Analysis Of The Controversial Book 'Palo Alto' By James Franco

In 2010, a controversial book entitled Palo Alto was published. Written by famous hollywood actor James Franco, the novel is an intimate depiction of his turbulent childhood growing up in San Francisco, California. His brutally honest, intense tale accurately illuminates how American teenagers are the byproduct of an American society and its ideals, traditions, and perspectives of the world. Focusing on a handful of characters with a wide array of distinct personalities and varying ethnicities, James Franco addresses morsels of society that are often overlooked and ignored in order to maintain the fabricated façade of American perfection. Through his writing, he is able to shatter that idealistic perception and reveal America for what it really is: a profound sadness. Compared to other parts of the world, Western civilization is acclaimed for its emphasis on the
individual, instead of emphasis on the state. However, in a remarkably large amount of research, it shows that countries associated with Western influence or imperialism have an alarmingly high rate of mental illness compared to those who do not. In consequence, there comes the question of why Western influence seems to have a direct, positive correlation for psychiatric instability. As James Franco writes about in his novel, America’s very foundation is constructed on the basis of freedom: from the freedom of religion to the freedom of the press. Thus, there is very little structure in society, because there is so much liberty to do as one pleases in a self-serving manner. Though there are still cultural norms that populations are expected to abide by, such as attending school, obtaining a job, and creating a family, it is stressed much less than in regions like in the Middle East or China. As a result, there is a loss of identity; because there is no clear path to success, people have more time and opportunity to find themselves questioning who they are and why they exist in the world. These doubts about self-worth and importance feed into a grief so unique to American culture. Its historic hypocrisy only makes matters worse. Pilgrims moved to New England for freedom of religion, and yet enforced restrictions so that other religions could not flourish. America proudly states that everyone is protected from cruel and unusual punishment, and yet slaves suffered from the chains of supremacy for years. It comes to my attention that in America, teenagers are the most vulnerable age group, because they are still in a point of adolescence where they question why things are the way they are. Once humans become adults, they often begin to accept the anatomy of society instead of trying to change it, mainly because they know that lashing against it will only result in their own detriment. But as I mentioned earlier, teenagers often stay caught in the fluctuation of their belief that they need to make sense of the world. However, by doing so, it causes great harm. In Palo Alto, there is a fair amount of characters that are intelligent, middle-class children with the means of enormous prosperity and happiness. And yet, by sharp contract, nearly all of them are miserable. Plagued by alcoholism, an unhealthy reliance on marijuana and cigarettes, eating disorders, and uncontrollable rage, James Franco shows the affect of America on its youth. Warped by the ideals of American beauty, girls starve themselves or plunge their fingers down their throats in order to fit into its cookie-cutter mold. A boy buys a gun and decides to kill someone because he’s getting bullied for his sexual identity. Needless to say, these dramatized yet truthful accounts exploit the despair that immerses American society. Time and time again, America finds itself weighing importance on notions that are insincere. It says that everyone is equal, yet employs “random security checks” at airports that are almost always based on how the person looks. Social media praises uniqueness and plus size models, yet only publishes pictures of women that weigh less than 115 pounds. These discrepancies create a national confusion for its people, because they’re being told glossed-over statements, while witnessing the horrific opposite dominate American culture. I chose Palo Alto to represent America for many reasons, but the main one being that the novel expresses an excellent nonchalance of the inherent cruelty in America.
A boy goes drunk driving and kills someone, yet when he walks by that intersection a few years later, he is so distanced from his own savagery that he cannot remember if it actually happened or if he read it in a story. Similarly, three kids go to a graveyard and cut down a tree for fun. A soccer coach has sex with one of his students and then tosses her aside for another girl on her team. Needless to say, sadism is without-a-doubt a common pattern that can be applied to many aspects of human life, but what makes America unique is how it is paired with a pronounced feeling of aloofness. The first settlers in America inflicted exceptional suffering onto Native Americans, and yet those tales never made it to most history books; in fact, most commonly, the existence of Native Americans prior to imperialism was deleted altogether. All in all, in America, there seems to be a sense of discordance between what is said versus what is
happening. Everyone pretends to be normal and be your best friend, but underneath, everyone is living some other life you don't know about, and if only we had a camera on us at all times, we could go and watch each other's tapes and find out what each of us was really like. (James Franco, Palo Alto)