Aside from sleep deprivation and chemical stimulants, I also enjoy films. Last night I substituted sleep with There Will Be Blood (amazing, obviously), Starter for 10 (rubbish but I would do borderline illegal things to James MacAvoy), and Ghost World (which is what I'm about to write about).
I like Ghost World. I like the graphic novel and the film. I think it captures the feeling of being utterly lost, and ill at ease with yourself, perfectly. And I can relate to Enid's sexual frustration and listlessness and sexual frustration and self hatred and sexual frustration (did I mention sexual frustration?) probably too much for someone out of their teenage years.
However, the problem with Ghost World, on first appearances, anyway, is that it attracts the very audience it's attempting to satirize. It's one of those films that self professed 'alternative' people gravitate towards.
You know the ones I'm talking about - they've become an entire demographic catered for almost entirely by Micheal Cera. And although Ghost World isn't as tailor made as more recent films for that 'indie' audience (Scott Pilgrim Vs The World, Juno & Napoleon Dynamite all spring to mind), it still has all the makings; graphic novel to film; youth and coming-of-age related themes; a pre-occupation with music, private jokes, obscure pop-culture; a protagonist with an eccentric dress sense and just overall tones of quirkiness. Kitsch, retro stuff, acoustic guitars, social awkwardness; they lap that shit up.
Some Ghost World fans may be able to recognise that they're in this demographic, so therefore attempt to distance themselves from it. These are the ones that have only a cautious affection for the film; they claim to have loved the graphic novel long before the film adaptation, whinge that most people don't 'get' it (much like I'm doing now), and complain that, like previously niche franchises such as Star Trek, Ghost World has been 'stolen'. It's almost as if they believe that this small cynicism, this rejection of what's considered 'cool' amongst their social group, gives them true solidarity with Enid Coleslaw.
And then there are the less subtle fans who buy bat-girl masks and thick glasses and profess loudly that they're totally wacky and geeky and just like Enid. The sort of people who wear T-shirts with the word 'Nerd' slapped across them.
What they all seem to miss is that yes, they're just like Enid Coleslaw, but it's not a good thing, because she's full of shit. The whole point of Ghost World, the graphic novel in particular, is that she's full of shit. Enid mocks the attempts of those "extroverted, obnoxious, pseudo-bohemian losers" at 'hip' subversion whilst actively pursuing it herself, as is evident in her ever-changing styles. Her carefully studied apathy and sarcasm are all a veil for the uncertainty, alienation and self-hatred underneath. She's not a cynic; she is completely and utterly lacking in self awareness, wholly naive. Her prank on Norman or the 'Bearded Windbreaker', falling flat and cruel, is a perfect example of this.
To phrase it extremely confusingly, if Enid Coleslaw had seen a film about someone like Enid Coleslaw, she would do just as her emulators have done and attempt to be that person. And she would claim that everyone else was full of shit, while she was the genuine article. Yes she's an outcast, but not because she's this romanticized, 'love bird in a flock of sparrows', too-weird-to-live-too-weird-to-die sort of creature, but because she's a firm believer in the idea that all you need is the outfit for the identity to follow.
I'm not saying that Enid becomes an unsympathetic character under scrutiny. The reason she has this belief, as so many of us do, is because she lives in a 'Ghost World' of endless identikit logos and franchises and advertisements, where the appearance of something is far more important than it's substance, where authenticity has been replicated over and over and individuality is lost. In the film the character of Norman, isolated, embittered and incapable of relating to the human race, is an example of where true authenticity will get you in the modern world.
Enid is also impossible to condemn because she's an honest mess - like many of our teenage selves, she doesn't know who she is or what the fuck she's doing. She's well observed and relatable, and not just for teenagers, after all here I am, aged 21, with metal shit in my face and hair dyed colours that do not occur in nature, still - as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind put it, 'applying my personality in a paste'.
Here's a good quote.
"There are women in my closet, hanging on my hangers. A different woman for each suit, each dress, each pair of shoes."
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