Let's talk Aykroyd
TL;DR: Yes, I'm still bitter that I was banned from Blues Brothers Central, lolz.
EDIT: Hot damn, did he lose some weight? He might redeem himself from my fat jokes after all.
Dude, I just gotta get this out of my system.
I found a Ghostbusters community on here and after reading a little I realized... people still worship Dan Aykroyd. All my close friends know I went through about a 2 year long obsession with his older work... and I'm still a pretty big fan. But I find it absolutely laughable that people exist who think he's still hot, still a great actor, etc. Gather round, boys and girls, I have a story to tell you.
It all started with my Blues Brothers obsession starting sometime in 2007. I found a fansite, the infamous Blues Brothers Central. A lot of Aykroyd fans gather here, and schmooze over his, uh, so-called intense awesomeness. At first, I went there to talk about the film, and not really the actors. But, well, the older members had control over the forums so it pretty much was a, "No, I love him more," conversastion. I was just kind of baffled... I know fans get obsessed... but I never thought I was in love with the guy. I think he was a hot piece of ass when he was younger, and I also think he was somebody I could enjoy talking to, but I did not think I was interested in like, romance, lol. That sounds so stupid to me. But a lot of people do it: a lot of people have celebrity crushes. These people, however, took celebrity crushes to a whole new level.
I asked, "So uh... you guys think he's sexy, huh? Have you... er... seen him lately? Besides the fact he's old enough to be your dad, have you seen his body, and what's happened to it over the last 20 years?" Finally I went out and said it. "Dude, he's fat."
Everybody completely lost their shit. They either said he wasn't fat (Um, hello?) or some of them were like, "FAT IS HOT FAT PRIDE." It was really, really weird. Because I insisted that Dan wasn't a stud anymore, I actually ended up getting banned, because of my opinion. They even made sure to make a custom message saying, "You are banned FOREVER." Pretty much, if you don't kiss his ass, you can't be a member of that site. There is also hardly any John Belushi... wait... who is that again?
So some people act like he's the best actor on the planet. I actually think that title belongs to someone else, namely Tom Hanks, but Aykroyd fans insist. There is no doubt in my mind that Aykroyd was a great comedian in the 70's and 80's. But that was the peak of his career, and you'd have to be an idiot to not realize that his work has become less frequent and less interesting. Does that mean he's a bad guy? No. But I'm really weirded out that people worship him and think he's the best.
A lot of people say he's, like super-intelligent. I think in a lot of instances, he's psuedo-intelligent. I think he's a very creative writer, and I'll give him props as an artist, and a person who does his research when creating plots, characters, etc, but I'm not going to be convinced he's like, Stephen Hawking material. Because he ain't.
I have no problem seeing him as a smart, talented individual, and an overall cool person. I just don't get the worship attitude. I don't get how people can see him as an object of perfection. I also don't understand why so many fans pretend like they, uh, know him. He doesn't make a great deal of out-of-character appearances, so we don't get to see a whole lot of who he really is.
I've seen fandoms of many actors. I've been part of them. But no fandom is like the Aykroyd fandom. When I talk to people about Adam Sandler, they think he's funny and creative. Some of them hate his guts. But not even his most loyal fans consider him a genius. It's fair to say that Adam, at least, is still fairly good looking. So when people call Adam hot, that makes some sense to me. But when I see girls throw themselves at Dan Aykroyd's feet, I just don't understand it. 56, married, father of three, Aykroyd is not up for grabs.
I don't know why this topic sticks in my brain. It shouldn't. But apparently I'm trapped in his web, too. Just in a different way.
I guess the point of this entry is that I can't find sane people to talk about his work with. Almost every Aykroyd fan I run into is some sort of severely mentally ill. He attracts the crazies for the most part. Now, not all of us are crazy... I'm not, and I have a friend who is around Aykroyd's age and he's a fan and he isn't crazy... but I'd say the vast majority of Aykroyd fans have one or more of the following traits:
- They worship him. They think he's like, the sexiest thing with two legs. They think he's a genius and that he is like, the best actor ever.
- The think they're the next Aykroyd. They try really, really hard to become him. This does not include impersonations, which is honest fun. I'm talking about people who live and breathe Aykroyd. Oddly enough, most of the people who are trying to become him are girls.
- They're madly, madly, madly in love with him (or at least think they are) and viciously attack anyone who doesn't feel the same way.
- They don't think he's fat. At all. And they don't think he's ever had a big butt (which he always has, you'd have to be blind not to notice).
- They like ALL of his films, including the really bad ones like Earth vs. the Spider (and yes, I did watch it, and yes, it was terrible).
Some people have accused me of a few of these things... I think I did go through a small phase where I wanted to be a lot like him; an actor, comedian, writer, etc... but I didn't want to be HIM specifically. In fact, I was much more interested in a Steve Martin style kind of comedy, and I was actually much better at comedy similar to Belushi's work (obnoxious, physical, loud, etc). I don't make a good straight man comedian mostly because I don't have the body for it. I have a small, funny looking body so I am better suited for physical comedy, something Dan like, totally sucks at (as far as I know, I could be wrong! Haven't seen Doctor Detroit yet).
So, I can't remember when, but uh, sometime within the last year Aykroyd visited really close to my hometown to promote his new bizarre beverage. My best friend of 12 years like, got to meet him. Lolz. She got him to sign a copy of Trading Places for me. I of course was thrilled, because she got him to sign a cheesy film he did, rather than an epic one. Not only that, but it happened to be one of his unusual films; this one he got to work with Eddie Murphy, and I think they did fairly well together.
Funny thing is, the day my friend gave me the DVD, our family car was stolen. And the DVD was in the car. Fortunately, that night we got the car back, unharmed. They did, however, manage to steal the stereo and a $500 drill from the trunk. They left my autographed DVD, though. Guess Aykroyd's signature isn't terribly valuable in today's market, lolz. Also guess Trading Places isn't a movie worth stealing, either.
Hmmm... I guess I can honestly say I am sort of on a quest to understand why Aykroyd fans are usually so weird, so crazy, so obsessed, and so in denial. At least Twilight fans like, think a young guy is hot. Although I don't understand what's so great about him, either. *shrug* Unfortunately, my quest to understand the Aykroyd obsession has probably ended because I can't tap into the world's largest source of Aykroyd douche-baggery, Blues Brothers Central.