Anatomy of a Jiggle
Or: In Defense of 2017 Baywatch
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SHOWS
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Hello Sternal Journalists!
A memory of mine that I think is likely to stick around for a long time if not forever goes a little something like this:
It was some years ago. A couple college friends were in town and we engaged in college-y behaviors: drinking, dancing, drunk food, passing out in a clump on a couch.
All of it was good and old-fashioned and fun. In the morning, as we lounged around and discussed or danced around moments from the night before, one of us flipped around the AppleTV to see if there were any new movies out.
Everyone was down for a movie to ease us back into normal life and somebody suggested the relatively new at the time Baywatch reboot starring The “Dwayne Johnson” Rock and Zac Efron and Alexandra Daddario and some others fit or comically unfit people.
Here’s where things get Sternal Journal-y. I don’t actually know what happened immediately next. I don’t remember whether I expressed interest in watching or if I was already rolling my eyes a bit. I don’t remember what else we were even talking about watching.
What I do remember is that we watched all two hours and one minute of Baywatch, and as the credits rolled and there were likely some pretty solid bloopers, I said something along the lines of “Probably about as bad as I thought it was gonna be.”
I don’t know what I was expecting, but what happened was one by one, each of my friends said, “I dunno, I actually liked it/I thought it was pretty funny/I haven’t seen a movie like that in a while.”
They loved it!
Here’s the thing: Baywatch has a 17% on Rotten Tomatoes. I was technically right that it was a bad movie.
But my friends (who, by the way, are very smart, very successful people; people who are, by any standard metric, oodles and caboodles more successful than I am; people who just don’t happen to be “in creative fields.”) were not worried about whether it was a bad movie. They weren’t worried at all. They were just nursing a hangover alongside loved ones and looking for a way to pass the time.
This is not novel. People who work in creative fields or want to work in creative fields or even just fancy themselves creative people have always enjoyed trying to bolster their high standards and generally this has made them a bit snobby.
What is novel to me is that as we round another year on the planet together, and as I get to see some friends less and less frequently, I realize that I don’t want that and I don’t know what to do about it.
I’m really just trying to say that all week I’ve been thinking about this French movie I saw last week, Anatomy of a Fall. I don’t think this is very spoiler-y, but in case you want to go in blind, don’t read any further:
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Okay, so it’s about a woman whose husband dies after falling or jumping or being pushed from the attic of their house. The whole movie, all of the characters want to get to the bottom of what happened, and the whole movie, you feel like you’re getting closer to an answer. But ultimately, you learn nothing definitive.
That should be unfulfilling, but to me, it was just familiar. We are living in a time when there are more subjects and events and things than ever that we are expected to not just know about, but to somehow know the truth about. But we can’t possibly!
And that’s wild! That’s hard! That’s stressful! And I think this movie really captured what it feels like to constantly be engaged in this hard-take manic quest for definitive truths about everything we swirl through in our day to day.
And then…
I’m like…
Why is that all that I like right now? It might be good, but it’s not old fashioned or fun. That would be a terrible hangover movie. My friends? My friends would have hated it. It has some wry humor, but Baywatch still has probably tenfold the amount of physical comedy, and not a single Anatomy review referred to its “jiggliness.”
And like, I’m gonna go home for the holidays and see some of these people and they’re gonna ask for a movie recommendation and I’ll say, “Yeaaaah, there’s this great one that’s half subtitled and it makes you question your relationship with truth.” And they’ll be like, “Uh, is The Rock in it?”1
And to be clear, I’m not even that much of a snob. I love DJ Khaled. I love Rush Hour 2. I love plenty of fun, medium- and or low-brow things. So the fact that even I can’t code-switch on this stuff is bad news.
I love all of the things that I love and I think it’s cool to interact with movies on the level described above, but I also know that pop culture is a language and sometimes I worry that I’ve spent so much time in this one dialect of it, I won’t be able to speak to people I really care about.
And unlike the 2017 Baywatch, that is not fun or sexy or jiggly.
Recommendations!
Heat. Film. I watched this for the first time this week. I actually think it is the answer to all of my fears above, which is to say that it’s a high brow film snobby movie and completely commercial and fun. Maybe I’m just full of shit. I couldn't stop thinking about how Amy Brenneman’s character, a graphic design student about to enter the workforce in 1995, was going to be doing so at a very bad time because of the internet.
Red Button. Song. I love this new song on the expanded edition of his recent album, For All The Dogs, specifically for the compliment he gives to Taylor Swift.
Anne Hathaway at Target. Video. You may or may not have seen me rock this before, but this was one of my best (and best taped) performances of it ever. I had a little cold also so it kinda adds to the manic raspiness. It has 16 views on YouTube which is pathetic.
“I run an L.A. homeless services organization. But I can’t afford to live in L.A. anymore.” Op-Ed. I’ve never met Nathan Sheets, but staff at his organization The Center are some of the most helpful and effective people I’ve met in homeless services within LA. And now, as Sheets, states in this op-ed, he’s having to leave behind the organization he helms because he can’t afford to live here. It’s a gut punchy and necessary reminder that the housing crisis affects everyone, regardless of housed status. Worth a read!
But now for some positivity before we go:
Alrighty, hoping your week ticks up from 13% to 18% and that the human quest for truth doesn’t distract you from having fun with your friends.
Much love,
Julian
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I’m generally against remakes of foreign films (because I’m a gross snob), but I would watch the fuck out of a shitty studio remake of Anatomy of a Fall starring The Rock and Kevin Hart.
Dig this and jazzed to chat with you more about it...and about Heat.
Also: The “Dwayne Johnson” Rock 😂