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December 12, 2003 |
Pulling A Travolta (PAT), as I explained in my last post, refers to a bad actor who has an undeserved career renaissance by associating himself or herself with a quality project. The PAT may turn out to be a universal law of celebrity culture (aside: it's just for laughs, OnceBitter). The key is to locate the three essential points on the curve of John Travolta's career: what is the actor's Saturday Night Fever (the initial success), what is the actor's Look Who's Talking Now (the lowpoint), and what is the actor's Pulp Fiction (the undeserved rebirth)? Consider some more evidence.
Robin Williams. I can still see the Entertainment Weekly magazine cover that crowned him the "funniest man alive." In my nightmares. Like Travolta, Williams was a TV star first. It's hard to say which film was his true breakthrough, though. He had some success with Popeye and The World According to Garp, but I'm going to say his "initial success" point is 1987's Good Morning, Vietnam, which grossed almost $200 million in domestic box office receipts. Unlike Travolta, Williams did not immediately plunge into Hollywood's gutter, for the most part because he associated himself with talented directors (Peter Weir for 1989's Dead Poets Society, and Terry Gilliam for 1991's The Fisher King).
However, Williams did manage to make some crappy films before his inevitable rebirth and acceptance as a "true" actor. Cadillac Man, Shakes The Clown, Toys, Mrs. Doubtfire (which, despite its box office success, I will label his "lowpoint"), Being Human, Father's Day. All of these shit sandwiches prepared fertile ground for his accidental career rebirth in 1997's Good Will Hunting. This supporting role -- courtesy of a decent script and director Gus Van Sant -- made everyone forget Moscow on the Hudson. This was Williams' Pulp Fiction.
But a true PAT cannot end his career with a triumph. No, he must use his newfound power to pick more personal and more prominent roles (thus illustrating his lack of taste, and the luck that has posited him at this fortunate juncture). So, following Good Will Hunting, Williams appeared in such masterpieces as What Dreams May Come, Jakob The Liar, Bicentennial Man, and Death To Smoochy.
Too many male PATs, you say? How about Julia Roberts, then. This is a classic PAT. She rocketed to success with 1990's Pretty Woman. She bottomed out quickly with 1994's I Love Trouble, decided to investigate the bottom for a few years with Something To Talk About and Mary Reilly, and then resurfaced a triumphant and true actor with an Oscar for 2000's Erin Brockovich, her Pulp Fiction, her Good Will Hunting.
This triumph allowed Ms. Roberts and her horselike guffaw to make The Mexican, America's Sweethearts, Full Frontal, and Mona Lisa Smile. She totally pulled a Travolta.
Too many white people? How about Cuba Gooding Jr.? His curve goes like this: Boyz N The Hood (success), Lightning Jack (lowpoint; I mean, shit, it was written by Paul Hogan), Jerry Maguire (undeserved renaissance). Since Jerry Maguire: Instinct, Chill Factor, Pearl Harbor, Snow Dogs, Boat Trip, and, well, what time is it?
Man, I'm having fun with this. If you think of other PATs, please leave a comment.
8:35:27 PM 
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Lately, The General and a friend have been fleshing out a phenomenon we like to call "pulling a Travolta." The phenomenon got this name based on the post-Pulp Fiction career of actor John Travolta. If you are familiar with the expression "jumping the shark" -- which refers to the moment when a TV show or actor or cultural phenomenon goes from good to bad -- then you will understand Pulling A Travolta (from now on, PAT). PAT refers to the celebrity culture phenomenon when an undeserving actor (read: a really bad actor, a talentless fuck) achieves fame, loses it momentarily, then is reborn to fame again, and in this rebirth makes a string of absolutely shitty movies. In other words, we are interested in how shit propagates itself in American celebrity culture.
Take John Travolta, for example. He had plenty of general success on TV before he made movies; but his career should have died on TV. Instead, through Saturday Night Fever and Grease, Travolta became a big movie star. Then, for most of the 1980s, he virtually disappeared into a string of bad movies (worse than SNF and Grease, for example). The unthinkable durability of the Look Who's Talking franchise kept him working, but he was far from an A-list movie star. Until Tarantino cast him in 1994's Pulp Fiction, and suddenly Travolta's career was reborn. Unfortunately.
Since Pulp Fiction, Travolta has been making one shit sandwich after another: White Man's Burden, Get Shorty, Broken Arrow, Phenomenon, Michael, and the list goes on. The most notable turd, of course, is 2000's Battlefield Earth, in which Travolta did not have a dancing scene, but he did manage to suck, along with the entire film, in an orgy of sucking.
Travolta has essentially two versions of his acting self: the grinning would-be charmer, and the smirking would-be villain. There's no room for subtlety in the Travolta acting repertoire. He shows you he is a bad ass by smoking in a dainty fashion, or maybe by cackling and speaking his lines in some kind of faux-Shakespearian accent. When he's a good guy, he still has that dumbass smirk that, I suppose, is frozen on his face to highlight his dimples and million-dollar teeth, but he doesn't smoke or cackle so much.
The point is: To pull a Travolta is to have an undeserved renaissance in an undeserved film career. What Pulp Fiction did was to add another ten to twenty years of John Travolta-featuring shit to the pop culture landscape. Don't get me wrong: I like Pulp Fiction. But it's unintended consequence was to further the career of a shit-poor actor.
Who else qualifies for a PAT, you might ask? How about Sandra Bullock. Sure, she's likeable. I don't despise her like I despise Travolta, but that doesn't make her a good actor. Let's face it, she was not the reason for the success of Speed, and yet her career continues almost in spite of itself. After Speed, she made While You Were Sleeping (While You Were Crapping), The Net (The Crap), Two If By Sea (Two If By Crap), A Time To Kill (A Time To Crap), Love and War (Love and Crap), and so on. Why does she keep getting work, and getting paid so much? It's not as if her movies are successful, or that she is a great actor. She basically Pulled A Travolta, turning a pre-Speed career of Demolition Man and Love Potion No. 9 into a post-Speed PAT.
Sometimes an actor can redeem himself. Sometimes a PAT is not the last word. I thought for sure Nicolas Cage was PAT after the success of Con Air, but his performance in Adaptation was flawless (and I can't help but think that Raising Arizona alone excuses the rest of his career).
But I'm sure list of actors who have "pulled a Travolta" is a long one. There are many actors who continue to pollute popular culture because at some point in their careers they were lucky enough to be associated with something successful.
1:55:38 AM
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