Hot Docs premiere I Used to Be Normal chronicles the highs and lows of extreme fandom
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
| News Media Commentary | |
|---|---|
| Title: | Hot Docs premiere I Used to Be Normal chronicles the highs and lows of extreme fandom |
| Commentator: | Anne T. Donahue |
| Date(s): | April 20, 2018 |
| Venue: | Online in The Globe and Mail |
| Fandom: | Bandom, One Direction, The Beatles, Take That, Backstreet Boys |
| External Links: | Globe and Mail article, archive link |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Hot Docs premiere I Used to Be Normal chronicles the highs and lows of extreme fandom is an article from Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail. The article focuses on a fan-made documentary by name of I Used to Be Normal that takes a multigenerational approach to documenting bandom. The article features some quotes by the documentary's director and One Direction fan, Jessica Leski.
In spite of the title, the article does not focus very much on the lows and general portrays fandom through Leski's enthusiastic descriptions.
Excerpts
"Revolving around four fans of diverse ages who represent various pillars of boy-band history (The Beatles, Take That, Backstreet Boys, One Direction), the film follows each woman over the course of four years, proving that while fandom is universal, most of us embrace it for wildly personal reasons. Each of which are of equal importance."
"The duo’s reverence for fans is obvious. Both from the way Leski shoots and treats her subjects on-camera and the way she and Walsh speak about them now. To be a fan − to, in the immortal words of Almost Famous, love a band so much that it hurts − is more than hysteria and screaming. It’s youthfulness, it’s the process of finding one’s self, it’s using music as a means of staying afloat."
"“A lot of people think [being a fan is] just the hysterical part of it, and [fans] get treated really badly in the media,” Leski recalls. “And I want people to see that there’s something much more significant and beautiful in the way they experience being a fan. There’s the concert, but that’s two hours and that’s a very small part of being a dedicated fan. So what happens on either side of that.”"