Meeting Fictional Characters

Filed under: Media Mayhem | By DrHGuy | August 30, 2006 at 10:41 am

As I mentioned in an earlier post,¹ I have had only two or three minor interactions with celebrities and have laid eyes on perhaps another half-dozen in settings other than performances (e.g., I watched Valerie Harper cross Michigan Avenue). That I recall these instances at all indicates that I am susceptible to the fascination with famous folks that seems part of contemporary culture although it seems to me that my case is of the mild, benign variety.

To calibrate the degree of my affliction, consider first my reaction to a “pure celebrity,” the sort of individual Daniel Boorstin described as “a person who is well-known for his well-knownness,”² or, in the misquoted but improved version, someone “famous for being famous,” I’m interested enough that if someone shouted, “Look, it’s Paris Hilton and Regis Philbin wrestling in the street,” I’d turn around to look. Heck, I’d be willing to walk as far as ten feet to see that. But that’s about it.

Even if the celebrity is deservedly famous, my emotional investment is limited. I think, for example, Tom Hanks is an outstanding actor. I recently saw him make thoughtful and insightful remarks when interviewed on Inside The Actors Studio, and, as far as I know, he’s a fine fellow and decent human being, but given the choice between a ninety minute one on one conversation with Tom or watching him in Forrest Gump or Saving Private Ryan, I’m going to be munching popcorn while Tom-Forrest explains about life being like a box of chocolates or Tom-Captain Miller ducks bullets. (If the movie choice were The Da Vinci Code, I might opt for the Paris Hilton-Regis Philbin wrestling match.)

I can imagine special circumstances that could increase my involvement. If, say, Michael Jordan needed my input regarding making another comeback or Warren Buffet wanted investment tips, I’d feel compelled to help (Don’t do it, Mike; Warren, it’s buy low, sell high). These would seem, however, to be the exceptions that prove the rule.

Art Intersects Life

Given all that, I can’t account for the enormous sense of gratification I experience when my life hypothetically intersects with a fictional character.

The sequence of events leading to the most recent example of this phenomenon began when I read Adam Langer’s Crossing California, which recounts the interactions of an assortment of teenagers from three middle class families living in a near-northern Chicago suburb (”California” references a thoroughfare that marks a socioeconomic and cultural division of Rogers Park) from 1979-1981. This is a B or B+ book that was just good enough to persuade me to pick up the sequel, The Washington Story.

The Washington Story features the same characters as its predecessor, picking up their stories around 1981 and extending into the next few years. This book, alas, proved a disappointment – except for one scene.

Before we get to that scene, let’s review:
The scene in question takes place in a less successful sequel of a B level novel about adolescents growing up in Rogers Park, Illinois in the 1980s.

Got that? OK.

The Scene

The scene consists of two of the main characters, a boy and girl who have long been best friends, traveling to Chicago proper to watch This Is Spinal Tap on its opening night at the Fine Arts Theatre.

And that’s all that happens. This is not a climactic point in the arc of the story. No revelations are revealed, no simmering erotic tension is consummated, no life-changing epiphany is visited upon the participants. It doesn’t even advance the plot. It’s pretty much a throwaway scene contributing a bit of local color and reaffirming the already established personalities of the two characters.

So, why do I have this one paragraph permanently enshrined in what passes for my mind?

Because Julie and I were also at the opening night of This Is Spinal Tap at the Fine Arts. And, nothing special happened to us. It was not a climactic point in the arc of our story, either. It was a funny movie and a pleasant evening.

Even if those two characters from The Washington Story had been real people and even if they had been sitting next to us, I probably wouldn’t recall them today. Even if they had introduced themselves in some weird update of Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author as a couple of characters from a novel to be written 20 years later, I probably — well, I guess I’d remember that, but you know what I mean.

Yet, almost a year after reading this paragraph, I’m still far more taken with this coincidence of my social calendar in 1984 and a novelist’s choices of setting for an incidental scene than I am with sighting Valerie Harper (which was, at least, a coincidental intersection of two real people) or any of the other handful of such encounters I’ve had.

I don’t detect any profound implications in this beyond “the mind is a funny thing.” It’s just one of those How about that? items.