TCM showed The
Phantom Tollbooth, the Chuck Jones live action/animated movie based on the
children’s book, recently, and the name made me think of “The Fandom
Tollbooth”. And ‘The Fandom Tollbooth’ is when celebrities have to tolerate
fans and paparazzi intruding into their lives due to their popularity. They can
never live a normal life once they become stars, and they should just accept
it. So whenever I see someone like Alec Baldwin assaulting a photographer or
screaming at a journalist, from now on I’ll think: “He should just pay the toll
and forget it: it’s ‘The Fandom Tollbooth’, and there’s no avoiding paying the
toll for a celebrity with many fans, for it will surely take a toll on their
lives, and sanity.”
Hey, maybe there
could be a movie starring Alec Baldwin called The Fandom Tollbooth,
and he could go through a magical tollbooth where everybody always chases him
around with cameras and stuff, writes scandalous articles about him, etc. Oh,
sorry: that’s his real life, isn’t it? Well, maybe the tollbooth can make him
into an anonymous everyman nobody who is not famous nor successful, and he can
live a normal life. Oh, but you know he’s probably addicted to the attention
and fame and all that cash, so he’d inevitably go back through the Fandom
Tollbooth again just to get his adoring crowds back, even if it means some
pesky paparazzi, scandal rag hatch-job journalists, and lawsuits for assault
and battery.
Hmm, I’m beginning
to think this Fandom Tollbooth movie would work better on an
aspiring actor and hopeful celebrity, and this person goes through the Fandom
Tollbooth to get their fame and fortune, but they have to pay a toll at the
tollbooth, and the toll is losing their privacy and removing the possibility of
a normal life. And the moral of the story is: there is a price to pay for
success and fame, and those unable to pay it should remain anonymous.
