celebrity gossip, academic style

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.