When I look back on movie and my childhood I notice two discernable periods, the first being a time when movies were an extension of the wonder that I had with the world, and vice versa. The second being when I started to see movies as a means to alleviate youthful angst. In all, movies were an outlet of escape.
I have this special affinity with Michael Eisner, in the mid to late 80s Eisner was the VP of Disney who would host “The Wonderful World of Disney” on ABC many Sunday nights. To me and my elementary school self, Eisner was my Santa Claus. My parents hadn’t ever given me the satisfaction of thinking that Santa existed, so my young need for a magical giver of gifts fell on the shoulders of Michael Eisner.
Probably, Eisner (now CEO of Disney) is greedy scum, but whether I’m reading about his ham fisted handling of Pixar, or his attempts to fend off Comcast, I cheer only for him. He gave me Herby Goes Bananas and The Shaggy Dog Returns, the least I can do is give him my good will. This was the time where Disney ruled my life. Extended family had given me in oversized clunky VHS boxes, copies of Dumbo, Pinnochio, and Sleeping Beauty. I watched these movies almost as much as I read.
As I grew up, Disney got a little old. But never fear! Godzilla came! As a 9, 10, 11, and 12 year old I loved movies with conflict on a wide scale. Not being allowed to see “R-rated” movies meant that my appetite for destruction was limited to two choices. I could watch Japanese monster movies, or 40s and 50s war movies. These were two great choices. For a favorite double header my best friend and I would watch Perry Mason (actually Raymond Burr) defend Tokyo against Godzilla in Godzilla: King of the Monsters, then we would see another American, Robert Mitchum lead the boys in killing the same Japanese in Gung-Ho.
The first glimmerings of the association between cool and movies came up in the same time. Sometimes, (OK, actually quite often) we would watch Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II. Oftentimes, we wouldn’t even watch the whole movie, just Vanilla Ice singing to the turtles, “Go Ninja, Go Ninja Go.” We’d jump up and down, and feel good.
Sometime after we got our Ninja on I stopped having friends. I still watched a lot of movies. More war movies, more obscure monster movies, anything that could carry me through the loneliness of a Saturday afternoon with no friends. Before I totally dropped off the map into the abyss of geekdom I realized something huge. Watching movies, being able to quote them, talk about them, know them was a window to respect in middle school Hell.
Rather than loving movies for their magic, I started to very self-consciously love movies for what they could do for me. I stopped caring about a genre. Instead, all my focus went to the “R-rated” genre. To use the word genre is a bit of a misnomer. In middle school “R-rated” movies carried currency. Saying you’d seen one of them meant you were cool. You learned bad language, cut-downs, saw cool violence, and maybe, just maybe, someone naked! I could sit down at the lunch table and announce to the kids around me that the night before I had seen Legends of the Fall. This announcement, or one like it, would inevitably be greeted by many oohs and ahhs. However, not one of these kids new anything about Legends plot, or its critical respectability, or cinematic quality, all they knew was that it was R-rated. And that was all that matter, anyone that had seen Legends had to be cool.
My transformation was complete. Movies weren’t cool, cool was cool. It had become a status unto myself in my life, it didn’t matter what I watched, as long as it was cool.