Tag: reviews

Trope-a-Lanche: The Serial Killer Movie

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How do we know when we’ve watched too many movies? Do you know who dun it, before they dun tol’ you? Have you spotted tropes (recognizable storytelling patterns, familiar devices, themes, character types, or plot moves that audiences instantly understand because they’ve seen it many times before) in movies so often that you now scream “trope-a-lanche!” when the tropes begin to avalanche. Have you disabled the suspension of disbelief for others, because you dissected the filmmakers intent behind plot devices, characterizations, etc, and you accidentally ruined the movie for them. If you’ve done any of the above, you’ve probably watched too many movies.

I initially mistook the ability to track patterns and tropes for intelligence, until I learned that even the sharpest cinematic observation is in service of absolutely nothing. It was a mark I thought should’ve informed my audience that I was so observant, but all it really did was tell them that I’ve watched too many movies. In some social situations, it pays off to watch a ton of movies. When someone asks you if you’ve seen some obscure movie, and you say yes, it can lead to some conversations. “What was your favorite part?” “What did you think of the actor, the twist, or that one scene.” That gratification is fleeting and rare. I used to be quite proud of the totality of the library of movies I’ve watched, and I used to be quite competitive in that regard. If you try to compete with me over most movies watched now, I’m probably going to let you have that crown, because I consider it an odd brag to say I’ve wasted a bigger chunk of my life watching movies than you have. 

A friend successfully bested me once saying: “I’ll bet I’ve watched more movies than you.”  

“Okay,” I said. “I don’t know why you’d brag about that, but I’m going to guess you haven’t.” 

“Do you watch porn?” he asked. 

“No.” 

“I win.” 

I try to apply the “Everything in moderation” recommendation to every thing in life, and I’ve found some success when it comes to nutrition, but I haven’t found near as much success with popcorn consumption or watching football and movies. The problem with watching too many movies, and obsessing over a subgenre like serial killer movies, is that at some point we’ll reach a tipping point where we’ll be able to characterize every character before they’re fully characterized, know the feng shui of the serial killer’s living room, the state of the abandoned warehouse where they’ll finally locate him, and pretty much how the final showdown will play out. Again, we don’t say this as a brag, as one of the consequences of watching too many movies is that we’ve damaged the joys of suspense and discovery.

The Serial Killer/Profiler Movie 

Unless you’re counting Sherlock Holmes as a profiler, as opposed to a consulting detective, the first cinematic profiler was a character named Will Graham in Michael Mann’s Manhunter (1986), based on Thomas Harris’ Red Dragon. This wasn’t the first serial killer movie ever made, but it was the first one I saw. It was also the first movie to use the art of psychological profiling to catch a serial killer, as pioneered for the FBI by Mindhunter author and Silence of the Lambs consultant John Douglas and author of Whoever Fights Monsters, Robert Ressler. I loved Douglas’ Mindhunter so much that if there was a stock or ETF (Exchange Traded Fund) in 1995 that focused on serial killer vs. profiler movies and books, I probably would’ve bought a couple shares. I’d probably would be a rich man now too, because I now get a new profiler-chasing-serial killer movie listed on my streaming services so often that I won’t watch them anymore, because I know the template they use, the one laid out by Manhunter, Silence of the Lambs, and Mindhunter, so well that I know it too well.

“I need to get inside the head of the killer,” our archetypal Special Agent of the Behavioral Analysis Unit Rhonda Gunderson says. This rhetoric is one of the numerous tropes of the typical serial killer movie, and the process inherent in doing so will come at great personal and/or professional expense. When our archetypal profiler, Special Agent of the Behavioral Unit Rhonda Gunderson, finds the killer’s Rosetta Stone, she uses it to correctly point out who the killer’s next victim will be. Her fellow Law Enforcement Officials (LEOs) won’t believe Gunderson, until her premonitions turn out to be correct so often that they can no longer question her mindmeld.  

1) The serial killer, with a media-style nickname or moniker, is unusually brilliant, erudite, articulate, cultured, charming, and attractive. (The idea that an unattractive piece of trash who didn’t graduate from high school might impulsively slaughter a bunch of people just isn’t as interesting to us anymore.) We want the horror conducted by our serial killer familiar, so filmmakers make them as clean, neat, and organized as we are. We also love the idea that the serial killer could be that quiet neighbor who seemed so nice and neighborly.  

2) The killer will develop an intricate pattern, theme, or a highly sophisticated puzzle that calls upon the investigators to know their arcane and erudite literary or religious references well enough to compete with his unusually brilliant mind. The investigators must decode his message, puzzle, or worldview to prevent another killing, and one of the LEOs, usually our profiler, will have intimate knowledge of the arcane and erudite reference. At some point, in this period of discovery, one of the LEOs will characterize this as, “A race against time.” 

3) The killer will introduce a philosophical concept regarding the blurring of lines that detail a hypocrisy in society, that Special Agent Gunderson has a flaw he characterizes as similar to the killer’s, or the killer will pound home a vulnerability that speaks to society’s moral relativism. “Well, he’s right about that,” someone in the audience will say.   

4) The cat-and-mouse structure will involve a psychological duel as opposed to a physical one. At some point, Special Agent Gunderson will state that she is maddeningly close to “getting inside the head” of the killer, but she will not be able to tap into that level of evil. She will need to find another unusually brilliant genius serial killer who is still bloodthirsty but incarcerated, to give her insight into the mind of the active killer.  

The Final Showdown

A) When they finally track the killer down, he won’t be home, but Gunderson and the LEOs around her will enter his home. The serial killer’s home will be a meticulously curated horror show of his warped, damaged, and “unusually brilliant” psyche.

B) The lighting inside the home will contain insufficient natural light, and it will be so dark that it will require one of the LEOs to flip a light bulb on, but no one will. They will use flashlights to scour the walls completely covered in newspaper clippings of the murders, Polaroids or stolen photos of the victims (alive and dead). The killer will then label each picture with a sharpie to allow the LEOs to know which body part belongs to which victim.  

C) To further incriminate himself, the killer will provide an enlarged, elaborate map of the city with multicolored pins and red yarn connecting crime scenes, timelines, and obsessive diagrams. (There was one serial killer movie that used yellow yarn as opposed to red. I was like “What the heck? How does yellow illustrate an obsessive need for blood?” My guess is either the filmmakers couldn’t find red yarn, or they didn’t think anyone would notice.) The configuration of the red yarn hooked around the multicolored pins will form a pentagram, or some image the audience will associate with evil. 

D) The killer will have a trophy collection on the dresser filled with personal souvenirs—locks of hair, jewelry, driver’s licenses, underwear, lipstick, or they will have extreme keepsakes in jars in a freezer that contain fingers, teeth, or body parts carefully preserved.

E) When the LEOs and Gunderson leave the serial killer’s living room, they will find a torture cellar or hidden room that real estate agents sell as a “must have” for all prospective serial killers. (How many of us have multi-room, cavernous areas carved out of our basement?) Inside his torture room, the law enforcement officials find various restraints in their workshop, knives, surgical tools, “how-to” books regarding surgery, a bloodstained table and a captive/victim who is barely clinging to life. 

F) In his bedroom, Gunderson and the LEOs find an incredibly incriminating journal with stacks of handwritten notebooks or a single massive ledger filled with detailed accounts of the crimes, philosophical justifications based on literary or religious references, lists of future targets, or pure delusional stream-of-consciousness, Unabomber-style writings. As busy as this room will appear to the naked eye, it be unusually clean, and extraordinary in its tidy, organized manner. One movie even went so far to suggest that its serial killer went to the trouble of developing an almost aseptic quality of sterility. “Why would an impulsive killer worry that much about spreading germs?” we ask. Depending on the over-the-top quality of the production, the serial killer might adorn his room with mannequins posed in victims’ clothes, taxidermy, religious icons mixed with occult symbols, or a bedroom that looks like a shrine. The answer to our previous question will arrive here, as Gunderson suggests that the tidy, organized manner of this man’s rooms illustrate a love/hate relationship the killer has with his domineering mother.

G) The LEOs will also note a chemical smell, usually bleach or formaldehyde mixed with the smell of human decay. To illustrate the smell those of us in the audience cannot smell, one of the LEOs will leave the house to vomit.  

H) Finally, one of the LEOs will say, “You’ll want to see this” to Special Agent Gunderson. The LEOs will all be standing around a board, and they will make room for Special Agent Gunderson. On this board, she will see amateurish photos taken from an amateurish camera. These pictures will be purposefully amateurish with odd angles. After she methodically walks past them, she will finger the last one and whisper, “He’s been watching us all along.”  

As noted, the house will empty, save for a victim clinging to life. The killer will either be on the run, hunting his next victim, or about to return at the worst possible moment, but the house overflowing with proof that the profile the incredibly brilliant and talented Special Agent Gunderson created was right all along. 

I) An eye-witness account suggests that the serial killer is in an abandoned warehouse. When Gunderson and the LEOs approach, it’s dark out, and there is heavy rain that soaks everything but actors’ hair. When Gunderson and the members of the LEO team she trusts approach the warehouse, black SUVs and SWAT vans roll up quietly. Guns are drawn. Flashlights cut through the darkness. Someone whispers over the radio: “We’ve confirmed his presence. He’s in there. Proceed with extreme caution. We’re on high alert for the possibility of booby traps.” Gunderson will shut off her radio, and she’ll encourage her team to go to radio silence, as they approach the entrance of the warehouse.

The warehouse is entirely empty when they enter, and the natural light shining from the abandoned warehouse roof is broken by the shadows of beams and the occasional bird flying from beam to beam. To break up the spooky silence, a bird will fly too close to Gunderson to provide a jump scare as she walks through the warehouse with her gun poised. At some point in her walk through the warehouse, Special Agent Gunderson becomes separated from her team, as the LEOs begin clearing the various rooms in the warehouse. She will enter the most incriminating room that has evidence in the form of more wall clippings, trophies, and that same lingering chemical smell. She will put the back of her hand to her nose and scrunch her face to illustrate for us how bad this smell is.  

J) The killer appears in the dark corner of this room. He is sitting in a walnut brown Baxton studio Billie side chair. He is not surprised when Gunderson enters. He’s been waiting for her. (I would love to see a scene where one of the LEOs locates him first, and he says, “What, wait a second, who are you? Go get Special Agent Gunderson, and tell her to be taken aback by my calm yet authoritative stance.”) The media monikered serial killer is in a dark room, lit only by limited natural light and occasional flashes of lightning. (In some movies, his face remains in shadow for another beat.) He congratulates Gunderson for displaying her incredible and unprecedented talent and intelligence by finding him, and he further compliments her by saying that only she could understand him well enough to develop the profile she did. He also states that as incredibly brilliant and intelligent and talented as she is, Special Agent Gunderson couldn’t have arrived at such knowledge of him if she didn’t have intimate or familiar knowledge. “No one else can understand us,” he says, explaining how elements of her past leads her to understand his methodology better.

“I’m nothing like you,” the incredibly brilliant and incredibly talented Special Agent Gunderson says. 

“We’re more alike than you know,” he says with a smile. 

K) The media monikered serial killer will then drop a lengthy exposition regarding his methodology, and once that’s complete, we will hear the sounds of boots stomping on the stairs and radios crackling as the LEOs join Gunderson in the abandoned warehouse room. “Hands where I can see them!” they will shout with weapons drawn behind her. The lighting will become more dramatic, as all of the flashlights light the room (or the lightning flashes become more frequent), as the serial killer and Gunderson begin exchanging words (Sometimes they shout, sometimes they whisper. This is one of the few points in the typical serial killer movie where the filmmaker has some discretion.) When Special Agent Gunderson finally reaches her “nothing to lose here” point, she will seek to take action, but the serial killer will stop her in her tracks by revealing the final victim (Either the initial victim that caught Gunderson’s attention, her daughter, or some young girl to whom she’s developed some form of affection) to raise the stakes.  

L) A struggle breaks out: a brief, brutal fight in a confined space, knives flashing, a gun sliding across the floor, and Gunderson will begin look around the abandoned warehouse to use something in the warehouse against him. When she finds something elaborate that triggers an elaborate something else that won’t harm the female victim, the killer becomes separated from the victim, and the serial killer is tackled, slammed against a wall or the floor, and cuffed by one of the LEOs. He will smirk an evil little smirk while they’re apprehending him, and he’ll whisper one final line to Gunderson while being taken away, something like, “Society will never truly understand us.” 

M) The scene ends with the killer being led away in the rain under harsh floodlights. Gunderson will remain in the room of the abandoned warehouse for a beat, staring at the wall of evidence or the trophies, looking hollowed-out rather than triumphant. Rainwater drips from the ceiling, and one of the LEOs will congratulate her on doing what he considered impossible. “You are an incredibly brilliant, intelligent, and talented woman,” one of her subtly yet unmistakably misogynist detractors will say. “And I can’t believe you did it, but you did. It’s over, it’s finally over.”

“I wish I could believe that,” Special Agent Gunderson whispers, glaring at something poignant in the serial killer’s display. “I wish I could believe that,” she says fingering it. The camera zeroes in on that poignant artifact that foreshadows the future horror this episode could portend, which everyone who watches too many movies knows is the sequel(s).

Long before I learned about “movie tropes”, my friends and I talked about movie tropes all the time without using a term we had never heard before. We watched so many movies that we could spot the tropes before the movies delivered them. We never turned it into a drinking game. If we had, our brains would be more damaged than they already are, because each genre, and subgenre has an algorithm that one movie maker created to set a precedent. Once that precedent was set, the filmmakers, the studio execs, the investors, and all of the players involved demanded that the creatives involved in the movie follow the same blueprint that the precedent setter set to prevent confusion for the audience. 

Based on the ubiquity of current profiler-chases-serial killer movies, we can guess that they make a lot of money now, but they also cost a lot of money to make. There are low-budget, independent movies of course, but most movies cost a lot to make. Those movies require big budgets, and big budgets require approval from the hierarchy or the greenlight authority to get through the chain of gatekeepers that wield different kinds of power. The director and screenwriter have to answer to all of them if they want to make it to the next stage, and from what I hear these gatekeepers are very generous with notes on how the directors and screenwriters can make their project less confusing for the audience. Filmmakers have been subjected to this process long before I was born, and it will continue to work this way long after I’m gone. Some screenwriters and directors refuse to concede to these notes, and we call them two things: auteurs and unemployed screenwriters and directors. The auteur is an artist whose personal creative vision is strong and distinctive that he might be able to tell the gatekeepers what they can do with their notes. Most auteurs are not welcome in most genre movies, because genre film fans grow accustomed to certain rhythms, rhetoric, and patterns, or what we now call tropes. When one of the auteurs is so talented and brilliant that they find a way to make a decently budgeted movie without conceding to “the notes” those I know and love say, “I just found it confusing. I don’t know why, but it confused me, and I didn’t like it.” Those of us who watched too many movies strive to find movies from auteurs who break the system by refusing to kowtow to notes from production studios and investors. Yet, we know that most movies are so expensive to make that the artistic vision screenwriters and directors prize often gets so diluted by those who know far more than I do about how to appeal to audiences and make a lot of money in the process, but it does tend to make movies very similar to those of us who watch too many of them.  

Too Many Movies, Too Many Tropes I: The Heist Movie

RilalyLeave a comment

How do you know when you’ve watched too many movies? Some of us know the patterns and themes so well that the joy of discovery in most films is so gone that we probably won’t be able to thoroughly enjoy another movie until dementia kicks in.

The only thing we love more than puzzles and patterns is being able to figure them out. Our favorite classic and mainstream rock songs follow a A,A,B,A,B,C,B, and B verse-chorus song structure where A = verse, B = chorus, C = guitar solo. Steve Martin once said that three beats are funnier than four. Those of us who are not in these industries usually don’t see these patterns and structures for what they are, but we love knowing what will happen next. When it happens the way we predict, we richly reward those who make us feel smart, so they keep following the patterns. When we reach a point where we watch too many movies, however, we know the beats, patterns and structures so well that the joy of discovery diminishes.

We all have past times, and I spent my youth trying to watch every movie ever made, and the VHS movie rental stores in just about every strip mall in my big town/small city came very close to helping me achieve that. In the 80s and 90s, we could grab our groceries on the way home from work, buy a pizza, and rent a movie without walking a block. We did D) all of the above on weekends and some weekdays. It was so convenient that it was a little too convenient. It wasn’t as convenient as clicking a mouse, but you get the point. 

We had cable TV back then, and about forty different channels, but there was “nothing on!” so often that we rented movies to fill the gap. We ended up watching so many movies that we watched too many, and I can now look at the year a movie was made, its genre, and the superficial characteristics of the actors involved to tell you who is going to be the good guy, the most no nonsense, yet incredibly intelligent member of the crew, and who will end up being the bad guy. I can also pretty much tell you what rhetorical devices they’ll use to progress the plot, the tropes (i.e. recurrent themes, literary devices, and cliche) they’ll drop, and its conclusion. When we reach this point of watching too many movies, a genre such as the heist film, becomes so formulaic that our pleasure of discovery evaporates. 

Heist Films

“We don’t do this for the money,” is a trope that the typical, archetype character who masterminds a bank robberies issues to his naive apprentice who doesn’t understand why the money they stole is now a secondary concern.

Heist movies fall under the action genre, so no one expects the complexities inherent in a James Joyce novel, or a plot as rich as Oedipus Rex or The Alchemist. We just want action, a whole lot of fun, and some semblance of contextual logic. And that’s where they lose me, the logic, because if I were to rob a bank, I would do it to grab as much money as I could in the precious few moments I have. The movie bank robbers do that to complete the action sequence, but once the bank robbery scene is over, the money becomes a secondary concern to them for the rest of the film. 

“It’s not about the money,” the Joker said in The Dark Knight (2008) while burning a massive pile of cash. “It’s about sending a message.” Most screenwriters don’t have the characters in their script say this specific line, but they send the message through various scenes.  

Soon after the bank robbers celebrate their successful theft, they abandon the money when one of their fellow crew members is wounded or captured. “Can’t they help their crew member AND keep the money?” I whisper to my fellow movie goers. “It’s not all about the money, Larry,” someone will invariably say. It isn’t, and I get that, but these guys just risked their lives, their livelihood, and their freedom to steal this money. Label me with whatever pejorative you choose, but if one of my crew stubs his toe, I will cater to his needs AFTER placing the money in a very secure place.

If a romantic interest is endangered, or a personal code is tested, all of that money is left behind without reservation. Just about every movie ever made contains a love interest, and what kind of man would worry about their money when their love interest is in danger? If the filmmaker doesn’t have the mastermind do something, like throw all of his money off a bridge to save her, they’ll lose about 75% of the audience. I get that too, but again, can’t he find a way to save her AND the money?  

The money is a literary device, a MacGuffin, that filmmakers employ to define the character of their characters, and virtuousness thereof, but the paradox is that real life bank robbers only resort to robbing banks as a desperate effort to get money. The movie depicts these characters as clean cut, intellectual types who have a lot going on in life, and they just happened to choose bank robbery as a profession rather than becoming an electrician, a plumber, or a bus driver. Yet, even though they’re not as desperate as the typical bank robber, we’re talking about a lot of money, and my guess is most crews would experience a lot of dissent when the mastermind instructs them to give it all up.   

The primary reason movies about bank robbers are not about money is because we’re not about the money, and we find the pursuit of money icky. Movie bank robberies are about loyalty to our fellow man, the excitement of the plan to defeat a federal bank’s high tech security system, and the chase that follows. The money they make is nice of course, but heist movie filmmakers depict those who seek to quietly enjoy it, or use it to secure a comfortable retirement as suckers, squares, and rubes who believe in the power of the almighty dollar.  

The greater sentiment that is that these nuanced and virtuous fellas are not about living materialistic lives, and they find the thought of living like Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg abhorrent, because Capitalism is soulless. This is made abundantly clear throughout the movie, but the crew could used some of the money they successfully stole to afford themselves a decent lifestyle while planning their next heist. “That’s not what this is all about!”  

These movies are about the slick and smooth mastermind, and his ability to research the details of the bank’s security system and locate its primary weakness. They’re about the mastermind and his crew executing that plan, but it’s mostly about the crew members, and how he assembled them for this one, last big hit. One of the crew members, the getaway driver, knows how to drive cars fast, and when I write fast, I mean fast. Another crew member knows how to handle himself in stressful situations, but he can be a little trigger happy, and the mastermind takes a moment out of the planning stage to virtue signal to those in the audience that he doesn’t want anyone hurt. He does this by cautioning his trigger-happy friend about controlling his violent impulses during this heist. The final, missing piece is Schmitty the long-since retired safe cracker who is the only one who knows how to crack the otherwise uncrackable safe that this bank has.  

The mastermind and Schmitty sit in an abandoned warehouse smoking cigars, drinking whiskey, and talking and laughing about old times, when the mastermind turns to him, “Do you think you can do Minneapolis again?” the mastermind asks. 

“That was a lifetime ago, MacDavid,” Schmitty confesses. “I’m retired, and I have grandkids. I’m old is what I’m saying, and the ears ain’t what they used to be.” 

 “We could really use you here, Schmitty!” the mastermind replies. “If you have one more in you, we could really use you.” The scene closes with no definitive answer from Schmitty, but he reappears later, to dramatically announce his decision with a leather-crackling bro hug.   

Depending on the gritty nature of the heist film, no one gets hurt during the robbery, and as all heist movie fans know by now, most of the money the bank holds is FDIC insured (It’s not. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation insures against various forms of bank failure, not bank robberies.) With that misinformation, those of us in the audience think bank robberies are the perfect crime, and we wonder why we don’t rob banks often. It seems like such a victimless crime.  

As we’re nearing the close of this heist pic, we’ve spent the last eighty minutes trying to keep our mind in the off position, because we know it’s about action and fun, but that contextual logic keeps nipping at our heels like a Chihuaua. They’ve pounded this idea that it’s not about the money so often that we ask, why did they take it? Why didn’t they just live their virtuous lives without the distasteful need for money? That’s just snarky, you say, and I agree. How about the movie makers have their characters run into the bank guns-a-blazing, point their guns at people in a menacing manner, and scream, “Everybody down. Everyone on the floor!” If they don’t have a Schmitty, they can find the vice president of the bank and force him to open the vault, and then once they have all of those piles of money sitting right in front of them, they walk away. They walk away without touching that money! Message achieved! Virtue unlocked! Take that! materialistic, greedhead who thinks it’s all about the money! By filming the scene this way, the filmmakers could provide a a culturally relevant statement against the system and the man who try to convince us that it’s all about the money.

“Why did we go through all that again?” the naive, unsophisticated young lad asks the wily, veteran bank robber who just masterminded a non-monetary robbery. 

“Because it’s not about the money, Chet,” the mastermind says with a squinty-eyed look and a grimace of disdain. “It’s never been about the money, and if you can’t see that at this point, get out of my car!”  

I could see writers and directors creating a character who disabuses the notion that his decision to become an animal husbandman was not about the money. “It’s not about the money, Chet. It’s about them,” he says with a loving gaze sent out to his cattle, “and if you can’t see that, get out of my barn!” I can see movies about individuals in various medical fields, areas of law, and even those involved in selling insurance saying it’s not about the money as much as helping people, but the idea that a bunch of bank robbers are somehow more interested in righting cultural wrongs, civility, and the plight of their fellow man over money just doesn’t square with me. And if you’re going to argue with me about movie makers sending important messages out to the greater culture, I won’t hear it, because I want a contextual alternative delivered by one of the characters in the movie. I don’t want subtext, meaningful omissions, or the slick, cool guy mastermind shaking his head saying, “You just don’t get it, Chet, and you probably never will.” I want an alternative specifically stated, but I know that no movie maker will answer because there is no viable alternative that an audience will buy.  

And that, fellow heist film fans, is the core of the “It’s not about the money” heist film philosophy. We don’t want our heist films to be simplistic, of course, and a dirt bag robbing a bank just for the desperate need for more money would be too simplistic for us to watch and too simplistic for a screenwriter to write. Screenwriters want it complicated, they love twists, complicated, conflicted characters, and a deep, rich plot they consider a reflection of them. The other, less complicated reason is that we don’t want to spend our hard-earned money watching a movie that is all about the money, and the moviemakers want to appeal to our worldview that the simplistic pursuit of money is just plain icky. The final, idealized statement that it’s not about the money is supposed to make us go, “Awww!” with a heartfelt smile. We could call the movie production studio’s writers and directors illogical, ideological, or even pathological for continuing to perpetuate this trope, but we’re the ones who rent, buy, and now click on their movies so often that they continue to create them with this heartfelt premise in it … for the money.       

Never Meet Your Heroes

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“Never meet your heroes,” they say. “They’ll only disappoint you.”  

“OK, but what do you want them to do for you?”

This is the question I ask those who have had “disappointing experiences” meeting a noteworthy figure. Working at a hotel front desk, I met several stars, celebrities, and other notable figures. I don’t know if I ever worshipped at the feet of America’s definition of royalty, but I eventually met so many of them that I didn’t treat them much different than anyone else. They didn’t treat me any better than anyone else, but they didn’t treat me worse either. They treated me with as much as respect as they would anyone else, but, and this is the huge BUT of this article, I didn’t expect anything else.  

I’ve watched you interact with them in the hotel lobby, however, and I saw how disappointed you were when you walked away. It took me a while to realize that it’s not the individuals we admire who disappoint us, it’s the interaction. We wanted our experience to somehow, and in some way, be as meaningful to them as it was to us. 

Most of the notable figures I’ve met aren’t great, awful, charismatic, boring, nice, unkind, dismissive or engaging. Most notable figures are common people who just happened to have something fortunate happen to them along the way. I’m not saying they didn’t earn their notable status, or that they weren’t talented or skilled in their arena, but almost all of them were nothing more than a face in the crowd of skilled and talented people striving for advancement at one point in their career. Most of the actors we admire happened to fit a character better than everyone else in that particular casting room, and they were in the right place at the right time that helped them secure that role that defined them. We developed a relationship with that character, and when we met the actor who played that character, we expected them to consummate our relationship to that character in a way that left us satisfied. I’ve seen that on your faces, and I’ve seen the way your shoulders dropped weightlessly after they politely shook your hand and said, “Hello, nice to meet you.” You expected them to do something more than be nice and polite to you. You wanted them to acknowledge how important you are to them, because they wouldn’t be where they are without people like you, and you were so disappointed that they were just politely kind to you.

I also think that when we run into them in a hotel lobby, we’re kind of disappointed to meet Robin Williams. We wanted to meet Mork from Ork. Robin Williams, as it turned out, was a little quiet and withdrawn. Was he polite and nice, sure, but I expected him to be a little crazy like he was when he was a guest on The Tonight Show.   

“I never know what to say to them,” a notable young figure confessed when we finally made it into the elevator to escape the hotel lobby.

This notable young actor was kind to those who were gob smacked by his sudden appearance in a hotel lobby. He said, “Hello!” to them, he shook hands, and he even took photos with them. A good time was had by all, but the young celebrity ended the encounter somewhat prematurely by telling them he had to go. We went up to his hotel room, and he had nothing to do there, no one to call, and nowhere to go. He just wanted to keep his appearance in the lobby brief, so he didn’t do or say anything to disappoint his adoring fans. I was stunned to hear him admit they made him nervous. My takeaway was that he didn’t want to do or say anything to shatter their belief that there was something special about him. 

“There’s no way they can live up to your expectations, and they know that.”

The young actor knew something it would take me a while to gather. The impressions we have of Hollywood stars is often based on their highlight reels, and everything they do in person can only diminish those idealized images we have of them. If he stayed in that lobby too long, he might accidentally slip into someone like himself when we prefer him to stay in character. 

“You made one of my favorite comedies of all time,” one of the fans said when we were all still in lobby. The actor thanked him for the compliment, and he smiled when the man went into detail, far too much detail, regarding the nature of his compliment. The actor was as kind and gracious as he could be. The actor would never tell this fan how little he had to do with that production. The actor was the face we saw, knew, and attached to the production, but all we have to do is watch the credits to see how many names are involved in the production. His was the most notable name, and one of the primary reasons we purchased a ticket, but he was just one of numerous names involved in its production. He would never tell a fan how little his involvement was in the day-to-day activities of bringing that movie to the fan.

Our favorite actors had our favorite lines written for him, a director asked for several takes from which to choose, and the editors and other players mastered the final cut, but we only know the star. When we insinuate that our favorite star from our favorite production is hilarious, how do they live up to our expectations in one take in a hotel lobby? How do they create a worthwhile experience for us? We won’t think of it that way, of course, and we’ll tell our friends, family, Yahoo readers, and Redditors that we don’t find him “as funny in person, as he is in the movies.” We don’t intentionally compare them to their highlight reels, but it’s how we know them, and it’s tough to shake those images.

We would all love to be famous but imagine reaching a point in that stratosphere where we end up disappointing everyone we meet. Imagine being Michael Jordan, the most notable sports figure in the world for a time. To avoid disappointing fans or damaging his legacy, Michael Jordan decided the smartest thing for him to do was hide in the hotel rooms of cities he visited. When his friends, teammates, and family went out on the town, enjoying everything those cities had to offer, the greatest, richest athlete of his generation hid in hotel rooms.  

Michael Jordan might be a very charming person who knows how to use his dynamic personality to reach most people, but if we met him at a Walmart, Michael Jordan couldn’t possibly live up to the expectations we have of Michael Jordan.

Kelsey Grammer was an hysterical and charming presence in our homes for decades, but if we ran into him at a convenience store, purchasing potato chips, we’d find out he’s not Frasier. He’s probably a nice, polite man, but boring! He’s probably going to be incapable of living up to the montage of our favorite moments on Frasier, unless he agreed to do our run-in numerous times, so we could select our favorite version of the encounter.

Of all the notable figures I met, I met a few who raised my eyebrows. I knew they were checking into our hotel beforehand, and I rehearsed our interaction a couple of times, they didn’t, and I knew they wouldn’t, because why would they? 

“He’s likely going to be more interested in what women think.”

When I met one of my favorite musicians, I must admit I was a little gobsmacked. I told him how much I enjoyed his music, and he put a hand out for me to shake and said, “Thanks. How you doing? Nice to meet you.”

While shaking his hand, I was prepared to detail for him how much I enjoyed his music. He was never in Billboard magazine, and his music was relatively obscure, so I wanted him to know how much he affected one fan’s life. I flirted with the notion that, due to the idea that he was relatively obscure, he needed to hear what I had to say. 

As I began my little rehearsed appreciation speech, I noticed he was already looking over at my co-worker, a beautiful twenty-something woman. Other than being an artistic genius, I realized this guy was a guy, and guys are far more interested in what women think. Even forty-to-fifty-year-old married men care more about what women think than some fella. Other than knowing that I was dying to meet this man, my co-worker had never heard of this man, and the two of us established that fact before he stepped up to the front desk. He quickly picked up on her unfamiliarity, and he didn’t care. He just wanted to chat with her, and he had no desire to talk to me, one of his biggest fans. He flirted with her in a polite, instinctive manner, and she dealt with it well. She was quite accustomed to anonymous men paying attention to her, regardless their age. His flirtation wasn’t cringey. He just dropped a few clever lines on her to get a laugh out of her, and after she laughed politely, he moved on, hotel key in hand. He had no real interest in her, but he had absolutely no interest in talking to me or finding out that I was a huge fan. He was a little dismissive, but he was polite, and that’s what I expected.   

Before going out on message boards to detail for the world how rude this guy was, I put myself in his shoes. If the roles were reversed, I wouldn’t want to waste my A-Game material on some fella I just met either. Men, all men, want to make an impression on women, especially when those women are young and beautiful. Some readers might stubbornly insist that the guy was creepy, but this characteristic of males starts somewhere around junior high, and it never leaves us, no matter how old we are. No matter how much notoriety a man achieves, their barometer is still set on what women think of them. The woman may do nothing more than chuckle, smile, or say, “Isn’t that interesting,” but it’s still better than what some anonymous man, working an entry level job might think. 

“How can they possibly top the impression we already have of them?”

Movies are shot to make actors appear tall, of average height, or in a way to prevent us from being distracted by his height. They have makeup personnel to prevent us from seeing how bad her skin is. They have hair stylists to prevent them from having a bad hair day. They have dental personnel on retainer (no pun intended) to prevent us from seeing their yellow tooth in the movie. Those teams gather to help the actor form an idealized image on screen. Once those teams complete the idealized image, the presentation teams take over. If the star doesn’t appear charming enough, happy enough, or strong enough in a scene, the director reshoots it until they do. Then the editors watch the final product, and if necessary, they might call the actor back to reshoot a particular scene that wasn’t perfect. If any of those characteristics are impossible to achieve on a day of shooting, they don’t shoot that day. So, when we meet them in a hotel lobby, on an otherwise boring Thursday, expect them to be different than what we expected, because most of us are, and our lasting impression of them will probably be unfair, because that’s who we are.

Bob Dylan Refused to Meet Elvis Presley 

Bob Dylan learned firsthand how meeting his heroes could prove disappointing. After Robert Allen Zimmerman became Bob Dylan, he entered into the inner sanctum of top-tier entertainers, and most of the individuals in that inner circle likely disappointed Dylan. As evidence of this when the greatest entertainer of his generation, Elvis Presley extended an invite to Dylan to meet the king, Dylan turned it down.

It sounds odd, I know, considering who Bob Dylan was, is, and what he became, but Elvis inspired Dylan early on. If that was the case, why would Dylan turn a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to meet the man down? There are reasons listed in the article, but my guess is that they all culminated in the idea of Elvis, and the image of Elvis, proving so instrumental in Bob Dylan’s early career. Dylan probably strove to live up to what he considered the Elvis ideal. Why would Dylan want to risk damaging that by actually meeting the man in real life? Dylan was never as famous as Elvis, of course, but my guess is Dylan didn’t want Elvis to disappoint him in the manner so many others had. Not Elvis. Imagine meeting that man, that guy, that hero of yours who, in his own way, caused you to be better at whatever it is you do. What could that man possibly do, or say, to encourage you onward, and why would you actually want to meet that man if he couldn’t possibly do anything but disappoint you. 

“Heroes? You’re talking about heroes? I’m not some seven-year-old sitting in front of a TV in my pajamas watching Superman cartoons. I’m a grown man. I don’t have heroes.” We age out of hero-worship, but there is always a super-secret part of us that remembers our childhood heroes fondly. They help us rekindle happened to be a very special time in our lives, and there’s no way they can live up to such lofty and unfair expectations. So, the next time you have the unexpected chance to meet one of your heroes, remember to set your lasers to “reasonable expectations”, or follow Bob Dylan’s path and just walk away to keep your unrealistic myths alive. They won’t be hurt by it, trust me, and they might actually be relieved, because they won’t have to live up to yet another person’s unrealistic expectations of them.