The diagnosis, after a Thanksgiving weekend spent sweating out a fever and testing my lymph nodes to see if they were still puffy, was mono. Mono! I used to think mono would be a very glamorous way to excuse oneself from obligations, a disease of boundless, desirably intriguing fatigue. I even used mono as an excuse to get out of seventh-grade algebra for one day, although I think the teacher was on to my ruse.
It’s nowhere near as exciting as I’d imagined when I was 12—but then, nothing is as exciting as I’d imagined then. Watching DVDs alone in my room, when not working on the homework I’m still required to do, is only fun for so long. The paradise that any culture aficionado hopes for—days spent in isolation, a Netflix account, and all the Internet at his disposal—grows shallow and dull by day two.
I’ve had a bit too much time to read articles about the Oscars and everyone’s two favorite memes thereto: “Meryl Streep is the queen of movies!” and “‘Precious’ is so good!” In my yellow-wallpaper fugue state, and surrounded by a universe of actually good movies that I finally have the time to watch, I find myself wondering if such ideas, promoted by the existence of an annual awards show that inherently pushes the middlebrow interests of the entertainment industry to the fore, aren’t in fact damaging to good art. Then I wonder if I am a snob.
It’s too close to the argument with my movie-going companion—in which I was told that I revel in cynicism, which, looking at the corpus of this semester’s columns, isn’t unfair—for me to take on “Precious.” Suffice it to say that it’s an American “Slumdog Millionaire,” for all that implies. (And if you liked “Slumdog,” good! Go see “Precious”—I know you’ll just love it.) But no one has been willing to argue with me about Meryl Streep. They just shrug as though I’m a hopeless case, and move on to a new topic. If I mention that I also dislike Cate Blanchett, there’s a flicker of combativeness in the eye of whomever I’m talking to, but it’s still not worth it for them to engage a heretic.
It’s been an unusually piquant topic as Streep is, even for her, inescapable this season, and I’ve been unusually invalid. I’ve seen her face in pixels on the cover of every magazine and read every “best actress of all time” tribute launched as her latest impersonation, of Julia Child, gears up to take on the Oscars. I saw “Julie & Julia,” but like any other Meryl Streep movie, it left me cold. I never connected emotionally with Streep’s character—or never found her to be a character to begin with. The whole thing was utterly self-conscious, a collection of tics wrapped in a fruity (if accurate) accent.
But what does it mean if everyone else enjoys something and I don’t? I don’t mean like a “Transformers” sequel, which makes truckloads of money but which people hold at the same arm’s-length disdain as “Going Rogue.” But I’m still holding a torch for Nicole Kidman to rise up as the greatest actress of our time, while dismissing this apparent magician of the screen. I know I have the right to my own opinions, but 21 seems too young to be a curmudgeon.
And have I ever tried! Devils have worn Prada, books have undergone adaptation, things have been… renditioned—still, nothing. There is, in this case, a strong mainstream, and facing off against it should feel great—like I’m some truly original thinker. But instead, I find myself wondering if I’m purposely trying to dislike Streep just because she’s popular—if, instead of trying to give her a fair chance, I’m seeing her movies just to further prove a quixotic point. After all, I did like her in “A Prairie Home Companion,” though I liked Lindsay Lohan more. Or am I just trying to provoke a reaction with that opinion, too?
Streep will keep making movies, of course, my opinion be damned—if the woman can get nominated for an Oscar for her clowning in “Doubt,” her hegemony knows no bounds. And I’ll be known to my friends as the guy who hates Meryl Streep. When the trailers for her movies come onscreen (as the “It’s Complicated” trailer did recently), they’ll laugh. I guess I can’t feel too bad about it—I’m being called to account for a strong opinion! It’s how discourse works. Still, I wish I were spending my energies and the fire of my debating powers on something more meaningful than whether a praised actress is deserving of less praise. I could have written about something more deeply felt for this, my last column. But whatever—I have mono, after all.
Daniel D’Addario is a Columbia College senior majoring in American studies and English. He is the managing editor of the Columbia Political Review. The Unbearable LOLness of Being runs alternate Mondays. opinion@columbiaspectator.com
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