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18. Being Keanu
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18 Being Keanu R. L. Rutsky IF THERE IS such a thing as an exemplary figure of U.S. cinema in the 1990s, Keanu Reeves may be it. In the context of this volume, such a statement may seem rather like a cheap joke, as if Keanu—dismissed as a “slacker Ken doll” whose acting skills and general intelligence have often been the object of ridicule—were symptomatic of a premillennial degeneration of cinema: “the end of cinema as we know it.” In such a joke, Keanu would be cast as symbolic of not only a cinematic but a cultural decline, in which prettiness triumphs over intelligence, style over substance. Keanu, in other words, would stand as the very emblem of the banality and sheer stupidity of the postmodern culture industry. It is not, however, my intention to launch yet another critique of the obvious shortcomings of contemporary U.S. cinema and culture. Nor do I wish to make any argument concerning the intelligence, or presumed lack thereof, of Keanu Reeves. If Keanu is emblematic of anything about 1990s cinema and culture, and I believe that he is, it has much less to do with vague notions of stupidity or banality than with important cultural changes in how identity is portrayed and perceived. Indeed, over the course of the last decade, Keanu’s films—from the Bill and Ted movies (1989, 1991) to Point Break (1991) to Speed (1994) to The Matrix (1999)—have exhibited a consistent concern with issues of identity and its instability, with a lack of fixity that is often figured in these films’ emphasis on movement. At the same time, the case of Keanu highlights certain assumptions concerning identity that underlie a good deal of “serious” film—and cultural—studies, including the often unstated idea that “auteurs” and “actors” are active, thinking subjects (i.e., artists) while “movie stars” are passive objects, mere products of the culture industry. My point, 185 however, is not that stars, with their increasing power in Hollywood and the consequent ability to shape their own careers, should now be considered artists or auteurs.1 Rather, I want to suggest almost the opposite : if we wish to understand the movements of popular culture, it may be more productive to disregard our old notions of purposeful authorship —and identity—and to look instead at the fortuitous cultural patterns and associations that swirl around a star’s persona and body of work.2 I am not, then, arguing for Keanu Reeves as some sort of auteur , but for the cultural significance of the links and associations that make up his persona.3 BEYOND STUPIDITY Much of the derision aimed at Keanu is a result of the perception that he is dumb or, at the least, flaky. Keanu has, in fact, often described himself as “goofy.”4 Much of that perception was clearly a result of his role as Ted in the Bill and Ted movies. As Michael Shnayerson noted in his touchstone 1995 article about Keanu in Vanity Fair, “The dumbness rap grew out of Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. So well did he play the Valleyspeak teen and air-guitarist extraordinaire in the 1989 hit and its sequel that [many] assumed Keanu was Ted.”5 In fact, in many of his early interviews, Keanu seemed to be playing Ted off the screen as well as on. As Gus Van Sant, his director in My Own Private Idaho (1991), noted for a 1991 article on Keanu, “Keanu can lapse into Ted. Sometimes he can be momentarily possessed.”6 As time has passed and Keanu has played more varied roles, the perception of Keanu-as-Ted has faded somewhat, but the conception of him as none-too-bright has remained. Indeed, both Speed and Feeling Minnesota (1996) have jokingly played on this perception. Even in The Matrix his character is portrayed as, if not exactly stupid, then certainly something of an innocent. A number of his directors have, in fact, commented on this sense of “innocence.” Kathryn Bigelow, his director in Point Break, has noted that there is “a purity and an innocence to him.”7 Similarly, Bernardo Bertolucci felt that “Keanu has an innocence I felt was crucial to the role of Siddhartha—his innocence is on his face and it goes to the core of his personality, and that’s why I cast him.”8 Yet, if a certain innocence translates well into such proto-messianic figures as Siddhartha and Neo...