This ever-changing comic takes a new look at reinvention.
Words by Gary Pearson
I love stories about reinvention. Like that true story about the woman from the suburbs who wasn’t feeling fulfilled because her kids were grown up. She was divorced with an empty house, and at 55 years old and overweight, got retrained, defied the odds, and rode a long shot to win the Kentucky Derby. OK, that’s not a true story, but you enjoyed it, right?
We like those kinds of stories. I think that’s one of the reasons people enjoy Mad Men. Don Draper is a sophisticated, smart, handsome New Yorker with everything… and a complete reinvention from the original loser, Dick Whitman from coal country. Despite the enormous lie and the cheating, philandering and drinking, don’t we want his reinvention to stick?
Showbiz is very big on reinvention and not just in fiction. Madonna does it about every six months. She started as Madonna Louise Ciccone, an Italian Catholic girl from Bay City, Michigan. She became a huge pop star and terrible movie actress changing her look more often than some people change their socks. Remember when she had the scary pointy bra, or when she looked like she was from Mumbai? Now she’s Kabbalah Jewish, in London, with an English accent no less, living with her African child.
And I haven’t even mentioned her ongoing reinvention through boyfriends, husbands and her interesting relationships with women. Anyway, with her rapid reinvention she has completely played into our short-attention-span culture that constantly demands new things. “Madonna: like you’ve never seen her before” can’t be an easy file to work, but work it she does!
You probably want to reinvent yourself right now.
It’s not just you. About half of Shoppers Drug Mart is dedicated to the idea of reinventing your teeth, hair, scent or even digestive system. Most of the ads on television are aimed directly at you. TV ads do two things: first, make you feel like you’re a loser; and second, show you the product that will transport you out of Loserville. Only in a rich society like ours would such an idea as “reinvention” even exist. I’m pretty sure people living in Third World conditions don’t sit around thinking, “Maybe if I got a cool tattoo and changed my name from ‘Donald Radisson’ to ‘D- Rad,’ I’d be what I really want to be.”
Of course, I’m not immune to the idea of reinvention.
Now that the weather is warmer and the heavy clothes are coming off, I’d like to reinvent myself as someone who could better fit into these pants. Eating better and exercising regularly to reinvent myself is actually possible. Not likely, but possible. Like most people, I’d rather have a quick fix for my transformation that would require me to not do anything.
There are forces in life against reinvention. No matter how many times you change your hair, your job, your home, your husband… to your parents, you will always be their baby. It goes the other way too. I will always be Dad to my kids no matter what song and dance changes I make. (Note: my kids don’t like it when I sing or dance).
And be aware, not all reinvention works: New Coke. George Clooney as Batman. Joan Rivers’ face. Pierre Trudeau reinvented as Justin Trudeau.
You will be reinvented to a degree at least, whether you like it or not. It’s called age and it has the power to change everything about you. I’ve embraced it and made it my own. I’ve decided, for instance, that it’s not a receding hairline, I’m just reinventing myself by expanding my face.
Gary Pearson has written for such TV shows as This Hour Has 22 Minutes, MadTV and That’s So Weird. You can follow him on Twitter at @captainpearson.
