“One day, you’ll be cool. Look under your bed, it will set you free.”
This is what Anita Miller tells her younger brother as she leaves home for the first time. She had finally escaped the boring life she felt that her family had led, and as she drives away, she tells her brother to do the same.
For writers and journalists, our job is to find the best story. Even more, our job is to find the most interesting angle, the one that hopefully no one else has thought of. We search and seek out fascinating things and people so that we can tell their story. We are called to be observant in all circumstances and ask good questions, the kind of questions that only prompt more good questions. Then, we write. We thoughtfully and (hopefully) beautifully articulate our thoughts and words on a page, hoping to represent our subject to the best of our ability. And all the time, while we search and we seek and we write, we are looking for something else too. We are looking to find ourselves.
In the film “Almost Famous,” released on Sep. 13, 2000 and directed by Cameron Crowe, the audience is thrust into exactly this kind of story about storytelling. Set in 1973, “Almost Famous” transports its viewers into the prime of the past. From dingy tour buses to scraggly facial hair to drab hotel rooms in the ‘70s, this movie brings us into the life of William Miller, played by Patrick Fugit, a kid who has grown up under the careful wing of his mother and who lives without a hint of knowing who he really is. However, after his sister moves away and leaves him with her old records that he finds under the bed, he finally discovers a small piece of himself, something he truly loves: rock ‘n’ roll.
If you know anything about “Almost Famous,” you know that William realizes that he loves something more than just music. He loves writing about music. So, at 15, he sets off to become an aspiring journalist and gets hired by Rolling Stone Magazine to go on tour with a rock band, Stillwater, and write their story.
His brain was not even fully developed, and yet, here he was getting deals to write articles for Rolling Stone. Fame and glory were on the horizon for him, and even more, he got to go on this adventure to find himself — and find himself he does. I will stop there so I do not spoil the movie, but I will say that from the moment I pressed play, I was hooked.
I am an aspiring journalist, so of course I have a preexisting reason for why I love this film. However, more than that, movies about journalism present specific ideas that often lure the audience into the story better than other films might. I think that these ideas are often dreams that, deep down, whether we would like to admit it or not, we are all looking to achieve.
We love the idea of adventure. We specifically love the idea that at any given point, we could drop everything and leave to search for a “better life.” Journalism movies inspire this dream within us. They prompt the audience to believe that they could go off into the unknown and chase a great story, and that somehow, that dream could be a job. Even if you do not want to be a writer, the idea can still be appealing. We dream that the ability to live whatever life we want is within our grasp and these movies urge us to reach and take hold of it.
Not only do audiences love a good “chase your dreams” story, they also love solving mysteries. There is something deeply satisfying about finding out how a story ends after spending two hours with a movie, and it is even more rewarding if the ending is nothing like you expected.
We admire journalism movies for the same reason that we admire detective movies. The thrill of the mystery and solving puzzles intrigues us. Not only do we like this about movies, but we enjoy this about life in general. If something intriguing happens, we tend to flock to whatever it is and may suddenly become invested in things we would otherwise never care about. We often become the detective in our own lives and in the lives of those around us. Movies about journalism are just another avenue for this dream of ours to manifest.
Most importantly, however, you, me and the rest of the human race are all interested in finding ultimate fulfillment. Hopefully for believers, we find this fulfillment in Christ and in his death on the cross. However, the rest of the world is often relentlessly searching to find their purpose and meaning in society. Unfortunately, they will chase after the “next thing” (which is everything but Christ) for their entire lives and never find true fulfillment.
It is a sad reality, but for some reason, our main concern seems to be with finding ourselves. In journalism movies, writing offers a way for the protagonist to discover who they are and why they exist. Furthermore, writing gives them a way to prove to the world that they exist.
As a writer, I can say that I find this true of myself on occasion. The more I write, the more I feel that I know who I am. This is why we are so intrigued by films about journalists. They seem to know who they are and they have found an audience who will listen. In the end, we all want that.
An interesting take on a profession that I never thought of as a search for self.