We all have idols. I feel like I have more than I can count on two hands, from ridiculously legit teachers who have affected my life, to celebrities with hearts of gold and high concentrations of talent pumping through their bloodstream. I have recently decided that idolization is maybe not the best idea, however. To admire and respect seems both appropriate and held in equally high regard. Maybe we should retrain our minds to stop at admiration and extreme respect, and not jump into idolization. To idolize seems to put someone on such a different level that they are not even human. This can be disappointing/awkward for both parties involved in the idolization process, for treating someone like they are not human, whether positively or negatively, is not at all fair. Example time.
1) I love David Lang. Requiem for a Dream fans will, in turn, love me for loving David Lang. Like, I may or may not have sat in my room and played his music to escape the pain of my melodramatic teenage heart breaking when I was fourteen years old. He composes modern (well, more post modernish), rock inspired stuff that requires your full attention. I owe much of my sanity to the fact that I was able to stifle or channel some teenage angst through sound waves that he came up with. I am in debt to many composers for this, but David Lang is one of the only truly relevant ones on the list. Anyway, I get cast in a show that he wrote. THIS IS A VERY BIG DEAL TO ME. No one else knows who he is, but David Lang, you have been a hero of mine for a very long time. You are superhuman, with a musical brain that has mastered human emotion in the weirdest, coolest, most hip way possible. Thank you for being alive, David Lang. I o-ppriciate your existence. The director of the show mentions David Lang and the playwright (Mac Wellman, another very cool, idol-worthy guy) will come to WATCH their show, performed by us. HOLY. CRAP. THIS IS MORE THAN A VERY BIG DEAL TO ME. I can’t even stand up. Well, okay, I can. But in my mind, I faint with delight, and KNOW that when I am in the same room with David Lang, the air will turn to gold dust, and it will be so amazing to meet one of my heroes that I will not need to breath. He will don some sort of grandiose ribbon on his shirt for having won a Pulitzer, he will talk about how cool it is to be Jewish, and we will all bask in his glory and greatness.
Now, I’m not an unrealistic person. I’ve been accused of being negative due to my normally firm grip on reality. But when it comes to your idols, heroes that you have never met, one cannot help but entertain such extravagant thoughts. The day came. He and Mac Wellman arrived and watched several rehearsals, and held a few small talks with the cast as a whole. BUT I WANTED TO MEET DAVID LANG. I wanted to sit down and have long conversations about his creative process, and learn ALL of his Jedi ways. He would be talking to the entire group, and I would be in the middle, grinning like an idiotic school-girl, because David Lang was standing a couple of feet away. Get it together, Julia Gytri. You are completely losing it. Finally, opening night, after the show, at a reception, our musical director gave me the precious gift of a handshake with David Lang and introduced me. But what do you say your hero? I HAD NOT THOUGHT ABOUT THIS. HOW COULD I HAVE NOT REHEARSED A WELL THOUGHT-OUT SPEECH FOR DAVID LANG? You can’t bombard them with compliments. That has to get old. But you also need to let them know how much respect you have for them. You can’t ignore the fact that he is, after all, a GENIUS. (I will come back to this idea later. First, I will allow you to laugh at what I said.)
I shook David Lang’s hand. It was like any other hand. A normal, human hand. It was not, in fact, a hand that, upon touching it, electrified me with the brain waves of a superhero. THIS SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN SURPRISING. This was my first indication that David Lang may actually be a real person.
“I am a huge fan,” I gushed, like some thirteen year-old, weeping tears of joy upon meeting the Jonas Brothers. The minute the sentence left my lips, I was horrified. I am an eloquent, well-educated girl of twenty, who has a broad knowledge of this man’s work, and the best thing that could be sent out into the world from the speech center of my brain was “I AM A HUGE FAN?”
What. is. Going. On.
I don’t even remember what happened after that. It was really that traumatic. We may have exchanged a few more words, though, nothing more intelligent than what I’d already said. And that was it. He was gone. He moved on to talk to someone else and all of my dreams slid through my fingers and spilled to the floor.
Conclusion: think before you speak, obviously, and also, don’t fawn over people. It probably freaks them the hell out and makes them uncomfortable. And by probably, I mean, it totally does. People are just people. Some create great music. Some make a great milkshake at the local Dairy Queen. But everyone should just be treated like a normal person. I of all people should know this, because I am the master of deflecting compliments. I can’t ever just say, “Oh, thank you, you are too kind.” I literally have never taken a compliment well in my life. I always turn it back around on the giver, or find a way to point out that the giver is wrong, and that I do not deserve the praise they are so graciously bestowing upon me. Many times, it isn’t deserved, but when it is, I guess it’s just an attempt to be humble. It’s a problem.
Whoa. Tangent.
2) In my first semester of college, I was an extra in this HBO movie starring the beautiful Claire Danes (Temple Grandin. You may have heard of it. She was nominated for some stuff, and proved to be so versatile in this film that it literally makes my stomach quiver). This was shot in the dining room of my dorm at the time. If you are not familiar with the glamorous life of movie extras, I am now going to educate you.
It pretty much sucks. You get there super early, you get put in an itchy costume, you wait around for HOURS. If you weren’t getting paid, and if you couldn’t put it on your resume, and if you weren’t anticipating standing two feet away from Claire Danes, you WOULD NOT do it, because it. just. blows. But my love for Claire was much too deep to pass up the opportunity. That, and I needed film experience. Anyway, I was in a SHITTY mood. Hot and itchy and tired and annoyed by everything and everyone in the world. My friend and I went to the bathroom to relieve our boredom. We stayed as long as possible, not wanting to go back and wait for another 15 gazillion hours before they needed anything from us. When the time that had passed became a little absurd, we left, entering a hallway, and THERE was Claire Danes. Standing outside the bathroom, in a giant winter coat.
“That’s Claire,” my friend whispered. And we stared, pretended not to, but FAILED as we slowly made our way back to the other extras. Later, when we were filming the actual scene, I stood a few feet away, taking in everything about her. She was tiny. Extremely thin. So thin that I was afraid her neck would snap under the weight of her head. That must’ve been why she needed the winter coat while off-camera. She may not have been able to produce her own body heat. But there she was. She rarely said anything other than her lines. Actually, that’s a lie. I heard her say something about margaritas, but I feel like she might’ve been talking about chewing a stick of sugar-free margarita flavored gum, because there is no way that she partakes in anything containing sugar or carbohydrates.
She was a normal person. If thin. If married to Hugh Dancey. If gorgeous. Still, normal. I was not let down by this realization. But it did seem to be a rather odd epiphany, something I should’ve suspected, and I felt foolish to have been so baffled by the fact that Claire Danes was actually a living, breathing human being.
3) In recent discussion about the nature of children, I heard the topic of idolization put VERY well. The summary went something like this:
“Kids look at you and think, ‘wow, that guy is cool because he’s older.’ Why do they think that? I want to say, ‘just wait until you’re my age, and you’ll look back and realize that I wasn’t cool.’” None of us are really all that cool. Cool is a façade. We ARE all real people, just doing the best we can. I guess it’s when some do better than others that the nonexistent ‘cool’ comes into play.
Proud to be average.
Julia
