Talk:Valley of the Dolls (novel)

Wot, no cult?
Why was this removed from "Cult films"?

What are dolls?
my apologies, could you elaborate on what dolls means in this article? or make it more readily apparent if it is in there already? thanks
 * "Doll" is also regarded in some English speaking cultures as a slang term for "woman"

Needs work
I guess I will have to do some work on this article. There's enough material for two articles, one on the book, and another on the movie. Sad to see it's been so neglected. Jeffpw 18:09, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Remake
Since we seem to be in an edit war with a new user, I Googled(tm) this and found that Ms. Thomas has been trying to get this film made for about nine years now, with various proposed stars. The only current source is the Hollywood.com entry which notes multiple writers for new scripts and rewrites, and Ms. Knowles. Perhaps her name will help get the thing made this time, or maybe in fact Ms. Garner is the new proposed star, but I think better for Wikipedia would be to just kill all reference to this remake until they actually start shooting.

Likewise the immediately preceding reference to Ms. Conley which, if it belongs anywhere, belongs in the article on her.

I'm outta here. Good luck! --Wfaxon 23:21, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree completely, Wfaxon. If it has not already been deleted from the article, I will delete it now. Jeffpw 09:57, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

"Dolls"
To those who wonder, the term refers to a slang usage for barbituates. "Downers" may be more familiar as a slang for the same thing.JBDay 15:08, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
 * It would be nice to have that information in the article. Never reading the book, and reading the plot in this article, had me confused what a doll actually was. 151.197.41.173 02:54, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Split article
There was enough material for two separate articles, so I split the film info off into Valley of the Dolls (film). -- Grandpafootsoldier 19:14, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

"Original book cover" art is not the original
The photo you have captioned as "Original book cover" is from a later printing (probably a paperback edition.) The actual original first edition of Valley of the Dolls looks like this:

http://www.firsteditionpoints.com/BookDetail.php/ValleyOfTheDolls

It's a paperback that obviously came out after the movie. It is certainly not the original book cover. --Smirkboy 13:16, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, no. That's not a paperback book cover. It's an audio book cover. Doesn't anyone have a picture of the bestselling novel of the Sixties? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.17.206.234 (talk) 04:39, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

The cover that is pictured in the link is an accurate depiction of the first edition cover to 'Valley'Ariadavid (talk) 06:01, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Quotes
I have removed this section: '' ==Quotes== American ska-punk-rock band Sublime used a quote from Beyond the Valley of the Dolls in their song "Smoke Two Joints": "She was living in a single room with three other individuals. One of them was a male and the other two, well, the other two were females. God only knows what they were up to in there. And furthermore, Susan, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to learn that all four of them habitually smoked marijuana cigarettes--Reefers." ''

... because it refers to "Beyond TVOTD", which is a different movie. Plus I doubt that this information is relevant. Maikel (talk) 11:36, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Valley?
Now that the "dolls" conundrum is solved, what's meant by the valley? I presume it's LA valley, right? Maikel (talk) 11:53, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Valley of The Dolls. Where is the Valley?
'Dolls' are slang for downers and the 'Valley' of the Dolls is the most effecient and rapid way of admistering them i.e in the back passage. —Preceding unsigned comment added by EGGIE2 (talk • contribs) 20:40, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

The 'Valley' in the novel's title like in most titles concerning fiction is a metaphorical place. The novel opens with a poem by Susann describing the 'Valley of the Dolls' as a personal journey one takes through a life of hard earned success steeped in over ambition and spiritually exhausting trials and tribulation "in order to reach the top of Mt. Everest". The 'Valley of Dolls' represents a place of emotional descent and self-destruction but also represents a sense of release and solitude. The poem is reflective of the women in the novel's journey throughout there professional and personal lives. The women in the story must constantly sacrifice their personal happiness in order to achieve the peak of success only to find that it is a hollow and empty victory making it to the top. That it is lonely and there is no where else for them to go but down into a valley of dolls. The 'dolls' mentioned previously pose two elements in the story. The 'dolls' are literally the pills that most of the characters in the novel have come to rely on for nearly every purpose from waking up to falling asleep. The word 'dolls' is also a figurative word and comes to symbolize the women themselves. Susann's work was pre-feminist in nature and the 'dolls' are actually the women who once they make it to the top of the figurative "Mt. Everest" they are cast aside like toys and forgotten in the final resting place of the metaphorical 'Valley'. For further reference see the introduction by Julie Burchill to the 2003 Virago publication of Valley of the Dolls Ariadavid (talk) 06:26, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Jennifer's Mother
Jennifer's character makes mention that her mother's collect calls come from Milwaukee, not Ohio, as was previously noted in the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.60.92.194 (talk) 03:37, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Critical reception?
Might be interesting to hear what the critics had to say about the book when it was first published. Valetude (talk) 09:52, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

The head needs a decent summary
In the head, there should be at least a brief statement of what this book is about, either a very short summary, or a statement of it's theme, or an indication of its premise. What we have now is basically: this is a book, now here's an overly detailed summary to wade through if you want to know what it's about. The same is true of the article about the movie. zadignose (talk) 02:12, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

"best selling novel in publishing history"? No
The Wikipedia article on best sellers has many much older novels which sold double and triple this novel's sales. "Guinness" may say it sold more than, say, Black Beauty or Tale of Two Cities, but it doesn't make it true. The actual facts should be included if the Guinness entry is allowed to stay. See Wikipedia "List of best-selling books" ⁓⁓⁓n0w8st8s — Preceding unsigned comment added by N0w8st8s (talk • contribs) 02:55, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

Requested move 13 December 2021

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: moved the novel to Valley of the Dolls (novel) and the undisambiguated title to a disambig, leaving no primary topic; no change to the film article.

This is a moderately complex RM with diversity of opinion, but ultimately a clear consensus. Station1 started the conversation with an important point about the borderlands of PTOPIC that set the mood for the discussion; supporters of a move strove accordingly to present the argument that there is, resoundingly, no primary topic. Significant opposition to the OP's proposed move came in early, which Netoholic later ascribed to possible gaps in the strength of the nomination statement. The most cogent oppose argument, by SnowFire, pointed to the current views of each title and held the perspective that the novel's currently significant page views either made it a PTOPIC or sufficiently obscured the question of whether there was a PTOPIC to justify preserving the present situation. The OP presented a strong argument against this by referring to similar cases where a novel's page views dropped precipitously after a disambiguating move, which was concurred with by support arguments.

The support arguments made strong points that the current situation is inappropriate. This was most succinctly noted by Dicklyon, with the statement And don't close this with "no consensus" just because there are more options about how to fix it. The current primary is clearly not right; the substantial majority in the discussion, both in terms of numbers and in terms of strength of argument, agreed the situation at the beginning of the RM is untenable and needed fixing. Colin M's lengthy support raised particularly important points about the relative irrelevance of being the "original topic" to Wikipedia's PTOPIC considerations, which were raised by an oppose !vote. The question of mistargeted wikilinks was also considered, as was (raised by Netoholic) the issue of precedent in prior RMs, which supported the idea of a move in this context.

Ultimately, clear consensus exists for a move of the first two titles. (closed by non-admin page mover) Vaticidalprophet 13:14, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

– The book article has been viewed less than the film article, especially within past 90 days and last year. For long-term significance, can't say for certain. The book's impact is minimal at best; so is the 1960s film adaptation's. Either the dabpage or the film must take over the base title. If no consensus on which topic is primary, then the dabpage must do so by default. George Ho (talk) 22:37, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Valley of the Dolls → Valley of the Dolls (novel)
 * Valley of the Dolls (disambiguation) → Valley of the Dolls
 * Valley of the Dolls (film) → ?
 * Comment. If there is no consensus as to which topic is primary, than the status quo prevails, per WP:TITLECHANGES. Only if there is consensus that there is no primary topic, must the dab page be moved to the base name. It's an important distinction. Station1 (talk) 01:42, 14 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppose. The book's pageviews aren't that different from the movie, and it's the source & basis of the movie.  Don't think that the disambig page is a great choice for the base title, it can be linked in the hatnote, most of the other options are partial title matches.  SnowFire (talk) 04:54, 14 December 2021 (UTC)
 * As I can assure you, if the book is disambiguated, the book's pageviews would decline. Look at Doctor Zhivago (novel), for example. Before the move, its pageviews were almost the same as the film's. Since then, the numbers tremendously declined. George Ho (talk) 04:57, 14 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppose, the book is the core source for not only the film but for two television series and a well-known semi-sequel. Primary for long-term significance. Randy Kryn (talk) 10:35, 14 December 2021 (UTC)


 * Support moving the disambiguation and novel. Page views show that most users aren't looking for the book, and I wouldn't be surprised that lot of the hits it currently gets is because it is located in the primary name. Since there are a lot of topics, move the disambiguation. Keep the film at the current name. Gonnym (talk) 12:43, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
 * Support (novel) and move disambig to primary though proposer hasn't made a good case, and is especially wrong about saying the "dabpage must do so by default". Users looking for the book/movie/series do so almost exclusively via external search engines, which do not care what we title the page - they work via context and keywords, almost never page title. The main rationale for disambiguating all would be to help avoid internal wikilinking mistakes (like Special:Diff/1060274582). I'll point out the similar nature of this RM to the one held for The Princess Bride novel as precedent. -- Netoholic @ 14:02, 14 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Struck my last sentence of OP. --George Ho (talk) 16:20, 14 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Support. Note that, per WP:DETERMINEPRIMARY, being the original source of the name is not determinative of primary status. The movie does have substantial long-term significance, in that it's regarded as a camp classic, and continues to be widely referenced (in certain circles) today. This is reflected in it having more than triple the pageviews of the book, and having more incoming mainspace wikilinks (and that's not even taking into account that some of the extant  wikilinks are mistargeted). If anything is primary, it's easily the film. But since it doesn't quite reach the "much more likely than any other single topic" criterion of WP:PTOPIC, I would say there's no primary topic. Putting the dab at the basename will also avoid mistargeted wikilinks, which as I mentioned, are currently a bit of an issue. Colin M (talk) 03:10, 16 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Support – no primary topic, lots of things in disambig page that the reader might be looking for. Leave the film. And don't close this with "no consensus" just because there are more options about how to fix it.  The current primary is clearly not right. Dicklyon (talk) 17:52, 17 December 2021 (UTC)