WARNING: Here be spoiler
There's a scene where Jerome, our young protagonist, is taken by his new best friend, Jimmy, to an apartment where resides a Strathmore graduate, a surly balding man whose once-prodigious talents have fallen way to narcissism, angst, and vodka. He sees Jerome with his bright-eyed optimism and tells him that if he wants to become a great artist, he'd better learn to suck cock. Jerome loses his luster, retorting that his talent will carry him to his goal but the jaded cad maintains, militantly, obsessively, convincingly, that sucking cock is the only way he'll be able to get anywhere in the business; the dankness and depression of his apartment and lifestyle apparently his testament of never selling out to the Pink Nazis. Jerome, spiraling down into scorn and desperation, finds himself with a less-deserving rival for not only the top spot in his class but also for the hand of Life Drawing model Audrey (the aforementioned drop-dead gorgeous Sophia Myles) and, in an effort to gain entrance to an important gallery show where Audrey and rival Jonah will be, pleads with the gallery owner, getting down on his knees, saying he would do anything to get in. Zwigoff leaves it up to us to imagine how Jerome got his golden ticket.Spoiler ends here
The cad is right. About sucking cock. Sort of. Cocksucking isn't always cocksucking. It can be, and oftimes is, but not all of us partake in that particular hobby (although the Casting Couch is alive and well in the mythos of the theater). The ideas (and the risks behind it) are very real. In the business of making a living out of art, you will be forced to do things you aren't comfortable in doing. You will have to exploit yourself for the sake of a greasy buck. You will have to take on projects you absolutely detest just so you can use your talents and instincts to pay your bills.
I felt I had done all that already. I dropped everything 2-1/2 years ago and went on tour for three months with a children's theater group living out of hotels getting paid chicken feed just so I could live a life as a full-time working actor. I halted all sense of a regular career to work at Starbucks and maniacally audition for shows for over a full year. I ended the paying summer gig this year so I could promote my own work instead. I thought I had done my work in the trenches and was ready to be promoted to Officers Training School. Start an empire. Make a name.
Apparently I haven't even started sucking cock.
In fact, I believe, the more you want it, the more cock you'll end up sucking.
Huh.
Step 1: Choose a better-tasting metaphor...
I felt I had done all that already. I dropped everything 2-1/2 years ago and went on tour for three months with a children's theater group living out of hotels getting paid chicken feed just so I could live a life as a full-time working actor. I halted all sense of a regular career to work at Starbucks and maniacally audition for shows for over a full year. I ended the paying summer gig this year so I could promote my own work instead. I thought I had done my work in the trenches and was ready to be promoted to Officers Training School. Start an empire. Make a name.
Apparently I haven't even started sucking cock.
In fact, I believe, the more you want it, the more cock you'll end up sucking.
Huh.
Step 1: Choose a better-tasting metaphor...
6 comments:
this is all sooo very true! That IS indeed what's required of you to really get anywhere. By the way, I love you're new picture!
I disagree with this on a lot of levels Kevin. You know there are no fast tracks to success by any means. You should never sacrfice your integrity to please others. 2-1/2 years is just the beginning. You have yet to pay dues, now stop complaining.
As for you Jennifer, if that is what you believe to be the means to success, then you will achieve nothing but compromise. Ambition will avoid you and others will only use you.
If this is what you believe to be true then you have already failed.
Jin, you're my new best friend.
Paying dues is one thing, compromising your morals and degrading yourself (in any way) to cut corners is quite another. There's great satisfaction in clawing your way to the top, or even the comfortable middle, and knowing that it was your talent, hard work and persistence alone that got you there.
Oh my.
>.>
Well, since everyone seems to be putting in their two cents, I will too.
I believe that what you call cocksucking is actually just trying to grease the wheels of your life. YOU have to be the one to make them go. YOU have to do the work. YOU take the brunt of everything bad that comes your way, and you have to make sure you please everyone around you in the meantime.
I think this is something that happens to everyone, in varying levels, during their lifetime. Of course you want to get somewhere else, and fast. Who doesn't? It is human nature to want to get what we want and get it right away. To say that there is great satisfaction in getting what you want after a long time of hard, nearly impossible, and tiring work is quite possibly true, but also a ridiculous idea to force onto someone in the middle of that process. No one can honestly say that they didn't want to speed through some difficult times.
A very large part of life today is integrity, and how often it is for sale. One definition of integrity is incorruptibility. If anything that you have done makes you feel that you have somehow corrupted yourself then you have, of course, sacrificed your integrity. But for a reason. You do it willingly because of the light at the end of the tunnel. "All of this will lead somewhere, eventually, I just have to endure a little bit longer."
There are thousands of paths in life, and this is the one you are on, this is the result, and eventually there will be an end.
Can everyone be down with that? I certainly can. And, dude, peoples. Don't go attacking people for having an opinion that is different than yours. That's unfair and unkind. It's just a blog. Where everyone shares their opinions. Kindly.
I think what's at the heart of the the comments here is just what is the difference between greasing the wheels and participating in seriously questionable dealings? Dressing up like Barney for a 4 year old's birthday party because you want to impress her director father... sure, greasing the wheels, trying to get on someone's good side. But dressing up like Barney after hours because the director father has a furry fetish and promised a small role in a B movie? Or intentionally sabotaging someone else's audition or performance? Or doing copious nude "modeling" and sex scenes because it's the easiest way to get noticed?
We all have a line we draw, some are in sand and others are in stone.
Jennifer: Heed these warnings. You will get a much better picture of the lay of the land if you listen to all voices involved. And thanks, it's my driver's licence photo.
Jin: I haven't paid dues. I'm admitting that to myself. Honestly, I don't see much how we disagree. Integrity is for art. Cocksucking is for business. My fallacy was believing that one leads to the other.
Nicole: There is a warm feeling one gets in the satisfaction of a job well done to the best of one's ability. Warm feelings, however, do not pay off school loans. R. Crumb worked as a graphic artist for American Greetings. Thomas Pynchon was a technical writer at Boeing. Brad Pitt put on a chicken suit for his first few gigs in L.A. Everyone suckles the corporate teat for a while; that, or dies in relative obscurity and, perhaps, posthumous glory, knowing they clawed their way to a comfortable middle.
Elizabeth: Thank you for saying all that. It saves me the trouble of having to do it.
"Great" doesn't necessarily mean "of high quality". Less subjectively, "great" can mean "of large stature", or "most widely known". Of the latter definitions, in reference to this metaphor, I don't think I'm too far off the mark.
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