Twisted Spinster

(Title Track.)

"I'm the Burger King!"

I suppose I’d be pissed off too if I’d spent a fortune to go to England to see David Tennant play Hamlet only to find that he couldn’t perform that night due to being made of flesh and blood. On the other hand, I’d be in England! Seeing Shakespeare in his country!!! And I could get better closeups of Mr. Tennant watching Doctor Who on my dvd player so I’d get over it. People in Blighty are so spoiled. They are surrounded by art and history and all they seem to do is moan and complain, and so many UK denizens (Scots, Brits, Welsh, whatever) seem to have taken a headfirst dive into the worst crap 21st century culture has to offer (drinking until you can’t see in flashy clubs that play loud, awful music; dressing like thugs and whores; having absolutely shit taste in everything — Skins? Big Brother and its spin-offs? — and their enabler government just indulges them because people are easier to control when all they’re thinking of is the next drunk or the latest cute celebrity). I used to be like that (except for the dressing like a whore part, I could never bring that look off, I just looked like more like a nerd than ever) but I got tired of it all eventually, including the rabid fandom that meant I’d be crushed with disappointment if the opening band I’d bought the expensive concert ticket just to see ended up not appearing because the lead singer got laryngitis and, you know, couldn’t sing.

I gave myself a much-needed reality check: life is too short to be a fan. It looks like the crazed Doctor Who fanatics also need a slap upside the head with Mr. Real Life’s cluebat. It’s one thing to be on a tv show or in a movie — you can do more than one take, or cleverly film around an actor’s illness, broken ankle, inconvenient pregnancy, etc. But the whole point of live theater is the fact that actors are real people who can get sick or injured. That’s why they have these things called “understudies.” I’ve been to maybe two live plays in my whole life and I know that. And not one word from Tennant’s adoring fan to express concern for whatever is wrong with him — what’s that all about? I’ve had a hurt back, and I can tell you that it’s a special debilitating pain that no painkiller really takes care of without knocking you out, and you can’t find a comfortable position either lying down, sitting, or standing. I wouldn’t wish back pain on my worst enemy. And it might never go away. In any case — whether he really does have a bad back or is actually drying out from a heroin binge, you’d think somebody would say something indicating they acknowledge he’s a human being. The human race, sucking for 200,000 years!*

And the critics are no better: here’s some prime blaming-of-the-victim from some guy called Tim Walker writing in the Telegraph bitching about “the folly of celebrity casting” and how it’s a ” form of miss-selling” because celebrities attract people who “are likely not enjoy the experience.” Erm, for one thing, who are you to say who might or might not enjoy something they’ve never done before? And b, or second, or — anyway, how is the fact that some turnip decides they don’t like plays except unless their speshul fave star is in one the fault of the casting director, the theater, the star? This is just more of that “indulge the little people in their little desires, don’t let them get into new things that might GASP change them, above all don’t make them take responsibility for their own behavior” bullshit that is becoming the chief characteristic of too many Western nations (including, increasingly, our own). If you spent a week’s pay on a play you normally wouldn’t bother going to just to see your special guy, he doesn’t show because he’s injured, and you let that spoil your evening, it’s no one’s fault but your own.

Sometimes I think Western culture is doomed and this is one reason why. What’s really sad is that most of the people interviewed in the first story were well into adulthood, not teenage girls. Grow the fuck up, ladies. Get men of your own — I’ll bet more than half of these fangirls are single and have wasted their youth looking for the “perfect” man, and that all their male friends are gay.

*According to Wikipedia anyway.

Update: I wouldn’t blame you for thinking I’ve totally written off American actors, and I mostly have (British actors at least usually go into theater after they become big stars on tv and in the movies; American actors just go to Hollywood, which is increasingly like being dead), but Gary Sinise is an exception. Ooh, and there’s a new episode of CSI:NY tonight. It’s all about some mysterious energy field near the Empire State Building. I guess they never cleared out that Dalek laboratory.