Originally Posted by
RanRan79
I still think some of y'all are reading a different Dreamgirl than I did, because a hatchet job it was not. I've maintained all along that the big mistake with Dreamgirl was Mary's passages regarding Diana's private life. Diana and Gordy being a thing...there was no way of writing around that. But some of the stories of Diana's love life just wasn't Mary's business to tell. If I were Diana I would've been extremely pissed about that. There are also some anecdotes that make it clear Diana sometimes got on Mary's nerves, like the story about Diana taking the couch at Mary's relatives' home while Mary slept on the floor, or Diana snapping at Mary about eating too slowly. Neither of these are earth shattering revelations, but was it necessary to the overrall story? No, but it does help to paint a picture of a young lady who was sometimes thoughtless or unnecessarily mean.
That being said, Mary never denigrated Diana's talent- always ranking Diana higher than herself- nor her work ethic. She was complimentary often throughout the book. She told the story of the Supremes from her perspective. It was one sided like every other first person narrative that exists. I'm not sure why Mary gets flack for not consulting other people on their sides of the story when she's telling it from her own POV.
For a real hatchet job, see Call Her Miss Ross. There are stories in there, that if true, Mary was a witness to and those stories did not end up in her book. In fact I don't think there is anything in Mary's book that is as nasty as the nastiest thing that appeared in Call Her Miss Ross.
Mary had a right to tell her story. Everything wasn't accurate [[not the same as calling Mary a big fat liar as some continue to do over and over these days) and it was indeed biased, as should have been expected. Diana being mad about it to the point where Mary was an instant enemy seems petty, unless she focused on the passages about Diana's private life. [[And to Mary's credit, she left the issue of Rhonda's paternity alone, which could have sold a million more copies for just that news alone if Mary were focused on hurting Diana and making a buck at her expense.) Aside from those passages, Diana could've put her big girl draws on and either called Mary up and said "You know, I was a bitch sometimes back in the day. My fault girl. I like to think I've grown up some since then." Or she could've called Mary up and said "I didn't realize that those things had affected you that way, or that you might even still carry some hurt and anger behind it. I apologize. I was young, chasing a dream and didn't stop think about the reaction to my actions." Instead Diana hit the "ignore" button, because at that point it was all about Diana's feelings and no acknowledgement of anyone else's, which fueled more hurt, because as I've said in this forum before, not being a trained psychologist- I just play one on TV-, it appears to me that Mary had a lot of issues with rejection and belonging and needing to hold on to relationships, stemming from her childhood.
Writing Dreamgirl was probably the best decision Mary made in her post Supremes career. It's an excellent read and well written. Had Diana chosen to be more upfront with her thoughts and feelings in her autobiography regarding the Supremes, no one would fault her for it, even if her book had come out before Mary's. Mary should be allowed the same.
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