All Out of Bubblegum

Examining the Mise-en-Scène of the Carefree White Girl

I don’t know if any of my readers (all four of you) ever spend a lot of time on Tumblr. Presumably you do if you’re here, but if not: Welcome to Tumblr! Mostly it’s great.

I say “mostly” because recently on the dashboard for my personal account, there’s been an upsurge in the amount of Carefree White Girls. There are literally thousands of these things — slightly desaturated pictures of unwashed girls with messy hair, looking forlorn in the woods or smoking in bed, or drinking out of a paper bag on the sidewalk. They’re all very pretty pictures, taken by talented photographers, or at least people with very nice cameras. But what I started to notice was this: every single one of these girls is white. I have never seen a Carefree Asian Girl, or a Carefree Brown Girl, or a Carefree Latina or what have you.

(via carefreewhitegirls.com)

It’s strange. I mean, it’s not like white people are the only people who really love wearing see-through shirts and smoking cheap cigarettes. I love those things! Why is no one ever around with their DSLR to take a picture of me?

It’s not just that there aren’t any people of color in these kinds of photos that irks me. Take a look at the one I just posted: there’s a Four Loko (RIP) and some unwashed shot glasses and some bottles of alcohol — in the distance you can see a dark, small living room furnished with wooden chairs and a seemingly empty bookcase. The girl herself is wearing a ratty white t-shirt with her bra showing through, and her carefully disheveled and unwashed hair hangs into her face. Let me use my Oberlin College-honed skills at analyzing mise-en-scène for a second. This is an apartment deliberately fashioned as “cheap,” and a scenario fashioned as “trashy,” with a girl who looks “like shit,” (but still cute, of course) taken on a camera that I will bet cash money cost over a thousand dollars. 99.99% of Carefree White Girls are exhibiting some kind of class tourism. If you’re unfamiliar with the concept, here’s a song by Pulp that spells it out for you.

My main frustration with these pictures lies at the intersection of these two things. These pictures are all the OC style “aspirational” fantasies, except they are co-opting the life I will most likely be living post-grad (if I don’t just live in my parent’s house for a while :( ), and on top of that, they are denying me a chance to document my actual lifestyle. Look, I know I’m from Connecticut, but I’m also from the 860 — that’s the same area code as Bridgeport, holmes. All of my high school friends are drug addicts (no hyperbole there). My mom is a professor, yeah, but she is just barely scraping by month to month with sending me here. There are hella people worse off than me, but none of them are Carefree White Girls.

And on top of that, I can’t escape them. Oberlin is crawling with Carefree White Girls. They’re out in Wilder Bowl, they’re drunk and screaming outside my window, they’re renting weird houses out in the woods for spring break and then posting an insane amount of pictures from their trips that clog up my facebook feed for days.

(posting one of those pictures would be mean, so here’s Zooey Deschanel, Queen of the Carefree White Girls, via laviejamie.com)

And they all get to enjoy the trashiness of their lives with the security of their money, while me and all the other Conflicted Women of Color don’t have that luxury.

(i am so going to get in trouble for this: THIS IS NOT MY PERSONAL TUMBLR. IF YOU JUST FOLLOWED ME - QUIT IT. THIS IS AN OBERLIN REVIEW BLOG, AND I POST HERE MAXIMUM WEEKLY. USUALLY LESS THAN THAT AND I THINK ALL THE EDITORS HATE ME FOR IT.

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ALSO I GUESS APPARENTLY BRIDGEPORT IS IN THE 203 BUT WHATEVER I REALLY HATE CT. I AM ALSO ONE TOWN OVER FROM MERIDEN AKA THE MURDER-DEN)

Bite-Sized, Easily Consumable Chunks of Entertainment For Your Consumption During Midterms

This week, I just do not have the energy to be flippant about pop culture. Tragedy, it seems, is everywhere. Japan is in crisis — thank god my two friends abroad are okay — someone I know is in the hospital, and, least significantly, it is midterms. Today, I invite you to do what I do at times like these: revisit my favorite Youtube videos.

Robinson, of Tracknife, introduced me to this song, and it’s a work of art. Watch out for my favorite line, “This is what I like to call smash bang fusion/Better watch it mamma, you don’t wanna get a cush contusion.” I encourage you to check out the rest of the videos on this channel, as they’re all deadly serious and of a similar caliber.

Beyond horrible music videos, I also like videos of Nicolas Cage doing, well, anything. I maintain that he’s a great actor, but he a) doesn’t know restraint, and b) doesn’t know the difference between a good movie and a bad movie. But all that means is that everything he does is entertaining to me.

Youtube is a great thing. These videos are bite sized, easily consumable chunks of entertainment. It’s perfect for a time like this — when I find myself worrying over my midterms and the inevitable nuclear apocalypse, I can allow myself to take anywhere from one to ten minutes to watch children get injured —

or animals being really cute.

And, other than a live feed of kittens, what more can you really ask for?

Have a good weekend, Oberlin. You know what day will be here eventually.

Everything is Meaningless, So Make Your Own

One of my film professors has this mug from Universal Studios that his parents got him while he was in college. When our class asked him about it, he explained that he likes to use it because it represents the vast difference between what his parents thought he was doing in college, and what he was actually doing. I’m beginning to have that kind of relationship with my parents, now. Actually, it happens with pretty much everyone I meet.

It’s more or less impossible for me to talk about movies with anyone anymore. Everyone wants to talk about plot. I came here with the intention of being a screenwriter or a Hollywood director, but at this point, things like plot bore me to death. I know people want to talk about originality, and judge a movie’s goodness on how original it is. But  especially in Hollywood, there’s no such thing as originality. Let it go.

I get frustrated with movies like Inception for both of the things I just talked about. One: it’s not original. Is it pretty? Yes. But the ideas and the structure of the film are not new. It’s a heist movie that had sex with Descartes’s mind/body split. Two: everyone is obsessed with that ending. All anyone wants to talk about is: did the top fall? My answer is this: who cares? Leonardo DiCaprio has already decided that he believes that he has left the dream. Does it really matter to us, the audience, if he has or not? And maybe, just maybe, ambiguity is the point.

I feel like reading this blog is like watching a slow-motion train wreck of my self-esteem and mental well being, but believe me when I say that I wholeheartedly believe everything is meaningless and that isn’t a bad thing. As a friend of mine literally just said to me as I was talking this out, “You know, a guy who spends his entire life digging holes and then filling them back up with sand — he’s probably really good at digging holes.” If there is no meaning to anything, then well, just make it up. It doesn’t make life pointless — it’s just that the only meaning there is what we ascribe. We make our own point to life.

Or at least, that’s what I tell myself at 2 a.m. in the media lab when every single computer refuses to work.

The Real World Can Go Screw Itself

I wish someone had warned me about what it’s like to date in Oberlin. Not that I wouldn’t have still come here. I just wish I had been emotionally prepared for this. For those of you who have managed to have a love life without the depression, here’s the lowdown: Sometimes it’s like asking someone to punch you in the face, and then having to act gracious about it. Thanks so much for that face punch! I hope you didn’t have to work too hard on that face punch. I don’t want you to have to exert too much effort on punching me in the face.

I am obsessed with popular culture because it is easier than real life. Last week I joked about seeing things through a haze of teen drama, but I do know the difference. Television is predictable. And it’s similar enough to real life that I can trick myself into living through those characters. Did you know there was a point in time where I watched Empire Records and Can’t Hardly Wait at least once a week? My high school experience was so unrelentingly depressing that I had to revisit Preston Meyers pining after Amanda Beckett on a weekly basis.

It’s because these loves aren’t easy, but they are satisfying. Everything gets wrapped up with a bow, and the people who you want to be happy end up happy. Liv Tyler ends up with the sensitive artist, and Renee Zellweger gets to sing. I get to live in a world, for 90 minutes, where the mundanities of life are incredibly important and despite the moment in the third act where it looks like all is lost, everything actually turns out alright. In part, this is because teenagers are shallow. I certainly was. There was an Empire Records-esque record store in my hometown, and for a while I honestly believed if I hung out there and got a job there my life would be as simple and as happy as this movie. In actuality, the store went out of business because the people who worked there went in the back room to smoke opium all the time. The owner now works at Trader Joe’s.

Real life is messy and usually disappointing. With a startling consistency, my real world romantic life has never been quite as satisfying as it is on television or in movies, even in my brief successes. It’s an intense cycle of abuse and pain. I’m barely being hyperbolic here. Either I have the worst taste in men (likely) or I am surrounded by shitheads. I have been broken up with because they just weren’t really interested in the angst I had over my friend dying of a heroin overdose, and have had romantic interests refer to my friends as, “just some other [female dog] I’m trying to [have intimate relations with].”  I wish I was kidding when I say that I want to live in a sitcom — even in How I Met Your Mother, no matter how many times the main character, Ted, gets broken up with, the name of the show informs you it’s all gonna be alright. And it’s frustrating, because I know that if I were in Empire Records or Can’t Hardly Wait, the love of my life would be just around the corner. But he’s not.

But at least I still have television and movies. These guys will never let me down. In the words of Abed, one of my favorite characters from the television show Community:

I know the difference between TV and reality, Jeff. TV has structure, it makes sense, there are likable leading men. In real life, we have this. We have you.

Seeing Through the Haze of British Teen Drama: Skins and Stand-up Comedians

Getting snowed in for the entirety of Winter Term has left me with little to no patience for anyone or anything. My disinterest ranges from anything that Justin Bieber says or does, to showing up to work on time, and even to interacting with other human beings at all. I’ve spent the first two weeks of school locked in my dorm room, watching Skins and stand-up comedy on youtube. This time has lead me to an amazing revelation: My two favorite stand-up comedians right now are basically Tony Stonem and Sid Bailey from Skins.

(via kazaa.com)

Anthony Jeselnik is the only comedian who writes jokes that are as evil as I feel right now. I don’t feel confident to transcribe any of them here. They’re absolutely in the “offensive” genre of stand-up, but I think they’re way more sophisticated than, like, dead baby jokes. There’s more than just one level of funny to his jokes — it’s hard to explain, so here’s a clip.

Obviously, part of what is so funny about him is that his persona is that he knows his jokes are absolutely perfect. It takes an absurd amount of confidence to tell a joke about babies drowning in bathtubs and expect people to laugh at it, so he becomes the person that is that confident. And that person is a huge dickhole. And so you’re laughing partially because it’s nice to laugh at people who are huge dickholes, and partially because he’s right. He is that funny. Now, I don’t know if you’ve seen Skins, and honestly, I don’t particularly care, because the revelation I had is so utterly perfect. But Nicholas Hoult, aka the little kid from About A Boy, plays this character Tony Stonem who is also the kind of dickhole that finds jokes about drowning babies funny. Except he also finds things like cheating on his girlfriend funny. But he gets away with it, partially because of his absurd confidence and partially because of something else he has in common with Anthony Jeselnik: He’s crazy hot.

(via fashionfame.com)

Now, I’m not advocating for Anthony Jeselnik to get SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER hit by a bus or whatever. That would almost certainly make him less funny. It definitely made Skins less funny (End Spoiler). If anything, I want Anthony Jeselnik to continue to be the man that he is. I mean, I sent him an e-mail, and he thanked me for having great taste, and then he named his debut comedy album Shakespeare.

On the other end of the spectrum, there’s Mike Birbiglia. If Anthony Jeselnik is Tony Stonem, then Mike Birbiglia is Sid Bailey— a man floundering through life, who cannot ever possibly catch a break. Basically, he is utterly pathetic.

(via chuckpalahniuk.net - yes, he actually does this)

While Mike Birbiglia is just as funny as Anthony Jeselnik, his persona is the kind of person that Anthony Jeselnik would hit with his car, laugh about, and then drive away from. His blog is like a test of how much you can stand cringe humor. One recent entry is an account of how he fell down a flight of stairs trying to catch a train.

Five steps from the bottom, I slipped and flew into the air. In mid-air my life didn’t flash before my eyes, but I do remember thinking, “Oh, this is the opposite of what I wanted.” And that’s when my shoulder slammed into the cement floor of the subway station.

And then I sort of writhed around on the subway floor in a heap, clutching my shoulder. To the casual observer I must have looked like a very poor break-dancer, who, instead of music, provided his own low moaning.

By the end of one of his DVDs, you kind of just want to make him some hot cocoa.

Sid Bailey’s character arch in Skins is like watching Mike Birbiglia fall down the stairs forever. Nothing good ever happens to him. He’s lucky enough to be best friends with Tony Stonem, who constantly manipulates him. And when he suddenly grows a spine, he’s screwing over the girl he’s in love with. And then SPOILER she’s moving to Scotland. And his best friend gets hit by a bus. And then his dad dies. (End Spoiler)

His life is super sad, but it’s so all-encompassing that I react by laughing. At least Mike Birbiglia does this intentionally.

I see things through such a haze of British teen drama and stand-up that it is easier to understand things in my life through that context. When I am interacting with you, I am almost certainly trying to figure out your personality either through what character you resemble on Skins, or whether you’re an Anthony Jeselnik or a Mike Birbiglia. I hope going back to school will re-teach me how to engage with other people, but right now all I’m sure of is that I never want to be snowed in ever again.

G̶u̶i̶l̶t̶y̶ Pleasures

If you have ever met me, or even if you’ve ever read this blog before, you’ll know that I don’t really believe in guilty pleasures. Why feel guilty about the things that you enjoy? If something makes you happy, own it. I know that a lot of the things I really like are objectively bad, but I really do not care. I like them.

That little preamble was really a way for me to beg you not to judge me for the following statement: I love My Chemical Romance.

Yes, I love them. I have loved them since high school. I saw them perform at the tender age of 16 (Alkaline Trio opened, Gerard Way had recently stopped drinking and thusly had a pretty hard time making it through a song but I loved it anyway). I know all their names and the names of their wives and children (Bandit Way is a totally baller name) and I am listening to their new single as I write this. Yes, it is bratty in a way that’s embarrassing for people over the age of 30, and yes, it’s terrible. I don’t care. I love it. And I am totally gonna see them in Cleveland when they come around.

(via mcr_unofficial)

This band takes all of the trashy, obnoxious things I completely love and wraps them up in an obscenely catchy song and asks me to sing along. Each album comes with an elaborate story, costumes and codenames. Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys is a post-apocalyptic tale of California in 2019, where the aforementioned Killjoys battle against Korse and the evil Better Living Industries. It’s like it was made for me. They even have lazer guns!

It is so obvious that they like everything that I like that I actually cannot stop loving them. See that bald guy in the video up page? That would be Grant Morrison. For those unaware (many of you) Grant Morrison is a highly creative and critically acclaimed writer of comics. He’s also my favorite comic writer. I have read just about every damn thing he’s written. He loves spectacle and word play and drama and has an encyclopedic knowledge of the medium that he brandishes at will. His most recent works would be his run on Batman, which included the death and inevitable resurrection of Bruce Wayne, and also introduced Damian Wayne, Bruce’s son and everyone’s favorite murderous egalitarian ten year old.

Grant and Gerard Way are friends, apparently. And if it isn’t enough that he’s an obsessive comic book reader just like I am, Gerard Way also writes comics. Really good ones. It is so obvious to me that the fantasy worlds that Way and Morrison live in are exactly like mine. When you see my eyes glaze over for a minute in class, I am zooming in my flying car, shooting my lazer gun out the window at The Man and His Guys, laughing maniacally into the black night. I actively want to live in the worlds they create, the three-color madness of it all, where the bad guys are suave and the good guys are weird and we battle through the pages of existence.

It may be immature of me to want to live in a comic book, but then I look at Grant Morrison and Gerard Way, and they’ve made a career out of it. My Chemical Romance might be awful, but they’re also rich as hell. Who says I have to let go of these fantasies? My Chemical Romance has a lot lot answer for in terms of quality, their lyrics are terrible in a way that is almost offensive and they kind of need to grow up. But why would you want to be a grown up when you could be a Fabulous Killjoy?

(via mcr_unofficial)

ADDENDUM: OMG OMG OMG BECKY CLOONAN IS DOING THE ART FOR THE KILLJOYS COMIC SHE IS MY FAVORITE ARTIST I CAN’T EVEN HANDLE HOW EXCITED I AM.

Passion Rules Us All

When I was younger, I didn’t really have a lot of friends. What I had was cartoons and books. In particular I watched a lot of anime — Toonami, the block of anime on Cartoon Network, began as soon as I got home from school, and my brother and I watched those shows as we did our homework. He liked Dragonball Z. I loved Sailor Moon.

Sailor Moon is actually a fun little show, mostly about scantily clad young girls who kick a lot of ass (It’s actually something I would show my kids, at least because Sailor Moon herself rarely needs saving and the show values female friendships above all else, rather than having them fight over a man, but that’s a blog for another day). In another sense, though, Sailor Moon ruined my chances of having a functional romantic relationship.

Sailor Moon — either Serena or Usagi, depending on how nerdy you are - has this boyfriend, Darien (or Mamoru). And what these two people have, above all, is passion. Not just passion in the now, but passion in the past and the future. They are the reincarnations of a couple that was torn apart by one of Sailor Moon’s several enemies, and in the future they rule the world in a perfect utopia. They love each other above all else. Passionately.

(via bishounen)

I have always wanted something like that. Not just to want to be with someone, but to need to be with someone or I might die. This was only reinforced as I got older. It seemed every piece of media I became obsessed with ended up revolving around a couple. This is a problem with media aimed at (and about) young girls — once romance is introduced into the plot it spreads all over it like kudzu vines. Romance between young people is confusing and dramatic, and television, at least, thrives on that kind of stuff. Unfortunately for me — a lonely, awkward young girl with no real life experience with romance — this is what my understanding of what being in love was like was built on: a bit like hating someone, but with sex. 

A pretty good example of that in my high school years — the peak of my awkwardness and loneliness — was my fascination with Veronica Mars and her eventual boyfriend, Logan Echolls. In the very first episode of Veronica Mars, she describes Logan as her high school’s “obligatory psychotic jackass.” And then they fall in love. And then I fell in love with Logan.

Logan’s not really a nice guy. In the first season alone, he supplied the roofies that lead to Veronica’s sexual assault (albeit without knowing it at the time), organized a bum fight, and was a seriously considered suspect in the murder of his ex-girlfriend. But he’s got charm. He’s very witty. And underneath it all, he’s got big mushy feelings.

I don’t think I ever latched onto the “bad boy,” thing as hard as I did with Logan ever before, and once I did there was really no looking back. What’s dangerous about narratives like the one Veronica has with Logan is that it is so easy to read them as a story about a bad boy being changed by the right girl. It’s equally as easy to think, then, that you are that girl. SPOILER ALERT: You’re not, and it is really not that simple (especially when he’s a 26-year-old dude who used to be your camp counselor WHOOPS ANOTHER STORY FOR ANOTHER TIME).

Although I have the maturity now to know these impulses for star crossed romance and passion are things that are unhealthy that I need to avoid, sometimes it overtakes me, and I have so many examples of things from my adolescence to draw on for support that it can be hard to suppress. The thing that I tend to forget are that the endings of these stories are either in the utopian fantasy of Sailor Moon, or the depths of self-loathing and self-destruction that Logan and Veronica eventually descend into. Another show I liked a lot, and still like a lot, has an appropriately titled episode which discusses this. 

You see, the main character just slept with her boyfriend for the first time, and it turns out that this completely changes their relationship for worse — a lot worse. Sound familiar? I’m talking about Buffy and Angel.

(via this hilarious fortunecity fansite)

In this episode, as Angel systematically stalks Buffy’s friends and attempts to break her emotionally in a prelulde to killing her, he narrates:

Passion. It lies in all of us. Sleeping…waiting…and though unwanted…unbidden…it will stir…open its jaws, and howl. It speaks to us…guides us. Passion rules us all. And we obey. What other choice do we have? Passion is the source of our finest moments. The joy of love…the clarity of hatred…and the ecstasy of grief. It hurts sometimes more than we can bear. If we could live without passion, maybe we’d know some kind of peace. But we would be hollow. Empty rooms, shuttered and dank. Without passion, we’d truly be dead.

And it is true that passion lies both in love and grief, and that it hurts us, but I cannot help but feel that it is also true that we’d be truly dead without it. In a way I’m grateful to Sailor Moon and Veronica Mars and Buffy, because I got to learn these lessons without having to actually experience them. But at the same time, it’s not like they made this kind of love seem unattractive, and there is no way, now, that I will stop wanting passion.

In Defense of Awesome: The Zen of Andrew W. K.

This summer I worked at Forever 21 in a mall about half an hour from where I live. It was awful. In terms of shitty jobs, this was way worse than that summer I spent making Excel spreadsheets, or the summer I spent watching my creepy boss relentlessly hit on my 17-year-old co-worker. I made minimum wage, got yelled at by customers for things that were not my fault (lady, I don’t how that skirt from Express ended up in our store, on a hanger, on a rack, but I cannot sell it to you because it isn’t ours), I would regularly stay until at least 1 am cleaning the store after it closed at 9:30, and then they’d stick me on the schedule to open at 8 the next morning, just for funzos.

To cope, this summer, I had a lot of Andrew W. K. days.

Starting my day with a liberal application of I Get Wet never fails to put me in a good mood. Sure, there’s an element of forcibly making myself wake up using loud noises, but I really think there’s something more to AWK than just that. I think I find this music comforting because Andrew W. K. is the happiest person alive.

(courtesy of Universal Music, via lab.bigearsfestival.com)

Lyrically and musically, I Get Wet isn’t exactly deep. Here’s a sample from one of my favorite songs from the album, “It’s Time to Party.”

It’s time to party, Let’s party
Hang out with yourself and have a crazy party
Hey you, let’s party
Have a killer party and Party!

This is one of three songs with the word “party” in the title. Every song on the album is about partying. You see, Andrew W. K. lives in a pretty simple world. In this world, every day is Saturday Night. Every event is a celebration. And every celebration is an excuse to Party Til You Puke.

Some people find this irritating. I mean sure - In some of my less dignified moments, I am that scowling girl on Saturday night watching the herds of freshmen roll up to some house, muttering to myself about how annoying they are, with all their enthusiasm and joy. “Don’t they understand that there’s more to life than partying?” I think as I guzzle  a PBR.

And well, yeah, there actually totally is more to life than partying, but I think in those moments I am honestly just jealous. I am nearing the end of my college career, and the Real World is looming over me in an extremely frightening way. This summer, while I wasn’t working at Forever 21, I occupied my time thinking about what I was going to Do with My Life, and consequently, returning to school was more stressful and painful than it ever was before.

(AWK and Bradford Cox at CMJ, via the Stereogum)

But you see, Andrew Fetterly Wilkes-Krier already knows what he’s doing with his life. He’s got everything figured out. He is going to Party. He is going to Party Hard. Because every day is another excuse to party, so every day is another chance to have fun. His twitter is a testament to this. Amid his commentary on nachos and signaling of the beginning of saturday, he reminds us, “PARTY TIP: Don’t let the bastards bring you down.” “PARTY TIP: Shit happens, and it’s awesome!”

Andrew W. K.’s party is not a singular occurrence, it’s a way of life and a state of mind that lets you live a life full of Awesomeness. Awesomeness doesn’t have a whole lot of substance, but it sure makes you happy, and when you’re happy, other people get happy, and a big group of happy people means it’s a Party! See how this works?

I’m not gonna lie, the first couple of weeks here have not exactly been fun for me. In many ways, I’m still reeling from the events of the past two years — a good friend of mine died when I was a freshman, I was sexually assaulted, and then the summer before my sophomore year I was mugged. Having a gun pointed in your face? Not exactly a party!

So, I hope you will excuse me if I take refuge in Awesome. Awesome may not be smart or deep, but Awesome lets me be happy without any reservations. Andrew W. K. is Awesome, and he knows this. And that is the single most wonderful thing about Andrew W. K. Well, other than insane conspiracy theories.

This morning I had an Andrew W. K. day. I’m sure I piss off the girl who lives next door to me by playing “Got To Do It” at 7:30 in the morning, but I don’t care, I need it. This morning, I tied my shoes to these wise words:

When you’re down on your luck
You gotta do it
And you’re covered in mud
You gotta do it
You still going on
You got to do it
Gotta do all the stuff that you love

And with that, I knew my day would be Awesome. Party Hard!

You Get It Together: Thoughts on Scott Pilgrim

(Courtesy of Universal, via Filmofillia)

I’ve been an Edgar Wright fan and a comic book reader for a very long time, so it was pretty much a no-brainer that I’d love Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World. It’s the story of an average dude told in fantastical way — a project perfectly suited to Wright’s talents, a kind of skill he’s been honing since his work on Spaced.

It’s not often that I get defensive of a movie, and really, I understand why people don’t like it. It’s a niche film aimed at a very specific group of people. But my standard answer of, “Well, it’s not really for you,” hasn’t been cutting it when I talk to my peers about this movie. Because, well, Scott Pilgrim is for You. It’s all about You. This is Your movie.

There is a reason why Michael Cera keeps getting cast as the everyman, and you might not like it, but it’s this: he is You. For better or for worse, he embodies the average traits of most people our age. I feel like he gets a lot of flak not only because he keeps getting cast in the same role (it’s totally annoying, I get it), but because the character traits that are most visible for him are ones that don’t exactly reflect well on our generation. Michael Cera plays people who are too awkward to socialize normally, have a hard time making close friends, and desperately seeks a love he’s too shy to pursue. But these all stem from one facet of Cera’s various character’s personalities (think George-Michael Bluth on Arrested Development and Evan in Superbad) that make them incredibly endearing. No matter who Cera is playing, they are completely genuine. They only deceive by accident, and they feel every emotion to the fullest degree that they can.

Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Romana Flowers also hit very close to home for me —Ramona was always the character in the graphic novel that I projected onto like an IMAX, which could be painful, as every single thing about her that I like is tied to one of her character flaws. She likes to be in love and is fairly easy to be in love with, but she’ll only hurt you because she herself is scared of being hurt. She has a lot of connections, but that’s mostly because she doesn’t want to be by herself.

Even her ever-changing hairstyles are just another manifestation of her flightiness and resistance to the idea of something permanent. In the film she comes across as a little bit shallow — there’s just not enough time in the film to really dive into her as a character without derailing the main plot — but in the comics you end up understanding that she doesn’t really want to hurt anyone, she’s just so terrified that she can’t help it. I mean, the main villains of the film and the comic are a league of her evil exes that want to control her love life. If only I could get rid of my baggage by punching it in the face. 

(Courtesy of Bryan Lee O’Malley, via toy-tma.com)

These are the kinds of people I meet every weekend at parties — the awkward wannabe lady killers and the innocent heartbreakers, trying to fall in love but afraid of what happens after. Even if you feel like Scott and Ramona don’t really represent you, you’ve met them once or twice, and Edgar Wright fills this movie with subtle hints of the familiarity of these settings and characters. In an interview for the Guardian, they mention that Wright had to get some background music from the Legend of Zelda signed off by Nintendo, and in order to do this, he wrote them a letter describing it as “nursery rhymes to our generation.” 

I told my older brother that story, and he said that Wright could have just gotten the rights for the classical piece on which the Zelda music was based. And well, he could have, and it probably would have been cheaper. But when I heard that song in a dream sequence at the end of the film and half recognized it and then finally placed it with the rest of the audience, who all sighed or, “Oh!”-ed, it could not have been a more perfect moment.

You don’t have to like this movie, and I’m not especially interested in arguing about whether or not it’s a “good” movie (I think it’s a great movie), but this is Your Movie. It was made for You. And as this movie ends in the perfect moment of You-ness, after You and Your Girlfriend have surmounted all your character flaws in an epic emotional battle and have finally been brave enough to really commit to a relationship for maybe the first time, I hope You appreciate it.