My favorite photos, though, are the ones where he is surrounded by a bunch of kids. Somewhere deep down inside I feel he is in his element. Not because he represents a "father figure" as so many sighing women would like to think, but because a part of him (as with many men) remains always, a kid at heart, so a part of him connects with these kids...in some very elemental way. It's almost as if a part of him recognizes a part of himself in that kid acting out or just being....a kid.
The nice part about being a Gerard Butler admirer is that a part of what draws us is precisely that KID in him...the genuine part of him that not all the glamour and money of being a movie star can pervert.
Every time I read some person (usually a woman) trying to put a picture of him out there that doesn't fit, I want to answer in this manner:
"Some of you need to stop trying to make him fit your idea of lover, boyfriend, husband, ideal, etc. The kids get him and that should tell you something about the real person.
Kid's have a way of seeing through the bullshit adults are sometimes so mired in and can't see through! YOUR prism can't define him anymore than it can define ANYONE but yourself and the constant "in the know" psychobabble is a waste of time.
He is who he is and some of you have no idea who that is. All the amateur Dr. Drews and even Dr. Drew Pinsky himself SHOULD hang it up. You cannot put Butler in a box, anymore than you should anyone else. If you could, he would lose part of the allure that draws friend and foe alike to comment on his foibles.
It's all right to comment, just keep your personal prejudices out of it. Unfortunately, most people cannot.
A big part of Gerry is a wicked little kid and the kids get that and love it. Some of us do too."
All the photos I have seen coming out of Louisiana only give credit to the things I think to be true. Some will say it is all orchestrated by his publicists or his manager, or someone trying to "revive his image" as if it needed it. I find that a silly scenario, especially when everything else about him is complete speculation.
I don't know all of the real man, but I do know that you can't fool kids, even with all the acting skills in the world. They can pick up a false note like nobody's business. I trust their instinct like I trust my own and we are dealing with a decent human being here, despite his temper and his bouts of Mr. Know it All, and I think that is what has kept him on the front burner in Hollywood beyond what a few of his more lackluster movies would have done.
No matter what anyone tells you, people like a nice guy. He may be a ladies' man or a man's man, a heartbreaker or not, but deep down inside, he is one wicked and lovely little kid. I like that about him. I think a lot of people do too. It's a big surprise to see that in the packaging it comes in and the reason why people like Warner Bros. Alan Horn can come out and say the things he does (telling Gerry he had to quit smoking), or even someone like Mark Canton, making comments about Gerry's abs not being real. It's like..."well, he's a good natured kid and so ernest, we can say stuff like this...."
Well, the Cantons and Horns beware. Underneath that likable kid is a very determined guy and it is at your peril that you sell him short, Alan S. aside. He's a good guy, but he knows where he's going. Right now it may be the "field." But tomorrow....
Songs out of tune, the words always a little wrong...Canzoni Stonate
Well, first of all ... I cannot believe there are zero comments to this entry!
ReplyDeleteThat said, I have to tell you this time, Zoni, you totally hit the nail on the head about the best part of being a Gerry Butler supporter; his child-like ease of person and adult "smarts." I never could quite put my finger on what it was that always seemed so easy to be a part of "Gerryland;" you said it perfectly. For this, I'm very grateful.
Thank you anonymous. I was married to some one like him in that regard, so I know it when I see it. Kids loved my late husband, even when some adults didn't get him and his critical honesty and irony or the fact that it covered some insecurities. He was funny, even when he didn't mean to be He was extremely intelligent, impatient at times, and it he had a thought, it was out of his mouth before he could gauge it's impact.
ReplyDeleteMy next door neighbor's little boy would knock on the door with some of the other neighborhood kids when they were bored or when he had no one to play with, to see if my husband was home and could "come out and PLAY" or figure out some unique thing for them to do.
My nephew loved him too and always remembers that when he was dying, he tearfully came in the room to see him one last time and my husband deadpanned, "okay kid, keep your voice down and you got two minutes."
Or that when he would take him fishing to Catalina Island when he was 13-14 and the seas were rough and everyone else on the private fishing boat was down for the count with seasickness, he and my husband would be sitting around having some smelly kind of sandwich and tease everyone else about being seasick and make them more sick.
He still imitates my husband's laugh and all the funny and sometimes outrageous things he said that have stuck with him.
He once threw my fully clothed older sister into the deep end of a swimming pool in Palm Springs and her husband had to go in after her (fully clothed). She was afraid of the water and almost drowned my brother in law. He just still thought it was funny watching them both, looking like two drowned rats, coming out of the water, even though he was a little nervous at the fact my sister was going to be mad at him. She was, but not for long.
Some people just never fit a mold and always color outside the lines and these kind of people always add something a little special to our lives for the same reason they don't conform to what "society" says they should.
Too bad we can't accept them with grace and thankfulness instead of always trying to force them into the mold. How boring is that?