Posted by Smalls at syr-24-24-14-133.twcny.rr.com on January 20, 2002 at 12:06:03:
In Reply to: Let's see... posted by Vincent on January 20, 2002 at 02:09:02:
But I dunno, I just assumed that everyone either has known those characters or has been those characters... I've been where Enid was more than a couple of times, where Buschemi's character was, too.
Too obsessed with irony, exhausted by irony, trying to escape irony but not being able to get away... yearning for a non-reflexive time that probably never existed.
The life I've lived and am living really caused Ghost World to kick me in the ass, slap me around and see where I'm at.
I guess I just... when writing that post... forgot that that way of thinking, those themes aren't as universal as I think they are, as my life and the lives of the people around me are so caught up in those thoughts.
Maybe I read into it, but the surface "about nothing" theme struck me as a lashing out AGAINST being about nothing... not just the nothing of popular culture but also the nothing of hipsters who only react ironically and cyncially against the nothing.
The search for the path beyond both blind acceptance and hip cynicism... maybe it's an informed optimism... is very much where I'm at right now. Perhaps I projected way the hell too much of myself onto it.
I personally connected... probably too much... with the characters and the subtext, maybe so much that I couldn't see how others wouldn't.
*shrug*
Mike