Yesterday, the Gay Librarian went to the cineplex, and, after viewing half-an-hour of commercials, during which he drank all of his diet coke and ate all of his chocolate-covered raisins, watched The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. And the Librarian hopes that he offends no one when he says that the words “high functioning” were put together specifically to describe the majority of the people who made up the audience of this movie.
Let it not be said that the Librarian is in denial. He is well aware of his own shortcomings when it comes to being a loser geek. He read The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy when he was a freshman. He also played Dungeons and Dragons during that same period until he came out of the closet and found that men, booze, and some other diversions (shoes, hair, and clothes among them) were more interesting. In fact, the Librarian is a little embarrassed to say, when he and his partner went to see The Two Towers, he whispered “Shadowfax” to himself when the large, grey horse appeared on the screen. That he had done this was pointed out to him when, a split second later, a pimply geek boy at the end of the row in front of the Librarian, whispered the same thing, only a little louder and, perhaps, with a little more awe. The Librarian had the decency to flush and be glad that no one had overheard him. But the Librarian also cried a little when he heard that Andre Norton had died. (Although, in all honesty, sentimentality is probably not the issue here. When Ms. Norton died, the Librarian, losing a bit of his childhood, realized that he too had been shoved a little closer to death.)
However.
This trace of geekiness is not what drew the Librarian to see THGttG. No fond memories of reading the Douglas Adams book made him think, “Finally! They made a movie from it! My life will be complete now if only they’d make a movie from Silverlock. But how could they? It’s so smart, so funny. Most people wouldn’t get it, and I congratulate myself on catching so many of its references to other books and stories. But I am so much smarter than most people, certainly smarter than those jocks that made fun of me back in high school. So maybe not Silverlock. Anyway, I hope they don’t ruin it by leaving out the towel. Hollywood makes me sick. They left Fatty Bolger out of Fellowship of the Ring.” No. None of this passed through the Librarian’s mind. Instead, he thought, “Cool looking special effects in the trailer. I hope something blows up. And, sincerely, I hope that they show Sam Rockwell’s package,” since explosions and tight pants are what the Librarian really appreciates from Hollywood.
So the Librarian went, having let 20 years get between him and his memory of the THGttG phenomena. He’d forgotten all about that guy in college, the one with about 40 extra pounds, an under-chin beard (you know the one, the beard that won’t grow on the face, only on neck and under the chin, but, undeterred, the post-pubescent young man insists upon growing it, it being the mark of manhood, making everyone else uncomfortable since they think that it looks more like a cancerous growth than facial hair), and coke-bottle glasses, leaning toward him during a geology class and saying “Don’t Panic.” The Librarian, who, at that time was a Gay College Student, said, “It’s geology, not P.E.” And the guy he’d corresponded with at one point, who’d signed his letters with the number “42.” (Full disclosure: the Librarian ended up in a LTR with this guy. Mistakes have been made.). And all of it came back as he sat in the theater, listening to people around him whispering “Don’t Panic” and “Don’t forget your towel” to each other. And the full effect couldn’t be known until the movie started, which is when these people, some of them grown up versions of the “Don’t Panic” guy and the “42” guy, began to giggle at only mildly amusing scenes. One of the viewers, probably a fully adult version of the guy from the Librarian’s geology class, laughed loudly at all the parts he’d laughed at in the book. The problem being that the movie really isn’t that funny. The Librarian suspects that the book itself is funny only to freshmen, for whom THGttG is sophisticated humor. (This makes the Librarian wonder when he began to see the words “Monty Pythonesque sense of humor” in a singles ad as a threat.) Since the Librarian really didn’t remember the book, it was difficult for him to predict the laughter of the other viewers. Nothing funny would happen in the movie, but the laughter would come with the effect of a mistimed laugh track. This was jarring to the Librarian for whom laughing with a group of other movie watchers creates a warm sense of camaraderie. Fortunately, the Librarian was not so distressed as to miss Sam Rockwell’s package. He was actually gratified by the movie’s presentation of it.
It is a little disappointing that the luminous Helen Mirren is present only in voice. But Martin Freeman, along with Rockwell’s basket, were enough to make the movie worth watching for the Librarian even if the he is confused by Zooey Deschanel. Is it just the Librarian, or does she really lack charm?
