S.F.W.

 

In case you haven't noticed, we live in a culture that is considerably multimedia based. Not just the multimedia of old either. It's a virtual assault on all your senses as so much of our time is collectively spent surfing the Internet catching up on everything from recaps of shows we watch to reading about what our friends are doing in their spare time. Many bemoan that this ability to instantaneously receive information has reduced us to slobbering ADD messes who can't focus on anything that requires us to spend more time than a 30 second commercial runs. To me, the biggest downfall of the new media is the ability for any knucklehead to turn themselves into an overnight sensation. Andy Warhol once made the observation that, "In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes." I don't think Warhol knew how right he would turn out to be. All you need is a camera anymore and some prop and you can create a video clip that can gain you notoriety. Even one of the biggest music stars in the country today was founded through videos uploaded to YouTube (It's Justin Bieber if you've somehow avoided his story and catchy pop music). I think the compelling question though is- why do we attach ourselves towards making other people famous? Is it just the want to bask in the reflected glory, or BIRGing, off of those that are not that dissimilar from us? Or is it a New Age commerce we are looking to create, a Marxist spin on commodification? Both of those are questions for another day (and I've wrote a 23 page paper on it a year ago to prove that) but the movie S.F.W. from 1994 attempts to answer the questions that it didn't know would exist today.

Cliff Spab (Stephen Dorff) and his friend Joe go out to the local convenience store one night to buy some beer. While there they, along with three others, are taken hostage by a terrorist group that are masked and carrying cameras. The terrorists issue a demand to the television studios that they are going to tape the victims and they want the footage shown live every night during prime time or the hostages will die. This leads to a massive standoff with the police that stretches to 36 days with a few of the hostages being killed. This leaves Cliff, Joe, and Wendy Pfister (a very young Reese Witherspoon) who are left. The terrorists threaten killing the remaining few every day by putting a gun to their heads. Cliff gets fed up with this and becomes indifferent to being shot by the terrorists. He begins taunting them by yelling, "So Fucking What" at the camera for all the world to see. Cliff and Joe eventually formulate a plan to escape with Wendy but in the ensuing gun battle Joe is shot and killed.

When Cliff an Wendy emerge from the building, Cliff is dubbed a hero for saving Wendy. The memory of Joe is pushed into the background of the story because the media wants to focus on the positives. Cliff's brother comes to the hospital- Cliff had taken a bullet to the shoulder- and takes Cliff home to an awaiting media circus. Cliff despises the attention he is getting and leaves with Joe's sister (Joey Lauren Adams), eventually having sex with her as she mourns her brother and resents all the attention for Cliff at the expense of her brother's memory.

Throughout all this we see that Cliff's world is now turned upside down. The city, and country, have adapted his saying into the more family friendly, "S.F.W." It is on billboards, magazines, commercials, and even a cut out in the fast food joint where he worked. They even have a burger special for 36 cents. Cliff asks where the picture of Joe is and the boss says it doesn't matter because "Joe is dead." The implication being- the ones who don't get out aren't worth talking about.

Cliff calls his friend Morrow (Jake Busey) to help him out and they go to Morrow's sister's house. She is a big shot lawyer and she offers Cliff the advice that he should relish his fame and exploit it for every last piece of money he can get. She also is massively attracted to him because he is a celebrity of sorts. Cliff decides to skip town and hitchhikes with a couple who discuss their marital problems with Cliff. At this moment Cliff starts to turn in his beliefs, and sadly- this is where the movie begins to fall apart.

Cliff starts taking advantage of his newfound fame getting hotel rooms for free and convincing others to party with him when they have other things they should be doing. The allure of partying with a "celebrity" is too much for the common people around him. He does have his own desire though which is to be reunited with Wendy. It's clear that in their time at the store they forged some bond that is drifting towards romance. They finally meet and go back to the store only to find it boarded up as a crime scene. Cliff confides in Wendy that he would trade all of this for a nice, quiet, romantic life with Wendy. I won't spoil the ending scenes other than to say that if we've learned anything from new media it's that the best way to kill memes, is to create new ones. Here though it feels like a bit of a cheat.

Director Jefery Levy (who went on to direct episodes of popular TV shows like: Monk, CSI, and Rescue Me) does a good job in the first part of the film of forming a compelling story. Part of that is the writing of Danny Rubin (who did the vastly under appreciated Groundhog Day) who speaks critically of the way celebrity is formed. The story is that much of this was based on what was happening with Kurt Cobain. If you recall, after Cobain died the speculation was that this was a young guy who got too much fame too fast, and didn't know how to process all of that. The same thing happens to Cliff here and when he is reluctantly battling with the implications of that- this is an excellent film. Dorff, in one of his earliest roles, shows promise as an actor here. Promise that you could argue he never quite got to again consistently. He portrays Cliff as being a troubled sou who is trying to balance his sense of accomplishment with his resistance to accept it. I mean- he was a hero in some regards, but it was his plan and it ultimately led to the death of his friend. When Adams pops into the film it really takes off in the first half. She provides the voice of dissent to the circus on Cliff's front lawn. They want the positive story. They want to solely focus on how brave Cliff is. Monica, Joe's sister, forces Cliff to fully confront the feelings of guilt over Joe's death. You see glimpses of it in the restaurant scene but there is a small portion of him that plays to the crowd in the place rather than doing it selflessly. Monica makes him focus on Joe and in those moments he rejects this newfound fame. He knows the cost of it all.

Morrow's sister represents the flip side of that in a sense. She advises him to embrace it all- in part because she wants to get a cut of the profits- but also because that's how she views him. He isn't a real person, he's someone who is famous. He leaves her but then begins to see that he can't run from his problems- they are going to follow him everywhere. That's a fine message but the script goes way overboard in having him embrace that. It turns him from a sympathetic character into a jerk. If you push away with one hand but accept with the other you still have a karmic balance that balances you. Here Cliff forgoes all of that to just indulge in what people want to give him. They try to push Wendy back into the story here and it works to some degree. Wendy represents both worlds to him and is the middle of that road. She knew him before the chaos, and knows him after. She seems him though as the guy before the fame and glory. In the end, that's what he craves. He doesn't want the fame and fortune, he just wants the existence he had before all of this started. The people who have become viral celebrities more often than not want the same thing.

At times, I really enjoyed this film. At other times, I feel like the characters made questionable decisions and the script let the internal story down. It's an interesting film though for the times we live in, and is probably more relevant today than it was when it was first released. In that time, the Internet was not even close to what it is today. And the allure of fame and fortune is far too easy to grab. Many seek it, but some like Cliff have it thrust upon them. It'd be interesting to see a story as to how they handle it. The film can currently be found on your On Demand channels in the free movies section under Impact (Well at least on Comcast. If you have something else you are on your own).