Of Heroes and Promises

I promised my friend Dean that I would not blog tonight about my claim that I could write a kick-ass essay comparing The Boondock Saints to Ferris Bueller's Day Off. This was after he claimed that "every coolest guy ever" looked directly into the camera.

I said no, as the parallels between TBS and FB are an overt awareness that they are each a movie, TBS in that all characters behave and dialogue in the manner of real people placed into fabricated situations, often invoking movie scenarios and the viability of such, while Ferris Bueller breaks the fourth wall to address the audience directly. (Please note that I will not be discussing this. At all.)

More importantly, I responded to his assertion that every coolest guy ever looked into the camera with the name John Wayne. We fought briefly over whether John Wayne had done so, if Dean had ever actually seen a John Wayne film, and whether John Wayne was in fact "cool." In case there was any doubt, I won all three arguments in the course of about 4 seconds. The results were, in order, no, no, and yes. Obviously.

To further cement my victory I whipped out Harrison Ford, who was totally cool as Han Solo three times, as a young version of Han Solo except with a car in American Graffiti, as Indiana Jones approximately 3.5 times and as the President, a fugitive and somehow even wearing an oversized diamond stud earring while fucking Calista Flockhart.

That's when Dean threw a hail Mary and completely missed anyone even remotely associated with football and the NFL. The XFL didn't even catch it. Maybe Bon Jovi and his failed arena team saw it pass by them briefly.

Dean said every coolest person "of our generation" looked at the camera.

Dean: "Ferris Bueller … "

Me: "Matthew Broderick? Who was 26 playing an 18 year old high school student in the early '80s? Before you were born? No. He is not in our generation."

Dean: "John Cusack in Hi Fidelity … "

Me: "When he was in his thirties … "

Dean: "Zack Morris … "

Now this one I actually gave Dean, though not at first. Mark Paul Gosselaar was in fact far older than us and playing a high schooler when we were definitively in elementary school. [I hate dating myself online, though it would have saved some time and money come prom time.]

But in reality Zack Morris was probably the biggest influence on Dean's formative years next to Corey Matthews and Mr. Feeny. Since Zack Morris as a character was reasonably close to our age, airing just after school with life lessons and characterization on par with our incredibly childish mental development, I accept Zack Morris as a suitable "cool guy" for our generation.

Personally, I always thought Zack and Corey were kind of dumb for their ages, but on the other hand I was also a smartass and had no social skills because I thought everyone my age was dumb and childish too.

You know who is the "cool guy" for our generation?

Michael Cera.

And he's only cool because he is so glamorously and visibly uncool.

Let's all get together and be awkward with better dialogue. Our James Dean has arrived, and he keeps his leather jacket in the back of his mom's old Volvo.