Of Dreams, Movies, and Sports Fanatics
You Can't Get There From Here?
Have you ever had a dream in which you didn’t appear? That is, you were neither a participant in nor an observer of the events taking place in the nocturnal inner vision? Neither have I.
Yet, isn’t that what a movie basically is? It’s somebody else’s dream, or vision, but one in which you do not appear (unless you’re Robert Deniro or Meryl Streep or Tom Hanks or Helen Hunt, etc.).
You are only “there” in that you are sitting in a theater seat or on your couch while you are watching it, but you likely relate to one of the characters in the story, whether it’s the main protagonist or a supporting actor, “character actor,” or someone else. Likely you see yourself as the hero — or possibly the anti-hero, or villain (antagonist), even. You can imagine yourself in their situation, doing what they do. Or perhaps you picture yourself as the actor playing the role (“I could do that! I could’ve been a contender an actor!”).
Often times when we relate to a certain actor, we say, “I like so-and-so” (Tom Hanks, say) and we’re not always just expressing appreciation for their ability to convey emotions and portray various personalities, but we feel as if we know them — they’re friends of ours; they seem so likable — and some of them probably are (I think Hanks just might be, “in real life,” a likable dude).
Not all of them are, though. I went to grade/grammar/elementary school (I don’t know which designation for the post-preschool and pre-middle school grades is the most common or current) with a kid who was crazy about Don Adams, who played Maxwell Smart in the late-1960s sitcom Get Smart. He was practically obsessed with the guy. He finally got his chance to meet him at some event in San Francisco, a two-and-a-half hour drive from the (very small) town we lived in. He was so excited about it that he was beaming in the days leading up to it. When he returned the next week, though, he seemed disappointed, if not downright disgusted. I thought maybe Adams hadn’t shown up or my schoolmate hadn’t been able to talk to him. I asked him about it, and he bitterly informed me that Adams was a jerk. He wouldn’t say exactly what happened or didn’t happen. Perhaps my friend came on too strong and Adams was put off by his fanaticism. Or maybe the former hero just wasn’t friendly enough, in the eyes of my classmate.
Maybe Adams was actually a very nice guy; I don’t know. Maybe he had a bad day, or was misinterpreted by my classmate. Still, though, I wonder about people saying, “I like so-and-so” when they’ve never met them and so don’t really know them; They’ve only seen them in films or on TV or on a concert stage when they are playing a role or trying to “sell themselves.” As a specific example, I’ve heard people say, “I like Michael Jordan. He seems like a nice guy.”
It could be that he is; again, I don’t know. But it might be pretty easy to give the impression that you’re a nice guy when everything is going your way. Why wouldn’t you be upbeat, smiling, and pleasant when everyone is praising you, rolling out the red carpet for you, and treating you like the most marvelous thing since the invention of the light bulb?
Speaking of Michael Jordan, athletes are often plopped on a pedestal and even viewed as modern-day demigods by their fans, as people also tend to do with actors, musicians, and other quasi-mythological creatures. It is not uncommon to see sports fan[atic]s wear the jersey of a certain player they relate to. When that player does well, they feel as if they are a part of his or her success; they even speak of the team they follow in terms of “we” rather than “they.”
In virtually every instance, though, those players don’t know the people idolizing them, and may not want to. Fans feeling that they’re part of a team is a fantasy, like movies are; they are dreams, but somebody else’s dream — we don’t figure in them.
We have our own dreams, though.
Clay, do you remember that Tom Hanks was a good friend of Birdie’s family?