Carrying the Banner

I love Newsies. What is Newsies? Newsies is a musical about striking newsboys, which came out in 1992. Although the movie was a flop it manage to collect thousands of fans world wide over the years and is now one of the most talked about and loved movie on the net. In other words it’s one of the most popular guilty pleasures of young girls.

So, how did I come across this musical extravaganza? Well it was love at fist site. It was the last day of school in eighth grade and bored with the class, my history teacher decided to pop a movie on to kill time and entertain us, at the time I was busy talking to Lowry, the girl who sat next to me, then I looked up…what is this? I thought to myself, it was something I’ve never seen before. Right before my eyes was the most gorgeous boys, dancing and singing! To any boy crazy fourteen year old, this movie was the greatest thing right next to boy bands. I immediately stopped talking to Lowry to watch this wonderful treat. Unfortunately I was too embarrassed to ask the teacher about this movie, so I went home, not knowing the name to the movie I just witnessed. Then two years ago on a boring summer day I was flipping through channels on the TV, and there it was! I watched the whole movie and loved it even better than the first time.

Then after I made the biggest mistake…I looked the movie up online. Before I thought I was the only one who knew about this gem and second that I must be pretty weird loving a movie that’s over ten years old(I was also depressed at the fact the gorgeous boys in this movie were ten years older and married) And to my surprise I found out that I was not the only one, there were other…many, many others. I was up all night looking through the thousands of websites and clubs about this movie and this movie alone. The second mistake I made was buying the special edition DVD. I swear I wore that thing out by watching it many times, remembering the movie, knowing it by heart, singing along to the songs. The third mistake was joining the official club, but I admit I met lots of wonderful people my age through this movie who are strangely exactly like me, which was very comforting to have some exactly like you to talk to. The fourth mistake was going on Ebay. There I wasted my money and got stressed beyond belief winning: the Newsies Novel, the Newsies CD, the Newsies press kit, the Newsies promotional newspapers, etc. The fifth mistake was creating a website contributing to the thousands of other website on this movie.

Then the sixth and second biggest mistake, the one that pains me to think of, was writing a thirty-five thousand word, one hundred and fifty page fan fiction on the movie. One good thing about the fan fiction, though, was the feedback, and it was also the feedback that drove me to write a fan-fic that long. For an aspiring screen writer, like me, writing a one hundred and fifty pages on fan fiction that can never get published or sold, is very painful; but it was worth it for the uplifting and inspirational feedback I received while writing it. But then again, all that work for a fan fiction, when I could have written that many pages on my original screenplays.

Now, my love for Newsies is still strong. I don’t write fan fiction as much anymore, I’m sticking to just writing original fiction that can be published, but it’s hard to stay motivated when you don’t have constant feedback encouraging and complimenting you. And I occasionally check Ebay now and them for more treasures (that I can’t help) If someone asked me if I had the chance to go back in time and warn myself about this movie, would I? I’d tell them, no. It wasn’t a complete waste loving this movie, I made a lot of good friends, who are writers like me, and helped me through tough times. I also improved in my writing by the feedbacks from the fan fiction. All in all, my addiction to Newsies was an experience I don’t regret.