The last place...

There are some things that strike me as redundant in our language.  For example, when you are having difficulty finding something, people will often tell you "it's always in the last place you look". Well of course it is!  If you keep looking for something after you have found it, there is something seriously wrong.  You may look in one place, or one hundred and one places for your misplaced keys or phone or whatever.  But generally speaking once you have found it, you stop looking.  By definition it was it he last place you looked.  For organised people, that is quite often also the first.  For me it is usually somewhere between first and fiftieth.  But I stop looking once I have found it, so it is redundant to tell me it was in the last place I looked.

And don't get me started on those who helpfully ask where it was last while you are searching...

If you don't laugh, it just seems mean

A couple of years back, I received a set of DVDs for the first season of "How I met your mother" for Christmas. It is a show I have often enjoyed when it is on the TV though I rarely go out of my way to find it.  One of the episodes caught my attention. In it Barney, the self declared "awesome" one of the group whose exploits are (in his own words) "legend... wait for it... dary", plays a prank on the main character, Ted. Towards the end of the episode, just before the pay off, Barney explains what he has done to the rest of the group, and is greeted with silence. He encourages them to laugh because "if you don't laugh it just seems mean". The lesson of course being that it is fine to be mean as long as it seems funny.

It was an episode that I was reluctant to watch a second time. The main reason is that I don't laugh, and it does seem mean. Or more precisely, it seems mean so I don't laugh. I find it difficult to laugh at some of the mean humor that people/TV shows/movies employ. One of the reasons is that it takes me back to

Toxic Fame: Desperately seeking Hannah

In our house Hannah Montana gets at least her fair share of air time.  For the uninitiated Hannah is the alter ego of mild mannered teen Miley (Miley Cyrus).  In the show Miley and her father Billy Ray (real life father Billy Ray Cyrus) created Hannah so that she can have the 'best of both worlds'.  Adding a blond wig and a trendier wardrobe allows her to live the rock star lifestyle.  Removing them allows her to live a normal life without the problems of celebrity.

So it was interesting, and very sad to read the following article: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/02/16/3140105.htm
In it Billy Ray Cyrus blames the show Hannah Montana for ruining his family and setting his daughter on a dangerous spiral.  Indeed in the last twelve months Cyrus has filed for divorce from his wife, and his daughter has stumbled from controversy to controversy. 

She seems to be sliding off the rails.  It appears that she might be taking the first steps down a road too often trod by young celebrities.  Names such as Drew Barrymore, Dana Plato (Kimberley from Different Strokes) and don't forget the current pin up of off-the-rails-child-actors Lindsay Lohan, lead the list of stars who have struggled with being thrust into the spotlight as children or teens.  Others have not gone quite so far down this road, but still had difficulties - Macaulay Culkin, the Olsen twins and Tracey Gold (Growing Pains) come to mind.  Nor is this a new phenomenon.  Child stars Elizabeth Taylor and Mickey Rooney are almost as well known for their seeming inability to have a long term relationship (each married 8 times - though to be fair Rooney's last marriage has lasted over 30 years) as they are for their film careers. 

It seems that celebrity has a potentially toxic effect, especially on the young stars.  Some seem to be able to cope.  Hilary Duff seems to have survived in ways that near contemporaries Cyrus and Lohan haven't.  This may be because she seems to understand the place she plays in the lives of her fans, and has tried to be a good role model.  Others like Candace Cameron (Full House) largely turned their back on fame after the show finished, and are content to live a "normal" life.  However for those caught in the celebrity trap life seems difficult.  Even one mistake can come back to bite you - ask Vanessa Hudgens.  A series of them, and it all snowballs.  One seems to have to be almost impossibly good, or reject celebrity to survive.

I wonder how differently the Cyrus story would have been if Miley Cyrus had had a Hannah Montana.  Then her mistakes would have been private, rather than held out for the world to see.  She could have had a shot at a "normal" childhood, free from the scrutiny of celebrity. 

Billy Ray wishes there had never been a Hannah Montana, but I wonder if Miley sometimes wishes there had been...

Whatever happened to fairytale endings?

***********Spoiler Alert: This blog tells the end of several movies.***********

There used to be a day when movies were made about underdogs who triumph against all odds.  You know what I mean.  Something like Sister Act 2 (1993), where a Catholic School that is about to close, located in a down and out area ends up competing in the state choir championships and not only wins but saves the school.  Sports variations like Champions (1992), or Rocky (1976) come to mind as well.  You knew if there was a contest at the end of the movie, and everything was stacked against the hero/s then they would definitely win. 

Then in the mid nineties, something changed, particularly with "teen" movies - those starring 'teens' (whether actual or supposed) and aimed at the young teen/ preteen market.  For example: in Bandslam (2009) a bunch of misfits are brought together by a former head cheerleader, and molded by a music loving loner to compete against the school's popular band Glory Dogs (among others) in a battle of the bands type competition - the eponymous Bandslam.  The odds are stacked against them.  Not only are they misfits, but they are betrayed by the former cheerleader, and the loner is targeted cruelly by the leader of the Glory Dogs.  Finally their song is sung by the Glory Dogs just before they go on, and they have only minutes to change their song.  A perfect set up for the typical fairytale ending.  But of course we are too sophisticated for that now.  A third party, neither Glory Dogs nor our heros, wins the competition.  The happy ending is instead supplied by the popular response to their performance that leads to a record contract with David Bowie's indi label.

The Camp Rock (2008) franchise also follows suit.  The camp builds to the Final Jam, the winning of which leads to recording with rock star Shane Gray (Joe Jonas).  The heroine has been banned from activities until 'the end of Final Jam', so the stage is set for the rival to win.  The rival falters, and the heroine is given a last chance to perform (though it is unclear whether it is included in the competition).  Once again, a third party wins the prize.  In this case the happy ending is that hero and heroine are reunited after an earlier problem.  The sequel (Camp Rock 2 (2010)) sets up a competition between Camp Rock and a rival camp: Camp Star.  To cut a long story short, the odds are stacked against them, and they lose despite a spirited performance.  The happy ending here is that the Camp, which had been threatened, is saved because it seems more fun than Camp Star. 

An earlier example - somewhat left field- is Jingle All the Way (1996) where the Governator's character finally gets a 'Turbo Man' action figure for his son for Christmas - beating his rival (played by Sinbad)- only for his son to give it to the rival.  The fact that the father had forgotten to get the doll was symbolic of his self-absorbed neglect of the son.  The reconnection between the father and the son in the later moments of the film has rendered the giving of the doll less important.

These are just a few of the many examples in recent years where the hero/s of the film fail to win the competition that provides the crux of the storyline, but supposedly attain "something better".  Very few follow the traditional fairytale ending.

Stories play a large part in shaping the way we, as individuals and as a collective, view the world (as well as being in part shaped by the same).  So the question is why have we had this collective shift in the stories that we tell?  What message about our world are the film makers giving, whether wittingly or otherwise?

Among the many possibilities two stand out to me.  The first is that the message of many of these films is that there are more important things than those that seem so all consuming:  Connecting with your child is more important than finding the popular Christmas present; having fun and relationships are more important than winning the music competitions; losing a competition is not the end of the world. 

However I suspect that the film makers want to make their stories more 'realistic'.  It is true that in real life the fairytale often does not come true.  However there are those occasions when they do - the truth is stranger than fiction category.  I can't help but think of Steven Bradbury the first person from the Southern Hemisphere to win a winter Olympic gold.  He made the semi finals because one of his opponents was disqualified.  He made the final because three of his semi final opponents crashed, and he won the final because all of the other finalists went down.  These are the stories that get told precisely because they are extraordinary (cf. Remember the Titans (2000) which was made because the team was still being talked about decades after the events).  When filmmakers abandon the fairytale endings as unrealistic, they forget that we expect the stories told to be extraordinary.  They also forget that such stories provide a glimmer of hope: no matter how bad things might be, it may still be possible for a fairytale ending.  While realism is good sometimes, the fairytale endings are needed too.