Somebody finally fixed the ending of The Giving Tree.

Somebody finally fixed the ending of The Giving Tree.

This weekend on Instagram, I discovered something I never knew I always wanted: a helpful update to Shel Silverstein’s psychotic parenting allegory The Giving Tree, in which a tree gives up e…

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This weekend on Instagram, I discovered something I never knew I always wanted: a helpful update to Shel Silverstein’s psychotic parenting allegory The Giving Tree, in which a tree gives up every molecule of itself to help some ungrateful kid, and we’re supposed to think it’s good and noble or something. Yeah, you remember.

Anyway, playwright and screenwriter Topher Payne has now fixed it. The Tree Who Set Healthy Boundaries is part of Payne’s “Topher Fixed It” series, which was created in support of The Atlanta Artist Relief Fund, and which offers printable alternate endings for certain problematic children’s books. (He also accepts tips.) “Ever settle in with the young person in your life to read one of your childhood favorites, like The Giving Tree or The Rainbow Fish, only to get halfway through it and go, “Wait, WHAT?” Payne writes. “Well, good news. I fixed it.” Also included is a fix for that most frightening of children’s books (in my opinion): I’ll Love You Forever.

“Just read The Giving Tree as usual, right up to the point where the Boy comes hustling for a house. Then feel free to print these pages and read as an alternative to everything that follows,” Payne writes. I think I’ll do just that. (Eat your heart out, Ryan Gosling.)

 

[Shidoen]

So this is why the Feds never end funding for white groups. I'd want these retards dead too, even if I'm getting paid for other bullshit.

 

[HumanHive]

The Giving Tree was supposed to have an environmentalist message. This is like fixing the end of the Lorax.

 

[Pokemonquistador2]

leftistmemes.jpg

My thoughts on seeing the "revised" story:

 

[DankSmoker]

his mom probably molested him

The reoccurring theme of boundaries speaks volumes to that.

 

[The Cunting Death]

This pissed me off the most

 

[Weed Eater]

4. Love You Forever: So, I forgot that the son's mom broke into his house at night to cradle him because it wasn't the point of the book. The faggot then goes on this long winded sarcastic narrative diatribe about the son installing bars on his windows to keep his mom out so she won't break into his house, then A BLACK FEMALE FRIEND OF THE SON'S comes over and tells him he needs to set boundaries. Lots of hand-wringing about comfort that fully misses the point of the book and how loving parents make loving children, but then again a faggot's writing this so his mom probably molested him and he'll never have kids, so not surprising.

Just so you and everyone in this thread knows, the original author, Robert Munsch, wrote this book because he and his wife lost two stillborn children.

"I'll love you forever, I'll like you for always, as long as I'm living, my baby you'll be." was a lullaby Robert wrote in grief. To shit all over that is the most inexcusable of all.

 

[mold]

thanks everyone for writing about your real feelings about the giving tree

I mean it. thank you. that was really moving.

 

[Zero Day Defense]

I'm not even sure this "rewrite" was made for children, now that I think about it. Knowing these types, it probably wasn't.

 

[Vlinny-kun]

I never liked this book as a kid because the way it was taught to me in kindergarten was that we were supposed to be the giving tree and give for others regardless of who they were, what the request was, and what the consequences to ourselves were and it just didn't sit well with me. I had no idea it was suppose to be an allegory for parenting.

 

[stuffandthings]

On the one hand, this guy seems like an insufferable douche canoe. And I'll Love You Forever is sweet and adorable and her sneaking over is MEANT to be funny and outrageous, an expression of a FEELING not an actual action. so he can just SHUT THE FUCK UP.

On the other hand, even as an allegory for parenting, The Giving Tree is kinda fucked up. You shouldn't just give your kid anything they THINK they need, to the detriment of yourself, because then you can't continue to give and support.

If the book is meant to be read as a lesson in NOT being a dick to your Giving Tree, and appreciating gifts and sacrifices, then it's effective.

But no one should be A Giving Tree. Even for a parent, what you sacrifice for your kids should be in proportion to what they need. Laying down your life to save theirs? Yes. Killing yourself so they can go on vacation? No.

 

[Jonah Hill poster]

This honestly just gave me more reason to read The Giving Tree in its original form. I never read the book growing up as a kid.

 

[ColtWalker1847]

This gets at what pisses me (and from the sounds of it, a lot of you) off about this 'fixing' in particular but also the lefty mindset in general. They don't understand the point of an allegory or Aesop.

Everyone gets the feels over The Giving Tree, and that's the entire point: it's a beautiful work of fiction that conveys its key messages through pure emotion. You feel for the (destructive) selflessness of the tree, and raw emotion is all that is needed to channel the book's lessons to you about being grateful for the kindness of your family (and/or friends), and the dangers associated with taking selfless sacrifice too far. It's purely fiction, so there are no real-life consequences that needed to be paid to learn that lesson. Yet we all still came away better people for having 'lived' the completely fictitious experience. It's awesome.

Now look at how this soy golem has 'fixed' the story. There's no story with visceral consequences anymore that imparts those lessons. Instead, they've actually subtly done away with one of the lessons (the one about parental sacrifice. Go figure? I hate the antichrist, etc etc), and the leftover lesson is delivered through heavy-handed and condescending propaganda. There can be no consequences, no learning from the mistakes of the fictional boy. Even in this fictitious world where nothing matters and both author and reader are free to play with ideas in a way that they can't in reality, consequences scare the soyboy. We can't have an imaginary tree dying, think of the children! So we're left with a completely anodyne tale that doesn't even resonate enough to be remembered the next day, much less impart any meaningful changes in how we look at the world. And the soyboy is convinced, somehow, that his changes were for the better.

tl;dr: Fuck the Left.

Let's not act like Uncle Shelby was some right-wing paragon of virtue. He was a Chicago Jewish beatnik poet who fucked whores with Hefner the Playboy Mansion and dropped acid with Outlaw Country musicians in Austin. He was very much a left-wing dude. It's just that back then left-wing artists, the good ones anyways, focused on imparting deeper meaning to life and revealing universal truths.

What is being revealed here is how shallow and sanitized and obsessed with ideological purity the current artist jet set is compared to what it was.

 

[From The Uncanny Valley]

Let's not act like Uncle Shelby was some right-wing paragon of virtue. He was a Chicago Jewish beatnik poet who fucked whores with Hefner the Playboy Mansion and dropped acid with Outlaw Country musicians in Austin. He was very much a left-wing dude. It's just that back then left-wing artists, the good ones anyways, focused on imparting deeper meaning to life and revealing universal truths.

What is being revealed here is how shallow and sanitized and obsessed with ideological purity the current artist jet set is compared to what it was.

He also wrote a ...weird... sequel to Boy Named Sue.

 

[The Cunting Death]

I forgot how powerful ILYF is. I gave a copy to my mom for her birthday, the moment she saw it she broke down in tears and gave me a big hug.

And I almost teared up looking for stuff related to the book.

 

[Coach Kreeton Of All That]

The Giving Tree is a story about selfless love and noble sacrifice, it's about the awesome power of deep love, the real shit, that will make you destroy yourself for somebody else and smile the whole time you're doing it. most people don't experience that kind of love unless they have a kid. there was a time when this kind of love was held as an ideal, but people today, especially our cursed generation, who have largely been the beneficiaries of this kind of love (from our retarded boomer parents) without experiencing the other end for ourselves (because we're all largely petulant adult children), read this kind of story and think it's a fucked up tale about an idiot killing a tree. it's extremely telling that the "fixed" lib version is about an annoying asshole tree that gives only as long as it's not an inconvenience, but as soon as it's asked to perform any real sacrifice it instantly switches modes and bitches and scolds their supposed loved one for daring to ask something so Problematic™. and then the boy, impressed by the power of the tree's Feelings, decides to improve himself by going to college (lol) and starting a business (double lol) which gives him prosperity such that he doesn't have to ask the tree for anything anymore. and everyone lives happily ever after in the shadow of the asshole tree, who gave the greatest gift of all: a condescending, self-interested lecture about respect in order to refuse responsibility for doing anything material for their friend, while using guilt to preemptively deflect any accusations of selfishness. great material for kids!

btw this is the NOT GAY incredibly straight and chad motherfucker who wrote the edit:
View attachment 2744684View attachment 2744708View attachment 2744709

Topher Nixon Payne
13 December 1979
GA voter reg. no.: 05650366

topher@topherpayne.com

1436 Drayton Woods Dr.
Tucker, GA
30084-7923

Fuckbook (not archived)
Twatter

 

[BooneHelm]

I'd only expect something like this from some fucked up narcissist. The Giving Tree is a metaphor and isn't really about a guy and a fucking talking tree. Seriously its about giving everything of yourself to the next generation or specifically your own children so they can prosper. But what do I know, it's really about healthy boundaries or some shit.

I guess it's hard to imagine having children when you can't and can only dialate.

 

[mold]

The Giving Tree is also very much about hippie love. It's about what happened during the sexual revolution when traditional constraints on both sexes were removed, because the sexes are very very psychologically different and women and men, in general, will act like the tree and the boy if we're left in a state of nature.

But it's *also* about parenting. And I've also always read it, from very very young, as an allegory of the ego and the deep creative part of ourself that is connected to God and Nature, a very dark and realistic one that lets you know you can fuck yourself up, the tree is not allgiving, if you don't respect your creative and divine self you will end up with just a stump to sit on. (Consider what Silverstein did with his huge artistic gifts here, it's very directly relevant.)

It's a great work of art, it's ambiguous, it works on multiple levels, and if people can't read it that way there's something basically broken about them.

 

[likeacrackado]

As a zoomer child I didn't understand the point of this book. The most I remember about it was a gag in the Diary of a Wimpy kid about the ugly photo of Silverstein.

 

[The Cunting Death]

As a zoomer child I didn't understand the point of this book. The most I remember about it was a gag in the Diary of a Wimpy kid about the ugly photo of Silverstein.

Which to be fair that thing is fucking terrifying

 

[From The Uncanny Valley]

The book also inspired a pretty good episode of Billy and Mandy