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Claudia and the New Girl
Nov. 6th, 2021 12:24 pmThe second season of The Babysitters Club came out last month, and yesterday I at last watched the first two episodes. The second one was "Claudia and the New Girl", in which book I am deeply overinvested, and it turns out that the episode is not actually a retelling of the novel and my heart was CRUSHED.
So in the novel, the new girl is Ashley Wyeth. Claudia, a talented artist herself, swiftly falls into a fast and all-consuming friendship with Ashley when she realizes that Ashley is a brilliant artist, too. In the pursuit of this friendship and their intense artistic talks, Claudia neglects her old friends, her babysitters club duties, etc. etc., until she realizes that as much as she loves Ashley, she does not in fact want her life to be All Ashley, All the Time. Ashley is a human disaster in all areas of life that are not Art and does not cope well with this change, and the friendship collapses under the strain.
At no point in this book are Claudia's feelings for Ashley referred to as a "crush," but that's definitely what it is. She obsesses over Ashley when they're not together; she's intensely, physically aware of Ashley whenever they're in the same room; she can't see Ashley in the hallway without enthusing about how beautiful and delicate and fragile she is.
In the TV show, Ashley is actually friends with Claudia's older sister Janine. She is not even slightly a human disaster (is she even Ashley Wyeth if she has actual social skills?), and serves as an uncomplicated mentor figure for Claudia. But the emotional center of the episode (and the "New Girl" to whom the title refers) is Mallory, whom Claudia definitely does NOT have a crush on. In fact, she finds Mallory annoyingly talkative and needy, and the story focuses on figuring out how to get along with someone you find annoying when you are in a situation where you are frequently thrown in their company.
This is a perfectly fine story on its own, but NOT "Claudia and the New Girl," and I will mourn forever What Might Have Been if they had the guts to make it as gay as the book.
So in the novel, the new girl is Ashley Wyeth. Claudia, a talented artist herself, swiftly falls into a fast and all-consuming friendship with Ashley when she realizes that Ashley is a brilliant artist, too. In the pursuit of this friendship and their intense artistic talks, Claudia neglects her old friends, her babysitters club duties, etc. etc., until she realizes that as much as she loves Ashley, she does not in fact want her life to be All Ashley, All the Time. Ashley is a human disaster in all areas of life that are not Art and does not cope well with this change, and the friendship collapses under the strain.
At no point in this book are Claudia's feelings for Ashley referred to as a "crush," but that's definitely what it is. She obsesses over Ashley when they're not together; she's intensely, physically aware of Ashley whenever they're in the same room; she can't see Ashley in the hallway without enthusing about how beautiful and delicate and fragile she is.
In the TV show, Ashley is actually friends with Claudia's older sister Janine. She is not even slightly a human disaster (is she even Ashley Wyeth if she has actual social skills?), and serves as an uncomplicated mentor figure for Claudia. But the emotional center of the episode (and the "New Girl" to whom the title refers) is Mallory, whom Claudia definitely does NOT have a crush on. In fact, she finds Mallory annoyingly talkative and needy, and the story focuses on figuring out how to get along with someone you find annoying when you are in a situation where you are frequently thrown in their company.
This is a perfectly fine story on its own, but NOT "Claudia and the New Girl," and I will mourn forever What Might Have Been if they had the guts to make it as gay as the book.
