The night my sister and I went to see Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was special: not only was it a school night trip to the theater for kids who were rarely allowed to see movies (even on weekends), but we were allowed to go into the theater… alone. All by ourselves. Without supervision. Instead of a hiring a babysitter, my parents let us enjoy the origin story of our beloved Donatello, Raphael, Michaelangelo and Leonardo while they went in the next theater watching Dances with Wolves. It was the biggest deal ever.
Such was the draw of Costner.
Of course, my parents are nuts for the American West and all things Native American… but how does that explain them allowing me to see Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves six times the following summer? Other than the VHSes we owned of Newsies and Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey (or the things we’d taped from TV like the edited-for-television version of The Goonies or the latter half of E.T.), I am sure I hadn’t seen anything six times- much less in the theater.
But the power of Costner was great.
The power of Costner allowed me to see movies I’d never have been allowed to otherwise: movies about mobsters (The Untouchables), movies about politics (JFK), movies about sex (Bull Durham- you thought that was about baseball?). His All-American, borderline-bland boyish charm was my gateway into stories that mattered. And I’ve been a staunch defender of his ever since. Even through this rough last decade or so in Costner Fandom, he has remained a personal favorite.
And while I could write on and on about my Not-So-Guilty-Pleasure love of Mr. Costner and his deceptively simple-looking filmography, there are other things afoot here: try as I might, I cannot write at all about the oil spill now encroaching upon my beloved Gulf Coast.
It’s hard for me to even wrap my head around the enormity of the Gulf Coast disaster; as I did during the entirety of the Bush years, I find myself running away from the news… burying my head in the sand, in US Weekly, anywhere but in reality.
Oddly, though, having the Kevin Costner angle to this story somehow makes it more real to me than all the photos of oil-covered birds and ruined beaches- as silly as that sounds. That we, the supposed mightiest country in all the world, are now turning to a once-ridiculed former movie star drives home to me how tragically desperate things have gotten.
Here’s hoping the Power of Costner can do here what BP and the President have not been able to so far: give the Gulf Coast the Hollywood Happy Ending it deserves.
Thanks to seewhyjay for the poster I will soon be hanging on my wall.
