Author John Green Admits He Regrets Using The ‘R-Word’ In His Novel, Promises It Won’t Be In The Movie ‘Paper Towns’
Writer of The Fault In Our Stars John Green is gearing up for the release of Paper Towns, the film adaptation of his novel of the same name. But there’s one thing about the Paper Towns novel that John Green apparently regrets, writing the word “retarded.”
According to Time, a fan of John Green’s books directly confronted the author on Twitter about his use of the “r-word” in his young adult novel. She claimed she was enjoying Paper Towns only until a character used the derogatory term, which shocked the fan into losing respect for the author.
Oh Paper Towns, you were so good until I read the r-word. I get that you’re trying to be a teenage boy, but whyyyy? @johngreen
— Allison ? (@Allyslikeastar) June 12, 2015
John Green responded directly to the Twitter user and flat-out admitted that he regrets writing it. He explained that the use of the “r-word” was an attempt to accurately portray the language that a teenage boy might use. But now he’s come to admit that the book Paper Towns was actually made worse by trying to be authentic, because it dehumanized the mentally ill in exchange for a slight boost in realism.
@Allyslikeastar Yeah, I regret it. At the time, I thought an author’s responsibility was to reflect language as I found it, but now…
— John Green (@johngreen) June 12, 2015
@Allyslikeastar…eight years later, I don’t feel like a book about humanizing the other benefited from dehumanizing language. — John Green (@johngreen) June 12, 2015
In the scene, a character in Paper Towns says, “Sometimes he’s so retarded that he becomes kind of brilliant.” As harmless as that moment might be, John Green vowed never to use it again and promised that fans wouldn’t hear that quote in the Paper Towns movie, according to Entertainment Weekly.
@Allyslikeastar It’s not in the movie, and I won’t use the word again in a book or elsewhere.
— John Green (@johngreen) June 12, 2015
The film Paper Towns released on July 24, and tells the story of a teenage boy named Quentin Jacobsen who spends one glorious night of revenge with the girl of his dreams, Margo Roth Spiegelman, only to learn that she disappeared the very next day.
Apologizing for using the r-word is not the only apologizing John Green has done on the internet. He was also falsely attributed for a quote written by a fan, which you can read more about here.
John Green runs an internet show called the Vlogbrothers with his brother Hank, which you can watch here.
[Image via MTV.]
