When reading this title, go ahead and picture me with my right hand firmly grasping a particularly insulting part of my male anatomy, while the other hand has its longest and centermost finger pointing skyward.
Just kidding. Even if I may not agree with Occupy’s complaints and desires, or how they go about expressing them - Hey, I have an idea. Let’s stage a protest because there are people that have a whole lot of money, and we don’t have as much as we think we should have. How will we protest? I say we go and just sit around all day and night right outside where they go to WORK everyday! - , I am a southern man with a certain level of class, and would NEVER grab my genitals in anger toward anyone.
And I do not intend for this to be a for or against Occupy Wall Street piece anyway. I want to take a look at the mindset of the Occupy crowd, and present a theory as to why it is they think the way they think, anger the way they anger, and feel the way they feel. And what conclusion did I come up with? What is the only logical explanation for the Occupy way of thinking? Easy. Blame Hollywood.
I know that blaming Hollywood sounds like a give up. Directing blame toward some form of entertainment medium seems to be the default when trying to theorize why people behave the way they behave. It was Marilyn Manson’s fault that dark clothed teenagers were killing themselves. I’m pretty sure Jay-Z and his colleagues are the reason why people murder, steal, sell cocaine, and call women bitches. And Teen Mom 2 is most definitely to blame for this current teenage humping epidemic we are experiencing. I mean, I’m pretty sure teens never procreated before MTV.
But hear me out. I honestly think Hollywood may have brainwashed my generation into hating - eh, thoroughly disliking - those that had what we didn’t or what we wanted, using the hip yet heartwarming teen rom-coms of the late 90’s and early 2000’s as their guise.
She’s All That (1999)
Who we hate:
Taylor Vaughn - Rich. Most popular girl in school. Shoo in for Prom Queen. Viciously mean. Dances in Bikini. Says things like “Honey, look around you. To everyone here who matters, you're vapor, you're spam, a waste of perfectly good yearbook space, and nothing's ever gonna change that.” and “I could win this thing in flourescent lighting, on the first day of my period, cloaked in T.J. Max. Ok? My mother was prom queen in '71, my cousin - prom queen in '82, and my sister would have been prom queen in '94 if it wasn't for that scam on the Conway Bed tour bus, okay? I am a (filthy language edit) legacy, all right? And besides, not to be a bitch, but who's gonna beat Taylor Vaughan?”.
Zach Siler (First Half of movie) - Letterman Jacket clad. Most Popular boy in school. Class President. Star Athlete. Chiseled Jawline. Perfectly gelled hair. Again, rich. Participant in offensive bet.
Dean Sampson - In Zach’s circle of friends, so popular. Smug. Not very nice. Other participant in offensive bet.
Who we root for:
Laney Boggs - Nerd. Outcast. Tortured artist. The ‘underdog’ in this story. Single parent home. Family portrayed as not financially wealthy.
Zach Siler (Second half of movie) - Proves to be an alright guy with genuine feelings for Laney.
Preston - Because there is no reason to do anything but root for the cool black friend that wants nothing to do with the bet in the first place.
So what is it that we desperately want to happen during the course of this movie? We want A)The poor underdog to end up on top, and B) the mean popular people to get what’s coming to them. We so badly want the full-of-herself Taylor Vaughn to lose the Prom Queen vote and to get dumped by her “Real World” starring boyfriend, Brock Hudson. We rejoice when the conniving Dean Sampson is deafened after Laney uses her rape whistle to repel his advances. Zach only becomes the likable hero/boyfriend material after he A) makes the bully of Laney’s little brother eat the pube covered pizza, and B) performs his hacky sack routine at the performance art club, showing us that he is actually just an artistic being at his core.
He turns out to be a good guy. But why is it necessary to use the term “turns out”? Was he not always a good guy? He may have been, but we weren’t led to believe so at the beginning. We thought he was a (maybe lovable) jerk. And why? Because he was rich and popular. And the filmmakers vilified him for it. Thanks Miramax
“She’s All That” is just one example of a slew of films from that era that portray social and economic status in this way. I could easily (annoyingly?) write up an equally detailed analysis for any of a number of films or TV shows with similar motifs. I won’t. You’re welcome.
I will simply summarize the rest of my thinking/ideas as follows:
In life, we root for the underdog. We so badly want the wholesome nerdy kid to get the girl of his dreams. We yearn for Middle of Nowhere State to beat Duke in basketball. Hell, we voted Taylor Hicks the winner of American Idol. It’s true, we love for the underdog to come out on top, and cinematic story lines are no different. In fact, they may be where this desire is most prevalent.
But in more (Hollywood) cases than not, the “favorite” that the underdog is surpassing is in khakis and a polo. He is the rich guy. She is the rich girl. They are the rich kid frat. They are the rich girl sorority. Snobs. Snobs that are mean and need to be put in their place. And in most Hollywood instances, they are. And we cheer.
After forming this theory, I decided to look back into my high school years, when these movies were coming out, and see if I maybe had some feelings of ill will toward any of my “better off” classmates. To be honest, yes. Yes I did.
There were two or three boys, in particular, that came to mind. One happened to get a brand-spanking new SUV when he was 15. FIFTEEN! Couldn’t even legally drive, yet still had a vehicle that our speech teacher once drooled over for an entire class period because it was her “dream car”. Another fellow always had the nicest clothes from the most expensive brands. It seemed as if both Abercrombie and Fitch personally threw up on him every morning. *- Side Note: I know the reputation Abercrombie and Fitch has today. That wearers of the brand are muscle head, corporate-loving douchebags. 1)This just further explains the point of my whole theory. 2) Back in 2001-2002, it was the brand the cool kids had, and you were jealous if you didn’t have it and you know it. Period. End Side Note - * They all seemed to date the hottest girls.
And how did my circle of average, run-of-the-mill, ho-hum friends and I feel towards these fellows? We hated them. We thought they were pompous dicks. We wished embarrassing things upon them. “Did you hear Moneybags wrecked his ‘vette?” “He did? Haha, serves the jerk right.” “Did you hear What’s-Her-Name dumped Stupid Face, and is telling everyone he has a tiny (you know)?” “Haha, I always figured he had a tiny (you know)!”
That is truthfully how we felt. They were rude and stuck up, and we despised them.
The funny thing is though, we had never spent time with any of them. Not one single word of conversation had ever occurred between us and them. All the feelings of animosity and dislike, all the wishing of bad happenings and the smarmy ridicules from afar, they were all based on an instinctual idea of who we thought they were.
Now, what if all the kids in “She’s All That” were besties, and Taylor Vaughn and Laney Boggs were mani/pedi buddies from the outset of the film? Would my friends and I still feel the same way about the jerks we went to high school with? If “Revenge of the Nerds”’s Tri-Lambs got along with the Alpha Betas from the get-go, and were co-sponsoring bake sales and community clean ups together, would we we really have the instinct to dislike our more fortunate classmates? Would our instincts have been the same? Who knows.
What I do know is this: Senior year, we all became friends. And those guys that we hated? They were actually amazingly nice people. Yes, they had nicer cars than we had, and yes they had fancier clothes than we had, but that’s not WHO they were. They were guys we went to ballgames with. They were guys we played Playstation with. They were guys that we did amazing (and I mean amazing, ask me about it sometime) class projects with.
I say all that to say this: It seems like the Occupy protestors have the same hatred for the Wall Street “one percenters” that we had for our high school “one percenters”. They assume that they are all money grubbing a******s that could care less about anyone but themselves and their money. They assume they are all crazy tycoons with $500 dress shoes, $500 dress shoes that they use to laughingly stomp on the hopes and dreams of the middle and lower class. But who knows. They could be lovers of the same art that the bohemians admire. They could be fans of the environment. You know what, they could even be fans of Fleet Foxes. They could be some of the nicest people to ever walk the earth. But who knows.
I’ll close with a little mental experiment.
Create an image of a fictional man in your mind. Now, picture this fictional man as the world’s wealthiest man. Make him cartoonish. Use stereotypes. Now picture this man sitting in his home office/study. An office/study that rivals, in size, most young couples’ apartments. An office/study that is part of a house that rivals, in size, most apartment complexes. Imagine he is wearing a $2500 wool Dior Homme suit. His Purple Label pocket square alone is $100. On his feel? Just $500 velvet Gucci loafers. No biggie.
Got him pictured? Good. Now picture him again, but this time try to also think of him as the nicest, friendliest guy in the entire world. Finding it hard to do? Why?
I’m sure you were like me and pictured him as jerk. *Another Side Note - In my head he had his hands resting his lap, rhythmically tapping his fingertips together as maniacal laughter bellowed from his soul. - End Side Note* We assumed he was a jerk. Why? Because he has what we don’t? Because his house is bigger than ours? Because we’re the tortured artist from a poor, single parent household, and he’s the rich and popular athlete that has the rich and popular girlfriend?
The Occupy crowd are vilifying the one percent. Hollywood vilified Taylor Vaughn.
The Occupy crowd hates the one percent. Audiences hated the Alpha Betas.
So, has Hollywood tricked the have-nots into hating the haves, simply by portraying them as the overwhelming antagonists in all its Teen Bop Rom-Coms? Who knows.
All I truly know is this: Freddie Prinze Jr. makes the world go round, and I have got to get as much of him as I can.
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