How Channing Tatum Affected Hollywood

I found myself wondering in the shower after class the other day: Is there anything in my life that I could compare to what people experienced decades ago when movies hit the big screen? I couldn't think of anything off the bat. The way I imagine it... people were blown away by this thing called movie. An image. Huge. On a white screen. It's a pretty monumental jump to go from something as small and simple as a zoetrope, or theater with live people, or real life, even, to a larger than life moving image on an otherwise inanimate, boring screen. This. Was. HUGE. What new invention have I seen come to fruition that rocked the world as widely as film? Ipods, perhaps, are the only widespread new entertainment technology that has happened in my memory. Although, Ipods are not to me what movies must have been to the public way back when. Is this because the progression from walkman to Ipod was the natural next step? I'm not sure.

Learning about the history of film in the sweetened, condensed way that we did last week made me realize just how little I know about so much. It was refreshing to be knocked down on my intellectual rear end and be humbled once again. I was fairly impressed at the rapid pace at which humans have been able to make progress in the filmmaking world. It seemed like such a short span of time for us to move from the primitive stop motion of George Melies's The Conjuror to Footlight Parade with wild, aquatic choreography by Busby Berkeley. I guess I always imagined progress in Hollywood as slow, though now I don't see why.

I was struck by what Donna said about how old film reels are pieces of history because people didn't understand that they were being recorded. I immediately felt sad that now and forever, humans won't be able to treat cameras that way again. We've been conditioned to either run to the camera in hopes of being caught and published or hide from it or pretend it's not there, leaving us looking like suspicious and awkward creepers.

At the same time that it makes me sad that film has had this affect on humans, I'm also so grateful that movies have been a part of my life. When I was seven, I wanted to have hair like Ariel... so I layed in the bathtub for hours swishing my hair from side to side. When I was thirteen, I watched Tom Cruise do daring and dangerous stunts in Mission Impossible... so I organized a cross neighborhood spy game. When I was sixteen, Channing Tatum lifted his dance partner above his head in Step Up... so I fainted, then immediately wanted to drop everything, find a chiseled hottie, and become a professional dancer. There's no doubt that film has influenced my life in a number of ways.

I think I'll enjoy this class.