Newstastic or Craptastic…its Newsies!

Greetings to all faithful Normalinauts.  This week, we are lucky to have a guest contributor.  She may or may not become a permanent fixture here at NR.  I certainly would be in favor of seeing her contribute more so if you enjoy the following piece of writing please let her know.  She has asked that the moniker “Oedipa Wheeler” be attributed to her and I consciously decided to NOT try and figure out what that means.

And yes, she is a female.  If my memory can be relied upon at all, this is the first article we’ve posted actually written by a female.  First women get the right to vote and now this!  Truly females are now set to rule the world.

OK, I’ll shut up now…

The beauty of a truly horrific, yet pleasurable, train wreck, metaphorically speaking, of course, given that I don’t harbor any Crash-esque fantasies, is that it brings all those perched upon the upper echelons of our society down to the level of our mediocre and downright embarrassing bourgeois lives. Movie stars are, of course, the usual “victims,” …just a moment while I brush that single, solitary tear off my cheek…of this desire to destroy the ideal. Take Christian “You’re Unprofessional!” Bale as one such victim of the tabloids. This gut-wrenchingly funny tantrum perpetrated by Bale could, in fact, be tossed off as just a part of his artistic temperament, not to overshadow his theatrical abilities. Yet, just visit your local video store and walk directly to the “musicals” section. There, my friends, you will find a film that demonstrates the true range of Bale’s acting abilities; Newsies. And yes, Bale does do all of his own singing and dancing…no stunt doubles for this Renaissance man. Or better yet visit the bookmines so I can escort you myself to this brilliant piece of movie making, giggling all the way.

The popularity of Disney’s live action musicals, à la High School Musical, apparently had not yet found its niche when Newsies made its inauspicious debut in 1992. Yet again, maybe this musical that recreates the 1899 strike of newspaper boys in New York is just pure, unadulterated crap. Bale is quoted as saying of his stellar performance, “Time healed those wounds. But it took awhile.” Time heals all wounds sooner or later, unless it’s the bruise you’ll inevitably get from literally falling off your chair laughing; that’ll take a week or two to heal. Yet, as I sit here rewatching Newsies (yes I own it…it’s hidden between Masculine, Feminine and Citizen Kane in true film major guilty pleasure fashion), I question what was the clincher that lead Bale to look back so shamefully upon this role. Was it singing catchy lyrics like, “If the life don’t seem to suit ya how ‘bout a change of scene, far from the lousy headlines and the deadlines in between!” with the ever elegant heavy New York accent. Or maybe it was the impressive bit of soft shoe he did in unison with about twenty other young men, a veritable precursor to the likes of ‘Nsync or Backstreet Boys. Whatever it was, I hold fast to the cruel pleasure I get from watching Bale’s embarrassing performance.

This pleasure, needless to say, begets some shame for finding so much enjoyment in another man’s humiliation. I gracefully reference you back to my admission that I work at the bookmines as a pretext to my forthcoming rationalization for this shameful pleasure. There is a special kind of enjoyment for a film major who has done nothing with the degree (or any person for that matter who decided to join the Humanities department much to the chagrin of his or her parents) to watch someone successful in the film industry fail so utterly. It gives hope to the wretches like us who will never watch our films light up the silver screen of Sundance, never find our brilliantly penned essays in the New Yorker, or never hear our musical opus on KCRW’s Morning Becomes Eclectic. We want to know that those established in the arts are not necessarily there because of their superior talent. They are, in fact, us with better looks and/or a bit more luck. Their failures bring them back down to us, still searching for a bit of the lime light. Thus, for the time being, I, along with my fellow unsuccessful artistically leaning compatriots, will get our kicks from these simple, disreputable pleasures.