Um ...

I've been thinking quite a bit about The Wrestler and other movies the past couple days, especially with the Oscars coming up on Sunday and all that nonsense.

After reading a few reviews of The Wrestler this morning (I stay away from reviews til I've seen movies, or at least have written about them on here, these days) I noticed authors repeating the same sort of sentiment over and over.

Something along the lines of, "this is a film about the decline of someone who was once on top of their game, even if that game was something only morons and kids young enough to believe in fakery could like."

Like I said in my previous post about this movie, I have never been, nor will I ever be a fan of wrestling. I think it's stupid.

But I think that it's a little easy to dismiss something like wrestling because it's "fake."

They write it like it's a revelation, and us readers and people in the audience are supposed to say, "Oh, really? Thanks, movie reviewer. Up until your brilliant analysis for The Worcester Telegram and Gazette I was not aware that wrestling was fake! All my love for this magnificent display of athletic prowess has died now that you have let this gigantic cat out of the bag."

Why should wrestling catch any more shit than anything else? I think that The Wrestler does a good job portraying the reality of the sport, and how the people involved believe in it as entertainment, how they love the reality of its fakery.

Which is exactly why it's so intriguing there was a movie - something equally as fake - made about this.

Really, "fake" just is a synonym for "illusion." And I love illusion. You can make a ball disappear under a cup? You have my attention. Because I can't do that. I can't do slight of hand. I can't make a rabbit appear out of a hat.

Do I believe it's happening? No.

I know the snake-lady isn't half-snake, half-woman. But I love that for a second, I believe she is. I love that I can buy into that display.

I love it because I know it's not happening. Because there's an honesty in the illusion. No one ever claims that it's real. They claim the reality behind the illusion, the reality of their love for the art of illusion. But never that what is being seen is all that's going on.

And that's not fake. That's more honest than so many people I know in life.

Perhaps that's why I loved this movie. Perhaps that's why I love magic shows and sideshows and circus freaks. Because they're unabashedly true to themselves. And they will never pretend to be something they're not.

Honest people, people that are themselves and do not care what other people think, people that can see when others are being dramatic and nonsensical for the sake of it, people that have quirks and claim them - those are the people I love. People that may seem like characters, but who are entertaining and witty and real, without trying to be any of those things.

The last paragraph may seem like it does not fit the rest. But it does. It does.

What a weird long rant about this, eh?