Bon Iver, My Backwoods Boyfriend
Is Bon Iver a celebrity?
Well, let’s do the checklist.
Is he a popular figure, known across the nation and/or world?
Well, yes. He wasn’t a year ago, or maybe even six months ago, but the string of performances on late night television qualify him for public figurehood. He recorded albums with Kanye and got his name ON THE COVER sandwiches between Rick Ross and Nicki Minaj.
Is he known for doing something — acting, singing, doing crazy shit, being a celebrity — extremely well?
Obviously. Bon Iver is the best high voice deep woods singer in the universe.
Do we know things about his “extra-textual” (personal) life?
Oh, like the fact that he got mono and broke up with his girlfriend and his band and went to go live in his Dad’s cabin in Wisconsin and wrote all of For Emma, Forever Ago and watched a lot of Northern Exposure and that’s how he first heard “Bon Hiver” (which they say to each other as a greeting in that gem from the mid ’90s) and accidentally transcribed it as “Bon Iver”? Like that?
Is he the object of fandom?
You mean the way that I’ve been watching him sing Bonnie Raitt’s “I Can’t Make You Love Me” on continuously loop and fantasizing about the stews I’d make for him in our Wisconsin cabin is called fandom?
WELL OKAY THEN. Bon Iver, celebrity. That means we can gossip about him.
What fascinates me, truly, apart from the fact that I really do conjure up recipes to make for us using only a cast-iron skillet, a wood stove, and my cunning, is how he embodies the appeal of the indie rocker — an appeal that he’s taken somewhat mainstream, reaching its apotheosis in the weeks leading up to/following the release of his second album with appearances on Colbert, Fallon, O’Brien and a highly coveted endorsement (9.5) from the infamously stingy Pitchfork.
The music seduced me two years ago. I seriously went through a phase where I needed to hear it the first thing when I got up and the last thing before I went to bed. There’s something intensely evocative and melancholy and tremendous about the album as a whole, particularly the progression from Song 1 (Skinny Love) through Song 4 (The Wolves Part 1 & 2).
I was first compelled to listen to Bon Iver by Sasha Frere-Jones, the contemporary music critic for The New Yorker, who wrote what can only be called a rave back in January 2009. He goes through the motions of Bon Iver’s creation story, explaining how
Vernon’s story is one of escape and renewal, a road movie that doesn’t spend very long on the road. Three years ago, he was living in Raleigh, North Carolina, playing with friends from Eau Claire in a band called DeYarmond Edison, and dating a woman who is not called Emma. (Emma is a proxy name for a woman he dated years earlier in Eau Claire.) DeYarmond Edison made slow, stately music that was rooted in American acoustic sound, and was vaguely related to old blues and to recent American indie rock. [Editor's note: "Justin Vernon" is Bon Iver's real-person name. I just call him Bon]
And elaborating on how he ended up in a cabin in the middle of the woods in Wisconsin:
Four months later, Vernon experienced a hat trick of bad times: DeYarmond Edison broke up, Vernon split with his girlfriend, and he contracted mononucleosis, which affected his liver. He subsequently spent a lot of time indoors, watching the TV series “Northern Exposure” on DVD. One episode featured the cast greeting a new snowfall in Alaska with the phrase “Bon hiver,” French for “Good winter.” Vernon liked the snow, which reminded him of home, and the phrase, which he first transcribed as “boniverre.” (He later removed the “h” from hiver because the French word reminded him of “liver.”)
And then he talks about the music:
The opening lyrics of “Flume” are both a declaration and a vague confession: “I am my mother’s only one, it’s enough. I wear my garment so it shows—now you know.” It is easy to believe that his lyrics are “sounds that eventually turned into words,” as Vernon once told an interviewer. In “Flume,” the language works best as sound—I listened to the album a dozen times before I looked up the words.
Yes, yes and yes. But I think what really got me was Frere-Jones’ description of seeing Bon Iver, in concert in Town Hall, as he
“….invited the crowd—as he does at every show—to sing along to the song that I find it hardest to get through unscathed, “The Wolves (Act I and II).” The audience was asked to sing five words—“what might have been lost”—which signal the song’s shift from a series of chords that ring without any clear time signature to a steady 3/4 stomp that uses those five words as a main motif. The recorded version doesn’t approach the ruckus that Bon Iver made that evening; as we all sang along, the band pounded harder and harder, blending in little eddies of feedback and clatter. Those words are what get me—joined with melody, they seem like a summary of the entire album, especially with that highly conditional “might.” Trying to keep track of everything lost? Or celebrating what wasn’t? When the band was done, and the crowd had filed out, I was still in my seat.”
I mean, okay, audience sing-along, kinda cheesy, BUT WAIT:
You guys, this was filmed in FRANCE. Even the French are willing to participate! The French are the opposite of cheesy! (Gerald Depardieu accepted). Or, oh my god, look at them singing “For Emma” a cappella in this hallway, I seriously can’t love him and his hoodie any more. LOOK AT ME, JUST PLAYING GUITAR ON THESE STEPS WITH THIS GIANT BEARD, I AM THE CUTEST.
Which is all to say that Sasha Frere-Jones, I too would still be in my seat, conjuring up ways to get backstage. Dear Bon Iver, I will be your Emma, and I will not be forever ago, and I will promise not to break your heart into a billion little indie pieces, just to mend your holy sweaters and make you stew. You suffer from “Skinny Love”? I’ll fatten it up. I make great cookies.
Several months after For Emma, Forever Ago, Vernon released a four-track EP of leftovers. These are all fairly awesome in their enduring Bon Iver way, but the last song on the EP — “In the Woods” — is a marvel to behold. You know how a lot of indie music sounds the same? And you’re like SHIT, is this Death Cab or The Decemberists or My Morning Jacket, I don’t even KNOW ANYMORE? Well this song sounds like nothing else ever, save maybe the soundtrack from some obscure Japanese sci-fi film. Here you go. Enjoy the sweet (and super literal) woods imagery of the fan video. But also enjoy how you after listening it you feel like you might have been hypnotized.
Apparently Kanye heard this track and, being Kanye, decided OH HEY INDIE DUDE, why don’t you fly to Hawaii and record on my new album? Me and Rick Ross and Nicki Minaj will be there smoking weed in the booth, come hang out.
One thing led to another, and suddenly there Bon Iver was, all white and pasty up on the stage with Kanye, John Legend, and the rest of the crew at the Bowery Ballroom, doing his auto-tune howly-thing, and one of my favorite songs from the Kanye album, “Lost in the World,” uses the chorus from “Up in the Woods” as its hook.
The Bon Iver album leaked last month, and he’s been appearing all over the place in the lead up to its release (this past Tuesday). He covered Bonnie Raitt, Colbert told him that the album made him cry a lot (and that his wife did hot yoga to it), Vanity Fair introduced him to a new demographic, and the New York Times ran a four-page profile of him in the Sunday magazine under the title “KANYE’S BOY IN EAU CLAIRE.” And, duh, the new album is great, in part because it’s not “For Girl Number 2, Less Forever Ago.” It does something different, and that something includes a concluding song sounds like he’s having ’80s soft rock’s keyboard love child. (By the way, he does an amazing cover of “I Don’t Want to Use Your Love Tonight,” by The Outfield, also known as the best arena anthem of 1987).
Photo via Vanityfair.com
But what’s the deal? Why is this guy everyone’s Backwoods Boyfriend? Why do I have to share? I mean, the guy is an INDIE CHICK MAGNET.
And I have a very straight forward theory as to why. It has two parts.
The first part involves the cabin.
As evidenced by my active fantasies articulated above, a guy alone in a cabin, wearing a lot of flannel, hanging out with his feelings and the wood stove — this is somehow really, really, really amazingly sexy. Sure, there’s the rescue fantasy — Dear Bon Iver, invite me to your cabin, we can share wool socks and I’ll make you less of a sadsack with my charms and melodious laughter — but it’s also about sensitivity. A guy who spends time alone — and produces something soulful and touching from that time alone — not only does it mean that the guy has veritable emotions (and is willing to warble about them), but that he’s devoted something other than his video games and Fantasy team. (I have nothing against either of those things, so long as they are complimented by some serious feelings-making and/or flannel). I am also from Idaho by means of Minnesota, which means that any guy with a cabin is a guy I would like on the top of my boyfriend list. Don’t lie: even if you’re from Texas and don’t know what a cabin or a “forest” is, you still like the idea. Like a lot.
The second part involves Bonnie Raitt.
Yes. Bonnie Raitt. If your mom owned a copy of any Bonnie Raitt album or CD and you listened to it at any point between ages 5 and 25, then you understand why this is important. I haven’t thought about this much until Bon Iver started covering Raitt on national television and telling the Times that she’s one of his major influences (and that he’d love nothing more than to produce an album for her). But his affection for Bonnie Raitt betrays the same unspeakable attractiveness as the disclosure that he minored in Women’s Studies in college. I mean, this guy LOVES WOMEN. Not loves women the way that say, Kanye loves women. Like the way that a guy who actually thinks of women as people loves women.
I mean, when he sings this medley of “I Can’t Make You Love Me” and “Nick of Time,” I really think something inside me shatters. I basically cry every time. (Click that link; listen to it now). I don’t know if this entirely makes sense — if other people, male or female, have the same reaction to Bonnie Raitt and what her music, especially from the late ’80s and early ’90s, seems to stand for in the heart. It evades language, to some extent, but it has something to do with hearing a grown woman talk about love and sadness and desire, and doing so fearlessly. For Bon Iver to sing Bonnie Raitt — and to sing those songs in particular — is tantamount to unlocking my heart, however cheeseball that sounds. Only a real man can say he loves Bonnie Raitt; only a real man can major in women’s studies; only a real man can sing with a super high voice about broken hearts.
Only a real backwoods Bonnie Raitt-singing boyfriend can make thinning blonde hair and scraggly beard so. damn. hot.
So there we go. Am I right or am I right?
Yearning for the ScarJo of Old
Do you guys remember, oh, about 2001, when Scarlett Johansson was a bit of an enigma — a seemingly plain girl with some startlingly grace to her face, the beginnings of a husky voice, full lips, and some sort of kept promise in her eyes? She was the girl who fades into the background in junior high and then comes back to the reunion TOTALLY HOT, and with a Ph.D. in rocket science and a hot Argentine husband.
Ghost World, c. 2002
That was the promise of ScarJo before she was ScarJo, and I loved how that promise seemed to undulate beneath her skin — and had a tremendous effect on all of her costars. ScarJo before she was ScarJo: the Scarlett Johansson of The Horse Whisperer, The Man Who Wasn’t There, Ghost World, Lost in Translation, and even The Girl with the Pearl Earring.
But somewhere along the way — and I’m guessing it’s about the time when she started dating boring-face-Josh-Harnett and signed on for The Island, The Nanny Diaries and Match Point, when she became the beautiful yet meaningless face of Calvin Klein — she became something different. She was suddenly that hot girl at the reunion, but in the process, something was lost. I want to wipe all that make-off right off her face and tell her to stop posing like she’s a B-model in the back pages of the Victoria’s Secret catalog.
Victoria's Secret page 94
Now, when I see her in Vicky Cristina Barcelona or The Avengers, looking all super voluptuous and emanating pure sex, I mourn for the plain ScarJo of old. Now don’t get me wrong: I have no problem with an actress being sexual, being voluptuous, or even posing with her mouth open. I just fear that she, like Marilyn Monroe before her, has been cast as sex for sex’s sake, and in roles that ask her to embody that suggestion and little else.
Star scholars think of star images as “polysemic,” each with several potential meanings, each of which may be “activated” or received differently. In this way, a single star “mean” many things, even contradictory things. Monroe, for example, seemed to mean sex and innocence; Marlon Brando was at once intensely emotional and intensely masculine.
Importantly, the biggest stars — the ones that last — are the complicated ones, the ones that might play the same role over and over again, but that role, combined with the star’s extra-textual life, seems to represent something that matters and resonates with a tremendous and diverse swath of people. Johansson has this — you can see it in the early films — and it’s what made her a star in the first place. But now that she’s become a full-fledged star, marrying and divorcing another full-fledged star, that polysemy seems to have disappeared, just as the luminousness seems to have left her face.
Do you know what I’m talking about? Am I only the only one who sees this? She’s always looked kinda half asleep, but before that half-asleep-ness betrayed a certain desire unfulfilled. Now it’s as if she’s obtained it all, found it wanting, and just decided OH OKAY FINE I’ll be in this Avengers movie.
If you don’t know what I’m talking about, take a look at her at the end of Lost in Translation — a clip that YouTube won’t let me embed. Or this scene when she goes and explores Japan. Again, there’s a curiosity there, something that doesn’t suggest that her beauty has become so powerful that she completely controls whatever situation she finds herself in, which is basically how I feel about every character she’s played since 2005. Now, there is a an art to playing that type of character, and conveying the pathos that accompanies it — Monroe knew how to do this; so did Garbo, in her way — but Johansson’s sex characters are essentially soulless. I feel nothing for them — no admiration, no lust, not even pity. And we all know that sex without soul is essentially a form of prostitution.
See?
You could argue that Johansson the Person has nothing to do with this — she’s taken roles in films that choose to treat her character a certain way, that exploit her body in a certain way, that make her a yoga instructor with little self-respect and less intelligence. But the star’s image at any moment is the sum of her parts and what she lets the press know about her personal life — and at this moment, she’s all wasted potential and nice breasts.
Posing for ladmags.....boobs boobs boobs....uninteresting.
Of course, I’m placing myself into this narrative: the ScarJo of Ghost World and Lost in Translation is someone I can see myself being friends with, and that’s what we’re generally looking for in a star — someone who’s relatable, with whom you’d like to share a French 75 or four. (There’s another subset of stars — the stars you’d be scared of and just want to look at from afar — in which Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt currently fit). But new ScarJo is neither here nor there, neither best friend nor goddess.
[Sidenote: If you find this new busty/lusty ScarJo sexy and want more and want me to just shut it -- okay, I get it. She's ostensibly hotter these days. But wouldn't that grown-up body be even more compelling if it was more than a body?]
The marriage to Ryan Reynolds seemed symptomatic of this transformation, providing a tanned and toned body to place beside her own. And Reynolds, for what it’s worth, has a tremendous amount of potential — every since I saw him in Van Wilder, I knew this guy was funny, but the roles that try to play him straight and capitalize on his Ken looks/serious-face are so ridiculously boring. The divorce was unexpected, the fling with Sean Penn even more so. Was that her adding something worn and seemingly wise to her life? It didn’t make sense at the time, but that’s only because her last ten roles put with her with smoldering men approximately her age. But think about it: The ScarJo image of old fits perfectly with a craggy-faced Sean Penn.
So I have high hopes, readers. Sure, she’s locked into this silly Avengers franchise that forces her to look like a blow-up doll. BUT WAIT — a Cameron Crowe movie!!! — next year! With Matt Damon! And my new favorite Fanning! About a zoo! THIS COULD BE GREAT! Cameron Crowe might not always be perfect (what was that Kristen Dunst/Orlando Bloom movie? So bad I seriously cannot even spend the time looking up the name) but Almost Famous, sweet Almost Famous. Remember how that movie made Kate Hudson seem like something really, truly special? Like something that wouldn’t go on to date A-Rod and movies that make me embarrassed to be a woman? The Cameron Crowe alchemy can truly do wonders.
And now that she’s got the Penn out of her system, I want the possibility of a new romance, and hopefully with someone unexpected yet interesting? He can be older, he can even be ugly, I just want it to surprise me. OH MY GOD WHAT ABOUT THE FASSBENDER? Another talented star roped into super-hero movies? I’m not seeing any evidence of a Fassbender wife in my cursory Googling? Please, ScarJo, make this happen. He has an Irish accent. He will be Rochester to your Jane Eyre. Do it.
If I can Photoshop their pictures together, IT CAN HAPPEN IN REAL LIFE
I guess I’m saying I want Scarlett Johansson to be interesting again. She used to be something worth talking about. Now she just slips from the mind, and makes me reconsider everything I thought about her in those early films. Does she actually have talent? Is she just a Good Body? I need some reaffirmation — I want that glint of promise and desire and enigma back in her eyes. It’s possible — I still see it in photos from time to time, usually in real life, very rarely when she’s been posed — but I think I need a performance, a really heartbreakingly good performance, to convince me of its existence.
This.
Celebrity Publicity vs. Privacy: The Eternal Debate
Earlier this week, Lainey Gossip posted a particularly critical reading of Reese Witherspoon’s current publicity attempts, with specific attention to the contradiction between Witherspoon complaining about her lack of privacy and the recent sale of her wedding photos to People and OK!
Via People.com
The Witherspoon quote from the Vogue interview/cover story/massive photo spread:
But one thing that hasn’t changed is that she is as private as ever. Indeed, she seems almost constitutionally unsuited for the level of fame she has to live with. At one point, I ask her what is the worst thing about being Reese Witherspoon, and she pauses for a very long time. Finally she says, “I mean, I feel like an ingrate for even thinking anything isn’t good. I’m very, very, very lucky. But . . . umm . . . probably that I parted with my privacy a long time ago. We went different ways. And sometimes I mourn it. Sometimes I will sit in the car and cry. Because I can’t get out. That’s the only thing: I mourn the loss of my privacy.”
And Lainey’s take:
Um, remember when Reese Witherspoon sold her wedding to People Magazine and Hello Magazine?
Oh but she’s just a girl from the South who doesn’t know about these thangs! It’s preposterous to think that Reese would up and marry only to go back to work and sneak in a quickie honeymoon only to have to return to go back to work for anything other than necessity. After all, people like Reese, with access and opportunity and resources, they are bound by necessity, aren’t they? They have NO choices, not in their schedules, not in their spending, in not much at all.
So of course not, Reese could not know about, you know, wedding planning around a theatrical release and the potential effect that could have on a movie’s performance, hell no. She’s way too authentic for that.
There are a number of things going on here — with Witherspoon’s actions, her choice of words in her interview, and Lainey’s response to them — and all of them revolve around claims to authenticity and transparency.
First of all, it’s crucial to understand that the tension between celebrities and stars desiring privacy….in the selfsame moment that they expose themselves to the public via interviews, films, and other products….is absolutely, positively nothing new. Even Charles Lindbergh attempted to fiercely guard his private life, which he thought was, frankly, besides the point when it came to his aviation achievements — even as he continued to make public appearances and profit off his fame. During classic Hollywood, there was less complaining about privacy, in part because every statement from the stars was vetted by the studios themselves, and complaining of lack of privacy was tantamount to complaining about the studios, the fan magazines, and the generalized publicity apparatus that sustained the stars. With the mandate of the studios that employed them, stars shared all manner of details of their “private lives” with the fan magazines and gossip columnists, even if those private lives were actually a sham, conjured to harmonize with their manufactured star images.
As the studio system transformed in the 1950s, stars gradually dearticulated themselves from management at the hands of the studios, hiring their own staffs to handle publicity. At the same time, paparazzi culture became gradually more invasive, especially following the frenzy over Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton filming Cleopatra/holding hands/canoodling in Rome. The fan magazines became increasingly bombastic in their handling of the stars, using scandal-tipped headlines, exclamation points, and other suggestive aesthetic means to imply, if not actually name, scandal. The move was at least partially motivated out of necessity: the stars refused to cooperate and offer access, forcing the magazines to “write around” their lack of content. Which is all to say that there was less explicit collusion between the traditional gossip outlets and the stars — a process that continued for most of the ’60s and ’70s. The stars began to publicly complain of the fan magazines and gossip columnists, something they never would have dared to do during the studio system, when such a complaint could inspire negative coverage and effectively doom his/her career. But by this point, the traditional fan magazines and gossip columnists held less sway, and it became common practice for stars not only to complain about the incursion of authors, photographers, columnists, and other forms of publicity, but to sue them as well. (There were dozens of libel suits levied by stars against various outlets during this period).
In other words, the relationship between the stars themselves and the gossip outlets became antagonistic where it had once been incredibly, necessarily cooperative. Starting with People in 1974, however, the cooperative relationship gradually began to reform, as People, Entertainment Tonight, and their various imitators (Extra, Entertainment Weekly, E!, early versions of Us Magazine) all served explicit promotional functions for the star. Exclusives are approved and vetted by the star and his/her publicist and usually timed to promote the his/her upcoming or ongoing project. Importantly, these outlets do not look for or break scandal. They will report on it out necessity (if they didn’t, they’d seem out of touch), but they do not stir the scandal pot, as it were, and often provide space for stars to tell “their sides of the story.”
When Reese Witherspoon sold her wedding photos to People Magazine, she was doing two things. First, she was promoting her upcoming film, Water for Elephants, in which she stars with Robert Pattinson.
As Lainey and others have pointed out, this film really, really needs to succeed if Witherspoon is to maintain her status as a top female star (with a $15 million per-film pricetag) with the ability to open a major picture. (Her last hit was Walk the Line in 2005; her last major hit was Legally Blonde 2 in 2003). The reason stars have offered themselves up for celebrity gossip in the form of interviews, photo shoots, etc., has always been PROMOTION. For some celebrities, such as Paris Hilton, they are simply promoting their entire image on the hope that the visibility of that image will help sell products emblazoned with it: perfume, books, nail polish, etc. But stars whose stardom is the result of actual skill — singers, actors, etc. — time their gossip availability to coincide with a specific product showcasing that skill. A film, a television premiere, an album release, a voting period for the Oscars, etc. The announcement of Natalie Portman’s pregnancy was no coincidence, and neither is the timing of Witherspoon’s wedding. I know this might be hard to hear, but it is the absolute truth. Of course, Portman (probably) did not time her actual pregnancy. But she (and her publicist) sure as shit planned the announcement.
The reasoning is simple: the more your name, face, and image is on the minds of the public at large, the more likely they will be to consume a product branded with that name, face, and image.
Witherspoon working hard to remind you that she is appearing in a film with ELEPHANTS, coincidentally entitled "Water for Elephants." Photo via Vogue.com
Witherspoon and publicist were (and are) doing their job, attempting to heighten her visibility and, hopefully, open Water for Elephants in a way that makes a statement about her power and popularity.
The problem, then, is that Witherspoon paired her efforts with an interview in which she complains about the incursions of the press. To be specific, however, she was complaining about a lack of privacy, which is generally associated with papping photographers….not interviews with Vogue, or the two carefully chosen photos she offered to People. She’s complaining about unauthorized publicity; she has no problem with authorized publicity. The problem, then, is that the former is generally incited by the latter. Under the studio system, there was no such thing as unsanctioned publicity, as the columnists, magazines, and other interviews were all beholden to the studios. Now, authorized publicity breeds unauthorized publicity.
Witherspoon is obviously game to pose for magazine covers, look great at premieres, present at award shows. All of these contribute directly to the performance of a film and are, most likely (it not specifically) built into the contract she signed. (Star contracts generally require that the star promote the film — attending premieres, junkets, etc.) The problem is that such highly orchestrated photos and stories aren’t nearly as interesting or tantalizing as those obtained without her permission, which seem to offer a window onto the “real,” authentic Witherspoon, valuable in large part due to its scarcity. (Reality stars prove that we don’t simply hunger for authenticity and “being real” — it’s what we don’t have, or haven’t been able to read about, that we hunger for the most. Details of Brangelina’s sex life, for example).
So Witherspoon ends up looking hypocritical, at once seeking and complaining about the spotlight. But think about how you would feel if Witherspoon said she loved the spotlight, loved paparazzi coverage, loved seeing photos of her children all over the place. Wouldn’t we call her Tori Spelling? Isn’t the SPOKEN reticence towards exposure part of what makes certain stars “classy” and likable? If she relished exposure, she would be forsaking her claims to being “just like us,” a “Southern girl,” a dotting mother, modest, etc. The disavowal is thus absolutely crucial to Witherspoon’s image — even if it’s false or an act or contradictory, it needs to be there.
In general, this simultaneous embrace and disavowal of publicity is at the heart of stardom. Stars are stars because the way that they act on screen, combined with what they seem to represent in their “private” lives, seem to embody something that matters to a large swath of people. But in order to be stars and not just actors, they need to make that private life available, even when it leads to unsanctioned, unwanted, invasive and potentially dangerous coverage. With that said, star scholars have long written about the ways in which contradiction composes the very core of stardom: a star is simultaneously ordinary and extraordinary, “Just like Us” and absolutely nothing like us. From time to time, that contradiction becomes more visible. The more visible and flagrant the contradiction, with little to smooth it over, the more ridiculous a star seems. See, again, Tori Spelling, but also Gwyneth Paltrow and Tom Cruise. We want our stars to embody contradictions seamlessly, and when the seams show, we reject them. Ultimately, the most enduring, valuable, and esteemed stars are those who, with the help of their publicity teams, manage to hide these seams, even as they expand to contain multitudes, embodying all of the meanings we map onto them. At this point, Witherspoon still seems to be in control. We’ll see how the film fares — and how her subsequent publicity attempts address the perpetual contradictions of stardom.
Dear James Franco,
Dear James Franco,
I am a well-educated young woman adept at dismantling star identities. I have a large vocabulary, used to be a Mathlete, attended a rather overpriced idyllic liberal arts college, and am months away from obtaining a Ph.D. But I cannot. figure. you. out.
I mean, maybe it’s just too easy. You’re a hack. A good-looking, decently-talented hack who’s decided to up his profile by doing kooky, erudite, and unexpected things. You’re a character actor made movie star through clever PR! You’re not *actually* that interesting or smart or different. They let you into the Ph.D. program at Yale because you’re a celebrity, not because you’re actually smart. You claim that your stint on General Hospital was a form of “performance art,” which is a sure sign of your inflated quasi-academic head. You probably make ample use of the word “problematize.” You did a good Ginsburg, sure, and supposedly you’re good at cutting off your own arm in this weekend’s 127 Hours and HAVE MADE MULTIPLE PEOPLE FAINT, HAVE SEIZURES, AND FREAK THE F OUT in the process, but still, you’re the same guy who just looked constipated all the way through the Spiderman movies. YOU WERE IN ANNAPOLIS, JAMES. Sure, you made me cry like a small child in Tristan & Isolde, but your performance’s high point featured you yelling HOW MANY BEFORE ME? [NONE!] HOW MANY AFTER ME! [NONE!]. You were, quite literally, the poor man’s James Dean — starring in a made-for-TV version on Dean’s life. You were the least funny thing about Freaks and Geeks. And Pineapple Express actually sucked, I don’t care what you say. If I were Julia Roberts in Eat, Pray, Love, which thank goodness I am not, as I hate “dancing like no one’s watching,” I would have left you too. Plus you kinda look like a gomer in these recent Gucci ads, the latest of which is currently staring at me from this week’s New Yorker, which you’re probably pretending to read while taking the Amtrak between New Haven and New York because you like to “be with the people” and “explore their texts” (like soap operas). (NOTE: SNIDE COMMENTS IN QUOTES = NOT ACTUALLY FRANCO QUOTES.)
You’re a pretty face in over your head. Are you going to take comprehensive exams, Franco? Huh!?! Are you a member of the graduate student union? Are you surviving on Ramen? (OH WAIT YOU GO TO YALE, where they pay graduate students enough to buy vegetables). Nevertheless, you are an embarrassment to legitimate graduate students — a bastardization of intellectualism spewing half-baked artistic platitudes stolen from skimmed copies of Harper’s and The New York Review of Books.
OR ARE YOU!?!?
Maybe you’re the new Renaissance man, using your power and bankability to help promote small, struggling productions, including the Ginsberg bio-pic. Maybe you actually really love reading first year theory and you’re actually a sweet dude when you make it to seminar class between promoting films. (Maybe you attend grad student potlucks? I hope you bring the dude fall-back of baked ziti or store-bought tortilla chips with some elaborate also-store-bought dip). I mean, you did your assigned reading in-between takes of 127 Hours, whilst wedged in a small cave, which certainly speaks well for you. [I once read feminist theory on the elliptical machine, James! Let's be study buddies!] You flirted with Terri Gross (okay, Justin Timberlake also flirted with Terri Gross, as did Keith Richards, but nonetheless) and told her you were a true fan of Fresh Air. Me too, James. According to native Yale informant Inessentials, who saw you speak on campus a few weeks back, you were generous with your time, pretty smart, and un-pompous. You have “an unusually high metabolism for productivity…a superhuman ability to focus,” which not only means that you’ve been able to obtain 502 degrees over the last few years, but also makes you THE DREAM GRADUATE STUDENT! I bet you even know how to properly pronounce Althusser! I want to hang out with you; will you take a look at my dissertation? So Yale accepted you because you were a movie star…..they also accepted George W. Bush, just because his parents had money. Just sayin’. And so your own films get accepted at Sundance, even if they’re super self-involved. So are Spike Lee’s. Just sayin’. So you fell asleep during a lecture at Columbia. You know what? Happens to the best of us. I once slept through the entirety of The Plow that Broke the Plains, but there was no one to take a picture of me on his/her phone and sell it to TMZ.
You keep buying rights to films that you hope to make; you wrote a script about poet Hart Crane which you’re about to start directing. You’re putting your ideas into practice, mixing theory with production, which is something that we media studies folk love to talk about but seldom have the guts (or means) to do. Admittedly, this is also probably why you’re hard to stomach — jealousy takes many forms — but objectively speaking, when I compare the way that you spend your leisure time with that of, say, Tom Cruise, I cannot help but be impressed.
On that note, let me add that your juxtaposition of really cheesy/brooding/half-constipated Tristan and method acting is TOTALLY HOT. The fact that I can justify my love for that melodramatic mess of a movie by thinking of how good you are in Milk — thank you, James. It’s like you’re Ryan Gosling but make films and take classes instead of collaborating on singing projects with small children’s choirs. The fact that you can alternate roles as Ginsberg with that of a gnarly, smelly, gutsy outdoorsman…..again, this I like, and not just because I’m from the Pacific Northwest and own three pairs of Chacos. I think we call that “talent.”
You’ve also managed to change the conversation about you from one of potential romance and gossip - which is where things seemed to be headed with your early career — to one of intellectual endeavors and explorations. Do you realize how difficult that is to accomplish? Most stars try really hard to deflect attention from their personal lives; with you, the attention’s still on your “personal,” but that personal just seems to be filled with books, thoughts, writing….KINDA LIKE ME, JAMES!! We live the life of the mind!
Turns out living the life of the mind is HARD WORK.
I take back what I said about the Gucci ads, even though I’d like you more if you were reading some Gramsci while wearing those Italian clothes. (You can do that for the next shoot, but make sure you footnote me. My last name is with an “E.”) And you do actually kinda look like James Dean. But Dean was actually somewhat of a hack — following Brando around, not nearly his equal, aping his style. But you, James — I can’t think of someone you’re copying, or a career you’re emulating, or any sort of antecedent for your behavior, and no, Brando’s turn of crazy in the late ’50s onward is not the same as completing multiple graduate degrees. You’re so weird, so cooky, so much more invested in your work as a site of play and experimentation than for purely financial gain….you could only be a graduate student. Get some anxiety, some long-term poverty, a pair of grad-student thick frame glasses, add in a modicum of awkwardness, and you would fit in with any media studies program in the nation. You’re inscrutable because no one can imagine why a good-looking star with a string of potential blockbuster roles would choose to sit in seminar rooms and spend time on projects that will reap little critical or popular acclaim. But isn’t that like me, senior year in high school, full ride to the University of Idaho, where I could’ve totally rocked an MBA and become a high powered accountant and/or lawyer and/or Mathlete, yet choosing to pursuing a liberal arts degree in Rhetoric-Film Studies, a Master’s in English, a Ph.D. in Media Studies? We are slaves to our passions, James. I so understand. Do you want to do a guest blog post at your leisure?
Turns out, I do get you, Franco. It’s pretty simple. You’re a graduate student, just like me. Ultimately, it’s up to all of us to decide whether that means that you’re awesome or awful. For, as Liz Lemon made all too clear, “graduate students….they’re the WORST.”
Why You Love The Goz
How have I not written about The Goz (né Ryan Gosling) until now? He’s on my Freebie Five ; he’s absolutely one of my favorite actors; since Lainey Gossip shares my affection, I read news about/ogle him on a weekly, if not daily basis. When my Whitman friends and I get together, we watch The Notebook (fast-forwarding through the old people parts, of course). He’s a total babe. But why do I — and so many, many others — feel such an attraction?
I first saw Gosling in a very small, very unseen film called The Believer in the U.S. (and Danny Balint overseas). When I lived in Nantes, France for six months during my junior year, I’d go to the 2 Euro theater on a near-daily basis — each week they showed anywhere between 15 and 30 films, starting at 10 am, including older American/French releases (Amelie played there basically for the duration of my stay) and small art house stuff, and auteur retrospectives. I saw Muholland Drive WITHOUT SUBTITLES and you can only imagine the amplification of my confusion. And I also saw Danny Balint, which had won big at Sundance but never got a distribution push stateside. As a Jewish anti-Semite, Gosling is nothing less than brilliant. Seriously: it’s an even more breathtaking (if perhaps less finely nuanced) performance than Half Nelson.
I immediately knew this guy was something — and was frustrated when his next handful of films (Murder by Numbers, The Slaughter Rule, The United States of Leland) weren’t exactly what I was expecting. And I’m sure this string of films was not what longtime fans of Gosling’s teen work in The Mickey Mouse Club and Young Hercules were expecting either.
And then, and then — The Notebook. Gosling’s role as Noah Calhoun serves as the ground note of his star image and the catalyst for the cult of Gos fandom. Here, the similarities between The Notebook and Twilight are quite stunning — both are based on poorly written novels that touch on something deeply romantic and affecting in spite of hackneyed prose. Both films feature performances that animate otherwise stereotypical characters. And most importantly, the “real life” people who play these roles end up together — thus authenticating the romance and powerful understanding of love as forwarded in the original text. Put differently: the fact that the actors who played these roles *also* fell in love means that this type of love story can, and does, happen, even off of the movie screen.
The direction of The Notebook is somewhat of an abomination. There are several super saccharine moments involving birds and sunsets. I cry like a baby when James Garner breaks down, and I still can’t believe they got Gena Rowlands to play this role (oh, yeah, it’s because her SON, Nick Cassevettes, directs the picture). But Gosling and McAdams have chemistry that crackles. They both emanate tremendous star quality — which is part of why the film has enjoyed such a tremendous second life in video/DVD. This is our generation’s Pretty Woman or Dirty Dancing — the film you keep around (as my friend Alaina does) for hungover afternoons and girls’ nights in.
But I’m a bit ahead of myself. If you’re a Gos fan, you know that he and his co-star, Rachel McAdams, dated (and were rumored to be engaged) for around a year. They didn’t get together while filming; rather, when they were nominated for the MTV Movie Award’s Best Kiss — and won — they had to recreate the famous Notebook run-and-jump kiss.
Sparks flew in the aftermath; they got together. (Again, Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson also won this award and recreated their kiss/non-kiss on stage; it was shortly thereafter that photos first surfaced of them holding hands in public. Gosling and McAdams were private (by Hollywood standards), and only a smattering of photos of them together are available. Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes they were not. But they were still enough of a golden couple to warrant a moniker for fans of their relationship — McGoslings — and a mention in SNL’s Digital Short “Lazy Sunday.”
They broke up quietly. But both McAdams and Gosling were busy building their resumes during this time. I’ve already theorized McAdams’ star image at length, but as for Gosling, it seems he took a small detour into the mainstream — first with The Notebook, but also with Fracture (2007) — a thriller starring Anthony Hopkins. I kinda love this film and think it’s underrated — but am I blinded by The Gos’ golden light?
It made nearly $100 international, but Gosling hasn’t been in anything nearly as mainstream since. In fact, he’s worked very little, especially in comparison to other “it” Hollywood actors. He was a revelation in Half Nelson (also 2007) — a film which earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Actor.
I also loved him in Lars in the Real Girl. Praise for this film was a bit more muted, but it features truly beautiful, compassionate performances not only from Gosling, but co-stars Paul Schneider and Emily Mortimer. And if an actor can make you love him even with a moustache and sweater like this — that’s something.
These days, he’s promoting his new project, Blue Valentine, with co-stars and fellow indie darling Michelle Williams. He’s been all over the place with this movie — looking preposterously beautiful in Ray-Bans and a white shirt on the Rivera at Cannes; by turns mugging, teasing, and picking up his child co-star, pictured below.
He recently wrapped ensemble dramedy Crazy, Stupid, Love, starring Steve Carrell, Julianne Moore, and Emma Stone (as his love interest), which looks to be somewhat more mainstream — it’s produced by Relativity, distributed by Warner Bros., and will certainly get a more than art-house release. He’s currently filming the heist-thriller Drive with Carey Mulligan, Christina Hendricks, and Bryan Cranston. In short: he’s taking a break from indie dramas.
There’s his resume. But what does he “mean”? And what type of attractive masculinity does he embody? Or, to rephrase, WHY DO WE LIKE HIM?
I solicited answers from many of you via Facebook and Twitter, and it seems to break down into four categories:
1.) His picture personalities are endearing.
Usually Noah (“He can build a house with his own two hands. The Notebook is real, right?”) but also Lars, or, for those who watched him as a teen, as Young Hercules. Apart from the firecrackers/very angry men he played in his early film career, his most recent picture personalities have been of a piece. Even though Lars may seem a far cry from Noah, they are both tremendously caring men — the former manifests his damaged heart in a much more neurotic fashion than the later, but they both encourage the female viewer to care for them. Same for Half Nelson — I want to wrap him up and make him a dinner with vegetables and wash his sheets and put him to bed. Even in Fracture, you want to protect his obvious goodness (and moral-ness) from the negative force that is Anthony Hopkins.
While I’ve been inflecting much of this discussion with my own female, heterosexual attraction to him, many, many men — both gay and straight — like Gosling, and just as many men responded to my query as women. For these respondents, the attraction — perhaps more accurately named “admiration” — is connected to skill in a certain role. Which brings me to….
2.) He’s talented.
“He has range,” he did amazing job in Half Nelson, his work in Lars in the Real Girl was “brave and effortless.” No doubt about it: he’s got talent. And talent makes it easier to esteem him — and also easier to rationalize your own affection. It’s like the difference between admitting your affection for roast chicken and fried chicken: one is refined and worthy, the other mildly shameful, or at least a guilty pleasure. One is Ryan Gosling, the other is Channing Tatum.
Talent also adds a particular nuance to his masculinity. He may not have a body that betrays several dedicated hours in the gym (which is not to say that he’s fat; far from it) but he is dedicated. He’s picked his projects very carefully and worked far less than he could have. The message: he devotes himself to his craft. And that brand of devotion — to a craft, and, by extension, to a woman — is tremendously alluring.
3.) He’s sensitive.
It sounds like a bad way of describing the guy who liked you in 9th grade (or maybe just the ‘ideal guy’ that you described while taking quizzes in the back of Seventeen magazine). But it’s really at the heart of his apparent demeanor: he seems like a caring, sensitive guy. Like he would talk and touch softly; like he wants to hold you or cherish you. Like he’s not an asshole. Of course, part of this perception stems from his picture personality.
But it’s also the way he is with kids, and this is crucial. You’ve seen the pictures above, but his affection and gentleness with kids extends to his musical “side project.” Gosling can sing — just look at him bringing the house down Boyz II Men style with JC Chasez and Justin Timberlake during his Mickey Mouse Club days. But he’s funneled that skill into a curious but wonderful project, Dead Man’s Bones, which regularly collaborates with kids. Here he is playing with a bunch of Halloween-costumed kids in the graveyard; here’s another one with a kids choir (again dressed Halloween-style). His picture personality affirms it — just look at what a good teacher he is in Half Nelson when he’s not totally strung out on heroin! Endearingness levels = off the charts.
4.) He’s attractive.
Attractiveness is subjective. Gosling is not super-hunk attractive: he’s not super jacked, he doesn’t have the facial structure that makes George Clooney/Cary Grant paragons of male attractiveness. But he has something, and he carries it in an unnameable way — call it confidence, call it swagger, call it charisma — that makes him almost faint-worthy. Lainey Gossip regularly warns readers that if they looked at posted pictures, they won’t be able to finish their thought, let alone their work day. It’s true. He’s got it. Visceral affect. (And I use affect on purpose — his appearance acts upon the viewer — a different connotation than effect).
I do think, however, that without the star image — without the aura of sensitivity, romance, and talent — this affect would diminish. Hotness is a compound quality: equal parts how someone looks and how you would imagine him/her interacting with you. The knee-quivering part of The Gos isn’t about how you look at him, but about how you imagine him looking at you. And that — that’s a quality that endures.
So there we have it: Ryan Gosling is basically your ideal boyfriend. He’s talented, passionate, sensitive, and attractive. He’s good with kids, looks at you with desire, looks good in suits, loves dogs.
He’ll write you a song and it won’t be lame or rhyme or sound like Justin Bieber. He’ll build you your dreamhouse and look at you that one way. He’s good with tools but just as good with art. He’s the liberal arts Da Vinci of our generation, and he’s so totally your ideal boyfriend.
Sure, you say, but isn’t every guy I’m attracted to in the movies my ideal boyfriend? No, of course not. I like Channing Tatum (he’s my fried chicken!) but I wouldn’t want to date him; I’d probably get embarrassed when he started doing crazy dance moves everytime we went to a wedding. I like George Clooney and Brad Pitt, but in no way are either of them “ordinary” enough for me to imagine them even looking at me in the first place, let alone hanging out with me and going to coffee shops and actually being my boyfriend. Therein lies the crucial distinction of The Gos: he’s reconciled the ordinary and the extraordinary, both in his films and in his “real” life, in a way that makes him someone you could actually see yourself dating. Granted, it’d be like winning the dating lottery, but it’s something you can visualize.
Granted, this doesn’t explain why guys like The Gos. Or maybe it does: if Gosling is a girl’s ideal boyfriend, then To Be The Gos = to be the ideal boyfriend. And the fact that he’s not gross-out romantic (and super talented) makes him someone that men want to resemble rather than ridicule.
And as for specificity — e.g. what makes Gosling attractive in this moment, and a star of this generation — I’d argue that he’s proof that the artificiality of the star-making machine (specifically, Disney and Mickey Mouse club) can also cultivate talent that signifies as authentic and invested. Not every Mousketeer grows up to be a man or woman with something to add to our understanding of art and talent — I mean, look at JC Chasez — but both Gosling and, on the opposite end of the spectrum, Timberlake, prove that the spectacle and artificial trappings that attend most stars today can be shed. Talent *does* exist; it’s not all auto-tune and lip-syncing.
I’m curious about where Gosling’s image will lead — how will these two mainstream roles challenge, affirm, or texture his current status as our collective boyfriend? Ultimately, though, no matter how the films do, as long as The Notebook stays on continuous replay, and he keeps getting caught by the paparazzi doing things like doing that half-grin and petting dogs and playing music with kids, this current image will endure.
