Obsessive Fans

The Fan (Der Fan)

The Fan

Greetings, dear readers, and welcome to September. The leaves are changing, the wind is picking up, Starbucks finally released the PSL from its capitalist clutches, and I can finally pretend that it’s fall, even though the temperature still remains at above 90 degrees. This is a time of change, a time of a reflection, and a time for me to find an excuse to watch more movies. A few weeks ago, we examined pop stardom and its many dangers, framed by the stories of two troubled stars and their journeys to peace. And with the revelations made with the case of Britney Spears, and other women held hostage by their careers, its become so much easier to sympathize with and understand what dangers might drive a diva to doom. One thing that’s always been easy to understand, though, is fandom. Everyone is a fan of something, somewhere, someone—whether living or dead. It’s human nature to pick out our favorite people from a crowd and think about them, identify with them, act like we know them, even though we do not. I am personally a fan of many things and many people, not just Zac Efron, whom I do still have a cardboard cutout of (HSM2 era), and not just the fictional Princess Jasmine, whom I do still have a collection of things with her face on them. I like to collect and obsess, like any true fan, but in this day and age, fandom can look very different from just cardboard cutouts and little shrines. The term “Stan”, derived from an Eminem song of all things, is the current colloquial term for someone who isn’t just a mere fan, but something more. More fervent, more dedicated, more relentless in their obsession. Nowadays there are stan accounts on social media, and blogs, and whole websites, where not just the object of desire is touted, but the fandom itself. Your loyalty is measured in more than just autographs and selfies and heartfelt notes, but in keeping up with Deuxmoi, and in ones constant stream of concern for and awareness of their favorite people. I thought I had a pretty good understanding of stan culture, until I went to a Harry Styles concert. As my sister and I drove up to The Forum in Inglewood, CA to see the sparkly queer-baiter, we were gobsmacked to see a line of about seven hundred young people, wrapped around the building. We were concerned: would we have to wait in this line? So we pulled up to a girl adorned with feather boas and colorful eyeshadow to ask what they were waiting for. They were, all seven hundred of them, waiting in line to try to buy tickets. For an already sold out show. Out in the cold, wearing nothing but glitter and pure hope, they were willing to do anything to secure tickets that did not exist. I’d seen Beatlemania in documentaries and news clips, I’ve seen tasteless paparazzi get in the face of famous people, (and I’d be remiss not to mention the #CutForBieber phenomenon), but I had never in my life seen fandom like this, out in the open, so unwavering and so unafraid. And while you can certainly be just a casual fan of something, this is what level of fandom there is now, and I fear there is no going back. Decades ago, when social media and Deuxmoi and the Jeremy Renner app didn’t exist, fandom could only go so far, until the archetype of the uber-fan was discovered. Sure, these parasocial (or one-sided) relationships have always existed—fans of Arthur Conan Doyle’s “Sherlock” books held funerals for the fictional character when he was killed off, and fans have pretty much always been writing fanfiction—but the depths of their obsessions never typically reached a level too dangerous. Mark Chapman (John Lennon’s murderer), and John Hinckley Jr. (Reagan’s attempted murderer [so close!!! ugh]) were perhaps the first very publicly-known crazed fans, who enacted their plans in the name of supreme celebrity obsession (in Chapman’s case, as a disappointed former fan of Lennon’s, and Hinckley as a huge Jodie Foster fan [who can blame him]). Many many other cases of stalkers and obsessive fans going too far would surface, only some of which were as wild as the fictional fans portrayed in tonight’s two films. Both of tonight’s films are titled “The Fan”, both were made in the early eighties, and yet they each delivered two uniquely riveting tales of fandom and obsession. Up first is a 1982 German thriller directed by Eckhart Schmidt called The Fan (Der Fan), that follows an incredibly driven, incredibly obsessed teenage girl who sets her sights on a pop idol that goes by the name R. This techno-filled, chicly-costumed, erotically-charged film was thrilling, chilling, and unpredictable, and yet it somehow left me wanting more. It had an aesthetic that was both dreamy and creepy, and Désirée Nosbusch as the obsessive protagonist Simone was believably unhinged in her performance—but it still left something to be desired. The best parts of this film were shocking and scintillating and therefore, mustn’t be written down and spoiled. What I can tell you was that the film did everything that it possibly could to sell this teen girl’s obsession, from the camera’s ambivalence toward background and supporting characters, to the odd but perhaps appropriate use of nazi imagery, to Simone’s focused but dead-eyed gaze—this film was determined to portray this girl as fervid and unshakable (even though, no offense, R was cute, but not like, “kill for him” cute). Because this is a European film, there was no shortage of nudity and in some instances, just straight up soft core porn. The addition of male frontal nudity is always appreciated, but given the fact that Simone is naked for literally half of the film, it doesn’t have the best balance. The soundtrack was fun, with its John Carpenter-esque synths, the fashion was exciting, and the choice to tell this tale entirely from Simone’s POV places us more directly into the mind of an obsessed fan. This is the kind of film that could act as the perfect background decor for a smoky party where you want to seem cool, and for those new to the genre of psycho-sexual horror, I would venture to say that this film could even be terrifying. But if you’re like me, if you’ve seen nearly every psycho-sexual thriller and macabre romance, I don’t think The Fan will fill you with much shock or awe. Moving away from the sole POV of an adoring fan was Edward Bianchi’s 1981 thriller, also titled The Fan, which gave us more than just a glimpse into the life of those placed on these impossible pedestals. The Fan introduces us to Douglas Breen (played by Michael Biehn): record store employee, and voracious fan of the fictional screen and stage actress Sally Ross, played by the imitable and irreplaceable Lauren Bacall. We don’t get to know Douglas that well—only through the brief shots of him in a home that is plastered with photos of a much younger Lauren Bacall, and through his letter correspondence with his favorite actress, or more specifically, her secretary. But we do learn a bit about Douglas through some subtext. In addition to some scenes in a gay bar, Douglas is queer-coded through his obsession with Sally, alone. Many of these narratives of dangerously fixated fans exist, but I’d never before seen one like this, where the protagonist is so clearly queer, and yet he rejects it so much. He instead projects all of his un-lived fantasies unto Sally, who unknowingly has been receiving unsettlingly erotic letters from him for a long time. It’s convoluted, no doubt, but The Fan features a queer character and queer anxiety, even pre-AIDs, in such an interesting and dare I say, believable way. It makes perfect sense that he would be obsessed with the dazzling Lauren Bacall, no matter whom she’s playing—her dashingly deep voice and her hilariously blasé attitude was irresistible, and at times, laugh out loud funny. Much like the German The Fan, this film had plenty of high fashion and high stakes, but here the volume of campiness was turned up just slightly. I read a review of this film that described it as a “Lifetime movie with swear words”, and I can’t think of a more diminutive descriptor for such a genuinely fun and frenzied movie. Between the excellent dialogue, the excellent delivery of it, the dedicated and crazy-eyed performances, and the unintentionally hilarious musical numbers that Lauren Bacall was forced to participate in, I was the obsessed fan here. While there have been a myriad of these overly fanatic characters in cinema, The Fan managed to keep my focus and keep me guessing. As much as European horror tends to wow me, I actually found the English-speaking film more entertaining this time around. And any crazed fans out there should pay close attention to these stories, where the fans fancy themselves as “not like the others”, when in fact, they prove themselves to be worse. And to my adoring fans, my reluctant enablers, and my vociferous haters, I hope you’ll tune in next week.