Saturday, October 6, 2012

Out of Context: S.F.W.

I never watched SFW when it came out in 1994.  I also never watched it on DVD.
So it was clearly out of context when I watched it last weekend.

SFW asks the dual question: 
1.  What happens when you become a celebrity but you are still you?
AND
2.  What if you had no control over how you became a celebrity?

Even to a staunch avoider of reality-TV such as myself, watching this movie in 2012 was not a novel experience.  Having been a part of the generation in which 'The Real World' started the whole 'reality' trainwreck, watching a person become a celebrity due to nothing but circumstance and then watching those struggles and pitfalls was not new.

But in 1994, it was.  This movie relies heavily on context, or at least the environment where reality TV or being famous for just being famous is not the norm.

"Unintentional" celebrity is de riguer for roughly one-quarter of the 'known' names nowadays.  Even those who seek viral celebrity status often find that celebrity is not quite the shiny gold ring that it often appears to be.

But what if you couldn't even control how you 'became known'?  That question still rings profound.

Spab, our unlikely hero, (who's name I didn't believe was his full name until I saw it in the end credits) did not set out to become famous and definitely not in the manner in which he became.  What is fun about Spab is that he never seemed to try to rise above/beyond himself; to become the "thing" that everyone wanted him to be.  And I say "thing" because Spab, upon becoming a celebrity, lost his humanity.  He became a mantra, a slogan, an idea; the quintessential 'voice of a generation'.  But not a person, not a human with flaws and vices and needs.

I kept expecting the movie to go in the direction of either 'guru with feet of clay' or self-destruction.  But the movie doesn't go in either direction, choosing the at-the-time-not-yet-overdone 'slice of life', a raw, convoluted, sometimes boring and slow, but true lens.

-Sis

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