Many times when I think about metaphors, I think of the line from Fight Club where our trusty narrator states, "Chloe looked the way Meryl Streep's skeleton would look if you made it smile and walk around the party being extra nice to everyone." This line is taken almost word for word from the book (yes, I pulled the book off the bookshelf to double check) with the only difference being Joni Mitchell is the iconic woman replaced by Meryl for the film version. Regardless, it paints quite the picture of Chloe in her sad, accepting-death state. Except now I'm wondering why it was necessary to change the name in the first place. Was it a studio executive decision? Was it because Meryl Streep is a better known figure to the point where viewers would more easily conjure up an image of her as a reference point? This wasn't supposed to lead to so many questions, but there they are.
Note: Most of this post is the perfect example of why this blog is here. I would have tweeted something like this, but there is no way I could fully explain myself or the quote in 140 characters. I might try. Well, what do you know. I figured out a way to tweet it. Had room for a hashtag and everything. Couldn't put the whole quote in there, but I think I got the point across. Here is where I apologize to people who read both this and my Twitter.
I'm going to go with Meryl is more well known than Joni, yet iconic enough that she won't go out of style so the metaphor can last longer. Like had they used like Katie Holmes, in 5-10 years no one will know who that is. Let's all take a moment and hope that comes true...
ReplyDeletePerhaps Meryl Streep was in a movie released by the same company around the same time and they did not want to give fellow movies bad publicity? Or perhaps Meryl would not give them permission to use her name in the movie...
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