Now, you've joined this fan site for Keanu Reeves (a seriously underappreciated actor). Are there other things that you do to express your interest in Keanu? For example, do you follow websites and blogs on Keanu? Do you check out clips of him on YouTube? Do you have posters of him on your wall? Do you read articles on him in magazines? Have you ever written him a fan letter?

I'm also interested in the role of the paparazzi in how fans 'reach' their favorite stars. If you check out YouTube, there is footage of Keanu being hounded by paparazzi (even headbutting a camera). And there are always photos of him in magazines taken from the 'stalkerazzi'. Is it important for you to see these photos and images? And why?

To tickle your fancy, I have a playlist of Keanu Reeve footage from YouTube that I'm using for my research. Please to enjoy: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=6FCFFD0AF2E1ED1A

If you're not keen discussing here, feel free to message me.

Thanks,

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Are there other things that you do to express your interest in Keanu?

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For me, the stuff I do in fandom is mostly on the creative side; there's this website, which I designed and programmed from scratch, and I'm in the process of searching out all the articles I can about him to add to the archive. I'm subscribed to the Google News Alerts for 'keanu reeves', so I get a daily e-mail that rounds up the news and I just take the important articles from there to post here. I drop by the other Keanu fansites now and then to see what they're up to, and if they have stuff I don't, and so on.

I don't have any posters or pictures of him anywhere. I have a thing against pictures of people because I... feel watched. Eyes creep me out. But that's mostly just me. I've never written him a letter because I know he doesn't read them, though I did once send his manager Erwin Stoff a short letter asking him to tell Keanu to pretend he has an Xbox 360 after my father told my brother that he could have one "when Keanu Reeves does".

I prefer text to video because I don't have the stamina to sit through a whole interview when I can just read the transcript and look at any accompanying pictures; takes about a quarter of the time or less. So yeah, not much Youtube.

I do write a lot about Keanu though; there are the essays, the bulk of which are over here: http://www.whoaisnotme.blogspot.com, and then fan fiction about his characters, the main one of which is this incomplete work: http://www.whoaisnotme.net/others/TNPEAOTKS_FDIP.doc - "The Not-Particularly Excellent Adventures of the Keanu Spawn" and its spin-offs (not on the site, but I can send them to you if you want), which involves 20-40 of Keanu's characters interacting and getting on each other's nerves. There's a plot there somewhere... They make a brilliant ensemble cast, and I'm not the only one who thinks so: a friend of mine wrote something similar, where 27 of Keanu's characters and him take part in a reality TV series. Hilarity ensues. I've been working on the graphic novel version of that after she commissioned me as artist.

Meanwhile, The Matrix - my favourite of Keanu's films - was a large part of my inspiration for teaching myself computer programming. I like computers, so I would have probably done so eventually anyway, but The Matrix helped. This site also provided me with an avenue to test out my programming scripts and improve on them, figuring out what works and what doesn't, and seeing them used by the members here.

More recently I've been also working on a medley of music from various Keanu films, currently running at about 3-4 minutes and including 12 pieces, all adjusted for the piano. When I've had enough practice I plan to record it and make a video out of that.

In the area of research, courtesy of fellow WINM member LucaM I have also delved into the various works related to Keanu films - for example the Hellblazer comics on which Constantine was based, and gained a deeper interest for author Philip K. Dick - whom I already liked - after Keanu acted in the film adaptation of his A Scanner Darkly.

It is through Speed and Street Kings that I also got to notice composers Mark Mancina - whom I knew previously only from his awesome score for Twister - and Graeme Revell, and thus went to seek out more of their works on Youtube to listen to. Great musicians. I used to be in my school band and have this thing for film scores.

LucaM just left for a week-long holiday and can probably add a lot more in this area when she gets back, but I know that she's done a lot more in the area of Keanu-related readings - for instance checking out and reading a lot of James Ellroy's other novels when Street Kings was announced, and having a gigantic Hellblazer collection, checking out the Chekhov play 'The Cherry Orchard' which will play a large part in Keanu's upcoming film Henry's Crime, and reading a lot of Matrix essays - some of which she sent me, and one of which formed a source text for one of my last year's term papers.

Other Keanu films that made it into my academic work - River's Edge (on a short philosophy paper about loyalty vs. justice), Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure and The Lake House (on a physics term paper about the plausibility of time travel).

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Is it important for you to see these photos and images? And why?

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No. I don't need several dozen near-identical pictures of Keanu walking down the street, and after seeing that video of him being chased and harassed by paparazzi, flashing camera lights aggressively in his face and taunting him, it's really not worth it. He evidently does not enjoy it - I don't think any celeb does - and the resulting photos are usually of poor quality. Those from professional studio shoots are far clearer, better composed, more visually controlled, and more importantly Keanu does not look completely pissed off in them.

I've got two interviews to add to your playlist, if they're relevant to your research:

From 1991, in which Keanu expresses frustration with the over commercialisation of Hollywood, in a very amusing way: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQZiMCSHq4Y

And the 2008 Rove interview, which probably isn't relevant to your research but it is awesome and everyone needs to see it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nj6KoH19Y28

Hope this helped some. :)

What's your study on, specifically? Are you covering a large number of celebrities, or are you focusing on Keanu and using him as a representative example?

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I am particularly interested in the role of the paparazzi for fans. The paps stalk stars for photos and footage, which is sold to magazines and television, who release the photos/footage for the fans. However, if the fans really did like the celebrity, why would they support the paparazzi footage/photos, knowing how intrusive and awful the paparazzi tactics are?

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I think the main issue here is that it is not the fans themselves who are doing this supporting - the bulk of paparazzi pictures are purchased by generic tabloids that do not focus on a particular celebrity, but a whole range of them. The people who buy these tabloids and look at those pics often do not care enough about any one of those celebrities and thus see no harm in looking at those pictures. Whereas many single-celeb fansites have a no-pap-photo policy, and it is there that you usually find the most resistance to paparazzi pics.

So in that sense there's no real contradiction going on - you're dealing with two completely different groups of people, both with different opinions on paparazzi pics.

I would say that there's also a third group - casual fans who like a celebrity purely because they think that he or she is hot, without actually liking them as people and caring about how their actions affect them. So they're happy as long as they get the pictures and don't really mind how they were obtained. Then I guess the question of whether or not they should still be considered under the category of 'fans' would be up to debate; how would you define a fan? Does it have to be a person who cares about and likes the celebrity as a person, or just someone who enjoys them solely as a celebrity - who watch their films and/or look at their pictures and nothing more?

Okay, the Rove interview can be viewed here:
http://videos.keanuconnection.com/view/75/keanu-reeves-on-rove/

Yes, I do agree that there are various different layers of fans, and that affects who fuels the paparazzi machine. I was a bit overgeneralised before. I will be analysing the relationships further. Sites such as this and magazines such as Empire are the ones that shun paparazzi images, as a sign of respect for the star and/or in recognition of the awfulness of paparazzi. Woudl you say that is true of your no-paps policy?

It interests me how various magazines use the paparazzi photos as well. For example, shots of celebrities eating or going to the supermarket with titles of 'They're just like us' or shots of celebrities looking fat or having pimples. The people who create and buy those magazines are both trying to denigrate the image of the celebrity - by saying they are equal to or worse than the readers - whilst simultaneously raising the celebrities' status higher by granting them recognition of their separation from their audience (regular people). The dichotomy may more be in the role of the paparazzi rather than the way the fans receive paparazzi photos.

thank you for the link to the Rove interview. That is awesome.

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Sites such as this and magazines such as Empire are the ones that shun paparazzi images, as a sign of respect for the star and/or in recognition of the awfulness of paparazzi. Woudl you say that is true of your no-paps policy?

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The people who create and buy those magazines are both trying to denigrate the image of the celebrity - by saying they are equal to or worse than the readers - whilst simultaneously raising the celebrities' status higher by granting them recognition of their separation from their audience (regular people).

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It basically works off the idea that they are just like us! and perhaps assures readers that the only thing separating them from those celebrities are arbitrary matters such as luck, rather than them being some form of superior human; such that if circumstances had been different, those celebs might have been their next-door neighbours or something.

I like how you point out how this actually raises the celebrities' status higher specifically because of this recognition of separation. I never thought about that before, and it's interesting how that backfires.

And yeah, the point about denigrating the image - especially for those celebs who have this image of being unnaturally perfect, for example in looks. If they are then shown looking less than perfect, sans make-up and just out of bed, it could help many readers alleviate feelings of jealousy they may have. They could comfort themselves with thoughts of how they too could look that good if they had the money and people airbrushing their photographs; that those perfect looks are not wholly an innate quality of the celebrity in question, but largely an artificial construct, such that even the celebrity his or herself does not look as good in real life and are therefore on equal standing with them in that way. That perfection becomes fake, and the celebrity just a canvas for its expression.

Somewhat related to this, one thing I read some time back that particularly stuck with me was a film mag interview where Ashton Kutcher said that he was sometimes jealous of himself - that image of himself that the media had constructed, that to him was so removed from his own reality.

Something similar from Keanu, in a translated Russian interview (so it's not word-for-word):

"Sometimes there's this strange feeling that you have been placed in your body, and it's not you; as though I live in Keanu Reeves' body."

It brings up the question of what is real, after all, if anything is. But I don't know if it's necessarily a bad thing - as I said in my e-mail, some of the benefits gained from this are very real. People are more likely to be inspired by someone who appears to be a really outstanding and special individual, rather than someone who is ultimately not that much different from them or people they know.

So in a way we need those constructs, and perhaps - on the flipside - some of the people against paparazzi pics aren't that way out of any ethical concerns, but rather they just don't want those perfect images of their favourite celebrities to be tarnished or brought down in any way. They need that unattainable standard to be there as role models to aspire towards, or to provide an escape from their mundane lives, and will do all they can to keep the illusion going. To quote Morpheus in The Matrix:

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You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inert, so hopelessly dependent on the system that they will fight to protect it.

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Maybe the paparazzi issue isn't so black and white after all. On the one hand they could be seen as annoying intruders with no respect for privacy, out to mock and degrade the famous; but on the other hand they could be seen as people trying to shatter the illusion that celebrity culture has trapped so much of the population in.

Why anyone would want to take a photo of that I have no idea.

I hope your papers on Keanu go really well. :)

The majority of Keanu stuff I do in the fandom is mostly visiting the sites such as this awesome one for starters, and I'm writing a fic for one a friend of mine is running, aside from the LJ communities I belong to that's about it.

I too have discovered PKD thanks to you Anakin, and also FINALLY getting to see Scanner, which I did the other day. :)

Then, around the time of the second Matrix movie, my life became so busy with work &cetera that I gradually turned dormant as a fan. I didn't even see his movies in the theater, and I didn't keep myself updated on what he was working on. I even threw out my entire Ke-video collection along with my VCR player. I didn't know any other fans so I had nobody to give them to.

My life was Ke-less for several years, until I downloaded Constantine and watched it on my computer (in 2008, several years after it was released). I totally loved it, and that kicked my fanhood out of its hibernation. I ordered most of the movies I had missed, and now I call myself a Ke-fan again. But I no longer collect magazines, nor do I communicate with any other fans by e-mail or live chats, like I did before.

Today, my appreciation for Keanu is more based on him as an actor and a fascinating person, and less on him as a hot-looking guy - although I still think he's one of the best looking men in H'wood. I no longer have any wish to meet him, because I believe that he really would rather be left alone by his fans. He's a working guy in his own eyes, not a star. Fans seem to be rather alien to him, and I think he'd be happier if he didn't have to write autographs or pose for photos with fans.

As for the paparazzi, I am a bit ambivalent: I do like to read/see a bit about what he's doing when he's not working, but the video clips on YouTube where he's hounded by the photogs literally made me feel sick. Poor man!

This website and forum is the one I visit most often now, along with Club Keanu. I don't post much in that forum, though. I find the excessive use of smoochie-kissy animated smileys and exclamations of undying love and lust rather off-putting, although I understand the humour behind it. Maybe I'm just too old for that sort of thing... ;-)

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I even threw out my entire Ke-video collection along with my VCR player.

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Which ones did you have?

...okay, I have seen all those you named except Youngblood and Johnny Mnemonic, but how could you throw them away?!

Life Under Water (1989) (TV)
# The Prince of Pennsylvania (1988)
# Permanent Record (1988)
# The Night Before (1988)
# "Trying Times"(1 episode, 1987)
- Moving Day (1987) TV episode
# Babes in Toyland (1986) (TV)
# Under the Influence (1986) (TV)
# River's Edge (1986)
# The Brotherhood of Justice (1986) (TV)
# Flying (1986) .... Tommy
... aka Dream to Believe
# Young Again (1986) (TV)
# Act of Vengeance (1986) (TV) (at least I think I had it)
# Youngblood (1986)

...and most of the more well-known movies, from Tune In Tomorrow and on.

I threw them all away because they took up too much space, and I had to move. I also threw out my VCR, so I had no use for any of my video tapes anymore. If I had known any other fans at that time I would have given the tapes to them.

I also used to be a big Kiss fan, and I gave away my entire, HUGE, Kiss collection at the same time. And all my LPs, including ultra-rare and valuable bootlegs of other bands I dug in the past. The Kiss stuff took me 11 years to collect (I saw Kiss live 31 times), but fortunately I had a worthy friend to pass everything on to.

I still have my Keanu collection, though (sans the videos). Everything's neatly packed away in cardboard boxes out in the stable, and hopefully safe despite the rather damp air we've had because of extremely rainy summers the last two years.

What do you remember of the Trying Times episode, if anything?

And regarding your magazine collection - do you have anything not in the archive yet? :D

My magazine collection was largely available in digital form even back then. I even had an archive of sorts on my own website, and I think most or all of those articles were adopted by other archives before my own site disappeared when the webserver was shut down (a friend of mine had it hidden away in the server room at the college he went to, but he took it with him - or probably dumped it because of its old age - when he graduated).

I've been collecting as many Dvds as I can find, trying to fill in the gaps of the films I missed.

I was the same, Constantine brought it ALL BACK for me, and I'm glad. :)

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What site was that? It might still be available in the Internet Archive -> http://web.archive.org

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The Web Archive goes back to 1996, but unfortunately my site and the server went down before that. I searched for it, but it couldn't be found. Maybe I have the articles on my oldest computer, though. I guess I should try to start it up, dusty and worn out as it is, and see if it'll still talk to me. It's been a few years since i switched the poor thing on. :-)

I'm in the process of copying them from my ancient and no-longer-in-use computer to this one, and I should be able to share them with you very soon (or soon'ish, as the old pc isn't the fastest one in the universe...).

Edit: none of the three files I've opened this far are in the WINM archive. They're all movie reviews, though, so they're nothing special.

Edit II: Anakin, whereto do I send the files...?