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Ten Up-and-Coming Embryos

By Sarah Kerr
Posted Tuesday, March 9, 1999, at 2:27 PM ET

Dear Ed,

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I like your analysis of the cultural sweepstakes. There's another fine example in the Post, on page 20--a preview of Vanity Fair's April issue, which highlights the next generation of "hot" young actors. The magazine has been doing this for a while, and every year the stars get about two years younger; if they keep going at this rate it won't be long before we get a special issue on "ten up-and-coming embryos." I suppose the new faces are well-known to teenagers. I recognize the names of about half, and the faces of a few more than that. But the point in these stories, increasingly, is not to recognize people who have accomplished something but to identify people who are positioned so as to possibly accomplish something in the future. It's actually advantageous to the magazine to have most readers not recognize the faces, feel insecure, then buy the magazine and feel comforted that they now have the info and the tools to perform well in today's competitive ... oops, I started treating this as a business story, but that's how stories like this are beginning to strike me.

Something similar is happening in the presidential race. You must have read all the news stories about how candidates hold press conferences every few weeks to say they're thinking about running, but everyone is terrified of actually declaring. Actually declaring would hurt the cherished sense of buildup, and rob the candidates of mystique.

It's hard not to conclude that this is bubble thinking, related to our glorious, shocking, please-god-keep-it-up-even-though-it's-slightly-suspect economic boom. I think you're right that Shakespeare in Love makes art seem plausible in today's world. Today's bubble world, let me repeat. In the film, we see Shakespeare move from unimaginative laziness to genius in the course of a brief affair with a beautiful and inspiring woman. We see him do all this rather perfunctorily, without too much psychological credibility and with very little attention to how very hard it is to write. But we accept it because we know in advance that Shakespeare has been marked out as "one to watch."

This is my quickie-deep reading of the film--that it gives us the glamour of before and after that we like so much these days, while skipping over the middle of error and effort and uncertainty that make us nervous. However: Lest I get more mail tonight accusing me of being an elitist, let me make clear. I didn't dislike the film because it stooped to water down Shakespeare for the masses. Mostly I thought there were missed opportunities. It seemed slow to me. Less light on its feet than it could have been. Less funny.

I close with a question for you. Let's set aside Shakespeare in Love. Is it possible to have good art that expresses bubble thinking? I don't believe I've seen it, but maybe I haven't recognized it yet.

Best,

Sarah