When I was a kid I used to practice my Oscar acceptance speeches. I don't remember what I'd say but I know that they were long. I was a pretty strange kid in that my Oscar speeches were delivered to the playground and I absolutely didn't care who listened. It wasn't that I thought they were my audience-they were a non-entity, as really? I had no shame.

Also on the list of "oh my god, what a freaky child", I used to include Rudolph Valentino in my bedtime prayers (so there's a guy that got a pretty big boost-off of his time in purgatory). I guess not many people can say they prayed for Rudolph Valentino (and if they did, I would like to reply-WHY?), although I also prayed for Eva Marie Saint, which also plays this inconsistency game as she wasn't dead.

I haven't always been a heathen, it's more of a recent thing.

Throughout my life, there has often been a movie character that I could identify with, who I could empathize with on some level. After all, if you're a person without a baseline grabbing hold of an anchor sent over by MGM is pretty easy. Often my characters were uncomfortable. Rarely were they the heroine. Never were they the cool ones.

And my formative years were the 80's, also known as the decade of Teen Films, for which I will always thank Universal Studios for giving me the measure with which to base my personality.

For instance, I was never the one who got to be Ariel in Footloose. Thin, fabulous, with those red cowboy boots and a repressive pastor father that you just know had sexual fantasies of taking it up the ass. She was cool, she was popular, and she was willing to ride between two cars while a massive truck was headed her way because she lived life on the edge. Oh no, I would never be her, because:

A) I'd be too freaked out to play traffic chicken like that
B) I've never been that thin
C) I swear upon my love for Ranch Corn Nuts that I will never own a pair of red cowboy boots.
D) I dance like Elaine Benes from Seinfeld.

I remember that film Some Kind of Wonderful as well. Everyone wanted to be the Mary Stuart Masterson character, the one who got the zombie-looking Eric Stoltz and the diamond earrings in the end. All the girls I knew all heaved a sigh and said "I am so totally that character. I get her."

Really?

You understand someone wearing fringed gloves? Really? Who hung out while her best friend went after Lea Thompson, who you don't hold a candle to? You get that?

Sadism. Rampant in junior high, I tell you.

Andy from Goonies also passed me by. Not only did I not understand her character and her complete inability to solve world peace ("Does Bran wear braces?" Oh yeah he does, Cheerleading Wonder. Totally. He just removes them like yesterday's condom.) but she was the popular bubbly cheerleader, albeit one who strangely hung out with the unpopular, andrognyous Stef (the ever incredibly unattractive Martha Plimpton, aka "bag over that mantlepiece, woudja'?".) I'm thining I would be the Stef character, which I guess is at least some relief that I wouldn't be Chunk.

I did understand Molly Ringwald's character. No, not the cool Claire in Breakfast Club, or even the kooky Sam in Sixteen Candles. I understood the severe outcast and mild embarrassment of Andie in Pretty in Pink. People also used to tell me that I looked exactly like her when my hair was red, which used to be nice only over time Molly has turned all horsey-faced, and perhaps that's my fate as well. Cute one day, horsey-faced the next. These things happen.

I did also get Lee in Secretary. Fumbling, shy, constantly feeling inadequate, yet able to leap tall buildings while chained and wearing handcuffs. I too am constantly inadequate and bumbling, all the while the kinky stuff? Good fun.

The one I really, really understood was Charlotte in Lost in Translation, but in that film? I also understood Bob. I don't know how many times I have been a stranger in a strange land, in a marriage that sort of fits but wasn't a shrink to fit. I don't know how many times I've stared out the 20th floor of an all-glass wall of a hotel, overlooking a foreign city and wondering where the next best thing was. And the phone call Bob had, laying on the bed? Been there, done that. Connecting with someone via wire when you can't connect to them in person, you wishing you were there and them wishing that too, only it doesn't turn out well. The moral of the story being to either never go away, or never ring home if you do.

I really felt like that character, and for a long time.

The only problem is, I don't look as good in pink mesh panties.

I wish I could say I was the cool Julia Roberts in My Best Friend's Wedding, or the enigmatic Cameron Diaz in Something About Mary, or the lovely and carefree Sloane in Ferris Bueller's Day Off. But I wasn't and I'm not. That's just not how I am geared. I understand and empathize with the nerds, the dorks, the outcasts, and those who should fit their own skin, but don't. Surely I am not alone in this,

As long as I don't feel like Shrek, I guess everything is ok.

Or Carrie.

Yeah, that'd be a bad one to empathize with.

-H.

Posted by: Everydaystranger at 11:18 AM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
Post contains 956 words, total size 5 kb.

1 You're better than all of them!

Posted by: kenju at June 02, 2006 12:04 PM (2+7OT)

2 Mwahahahahahaha. Carrie. Somedays, my friend.... Actually, I AM Chunk. It's not so bad.

Posted by: caltechgirl at June 02, 2006 02:40 PM (1mfa4)

3 Who I fear I am? Duck Lips in Four Weddings and a Funeral. Who I wish I were? Diane Court in Say Anything. I am dating Lloyd Dobbler, if that helps.

Posted by: trouble at June 02, 2006 03:42 PM (j2vfb)

4 Everyone knows that John Cusack is MY boyfriend. Mine! I won't share him or his enormous 1980's boom box, I won't! *sigh* I can dream, but he is at least on my list.

Posted by: Helen at June 02, 2006 03:47 PM (QRkqt)

5 I'm inclined to think what women feel for the Cameron Diaz or Julia Roberts characters is not so much empathy as wishful thinking. Those screen personas are an unrealistic aspiration, rather than a readily self-identifiable reality. Anyone who cannot empathize with the geeky outcast nerds is suffering delusions of grandeur. IMHO, naturally. But what do I know?

Posted by: Jennifer at June 02, 2006 05:32 PM (jl9h0)

6 I could chuckle, but I'm not sure how appropriate that may be. Let's just say if I do, I'm laughing with you. Because I was once accused of being like Anthony Michael Hall (the 80's version). In both looks and personality. To the point that I wanted to go Columbine on my peers. The worst part is sometimes, I really felt like him, particularly the Breakfast Club version. Being compared to him today wouldn't be so bad, given that AMH grew into a pretty respectable adult and landed some pretty good parts (like The Dead Zone). Hell, he's even my age. Can probably get laid with ease now. Nice to see that he's come a long way from the geeky days of Sixteen Candles.

Posted by: diamond dave at June 03, 2006 11:49 AM (MpbMR)

7 OMG...i now picture you as LEE (in pink mesh panties) [and you look great!!] i loved that movie.. I see myself as a combo of Che Guevara and Woody Allen...go figure. ;-)

Posted by: J.M at June 04, 2006 05:06 AM (k3v0Q)

8 I love this post but it makes me feel awkward all over again because--very, very embarrassing, but I identified with Ally Sheedy's character in Breakfast Club. Unfortunately, all I can remember of Ally Sheedy in Breakfast Club these days is that scene in which she shakes her DANDRUFF over a landscape scene she's drawn, in order to simulate snow. I swear, I swear, I swear on any holy artifact you present to me, I never had dandruff. And even if I had had, I would NEVER have shaken it onto a picture to make art. Ugh. Head and Shoulders, Ally. Head and Shoulders, or Selsun Blue. YOU pick.

Posted by: ilyka at June 05, 2006 07:03 AM (FJvMX)

9 yeah i like the post

Posted by: ximiee at June 05, 2006 10:23 AM (4KtQ6)

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