Return to the Blue Lagoon:The Awakening (A Tutorial)

It's been a week since I reviewed The Blue Lagoon: The Awakening, and my blog is STILL blowing up because of it.

Five hundred hits on one review. 

(insert gratuitous joke about Dean "hitting that" here)

Seriously, people.

That's like half a high school's worth of bored teenager right there. 

Which got me thinking...why are you going to my blog? So, I tracked the searches and stared in awe at the myriad ways your individual quests for information had brought us so repeatedly together. Then, my sister had an idea. Why not reward all you dedicated Lagoonies out there by creating an article that seeks to answer your burning questions regarding this installment of The Blue Lagoon saga? 

(Dean thinks with his pecs)

It's the least I can do for all y'all after you've been so kind to read my rant...er...review.

Obviously, to get to my site, most of you are just Googling "blue lagoon the awakening" and finding yourself here. To all of you who lack the creativity to get into the meatier issues of the text, I'm sorry. I have nothing more to offer than basic plot rehashing and some minor psychological deductions of the main characters' neuroses based on their inexplicable actions throughout the course of the movie. Go read a book or something. You're boring. You're on the side of the angels.

The rest of you, now, you're something special.

In the immortal (and completely made up by me) words of one Dean Whateverhislastnamewas: let's do this thing, baby.

Query #1: Is Blue Lagoon: The Awakening based on a book?

Aren't you all so cute? First you see the movie, then you read the book. I'm so proud.

Fun fact: The Blue Lagoon (the ORIGINAL version - which, in case you've really been googling is NOT the one with Brooke Shields and Christopher Atkins but another one starring Jean Simmons and Donald Houston) was, in fact, based on a trilogy of books written by Henry De Vere Stacpoole. And, before you go off and Google "trilogy" that means, like Star Wars, there were three of them, but the first was probably the best. 

Now, before you start getting excited that the fictional love between Dean and Emma will carry you through three whole books this summer, it bears mentioning that Henry De Vere Stacpoole wrote these books in the late 19th-early 20th century (if you couldn't glean that bit from his name or anything). In case you had any lingering doubts, thinking maybe it is like Victorian porn or something, the main characters, Richard and Emmeline, are cousins. And, yeah, they have chastely unbridled sexy times which yields a son. That they name Hannah.

I shit you not.

There's also a whole subplot with a galley cook named "Paddy" - which this updated version replaced with a teacher of no discernible subject area or skill set who doesn't actually get stranded with the kids, just, you know, sucks at his job. There's another story line that involves Richard and a pursuant shark. that I'm pretty sure is a giant metaphor for the latent dangers of attempting to strike a spear into the cavernous mouth of female genitalia. 

But the sex is mostly understated and euphemistic. And the tone isn't really "romance" but "adventure".

The whole series is really more "postcolonial" than "pornographic."

Consider yourselves warned.

If it's any consolation, I'm currently writing some nice fan fiction in which Emma actually gets deservedly knocked up. 

And cankles.

Get excited.

Query #2: Blue Lagoon the awakening sex scene

Scarecrows, I think I like you most of all. No BS, you just cut right to the chase. You're in this thing for the naughty bits.

But this was a made-for-Lifetime-television movie, folks. The naughty bits weren't really that...well...naughty. There was a lot of sexual metaphor (i.e. the symbolic "deflowering" of Emma pictured above or that whole nasty business with Dean's bloody trouser knife).  But sex? Um...it was pretty tame.

I mean, did you read my review?

First, they're strategically covered with palm fronds and lagoon water so you're not going to see anything. Second, despite the fact that they share the island with only a few roguish monkeys and one lonely panther, Emma and Dean decide to have safe, boring, quiet sex. If they weren't doing it on the sand by a tastefully well-kept fire, I'd consider it entirely puritanical.

Don't you all have cable you could be watching?

Please don't learn about sex from this movie. 

And, if you're old enough to know about sex already, consider the fact that they're supposed to be in high school a little bit longer before you start typing things into Google.

Query #3: blue lagoon the awakening emma's hair

FINALLY. The world will know.

Watching Blue Lagoon: The Awakening will not impact my ability to do good hair.

This could have gone so horribly wrong...but, thankfully, of all the parts of Emma to google, you chose hair.

And it makes perfect sense.

If you master Emma's hair, you, too, will get to have politely untamed sex with a semi-hot, uber-buff Australian pretending to be American on some random beach. 

Here are a few easy tips to mimic Emma's 'do:

1. Part your hair into six sections, braid each section, and douse with texturizer.

2. Go to sleep and wake up. Or blow dry each section. Wait until dry.

3. Unravel braids GENTLY. Not like some crazy coke fiend on meth. Comb your fingers through your waves. Spray a little more texturizer on. Or hair powder. Or, I suppose, if you're desperate, some hairspray. Something that'll give it that salty "I just swam in the ocean/lagoon/Dean pool"  look.

4. Massage your scalp for a few minutes.

5. Get out the old curling iron you haven't used since you watched all those episodes of Little House on the Prairie and REALLY wanted to be Nellie Oleson. Wind and twist hair around the iron, but leave an inch or so of hair unwound. Curl, baby, curl.

6. Use your fingers as a comb again. Admire your handiwork.

7. You're welcome.

Here's the rub, kids. You're still not going to get stranded on an island and lose your virginity to a grown man-child named Dean. Dean is played by an actor. That actor, based on my limited anecdotal evidence from my high school drama club, is probably gay. And, if he's not gay, he's probably not going to be found in your bathroom while you're doing your hair.

Go outside. Pick flowers. Kill a panther. Stop fretting about sexy beach hair.

Query #4: Blue Lagoon The Awakening Trinidad

You know who the unsung hero of this film was?

Trinidad. 

Blue water, blue sky, Habitat-for-Humanity-esque need, laid-back police force, relaxed drinking age. Trinidad has all the necessary requirements for abandonment in tropical paradise.

But I'm not sure why you're googling it. Do you want to find the island? Because I'm pretty sure "Trinidad" was really "Hawaii". 

You'll have to give me something more specific to go on, sorry.

Query #5: blue lagoon awakening virginity

I totally get this one. You, like me, can't possibly imagine that sociopath Dean, with his severe mommy issues and proclivity for unleashing his pocket knife at inappropriate time is the more sexually experienced of the two. 

I mean, have you seen Emma???

The only time she actually projects "virgin" in the movie (aside from the awkward conversation where she tells Dean he was her superspecial virginity thief) is here:

And that's only because they dress her like the White Swan.

Which is, I think, ironic, because she and the Deanster had all that sex leading up to this moment, so it ain't like she's pure anymore.

Whatever. 

And Dean is kind of a dork. I mean, think about all those slow-motion scenes where he dances in the rain like Ben Stiller as Happy Jack...the guy isn't really a chick magnet here.

Still...one of them had to be innocent, right?

Maybe the writers tossed a coin for it?

I guess I feel like this google search is an extension of "blue lagoon awakening sex scene" - we're morbidly curious about the secret life of virgins.

But sleep easy, wee innocent ones.

Virgins never say die.

Or "I'm late."

Query #6: blue lagoon the awakening "sand in weird places"

You know who gets sand in weird places???

Sluts.

Okay, freaks, why are we Googling this? Not once do they ever show you how or where sand gets into anyone on the island. They ALLUDE to it, sure. But show? Never.

And would you really want to see that anyways???

Don't answer that.

Look, the simple fact of the matter is this: kids who wear this much clothing in the tropics deserve to get a little sand in their crevices.

Also, the sex.

But if you're looking for cutesy status updates for Facebook or some way to pinpoint your emotions in under 140 characters, letting the world know that you have sand in weird places is probably not the way to go.

JUST SAY NO.

Or, do as I do, and blame the movie for putting it there.

(May prom night ironically wash your dirtiness clean)

If we have learned nothing else from Emma and Dean, it's this: life is what happens when you're busy making other plans.

No, wait, that was the Beatles.

Emma and Dean teach us that a 4.0 and some mommy-issues can seem much less important when you're on a deserted island with an attractive member of the opposite gender who just wants to bone you and then write about it in a college essay for Princeton.

And what a powerful lesson that truly is.