"Vacarious Significance three times removed"

Question: What is more pathetic than watching middle aged men and women dress up as a superhero to make money shilling for photographs on Hollywood Boulevard?

Answer: A middle aged man watching a documentary about them?

But allow me to explain. I am teaching Don Quixote right now and I thought it would be interesting to watch this movie as a means of exploring the line between a midlife crisis and insanity. Or between a bad job and insanity. Maybe there isn't one. I was thinking that this documentary might make some interesting connections between the quintessential midlife crisis insanity of Don Quixote  and the quasi-insanity of Sancho Panza and the lengths that some people will go to in their quest for some sort of meaning in life, or at least a living.

But I am not sure that I can make a comparison really. I mean, Don Quixote may have a fixation on being like his superhero, Amidis De Gaul, but he intends to actually BE like him. He intends to go forth and right wrongs and defend the helpless. He doesn't go out in an Amadis De Gaul suit and charge money for pictures. Maybe this is a sign of the times. Even our superhero wannabe's are more like Sancho Panza than Don Quixote.

But now this superman lookalike is finally in a movie with him as a leading role? So many its time for me to get a superman costume and dress up like him and stand outside his door and charge people to take pictures with me looking like him looking like superman. Vicarious significance three times removed. But SOMEONE out there is bound to be so devoid of personal significance that they may just may pay. They just may.

I am always amazed that no matter where you look, there is someone who will find the love of their life in just about anyone. This fake superman looks like Christopher Reeve. Its his primary claim to fame in life. And one day he is at a showing of Somewhere in Time and he meets a woman who sees the resemblance and falls in love with him. And she doesn't care that he spends his entire life impersonating Superman for cash on the sidewalks of Hollywood. Indeed, she is perfectly happy to get married to him while he is wearing his Superman outfit. Totally obsessed with superman memorabilia, and action figures and comic books. But she loves him. She loves him. How does that work? Are we simply not allowing people to be different enough in our world? Is this why it is so difficult to even think about looking? 

 Amazing.

“So, without giving notice of his intention to anyone, and without anybody seeing him, one morning before the dawning of the day (which was one of the hottest of the month of July) he donned his suit of armour, mounted Rocinante with his patched-up helmet on, braced his buckler, took his lance, and by the back door of the yard sallied forth upon the plain in the highest contentment and satisfaction at seeing with what ease he had made a beginning with his grand purpose.” Don Quixote

I guess its why I like this movie. Its about people who are just so far under the radar of being someone ... fighting to stay alive by pretending to be someone else ... while they fight their way into some sort of a life of their own. And isn't that what so many of us do anyway? What are you doing with your life that makes it worth a documentary? That's the question I am asking myself tonight?  

Question for Comment: If someone was EVER going to make a documentary that would have you in it, what would the documentary be about?