Growing Up Is Hard To Do

by QICHEN ZHANG

No one really thinks about why the movie industry has leeched onto modern life. It's so easy to accept the fact that you're paying $10 to sit in the dark with a bunch of strangers, getting early stage diabetes with your box of Jujubes. But if given a moment to think about it, the answer is nothing new. Cinematic timelessness haunts us. Despite this being a pretty primitive way to signify its entertaining quality, it perfectly describes the contemporary obsession with movies.

Every time a soccer mom sits down with her glass of Arbor Mist to watch Now and Then after dumping Timmy off at the park, she is incredibly capable of ignoring Melanie Griffith's mullet and see past all the late '90s denim in favor of more important recurring themes - of growing up, of family issues, of pre-teen whoredom (sometimes known as puberty). Not only do we accept the universality of young experiences, but we extrapolate and start believing that the actresses themselves live in a world that operates free from the rules of time. Who cares about time when you've got Christina Ricci's forehead eternalized?

But at the same time, this unique characteristic of cinema could very well destroy its appeal. The shock of realizing that actors are under the same cruelties of time as mere humans sends every time-specific movie down a spiral of disappointment. The inevitable confrontation of actors separate from their characters is like shock therapy. "What do you mean Nicholas Hoult is going to look like Nick Nolte in 50 years? Stop yanking my chain!"

I command you to look like this forever, damn it.No one ever wanted Anna Paquin to grow up after The Piano. No one ever wanted to witness Macaulay Culkin get married and divorced, all within two years. And maybe I'm alone on this one, but I sure as hell never looked forward to Brad Pitt growing a beard. Further examples help emphasize the point.

Someone buy this man a razor--this can't be legal.Exhibit A: Thora Birch. As Teeny and the younger version of Griffith in Now, there is a more pressing question than "What the hell was the casting director thinking?" The issue crops up after considering her entire repertoire. Not only was Birch kind of crass to professionally experiment on her then-audience in American Beauty as a rebellious, tortured suburban teenager pining after a boob job, it was totally unwarranted. I liked you already, Thora. Teeny had an attractive innocence that Jane will never embody, no matter how big her chest got. If you really wanted to make a career statement, you could've just gotten the boob job yourself instead of veiling it under a fictional characterization. Don't be a pansy, T-bone.

Just doin' my thang, being a teenager, gettin' all angsty on you.Exhibit B: Katie Holmes. Oh, the virtue of Joey Potter. Give me one reason to not like her and I'll ask why there are two more guys in every episode chasing after her than after you. Those puppy eyes and angelic charisma easily made the WB audience of lonely fan girls forget how the entire six-season run revolved about sex (and no one ever getting any).

Figure 2. Angst continued.Had we just left Holmes as is - as a mere vessel for one of the most relatable characters in primetime history - everything would've been fine. No exposing Tom Cruise's dwarf status. No awkward bob haircut. No domesticity association and horrifying redefinition of what it means to be a modern mom, which apparently involves getting coiffure tips from Posh Spice.

The product of Spice Girls idolatry finally bubbling up to the surface, otherwise known as a new, all-time low.Exhibit C: Dakota Fanning. Okay, so maybe time wasn't so cruel after all. But I'm still not convinced that Foxy Fanning growing up is a good thing. Let's just talk about how one moment I'm being victimized by her playing games with my heart as retarded Sean Penn's adorable daughter in I Am Sam, and the next, she's practically playing the baby to Letterman's cradle robber on The Late Show.

Just want things back the way they were!Maybe the most important lesson to take away from these examples is that we should be more aware of a fictitious time frame and realize that, no matter how awesome and sassy Thora was as Teeny, "Mel with a mullet" had to replace her eventually. Facing time's reality can be painful. After all, isn't movie-watching supposed to be a way for us to escape conscious life? But while it's difficult to prevent ourselves from letting the character mask time's effects on the actor, maybe it's something we absolutely need to do to enjoy the paradoxically permanent yet temporary performances that we find memorable.

Or maybe Dakota Fanning could start wearing more clothes.

Qichen Zhang is a contributor to This Recording. She is a writer living in Cambridge. She tumbls here.

"Lifeline (Barefeet version)" - Citizen Cope (mp3)

"A Father's Son" - Citizen Cope (mp3)

"Keep Askin' (acoustic)" - Citizen Cope (mp3)