All the Rage #43

There's an image trapped in my head, and it won't let me go.

I found the image on the web. It's from an unreleased film, the next project from writer/director Cameron Crowe, who brought us Jerry Maguire, Singles and Say Anything. The movie's due out sometime this year; it has no title yet, but we know that it's a semi-autobiographical tale about a fifteen-year-old kid who gets hired by Rolling Stone to hook up with the fictional rock band Stillwater and write a feature story about the band. The photo that's arrested me is a still from the film that depicts Penny Lane, one of Stillwater's "band-aids," played by Kate Hudson.

She's standing in an empty concert hall--not quite standing, more like spinning. Tatters of the show that has just taken place are strewn on the hardwood floor. Her body's stretching upward toward the ceiling, and her purse is suspended above her head, trapped in mid-spin by the camera's flash. Her loose-fitting shirt is sliding up her body and most of her midriff area is exposed, which is probably a big part of the reason why I can't stop thinking about this picture--I love a good midriff, and Hudson owns a doozie. Her body is surrounded by black. She's standing on her tippie-toes. She's barefoot. She's young and beautiful, and clearly in love with a song she's hearing as the photo was taken.

I know next to nothing about this film--I'm excited about it, because I like Cameron Crowe a lot--but I can't help but interpret this photo to death. It's always invading my thoughts, because it's so sad. Here is this beautiful girl standing alone, lost in a moment of abandonment to a pop song. No, she's not just standing alone; she's dancing alone. A moment of joy and fun, and she's alone in it.

Hudson's face is beautiful in most photos, but here Hudson's expression is distorted, twisted somehow. It's the hardest part of the photo to look at. There's such a conviction in her jaw, and yet such a distant look in her eyes. You look at that face, at those eyes, and you think that maybe she's not alone in the photo just because she's the last fan to leave the venue. Maybe she's a lonely girl, and maybe she's lonely because she's a fan.

Being a "fan" tends to be interpreted mostly as a communal experience. The mere act of being a fan makes you part of a group, the group being packed full of your fellow fans. We think of passionate devotees gathering together at concerts and cheering their heroes on while the music soars around their grateful ears. We look at all the internet websites, mailing lists and newsgroups devoted to probably every artist on the planet, and we see communities born out of shared obsessions. It's a hobby, it's an escape, it's fun.

But that's only part of it. In the end, every fan must deal with their hero alone. They connect with their obsession on a purely personal level--it's one of the most antisocial interactions imaginable. Though you can lump a pack of fans together and technically have a "group," there's nothing communal about it.You talk about your heroes and you listen to their music with friends, but then you go home and you sit in your room by yourself and dissect their every breath and twitch as sacrosanct text. You understand the art they create in a way that no one else really can--each fan's reaction is purely personal. There's no exact duplication. Those teenage girls you see every day on MTV's Total Request Live screaming for whatever boy band is the catch of the day, they form some kind of collective when grouped together. But talk to any one of them alone, and you'll hear how much she loves her own favorite Backstreet Boy, and how she's the world's BIGGEST fan, and how no one can match her passion. She's not part of a group. She wants them for herself. She's the world's BIGGEST fan. Everyone else may as well not even exist.

The photo reminds me of a Lester Bangs column about the death of Elvis, one line in particular: "We will never again agree on anything as we agreed on Elvis." He was right--we have fragmented, we have splintered into countless sects of pop fans who worship our own personal artistic gods and scoff on those who dare to disagree. And inside those sects, we each internalize our passions to the point where we can share them, but only to a degree, because we approach them as ourselves, and no one is exactly alike.

In the film, I know that Penny Lane isn't alone. I've seen pictures of her co-stars, her fellow "band-aids." She's part of a tiny little community of her own. But in that photo, she's a lonely girl inside a personal response to popular culture. Just like the rest of us.