what I know about that condition 🤷♀️
I feel like the scene when bella thorns love interest is looking up what her disease is has the same type of energy as bella looking up if Edwards is a vampire
Lol I wish he would've come to a different conclusion, like oh she can't be in the sun? Vampire! And then they move to forks and she's totally fine
Oh my god the five feet apart one PISSED ME OFF. Like, the life expectancy for people with CF used to be six years old before they realized that the nurses were cross-contaminated and spreading different bacteria strains. Now it's thirty-six. Keeping away from him is keeping you alive, sweetie, please value yourself more than this!!
As someone who has two chronic illnesses, Midnight Sun is so overdramatic and ridiculous lmao. If I decided to die every time I felt sick, which is all the time, I'd be dead 1000x over.
As a sick teenager who’s been sick since I was 12 I’m 19 now I kinda vibe with these movies/books. I know a lot of them aren’t good but the representation for me is important. It’s kinda cool seeing people with declining health happy in relationships. The last guy I was seeing decided I was too ill for him to date or see anymore. Sometimes I’m so depressed over my illness and how it’s only going to get worse from here on out and feel it’s not worth living this sick life and I turn to movies like these...idk that’s just one sick teens perspective. A lot of these also glorify illness and are made so healthy people can watch and feel good about their lives at the end of it because “wow thank god that’s not me thank god im not sick like that” and that’s super hurtful lmao
another chronic illness teen here! i actually enjoyed 5 feet apart for this reason. yes it was cheesy and the ending was ridiculous, like you don't just "give up" a transplant for a guy. but out of all of them it was the best representation of life in a hospital. it did a fairly ok job at the parent dynamics of your child living in hospital and the connection you can make with nurses, plus it gave cystic fibrosis a lot of recognition outside of the movie. the movie made me (who's spent a great majority of my life in a hospital) feel a little more seen.
Both of you guys should take a crack at writing your own stuff inspired by/loosely based on your own experiences! Then we would have more media on this subject which is more accurate and less hurtful, and the millions of other people with chronic illnesses would definitely appreciate it! I know writing isn't for everyone, but who knows? :D
I’d Love to see read that so we can hear loosely something more realistic
I'm a writer, so I'm curious if there's something missing from a lot of these kinds of stories that you want to see included in the future.
I agree with fiddblebirdblue about writing your own stories if you can. But if you're not up to writing it yourself, just sharing your experiences and opinions with others can be helpful. If you share these things with writers, we'll be able to write better representation for you. We can write the stories you really want.
Not enough writers actually listen to the people they're writing about.
We really need to have this conversation as a society tbh. I'm really sorry about your bad experiences. Everyone deserves love and support, which is why I'm sending you tons of it and a virtual hug!! Take care ❤
You totally should have added that anorexia movie starring Lily Collins. Then talk about how much they were trying to hype it up when: 1. Lily Collins admitted to having/being an anorexia survivor.
2. She actually lost all that weight for the movie and they promoted it has "losing weight to be anorexic the healthy way because I did it with a bunch of doctors"
3. Had the generic we exploit the possibility of you dying for a movie from an illness you more or less can't control to "start a conversation"
That movie was trash and the comments/script was damned awful.
Honestly, if you delve into ED movies, you'll realise in that genre, making it "aesthetic" is one of the lesser crimes. Watch Starving In Suburbia for context, if you hated To The Bone, you will be HORRIFIED by that one.
You can tell that movie was made without a spare thought about actual ppl with ED watching it, ive never had one but those scenes where they just focus on her malnourished body as a “shock”, i feel like theyd be so triggering to someone who suffers from it..
I completely forgot that movie existed until you mentioned it (haven't seen it tho).
this oh god it was genuinely painful
first off i can’t believe keanu reeves was in there and second off it really glamorizes eds and it’s really dangerous because younger people are gonna watch it and take notes
i remember going to the see five feet apart with a date and us repeatedly chanting “two bros, five feet apart because they have cystic fibrosis” until the girls in front of us told us to shut up
omg i went to see that with my friends and we were so annoying i feel bad for the ppl who wanted to see it but. it was a Bad Movie
two bros chillin in the hot tub FIVE FEET APART CAUSE THEY'RE NOT GAY
Wait....it was an actual cinema movie in america? I thought it was just a netflix film
Zoe Gordon hahaha nope but honestly idk who could have enjoyed it in theaters
Why did me and my friends do this at the movie theater
also can we talk about the fact that in all of these it's the girl who's dying, vulnerable, and in a way 'needs saving/romance"' . If it's not the girl then it's both of the characters. Just again playing into the 'girls weak' stereotype and it's like the people making these films are thinking, 'this girl is sick so only way to make them feel better is man'. (I am in no way saying that people who have illnesses are weak, what I'm trying to say is that Hollywood likes the trope that vulnerable girls need strong men to save them. My comment is about how the media portrays women period.I'm not good with wording so if someone thinks this is worded poorly please let me know! Now my explanation is longer than my comment lmao)
Carys Gwenllian oh god, you’re right
Thank you! It is so incredibly satisfying to hear someone say this
The only one I remember where it's the guy who's dying was in the 1990s, and it was succinctly called 'Dying Young'.
THIS!
@@DrGregoryHouseIT does "Me Before You" count? Not to say it doesn't have its problems, but it was the guy who was paralyzed
i decided to search on Twitter what was going on because apparently some people thought this video was ableist
I'm not disabled so I really cannot speak for disabled people, but Caleb didn't joke about anyone's actual illnesses at any point (?), he was making fun of the romanticization these movies always include
I also read a tweet from a person talking about how five feet apart was an important movie for them to cope with their aunt's death from cf and so they were offended with the video - I feel really sorry for this person and I think we can all be happy that the movie helped them deal with such a sad thing, but at the same time, Caleb is criticizing the movie itself, not the illness, and if this person got offended by this, it gives off really big "I'm just offended because you don't like what I like" energy (obviously as this person used this movie as a coping mechanism, the movie itself has a huge meaning to them and seeing criticism being made about it might be hard, but they should still respect other people's opinions and not just scream "ableism" for no reason)
I'm disabled, though not terminally ill, and I wasn't overly offended by anything here? Disability only being explored as a cheap plot point through an abled lens has always been a big problem and this is just the YA-ified version of it.
Everyone on Twitter is offended by anything so I wouldn't take it seriously anyway
as a person with CF able-bodied people calling ableism makes me veeery uncomfortable. i can respect their relationship with the movie to an extent, but i personally can't stand it lol
I'm sorry but I despise Augstus Walters, he is literally the male version of "I'm not like other girls". For example, he wastes money on cigarettes for the fun of it??? For a mEtApHoR?
I know right like just smoke it if youre gonna waste your money on it
That scene of him with the cigarette on the airplane is so cringeworthy.
OMG SAME. Holy shit he's so obnoxious and full of himself
I mean,,,he was terminally ill so he kinda could.
@@amyahhdavila8990 no he wasnt sure he was gonna die
greg is _weird_ he's a _weirdo_ he doesn't *fit in* and he doesn't want to *fit in*
Greg?
Onision is it you?
Yeah girl I agree
the scene where they kiss in anne frank’s house was my biggest beef with that movie. 🙍🏽♀️
“bella thorne isn’t a singer” excuse me... have you not HEARD the masterpiece of TTYLXOX
lmao that's what I said
DECEASED
Your taste is IMMACULATE
Be be be my bff am I right ladies
@@sogemorgan Cus IDK what's coming next
I'm sick so where is my sexy?!?!?!?!??!
Same. My pale translucent skin and GAINT eyes bags and permanent bitch face are just longing to be put in a rom com 🤣🤣
Amen to that
I revisit this video a LOT. As someone who was chronically ill and disabled from my younger teenage years, these movies were a LOT for me. As a fourteen year old, seeing TFIOS was really special to me in a way that made me feel alienated from the rest of the fandom. I felt like I wasn't part of the mainstream audience of "healthy people" romanticizing the movie; I was a PART of the movie, in a strange way. Not to get too personal online, but I thought I was going to die at fifteen years old because I was THAT sick. At the time, I felt really cynical about alcohol and sex and stuff, because I was never going to be old enough to do that. And TFIOS addressed THAT by having underage characters drink champagne and have sex because it's better to live a "complete" life than Die a Virgin. And now, as an adult, I realized it was a really toxic influence on me! It's weird to say the "heteronormativity" or whatever was the last straw for me, but like. Terminally and chronically ill children should've had representation that deconstructed irrelevant societal "milestones" that define a life being "fulfilled" or not.
Not only that, but these movies did Nothing to help people's understanding of illness. If you don't respect your needs, you don't just Die; you more often suffer long-term worsening of your illness or permanent damage and disability that you'll have to live with for the rest of your life. These movies trivialize illness in a way, and it worsened healthy people's understanding of chronic illness in general. Most people can't understand that you can be permanently sick but not dying.
I don't know. I never commented before because this video and these movies give me SO many thoughts that I can never trim down to one comment one time. I could write a different essay in the comments every time I watch this video, but just being able to think about it to myself helps. This video kind of helps me compartmentalize and unpack some of the harm these movies did to me, and to my "community" of chronically/terminally ill and disabled people. Even if the video doesn't address that harm outright. (And I don't expect that of Caleb anyway because he's young, healthy, and not the kind of content creator that makes that kind of content, and that's okay!) It's nice to have just ONE long-form video about how shitty these movies are from the perspective of someone who respects sick people a hell of a lot more than these movies ever did to begin with.
"Why did every book I liked in 2013 turn out to be shit in the end!?" I FELT that in my SOUL!
My boy literally got cancelled for nothing. Shit ton of unemployed adults being literal child in mind ya'll
I feel bad for Caleb. He hasn't posted in months
@@meherjanurmee9566 He just posted a new video!
I genuinely despise sick lit. When I was in 3rd grade my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer and it was a long, drawn out, and painful experience. Not just for her, but for our whole family. Even after she was cancer free she got sick all the time. Terminal illness, especially cancer is not anything romantic or pretty. You slowly wither away over time. My mom was either in the hospital or in bed while she had cancer because she was just that sick. She wasn't able to go on these "fun getaways with her lover", SHE WAS SLOWLY DYING. I can't believe I have to say this, any fatal illness is not beautiful or meant to be romanticized. Depending on what illness it is it can be gross, painful, traumatic (my mom has been diagnosed with ptsd from her cancer treatment), and ofc deadly. It's a horrible experience for everyone. Fuck anyone that romanticizes it.
Also yes, my mom hated TFIOS
my mom also had breast cancer (she is ok now) but seriously i hate these movies even more now that i and my family have actually gone through that traumatising ordeal
amandla stenberg is in some terrible movies, they were in a romance movie where they’re star-crossed lovers with an actual Nazi
what👁👄👁
Ellie Duncan yeah look up Where Hands Touch 🥴
And the ending has her give birth to a mixed-baby and it's a metaphor I guess? I do admire her as a person but she needs to.....read the scripts of whatever movie she is doing. Or fire her agent.
The Hunger Games film wasn't terrible hate you give was pretty good
I feel like that film is either a rip off or inspired by the book where a female black nurse and a nazi german fell in inlove I think the title of it is "Enemies Inlove" and there's even a documentary about it where they interviewed the author of the book and where did she get That story which actually pretty lovely and here's the docu of it if you're wondering: th-cam.com/video/Jyyg2OPMTvg/w-d-xo.html
I love John Green's books but the"we're gonna be dead and we're gonna be sexy while we do it"had me rolling because it's so accurate.
Coming soon: Six Feet Apart, a corona romance.
Probably.
Maybe.
Hopefully not though.
Maybe it'll get an over the mask makeout scene
I literally just saw an and for a film/show called Love In a Time of Corona
Cosette Jenkins yeah it’s reality tv..... ugh
the REAL question is why are so many adults writing actual children doing the devils tango
Because “EvErYbOdY’s DoInG iT dOn’T bE sUcH a PrUdE.”
OH MY GOSH FELLOW ALEX MYERS FAN HIIII
“The devils tango” Alex Meyers fan? 👀
@@graceyl.195 Who Is That
lleapinllamas he’s a movie commentary TH-cam who uses that expression often 😂
“Six feet apart” would be a teen romance movie about a teen that has covid
Did they TRY to make Midnight Sun’s “research google scene” look like the one from Twilight??? Straight up they looked like they were about to “Say it. Out loud.” “Vampire.” at me
EVEN THE TITLE IS FROM THE TWILIGHT SAGA! 🤣
@@JamesLawner ohmygod you're right... How did I not realise that? 😂
As honest trailers put it “fault in our stars did to cancer what twilight did to vampires”
It took me way too long to realize the clown music wasn’t actually in the movie 18:08
i think hazel’s issue with the support group guy is that his cancer got removed right away and he was never terminal like a lot of the people in the group...like having a little bit of cancer and getting is removed and being completely okay is very very different than hazel or augustus’s cancer that is literally destroying their bodies and they know theyre going to die it’s just a matter of when
Caleb: "Im obviously not Black ..."
Me, this whole time thinking this kid is mixed: ....ok, if you say soooo
Same like😂
Saaaaame
Same! What ethnicity is this? He’s more brown than me and I’m mixed w/ diff kind of black.
@@PukingPanda He could be Spanish
Holy shit, I totally thought Caleb was mixed.
this genre turned ableistic so quickly with all of the "death is better than living with an illness" movies
As a teen with cancer, I do have to say TFIOS and Five Feet Apart did so much for me. I loved TFIOS in 2014 for all of the flowery language and "metaphors" but expected to hate it when I reread it in 2018 while in treatment. But I was wrong. It felt like coming home to an old friend that "got it". John Green does an amazing job of hitting what it's like as a teen with cancer - both the extremely real parts (facing mortality at a young age, struggling with missing out on teen years, dating???, and knowing that the worst thing that is happening to you is also the worst thing that could ever happen to your parents), as well as taking the piss out of it (the make a wish trope, people using their cancer stories as forms of ~inspiration~). Was TFIOS a perfect book/movie? No. Was it a wonderful representation of a touchy subject? Yes. So I hate when people shit on it on the behalf of people like me.
Yeah, I don't think demands not to "romanticise" disability and illnesses are a good idea for this reason. People are ignoring that it's a representation issue.
BTW glad you were able to have that representation from an author who "got it"!
@@siginotmylastname3969 There definitely needs to be a balance between stigmatization and fetishisation. Disabled people and those with terminal illness should have a say in how they're portrayed in media because able bodied people suck at it 9 times out of 10.
I hope this ends up being one of the top comments because your perspective is very important
i have cancer too and i cannot stand tfios and five feet apart. i think some of it comes from the fact that these characters had the privilege of not caring about the financial matters. i would not risk my life and all that my parents invested their time and money in just so i could experience more. i did not suddenly unlock the secret wisdom of life and death.
also, when i tell people my age about my diagnosis, a lot of the information comes from these books (which is not a lot of information). they think every cancer patient gets a make-a-wish, goes through chemo and radiotherapy, things like that. i never got a make-a-wish, and my parents couldn’t afford any of the treatment i was required to take. i did not feel represented, i did not feel like hazel grace.
but to each her own, i guess.
I wish you the best and I agree, I hate when youtubers and people insult my favorite books or movies.
As a Briton, midnight sun’s protagonist being called Katie Price, is hilarious. Just...please go look her up and understand
I just looked her up and apparently she literally just broke both her feet by jumping off a wall at a theme park lmao
She is so hilarious
I’m praying for your return king
Thank you for speaking out against the making out in Anne Franks house, as a jew its offensive to make out in the house of a mass genocide victim.
Not to take away from the "ripoff" label, but Midnight Sun is actually a remake of a 2006 Japanese film, A Song to the Sun. So, the original story of Midnight Sun actually came BEFORE The Fault in Our Stars. Could John Green have ripped off the Japanese film, just changing the disease to cancer from Xeroderma Pigmentosum (XP is a real disease, but it's much less "pretty" than the film makes it. The body can't repair damage to the DNA, especially in regard to UV light). Because I guess a genetic disorder is less "sexy" than cancer? Oh, Fun Fact: A 2006 review of A Song to the Sun stated that the film was "sweet", but suggested that Western audiences would be lukewarm towards the romance themes. How interesting that 2012-2018, in America, was full of "teenagers with deadly diseases fall in love" books/films. (P.S. the Japanese original is actually a fairly simple and sweet story - no deaths on boats.)
Yeah, I saw the pictures on Wikipedia of children with untreated XP, it's pretty horrific - especially when you read in the article that most of them die young (like in their thirties) of skin cancer. Which makes the whole thing with her killing herself by negligence even worse, like, gurl, you only have like three more decades on this Earth if you're lucky, why make your life even shorter?!
I literally made this comment before I scrolled down, lol. The original is so much sweeter and more gut-wrenching when she dies. When she just wants to walk on the beach and her parents let her. That broke me.
yeah but i think the midnight sun movie is still a ripoff of the fault in our stars because an american studio wouldn’t have made it for teens audience if that trope/genre (???) wasn’t popularized by tfios
Thanks, I came looking for this comment. I saw the Japanese film a while back (haven't seen the remake) and I thought it was sweet, I quite liked it.
John Green based the story around his young friend who died from cancer though. Maybe he did plagiarize from that movie but he didn't choose cancer because it's "sexy". There's a dedication in his book so I feel it's deeply personal to him. That not to say that we can't criticize him but it feels insensitive to criticize it like that.
"Gregg isn't like other boys." _Onision flashbacks._
Just more proof that anyone named Greg is just the worst
@@sogemorgan aksdjkddjf when you said that it just reminded me of Greg from Diary of a Wimpy Kid
@@mmmangosauce The worst
Okay but I liked Everything, Everything bc spoilers: the girl wasnt even sick and her mom just was overprotective
But I mean, even from the trailer you could %100 tell she wasn't sick
@@bananaboatcharlie they changed the movie to be infinitely more stupid but in the book, it wasn't a matter of her not "looking sick", certain autoimmune disease like the one she thought she had don't show symptoms until you actually catch something, plus she lived in a literal bubble for years to prevent any infection, so the point wasn't that she was dying, but she was willing to take the risk to try and have a normal life which is beyond stupid but it works out so whatever.
Banana Boat Charlie I hated that they spoiled it in trailer, literally ruined the whole movie. Good think I read the book first so I wasn't spoiled lmao
@@carysgwenllian I saw thw movie on a whim so I never even saw the trailer or read the book. Good thing I didnt 😂😂
Not sure why munchausen by proxy has become such a popular movie trope/twist but it’s been used in soooo many shows and movies lately. Many much better than Everything Everything. Go watch/read Sharp Objects or The Act
The reason teens loved TFIOS and adults didn’t/ don’t is because it really accurately portrays a certain type of teen. I was that pretentious teenager and had a dark sense of humor about my problems like they were about their cancer. It’s cringe as hell as an adult but I don’t think it’s because it’s shit, I think it was a well written portrayal of some teenagers of the time.
Omg you really put it into words
Oh my god i thnk I've heard someone say that. But yes i agree
It’s totally understandable if you’re just over it at this point, but it would be amazing to see you come back to TH-cam!! You have such a unique sense of humor and even when I’m not that familiar with the topics you’re talking about, you manage to make it so entertaining.
YES PLEASE
is he taking a break or leaving?
@@jimenanona4382 yeah what happened? 😢
@@dezireeelizondo623 i think he got hate cause of this video. he posted again
@@jfarmerswatermelon6061 aw man:/ everyone is entitled to their own opinions! His channel is literally about reviewing books so?! Can’t hate
Something had to prep us for 2020 relationships
*Detects no lies*
Too soon my guy 😂😂
the sexy stripping makes me laugh so hard because actual teenagers would just be like "so what procedures have you done" "oh I did this, this, and this and I got a WICKED SCAR * lifts shirt to reveal scar *"
do writers even talk to people, at all, period??
Yeah, I do that literally all the time.😂
Ehh it's actually quite different when you have a chronic illness and have many medical procedures. It isn't the same as having a scar from an injury, or from a single operation. Being chronically ill gives you serious insecurities with your body, and it can be really hard to feel comfortable getting naked with a new partner.
I haven't actually watched the movie so idk how "sexy" the scene is played, but it seems like one of the only realistic aspects of the whole thing. It's 2 people being vulnerable with each other.
This best part about Me Earl and The Dying Girl book was the fact it didn’t want to tell me a message, nobody’s death was a lesson. It was just “awful shit happens, people can die and it’s painful, and there is no lesson to learn from that, other than awful things happen, people can die, and it’s painful”
If you don't like the "Me and Earl and the Dying Girl" movie, imagine the BOOK. It was awful. The main character talks about what he wants to do to the popular girl constantly, saying he wants to motorboat her. It's all from his perspective, so his humor is the humor of the book and his thoughts are the whole thing. And they're bad thoughts.
Cheyenna Marshall You’re probably the only person I’ve seen who feels the same way. I had to stop reading because his narration was that disgusting
@@booktales1687 It wasn't funny at all. It was the first book that I actively hated that I made myself read all the way through. There are a lot of people who hate the book, but they're only smaller channels for some reason
Cheyenna Marshall I always thought he was written to be an anti hero, was he not lol?
@@Emma_smith I don't think so. But maybe you're leagues ahead of me, so maybe? I do like the movie and he's such more acceptable in it. I'll have to read his other book to see if it's a pattern
I'm not disagreeing at all. When I read it I thought he was supposed to come across as a shallow and lowkey misogynistic teenage boy whose friendship with his sick friend helped him grow and realize the several forms of love and attraction. I mean even as I type it that doesn't really make it better but I read those parts as purposely annoying and unlikable. There are also parts in the book where his friends call him out on his behavior. I also appreciated that they never had an explicitly romantic relationship, at least in the book. The movie tried to highlight that part a lot. But yeah, still weird.
Writers were like: Let’s make books and movies about teenagers dying for fully healthy able bodied people to read or watch 😀 Even though teenagers who are actually going through these things have no say in to what their experiences are like 😀
The thing I hate about these movies is that the characters are reduced to their illnesses. They have no character progression outside of who they r as a sick person. I am not sick myself, but all of these characters are reduced to being sick and that is their whole life. I guess if u have a chronic illness just like they do it would be your whole life, idk cause i don’t have one, but i have to expect that someone who is chronically sick has a personality outside of being sick. That they have a hobbies and likes and not everything about who they are as a person is them being sick. Also, these movies use their sickness as a plot device to engineer a tragic ending. I’ll be a kind of not really at all advocate for 5 feet apart because they tried developing Stella’s character more than just her being sick or falling in love but that ended up happening anyway (idk about Cole Sprouse’s character) and Stella’s representation was based on Claire Wineland and I immensely respect her but i think they still ended up glorifying her and especially Cole Sprouse’s charaacter , but it was a small but still utterly botched attempt at not creating just another ‘sick person who tries to live life and inspire other sick people but instead romanticizes the illness and shits on it instead movie’, but i always saw these movies as just a way of engineering trauma without actually developing the character behind their illness. It felt lazy and disrespecting to actual people who had these chronic illnesses.
Calling them “fault in our stars” rip off is A Walk to Remember erasure
LMAO YES I WAS THINKING OF THAT THROUGHOUT THE VIDEO SKSKSK
“All of the characters talk exactly the same.”
When Caleb spilled the tea on all of John Green characters 👀🤭.
FaCts 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
and none of them are good 🤪
It's kinda like if you've read one, you've read them all! Self-absorbed, pretentious, pompous characters that make stupid decisions with no legit reason just for the heck of it causing unnecessary drama.
I have read papertowns and thought it was good because of the a human is not more than a human thing. But then I tried to read looking for Alaska and I was like:... Did I read this before or?
I get how 5 feet apart was kinda cliche but when THAT friend died I SOBBED in the theater it was so embarrassing, cuz I was with my boyfriend and we had only been together for a few months. Then after, I went to the restroom to compose myself, came back all good, then he asked "So what did you think of the movie?" And I started crying again. Composed myself, went to the car where my mom was waiting, where she asked "How was the movie?" Cried again. And that is why I will never watch any sad movies ever again.
Nobody:
John Green: I’m not like other girls
his early books sucked but they have gotten better (although i enjoy hank’s books more)
I don't really think Me and Earl and the Dying Girl was a rip off of tfios. The books were released 2 months apart and Me and Earl wasn't about a star crossed lovers situation.
Totally agree!
right! I liked the book and the movie even more 💕
Yes!
Agreed. The fact that they were released around the same time and the stories were handled differently make them very different