Affleck by proxy

I’ve been staring at this blank space for ages. Keep trying to type something, sure that I’m ready to write. I feel mysterious, probing, but what is the direction of my thoughts?

Sitting awkwardly on a western style toilet, my back a curled bone; stomach half contracted and confused about bowel movement, I passively gazed towards a newspaper. I saw a strap line for an article that was in a different supplement. It asked ‘Can Superman Rescue Ben Affleck’s Career?’

I had to wonder, well do I care? I didn’t care, no. But what grabbed me was the headline’s inherent suggestion that I should already consider Ben Affleck’s career as having gone down the pan. Clearly I have no such idea. I know he did some films a while back, some good, some shite. I remember he suddenly became unfeasibly ‘in your face’ when either he met and fell in love with J-Lo, or hired a more ruthless publicist.

We've become routinely cynical about this. It’s apparently normal to think of publicity relationships. In Hollywood, anyway. Does that happen anywhere else? Have Hollywood cornered the world stage for marketing partnerships, arranging B to A list climbs through long term companionship?

Entire marriages of façade. Getting married surrounded by parents and celebrities. Having children, settling down. All done for the purposes of keeping a high profile. Keep dem bucks rollin’ in!

Surely not.

But I read an interview with him online and it seems that things are going well now, things are really looking up for him.

I imagine what it must be like to write on a gossip magazine. Those few lines above suggest that I could probably do a sterling job. I wonder if I’d eat properly.

But to chronical these massive lives! Entire existances brought into being by distant speculative narration. I suspect it is the ultimate role for a successful actor, to finally be allowed to play themselves, but through the wincing absurdity of the telephoto snap. A main part in the media flick.

“Look, the big star, he still buys milk!”

It is method acting. One really suffers, I'm sure.

"Oh look here, Affleck buys milk looking all pissed off! It's probably cos Jennifer's put on a few pounds this week. (Or that I'm directly complicit in the erosion of his sense of self.) "

To be fair, in most cases, celebrities survive their media/drug hell and ‘return to our faces’ with a confirmed sense of purpose and wisdom. They won’t be taken for that media ride again! Was it ever their choice?

It is interesting reading a potted career of a generic celebrity. In this case Affleck admits that he pretty quickly sold out. He began with aspirations of art and beauty and was successful enough to get his first film made into the watchable ‘Good Will Hunting.’ He then ended up doing a bunch of ridiculously heroic films (Armageddon, Pearl Habor) and became cynical and money/status obsessed.

So, as armchair rantit, I tut and say things like ‘oooh, that Affleck’s career is on the rocks. He wants to start doing some more acting, and stop getting drunk and feeling up television hosts’ (see this).

I am so trained to assume that if I don’t know what an artist is doing then they must, (by reasoning that we used to know what they were doing) have sunk to the depths of hideous obscurity/drug hell.

And it’s so often the simple case that the once-A lister is happily digging away on stage productions that don’t need world wide publicity. Would you fly to New York to watch Ben Affleck play McMurphy?

Don't answer that.