If given the opportunity to be James Franco for a day, would you take it?
He’s creative, sensitive, prolific, and intellectual, but at the same time fashionably disaffected, hinting at a slightly tortured artistic soul. He makes risqué films that screen at Cannes and plans to direct William Faulkner and Cormac McCarthy adaptations. He gets his stories published, but not in stuffy magazines. He got an Oscar nomination and hosted this year’s ceremony, but didn’t seem to give a shit about it. He has art exhibitions that blur the line between real and surreal. He plans on having a bar mitzvah, but he’s not weirdly spiritual, either. You can never really tell if he’s being serious or ironic. The man is a mystery.
He has played a comic book villain (in Spiderman), a masculine 1950s movie star (James Dean), a gay Beat poet (Allen Ginsberg in Howl), and an imperiled mountain climber (in 127 Hours). To show that he doesn’t take himself too seriously he did a stint on General Hospital. To show that he does take his craft seriously he takes acting classes. He controls all his facial movements, including his sexy wink. He has a beautiful girlfriend without an artificially enhanced chest.
Some of the top searches in the James Franco category on Google are “James Franco genius,” “James Franco quotes,” “James Franco awesome laugh,” and “James Franco hot pics.” He also moonlights as a college student—NYU for filmmaking, Columbia and Brooklyn College for fiction writing, a small poetry program in North Carolina, Yale for a PhD in English, and Rhode Island School of Design to do artsy stuff. He is the true embodiment of the postmodern pastiche—and he knows it.
If James Franco had been born a couple centuries earlier, for example, in 16th-century Italy, he would have been called a “Renaissance Man,” along with Leonardo da Vinci and Galileo. The question is how Franco’s achievements rank beside these predecessors. Are his accomplishments actually significant in comparison to theirs, or are they simply evidence of how unaccomplished the rest of society has become?
There is no doubt that Franco is a sex symbol. He is the type of guy who would happily have a meaningful, emotional conversation with a girl the next morning, while whipping her up a home-cooked breakfast. People have been known to stare at a particular video of James Franco for hours on end. The clip in question is just him taking a bite out of a burger, then turning around and giving his signature wink. You just can’t help feeling happier after watching it a few times. It’s easy to picture a Pineapple Express-esque scene taking place just minutes before, in the comfort of someone’s living room.
In the end, the thing about James Franco that makes him so appealing (despite your overwhelming jealousy) is that he seems like he could be your friend. He is the type of person with whom you can easily picture yourself having a casual conversation, finding common interests, or just hanging out. Despite his many and diverse successes, James Franco represents the modern day everyman and people seem to love him for it.
