L.B.: Educational filmstrip

Left Behind, pp. 400-409

An alternative interpretation of these pages ...

How to Handle a Stalker

You meet someone at a dinner party in a city far from home. He seems pleasant, normal enough. You depart on friendly terms, telling him to give you a call if he's ever in your part of the country.

The next morning you learn that he has booked a flight to your city. More than that, he has booked a seat on the very same flight you are taking home and, telling the airline that he is your traveling companion, has arranged for the seat next to yours. What should you do? How should you handle this aggressive, frightening development and this man's increasingly disturbing advances?

In this educational filmstrip, we'll watch as our young subject -- let's call her "Chloe" -- attempts a variety of strategies for coping with her stalker. We'll call him "Buck."

Boop. Please advance the filmstrip now.

1. Ignore him and hope he takes the hint.

Do not make eye contact and do not initiate conversation. Use body language to reassert the personal boundaries your stalker is attempting to disregard.

Buck waited until everyone else had boarded. As he approached his seat next to Chloe, her body was turned toward the window, arms crossed, chin in her hand. Whether she even had her eyes open, Buck couldn't tell. He assumed she would turn to glance as he sat next to her, and he couldn't suppress a smile, anticipating her reaction and only slightly worried that she would be less positive than he hoped.

He sat and waited, but she did not turn.

Boop.

2. Wait for him to fall asleep, then move to another seat.

Despite her defensive body language and her refusal to acknowledge his presence, Chloe's unwelcome seatmate is not backing down. She could tell from his manic, disheveled appearance that he had barely slept since she saw him last, so she tries to wait him out.

And now he had a problem. As he warily watched for the change in position that would allow Chloe to see him in her peripheral vision, he was suddenly awash in fatigue. His muscles and joints ached, his eyes burned. His head felt like lead. No way was he going to fall asleep and have her discover him dozing next to her.

Buck gestured to get the attendant's attention. "Coke, please," he whispered. The temporary caffeine rush would allow him to stay awake a little longer.

When Chloe didn't move even to watch the safety instructions, Buck grew impatient. Still, he didn't want to reveal himself. He wanted to be discovered. And so he waited.

Boop.

3. Take the initiative, establish control.

Her stalker has continued staring at her, unrelenting, all through takeoff and the first 10 minutes of the flight, pausing only to bully the flight attendant into getting him a soda before she'd even given the safety instructions. Chloe is beginning to get scared. Ignoring him isn't working, so she tries a different tactic, aggressively initiating conversation herself and doing her best to establish control over the situation.

Chloe is aware that stalkers can be unpredictable. Buck clearly has a fantasy of how this scene will play out and might respond violently should her reaction vary from the script in his head. You can never be too careful, even in the public setting of a crowded airplane, so she does her best to play along and humor him.

She must have grown weary of her position, because she stretched and used her feet to push her carry-on bag under the seat in front of her. She took a last sip of her juice and set it on the small tray between them. She stared at Buck's glove-leather boots, the ones he had worn the day before. Chloe's eyes traveled up to his smiling, expectant face.

Her reaction was more than worth the wait. She folded her hands and drew them to her mouth. "Oh, Buck," she whispered. "Oh, Buck."

"It's nice to see you, too," he said.

Boop.

4. Keep him talking, but stick to neutral topics.

As an experienced air traveler, Chloe is well aware of the most-effective, time-tested technique for avoiding unwanted small talk during a flight: just use the magical phrase, "Do you know Jesus as your personal savior?" She employs a similar tactic here, posing as a religious obsessive to keep her stalker off-balance.

Chloe quickly let go of his hand as if catching herself. "I don't mean to act like a schoolgirl," she said, "but have you ever received a direct answer to prayer?"

Chloe begins aggressively buffeting her stalker with religious questions, pressuring him to become a born-again Christian and to pray with her right then and there. She has taken the upper hand.

She is now in control of the conversation, but this is still only a stalling tactic. She still needs to find some escape from the immediate situation, to establish a safe distance from which she can plan a way to deal in the long-term with her stalker. Meanwhile, she's getting a clearer, more disturbing picture of the depth of his obsession. Just yesterday Buck had described himself to her as a secular skeptic, yet now he is saying that he will consider converting to her newfound religion and even to attending her local church, 1,500 miles from his home.

Boop.

5. Call for help.

Be prepared. Plan ahead so that you always have some way of contacting help if you need to do so.

She stopped a passing attendant. "Can I give you a message for my dad?"

"Sure. Is he captain or first officer?"

"Captain. Please just tell him his daughter has extremely good news for him."

"Extremely good news," the attendant repeated.

Until he boarded the plane that morning, Chloe had no way of foreseeing that Buck would begin stalking her, but she is not caught unprepared. She and her father had already established a coded communication system. "Good news," is her code phrase to her father for "I need your help, come quickly." Her message of "extremely good news" is an emphatic 9-1-1 emergency distress call. By using such code phrases, she is able to summon help without allowing Buck to see her growing discomfort and fear and without causing him to react defensively or unpredictably.

Boop.

6. Go away somewhere safe; do not remain alone

Chloe's father arrives. He is friendly and polite, but quickly inserts himself in between his daughter and her aggressor.

He shook hands with the writer and expressed his pleasant, but wary, surprise. Chloe reached for his neck with both hands and gently pulled him down to where she could whisper to him. "Daddy, could you and I sit back there for a couple of minutes so I can talk to you?"

The pilot takes his daughter to an empty seat several rows away and sits with her a bit. She is noticeably upset by now, but safely away from her stalker.

A middle-aged couple across the aisle leaned out and stared, brows raised. The captain noticed, straightened, and headed toward the cockpit. "My daughter," he said awkwardly, pointing at Chloe who smiled through her tears. "She's my daughter."

Having removed his daughter from immediate danger and enlisted the assistance of the couple across the aisle to ensure that she is not left alone with her stalker again during the flight, the pilot returns to the cockpit to contact security at O'Hare. They will be there to greet Buck when he arrives in Chicago and to arrange for his return to New York.

Boop. This concludes side one. Please turn the cassette over to hear a different take on these pages from Left Behind. (Which will be posted shortly.)

(Note: LaHaye and Jenkins' disturbingly skewed notion that Buck's obsessive behavior is charming and romantic is amusing, but please do not regard the above as actual good advice for how to deal with an actual stalker. Real stalkers aren't funny. Here are some real safety tips from End Stalking in America and some more info on stalking from A.W.A.R.E.)

Comments

[mike tmonin]

I had a chilling thought the other day. What if L&J are actually atheists trying desparately (and despairingly) to debunk Evangelical Christianity by showing how absurd the tropes are.

LeHay: this is crazy! People are buying the books like hot cakes - they can't actually be reading them, can they?

Jenkins: Don't worry, we'll get to Jebus returning and slaughtering folks right and left - if that doesn't break the hold of Evangelical Christianity, nothing will...

[Tyro]

Also, would a hard-boiled reporter really ask for a Coke? Wouldn't he ask the flight attendent for black coffee?

[Karen]

Bambooziling, Fred. Absolutely Bambooziling.

On filmstrips, it was really nice to read a blog post with a cultural reference I didn't have to research and feel like I'm 5,493 years old. Now, does anyone else reemember Coronet films?

[Geds]

Anna: Wasn't that the plot of last Tuesday's House?

[Lee Ratner]

I'm only twenty-seven, I've been subjected to educational film strips in elementary, middle, and even high school when learning how to drive so I'm surprised that people only a few years younger never saw them.

[damnedyankee]

A hard boiled reporter would make his deadlines, too. Or at least acknowledge their existence as they go whizzing by.

Coke's too hardcore for a reporter of Buck's caliber.

[cjmr's husband]

Hello, my name is Bifurcated Montoya. Prepare to split or be split.

[Vermic]

Now, does anyone else reemember Coronet films?

Only if the Mr. B Natural short from MST3K counts.

[Spalanzani]

Tyro: "Also, would a hard-boiled reporter really ask for a Coke? Wouldn't he ask the flight attendent for black coffee?"

Bingo. Buck's beverage belies bold brave beat.

[Selcaby]

Blazing!

[Tonio]

Lee Ratner, did you also have 16mm films, or had your schools already moved into the VHS era?

[Ursula L]

Tyro: "Also, would a hard-boiled reporter really ask for a Coke? Wouldn't he ask the flight attendent for black coffee?"

Asking for black coffee doesn't get you product-placement money when making the movie.

[Anna]

Anna: Wasn't that the plot of last Tuesday's House?

Something like that, yes. But with better writing, since House's writers can do dialogue that is witty and intelligent instead of something that sounds like a bad Gone With the Wind ripoff.

"Rhett! Buck! Oh, Rhett! Buck!"

[Geds]

By the way, does this mean we have to bid farewell to Meta-Chloe at some point in the near future? Or will her spirit live on, boinking Meta-Hattie in the bathroom?

[Robb]

Now, does anyone else remember Coronet films?

*raises hand* I do!

The elementary school I attended (in the 80s) was ruled by several wonderful super-annuated folks who'd been there since the 60s, and many of them (especially my 4th grade teacher) were especially fond of the older style educational films. I recall one teacher dismissing the newer stuff as not quite as good.

Reading Fred's take on Buck-stalkery today sent me back to where I could almost smell the bakelite case for the filmstrip projector.

There are a handful of Coronet films on the internet archive.

[Vermic]

By the way, does this mean we have to bid farewell to Meta-Chloe at some point in the near future? Or will her spirit live on, boinking Meta-Hattie in the bathroom?

Hot Chloe-Hattie sex will never die, so long as we remember it and the joy it brought to our lives. (sniff)

[pepperjackcandy]

:adds Mr. Tompkins book to amazon.com wishlist:

However, I favor the possibility of L and/or J growing up in strict authoritarian households that gave them distorted views of human interaction, with their obsessions being their ways of dealing with their emotional issues. This explanation wouldn't satisfy Occam's Razor, obviously.

My problem with the Asperger's theory is that thousands and thousands of people read these books and never ask, "Who'd do that in that situation?"

But this explains *that* part of the phenomenon beautifully. Their audience was *also* brought up in authoritarian households.

[Karen]

I am so glad there are some Coronet classics on the 'Net, so that I can share that particular oddity of my childhood with my sons. I was in elementary during the early Neolithic, ie, late 60's, early 70's, so we saw a LOT of those things. It's obvious to me now that the teachers were trying desparately to avoid any mention of actual current events so they stuck with the stuff from the nice, safe Eisenhauer era. Of course, even to us, from Tiny East Texas Town, those things were really odd. For one thing, there were never any black people in 'em. One of my friends from the 2nd grade who asked about that was sent to the principal's office, where I presume she was lectured about, well, something.

It also occurs to me as I'm typing this that Coronet films were the only other place I've ever encountered characters will as little relation to real life as in LB. Maybe Jenkins was trying to recall his glory days of the fourth grade . . .

[Dahne]

Is it just me, or does the first picture say "YOU'RE TOO YOUNG TO GET THIS JOKE"?

[Geds]

Is it just me, or does the first picture say "YOU'RE TOO YOUNG TO GET THIS JOKE"?

It could also say, "You attended a severely underfunded grade school back in the '80s." At least, that's what it tells me...

[Tonio]

My problem with the Asperger's theory is that thousands and thousands of people read these books and never ask, "Who'd do that in that situation?"

That possibility hadn't occurred to me. Thanks for bringing that up.

But this explains *that* part of the phenomenon beautifully. Their audience was *also* brought up in authoritarian households.

That is a very likely explanation. Another one, less likely, is that L&J's readers have such a craving for fiction that doesn't question their worldview that they unintentionally overlook LB's glaring flaws. I've seen a few people with other worldviews exhibit this same trait. Is there a name for the phenomenon?

Sometimes LB seems to me like a parody of performance art, where the performer attempts to comment on the world's injustices by stripping naked and covering himself in chocolate sauce.

[Jack Grey]

Froborr: "They learn PowerPoint in third grade."

I am stealing this for a sig line (with attribution, of course). Hope you don't mind.

[Jack Grey]

Correction...

Froborr: "PowerPoint is the sword-chucks of presentation tools."

I am stealing that for a sig line. Yeesh. And then I am going back to bed.

[Tonio]

Dumb question of the week - what is a sword-chuck? A sword's sheath?

[aunursa]

Tonio: Another one, less likely, is that L&J's readers have such a craving for fiction that doesn't question their worldview that they unintentionally overlook LB's glaring flaws

I believe that is the correct answer.

[The Cynic Sage]

This is the best LB Friday there has ever been.

Freakin' Awesome!

[Dahne]

I had a chilling thought the other day. What if L&J are actually atheists trying desparately (and despairingly) to debunk Evangelical Christianity by showing how absurd the tropes are.

Now that would be interesting. But then, you'd have to start with very personable, vibrant characters, who 'live in sin' - have sex, drink, act like humans, etc. Then, as time goes on and they become converted, their personalities drain away, and they become soulless, self-obsessed drones, devoted only to following the bizarre and inexplicable codes left by their departed predecessors.

So it'd have to begin as a good book. And L&J definitely didn't do that.

This kind of thing always makes me think of Terry Goodkind. I'm still half-convinced he's going to come out of the closet (tee hee) and reveal that it was all a massive social experiment. I was fascinated with Naked Empire because I could never figure out whether it was an idiotic argument for the Iraq war or a brilliant argument against it.

[Dahne]

@Tonio: It's a weapon invented by the none-too-bright Fighter of 8-Bit Theater. It's a pair of swords attached at the hilt by a chain and swung like nunchucks. The only practical application is to colorfully eviscerate yourself.

[mmack]

Is it just me, or does the first picture say "YOU'RE TOO YOUNG TO GET THIS JOKE"?

Well I'm old and I don't like change. You youngsters with your fancy learnin' and puttin' on airs! Filmstrips too old for ya', eh? Well, back in MY day we didn't have no VCR's or Teee-vo! Nosireebob! If you couldn't sit down and WATCH a television show, you missed it and you never saw it again! That's the way it was and WE LIKED IT! And if we wanted to watch a movie in class we had to thread the film through the projector and the film snapped and we had to glue it back together with Elmers Glue and that's the way it was and WE LIKED IT! And then the bulb on the projector would start to smoke and glow red hot and the film would EXPLODE and kids would run around the classroom with their hair on fire screaming "Oh No, the projector blew up and my hair's on fire and I'll look like a circus freak!" And that's the way it was and WE LIKED IT!

;^p

(With apologies to Dana Carvey. Please, Mr. Carvey, don't sue me!)

[bulbul]

Nosireebob!
I always wondered if Nosireebob is the same Bob as the Bob who is apparently my uncle...

[Tonio]

Thanks for the information, Dahne. I know almost nothing about gaming. The only games I've played in the last 20 years have been the Myst series and the Monty Python series.

[Alex]

I'm still snickering because of this hours later.

[Dahne]

Then it is my duty, Tonio, to madly wave a copy of Planescape: Torment in your face and shout about how brilliant it is.

(PC game, old, not very taxing on the system, almost entirely dialogue- and story-focused, can probably be found by digging through bargain bins.)

I'd also like to note that, as someone taught it in highschool by old people who thought sound effects and animated slides were a good idea, I despise PowerPoint with the intensity of a thousand suns.

[LMM]

I'm still sticking to the Aspergers theory simply because I find it more entertaining.

[LMM]

And -- are we not getting the second post today, then?

PS:T was good up through the first CD, I found. Then -- well, IMHO, the plot kind of fell apart, along with the beta-testing. But the first CD was good.

[Dahne]

Huh, really? I always thought the second part was where the plot really came together. Where a lot of the foreshadowing kicked in. The only thing I resent is that it never got the sequel I hear it was meant to have, and that it deserves.

[Jessie]

Asperger's would be a likely explanation for the lack of authentic human behavior in the book.

You know, when an aspie comes home tired from a long day of dealing with people and bright lights and loud noises, and settles down at the computer to read a nice juicy LB Friday, this kind of crap is exactly what she DOESN'T like to find splattered across her screen.

In case you hadn't noticed, autistic people are humans. Authentic humans, even. I have no idea why several of you are assuming that Aspergers produces bad writing, or even bad characterization. We may have trouble figuring out why YOU do what you do, but we're no more ignorant about our own behavior and internal workings than the average neurotypical. Sure, we may be better at writing characters that think like us, but doesn't everyone?

Moreover, as a numerical and power minority within this culture, we are more exposed to representations of the majority than the majority is exposed to representations of us. Simultaneously, the fact that we have to consciously THINK about human behaviour and social rules positions us to be more thoughtful and less bound by stereotypes; sometimes it even makes us more observant within the same situations.

Authentic aspie behavior is authentic human behavior, and it's very different from the stilted, robotic puppeteering in LB. The writing in LB is not stubbornly eccentric; the authors have clearly recognized an existing pattern (not a direct quote, mind you, but a complex pattern), swallowed it whole, and regurgitated it more or less intact. This is about as far from essential aspieness as you can get.

[Tonio]

I have no idea why several of you are assuming that Aspergers produces bad writing, or even bad characterization. We may have trouble figuring out why YOU do what you do, but we're no more ignorant about our own behavior and internal workings than the average neurotypical. Sure, we may be better at writing characters that think like us, but doesn't everyone?

I've said here before that I'm 95 percent sure that I have Asperger's. I speak also as someone whose background is in writing. I've tried writing fiction, and I become frustrated because I'm never sure if the actions and responses I give the characters are neurotypically authentic. I don't wish to create characters who act like I would, because I doubt that my own actions are authentic human ones. In fact, I seem to overcompensate and give my characters overly emotional actions and responses.

[Ursula L]

If L&J having Aspergers was an explanation for the nature of the characters in LB, I'd expect to see vivid, fully developed examples of authentic people with Aspergers. The same with autism.

Instead what we see is not authentic to any human experience - Aspergers, autistic, manic depressive, paranoid schizophrenic, major depressive disorder, or even "normal."

People with mental illness still have personalities. Authors with mental illnesses are still aware of the personality of others, even if it is a different sort of awareness than what's called "normal." LB characters don't have personalities, and L&J don't seem aware of other people at all.

[Bugmaster]

I don't wish to create characters who act like I would, because I doubt that my own actions are authentic human ones.

Well, you pass the Turing test, so I'd say that your actions are as "authentically human" as anyone else's.

[car]

Definitely the most fun LB post ever. And just to say, my 8-year old kid has Asperger's and is way more suave and empathetic than anything LaJenkins come up with. Just sayin'.

[magistra]

mmack - you had film in your school! What kind of new-fangled school did you go to? Why, in our school, we had good wholesome magic lantern slides, and we had to colour them in ourselves. You'll be telling me next your school was too fancy to use carbon paper.

[cjmr's husband]

Back on topic: iTunes just randomed to Weird Al's "Do I Creep You Out", which is on of the best stalker songs since "Every Breath You Take"...

Ursula L.: Asking for black coffee doesn't get you product-placement money when making the movie.

Have you seen Night Watch?

[Laima]

Yeah, Tonio, I don't think "authentic" is the right word for what you're trying to say. You are a human being after all, Asperger's or not. Maybe "neurotypical" fits your intended meaning better?

[Ursula L]

Have you seen Night Watch?

No.

But then I have seen hardly any movies at all. Popular culture tends not to agree with me.

[Kenneth Fair]

Tonio wrote:

(The key to reading Seuss to your kids is that most of the stories follow a waltz beat - "THAT makes a STOry that NO one can BEAT, and to THINK that i SAW it on MULberry STREET.")

More pedantically, Dr. Suess's writing (or at least this excerpt) is in dactylic meter.

[Nix]

Just because you've got Asperger's doesn't mean you can write convincing stories about people with Asperger's.

However, if L&J's problem *is* a lack of understanding of how actual humans behave, it's way more severe than Asperger's. I've got pretty severe Asperger's (borderline autism diagnosis) and *I* can tell that the way Buck is acting is incredibly creepy and unpleasant. You need to be more than autistic not to notice. You need to be brain-dead.

But then this *is* L&J. Proof, if proof be needed, that obsessional mania and focus on a thoroughly twisted religion such as Antichristianity is a cause of personality damage.

[Ursula L]

Just because you've got Asperger's doesn't mean you can write convincing stories about people with Asperger's.

However, that would merely mean that you are a bad writer - not that your characterization is bad because of the Asperger's.

Asperger's might excuse the fact that your characters see the world as you do - as if they had Asperger's. It doesn't excuse general bad writing - You might blame characters unintentionally written as seeing the world with an Asperger brain on the author's having Aspergers, but it doesn't make sense to blame generally atrocious writing on it.

[Froborr]

Tonio: The comment about "authentic" humans worries me, because it sounds like something I might say. The Interweb Psychiatrist in me really, really thinks you should find a good brain-doctor and ask about Avoidant Personality Disorder. I've been getting treated for it for a couple of years now and it's done wonders for me. If you want to some info without hijacking the thread, e-mail froborr (at sign) dwiggy (dot) org and I'll send you some links, you can see if you recognize yourself in them.