This week's Take This Tune is about obsessive fans and the objects of their adoration courtesy of "He Rode All The Way to Texas" and "Superstar". As everyone well knows, it is no secret that I am fond of Hugh Jackman (Sheesh folks I may have crossed the line to "senior", but I still have a pulse). What I can say is that I never confuse reel and real. Should I ever bump into the gentleman, it would be a handshake and "It's a pleasure to meet you" and I wouldn't ask for an autograph because Californians of my era DON'T DO THAT for the simple reason that performance time and private time are two different spheres and "private time" is never to be violated.
Most fans who enjoy an artist rate somewhere along an acceptable range from "I like him/her" to "I see everything ever made or written and lust for more". Then there are those who tip over the edge into some world of obsessive fantasy. The ones who stalk, follow from city to city, turn up in private homes, or actually threaten or injure a star and their family. You have to wonder what is missing from their life that an imaginary relationship has become so desirable or how papparazzi coverage can prod the mentally ill into real and dangerous action.
Hugh Jackman made a movie called Australia. That movie contained a shower scene for which the majority of women and a certain percentage of men are very, very grateful. How popular is this particular scene? Add all of the multiple You Tube postings and it has had several hundred thousand viewings. Google it and you get over one million references for the shower alone on blog and news sites. That doesn't include all the possible permutations of searches and uploads that you didn't think of while searching or the almost four million references on his name alone.
Now one fan took that scene, slowed it down, put it in closeup, highlighted stills, put it on continuous loop and then used the music of Air and the song "Sexy Boy" for the audio. Frankly she did a better job than the actual editor of the movie which, while a lot of fun as whip lash and bodice rippers go, suffered from scads of technical problems, history mistakes and continuity errors. Enough to make you wonder why the script supervisor and match move / CGI staff weren't fired on day two of the shoot. The movie is saved by a fun if derivative story line and great acting by the whole cast rising above the problems. Maybe Baz Luhrman should have hired the You Tube lady.
Fortunately, nothing about this gift given to anyone who likes a beautiful wet male body hints of the dangerous, so sit back and enjoy while remembering that the real man was creating an iconic character, is married, actually seems to love his wife, and truly enjoys his children. Now back to a good fantasy.
