Never let it be said that this blog lets a good idea from its commenters go to waste. Even when that good idea emerges in response to a monotonous manifestation of the enormous ego of one of the blogosphere’s most ubiquitous hydra headed trolls. While Pavlov’s Cat is no doubt right that basing one’s entire orientation to life on a film is somewhat superficial, on the other hand, as a number of commenters indicated, it might be a neat thought experiment. For there is a serious point here – the mass medium of the film does actually provide something of a socialising phenomenon in modernity. (Whether that’s still true in late or post modernity is perhaps another debate.) For instance, I was recently alerted – through reading Israeli sociologist Eva Illouz’ Consuming the Romantic Utopia: Love and the Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism – to a really huge project conducted in America in the 1930s – the Payne Fund Studies. Chicago School sociologist Henry Blumer asked adolescents about the impact of movies on them (and in many ways the 30s was the height of Hollywood dreaming). He found that a lot of teens modeled their dating behaviour consciously on film scripts, as it were:
When I saw “The Pagan” I fell harder than ever for Ramon Navarro. All my girl friends talk about is these wonderful love stories. When I see a picture like that it makes me like my steady boy friend all the more… it happens that through the movies I have learned to close my eyes, and I use that “Deep Bend” pose.
From watching love scenes in the movies I have noticed that when a girl is kissed she closes her eyes; this I found that I also unconsciously do. When [boys] go to make love, to kiss or hug, I put them off at first, but it always ends in them having their way. I guess I imitated this from the movies because I see it in almost every show I go to.
There’d be a post itself in the reproduction of gendered themes here, but on the other hand, there might also be a post in the contribution of James Dean to the formation of a self-consciously butch lesbian culture and style. But off you go, it’s a thread by popular request, so do what you like with it! 
Me, I’ve got no doubt that part of my life project derives from the eponymous lesbian vampire in Michael Almareyda’s 1994 Nadja. Or maybe I’m just a 90s Elina Löwensohn fan girl! (And, yep, that’s David Lynch in the vid…)
Let’s face it, in this world theatre and film are the best tools we have for producing empathy and through empathy communal well-being and tolerance. The shared experience of pop culture doesn’t hurt either, even if it is mostly Spider Man sequels.
BBB
Well, I dunno about all that, but the constant grinding noise I hear isn’t tinnitus – it’s because I’m a “Kiss Me Deadly” kinda bitplayer badly miscast as a major player “The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp” – and the gears of reality keep overcompensating.
As a nipper, Daffy Duck and The Sheriff of Nottingham were deeply formative, and as my middle years begin to pull into view I am pleased to note that I increasingly resemble a Brundlefly admixture of the two. This may prove Orwell’s maxim about the faces we deserve, but to me it feels more like a reward.
I always thought Hollywood had a lot to answer for in Dubya’s response to 911. The John Wayne inspired swagger of “You can run but you caint hide!” looks quite hollow seven years on. And the characterisation of Osama Bin Laden as some sort of Bond villain (Blofeld?) when he more closely approximates Jack Van Tongeren has done the yanks no good at all.
Oh you foolish foolish Tellurians, making 24 frames every second in obeisance to primitive archetypes like Bugs Eastwood, Daffy Cruise, Bolly Wood, the Loan Arranger, Blade Hudson, Rock Roller, Gyllenhaal Farm, Dr Barry Kubrick, Oscar and Bruckheimer Indie Prod jr.
Boskone has been monitoring your transmissions on the electromagnetic spectrum for many *untranslatable* now. It is clear that you do not really grasp the true, and juicy!, talents that walk among you on both feet. Where is the real acclaim for your great works of kinetic fantasy like Lovelace Reagan, JR Dallas, that great dancing comedy duo, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, the Shatner Trek and Newsanchors.
Yes, the eye of Boskone hears all and the ear of Boskone sees all. We will overwhelm with superior intelligence your UN President Barberella and all her Coalition kinky boot forces. Then we will show you how the legions of Boskone shave Ryan’s privates.
And who will be laughing then at Parental Guidance and its thousands of sequels?
NB: That was a rhetorical question. Any answers will result in conscripted into handling negaspheres in the bowels of a Mauler.
Good try Kim. The question of individuation of course plays a part.
‘ King Kong ‘ was big during the greatest revolution of all time. The CNT even named an armored car after him.