I have a confession to make. As many of you may know, the film version of New Moon, the second volume in the Twilight saga, is due to hit the big screen next week. As a result, the cast and crew of this epic adventure are working tirelessly to promote the film, taking interviews, having press conferences and meeting with hoards of obsessed fans, many of whom are 14-year-old girls, but not all.
As of last Tuesday, I myself am among the small minority in the latter category. I waited outside of a hotel for several hours to catch a glimpse of Robert Pattinson (who is the most symmetrical human being I have ever seen) and Kristen Stewart.
As Henri (the terse but amicable security guard sent to patrol my corner of the barricade) paced around keeping the screaming 14-year-olds in check, more accredited members of the press than myself strolled around, and interviewed the crowd. It then struck me how crazy it all was.
These girls didn't even speak English: They called Robert "Row-Bearrr" as they screeched for him to appear in the window. Yet, they all knew who he was, and, thanks to Steph Meyer, were convinced that he was the one meant to carry them away from the boredom and ineptitude of their humdrum lives.
Then again, it's not that absurd, considering everyone has had a fantasy like this at one point or another. I think we forget, in our big grown up worlds, how important fantasy is.
We are all exposed to the same popular culture and we all partake in similar fantasies. What should be one of the most private areas of our consciousness is suddenly as open as an N* Sync Reunion Tour chat room. Our fantasies become dry and average. Yet they are still just as important as they were when we were kids.
You may be asking, "What's so bad about reality?" To which I would answer: nothing. The truth is that most people need to escape in order to unwind. Everybody does it differently, whether it be through a fantasy baseball team, a Guitar Hero obsession, mind altering drugs, exercise, reading or simply just zoning out in the middle of class. It's not that our lives are unbearable, it's just that they are extremely public because everyone is so plugged into each other all the time. We need to retreat into ourselves in order to find some peace. We forget how important it is to take time for ourselves and to relax. Not to mention that the notion of fantasy is plagued by negative, often sexual, connotations which shade the concept as "weird," "immature" or "perverse" and make us reluctant to explore that side of ourselves.
Fame and fantasy have an interesting relationship. Fame creates the fantasy that we are somehow close with people we have never met. We experience this on a daily basis. It's the same way we feel about a beloved professor we had in a 300-person lecture.
I think actors in particular have an interesting job because fans are obsessed with their characters, not with them, yet the industry promoting their films pressures them to perpetuate the illusion that the two identities are one and the same by. Why? Because if the fantasy is more real, more people will adopt it and more people will buy merchandise related to the movie or television show.
When Robert Pattinson walked out of that hotel, he looked like he was about to sh-t himself. It's hard to blame him. Everywhere he goes, crowds of shrieking strangers appear who all want a piece of him. It almost makes you feel bad for the guy (or it would if he weren't so symmetrical).
But in a way it's heartening. Statistically speaking, one in every two girls from that crowd came from a home with divorced parents. One in every eight would have had some kind of domestic abuse by the age of 14. Yet they were all there, believing in love, in prince charming. And if a regular guy can make those statistics a fantasy by manifesting the idea of Edward Cullen, well then, that's kind of cool.
