Dude!

Since I almost always have a DVD playing when I’m hanging out at the apartment, I’ve seen some of the movies on that shelf countless times. Oddly enough, one of the films that holds up viewing after viewing and that I continue to watch quite often is 40 Days and 40 Nights, that 2002 comedy in which Josh Hartnett’s character, Matt, gives up sex for lent. So lately I’ve been wondering—what makes this movie, which seems on paper like it would suck, so appealing?

One of the scenes that I always think about with respect to 40 Days and 40 Nights is the one in which Matt, in the confessional opposite his priest-in-training brother John, comes up with the idea of giving up all this sexual for lent. At one point, while John tries to talk Matt out of the idea, Matt opens up the confessional door and points directly at the large crucifix in the cathedral while he smiles and says, “Dude!” I think that what makes this so great is the contrast between the striking informality of the “Dude!” gesture and the seriousness of the suffering Christ on the crucifix in the dark, severe interior of the cathedral. It’s absurd, and I’m all about absurdity. In addition, “dude,” like “fuck,” is an extraordinarily versatile term. There are several possible meanings when Matt points at Christ and says “Dude!” He could be expressing newfound comradeship with his savior, praising Christ for having figured it all out so long ago, slapping him a spiritual high-five of sorts, or even looking to the crucifix for strength to go through with the vow. All of this potential adds a pleasant depth to the scene. Also, like “cool," "dude" as a slang term seems as though it will persist, unlike terms such as "tubular" and "bodacious." This means that the “Dude!” scene won’t necessarily seem dated in a few years. This whole thing reminds me of the “Buddy Christ” in Dogma because it’s an example of pop culture using some form of the crucifix for comedic purposes. Anyhow, there you have it. Look for spiritual enlightenment in bad Josh Hartnett comedy.

Brian the Chicken Fryer?

On Sunday, I played Risk, the classic game of world domination. JJ, Megan, Mariah and I sat on a blanket in the park and let the sun warm our bodies as we slaughtered hordes of imaginary millions for our own amusement. A puppy someone else brought bounded around awkwardly nearby as its owner seemed to take pleasure in sharing with it what must have been one of its first park experiences. Even more nearby, a large group of twentysomethings arranged a first-rate picnic. They had a little hibachi, coolers, multifarious blankets, and more importantly, several kites, including a pink Barbie kite, which they proceeded to lodge in a tree, one of barky those millions that line the aesthetically pleasing modern shore of Lake Michigan north of Chicago. But why would I tell you people all of that? This doesn’t seem like that kind of blog, does it? Of course it doesn’t. And isn’t. But think about those twentysomethings. Think about the four of us, and think about the puppy’s owner. Does the fact that one of the twentysomethings is about to move to Nashville for his residency matter? Do we need to know that he’s in med school? Do you need to know that I teach English? Much like Martin Blank, “I don’t think necessarily what a person does for a living reflects who he is.”

Like Martin Blank, Tyler Durden in Fight Club holds a system of belief that doesn’t associate vocation with identity in the sense that most Americans do. Tyler Durden doesn’t care if you’re a waiter, an auto mechanic, janitor, a junior associate manager, or an accountant. That makes no difference to him. What matters instead is how effectively you can battle against the system in order to break free of it. By the end of the film, Tyler doesn’t pay big-time rent. He doesn’t own a car. He doesn’t want digital cable, or a clever end table in the shape of a yin-yang. Instead, he’s destroyed credit card companies and set the credit record back to zero. He’s managed to extort a year’s salary out of a despicable automobile company. He’s destroyed a number of those horrid chain retailers that make our landscape so disgustingly uniform that an intelligent person might no longer be able to tell whether he or she were in the suburbs of Seattle, Austin, or Newark. Our hero, Durden’s transcended the work week and made something interesting of himself. He is not Tyler Durden the waiter or Tyler Durden the Soapmaker.

I can only hope that in my future as an attorney, people will know me as Brian, not as Brian the Lawyer, and that at present, people know me as Brian, not as Brian the Disgruntled English Instructor. At the same time, how could our occupations, those things with which we spend exponentially more hours than we do with each other each week, not affect our identities? If I go to law school and spend 60 hours a week studying law, how do I avoid becoming Brian the Law Student? How much do you consider your identities to include your vocations? Does this bother you?