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The
premise behind Chick Flick Road Kill is intriguing:
In today's culture of escalating globalization, a collective
popular consciousness seems to have developed. Alicia Rebensdorf
stages an intervention with her own pop-inspired memories
as she travels across America, visiting the locations where
her childhood favorites were filmed. From the small town of
Brownsville, Oregon, that served as the setting for Stand
by Me, to the Georgia river from Deliverance to
a remote desert location haunted by the ghosts of Thelma
& Louise, Rebensdorf explores the reality behind Hollywood's
vision and muses on the disconnect between the American dream
and the real America.
But
like its namesake, there isn't a lot of depth beyond the façade
of this Chick Flick.
The
narrative starts off with a quick introduction to Rebensdorf
and the ideas behind her road trip. She says in the introduction:
"I knew I wouldn't find the 'real' America, but maybe I'd
find a more three-dimensional one. Maybe by correcting my
physical impressions of these places, I'd be able to right
the other movie myths in my head, help myself see outside
the cinematic frames I'd grown so used to." But handing the
thesis to the readers from the start just heightens their
sense of detachment from Rebensdorf's purpose and what Chick
Flick Road Kill actually is: a meandering chronicle of
one woman's road trip.
Rebensdorf
is at her strongest when she speaks to the general experience
of confronting the Hollywood image. Here, she visits the diner
from Twin Peaks:
The
only signs of the R&R are in the obnoxious, un-Peaks-y slogans
that splash across the menus, the exterior walls, the waiter's
T-shirts, and the bags of coffee beans sold at the register:
CHERRY PIE AND A DAMN FINE CUP OF COFFEE. On the back of
the waitresses' shirts is more marketed quirk: FOOD SO GREAT,
YOU'LL SCRAPE YOUR PLATE. Kyle MacLachlan would cringe.
In these
descriptive passages, Rebensdorf is closest to pointing out
something relatable and interesting about America: how our
collective nostalgia and imagination is forever being re-packaged
in cheap and marketable substitutes. Here, Rebensdorf's project
becomes provocative and flirts with the meaningfulness of
a Chuck Klosterman or David Rakoff piece.
She
falters, however, in meandering episodes detailing her dates
with lonely men in Montana and Boston, shopping lists of thrift
store purchases, and an obligatory nod to 9/11. The problem
with these and other sections is that they're highly personal
and the prose begins to read like a series of diary entries,
complete with musings about guys and being bored in front
of the television. The potentially revelatory subject of confronting
our collective American delusions becomes an extended navel
gaze. This could be forgiven in the hands of a more nuanced
writer—Dave Eggers or David Sedaris or any of the beloved
hipster Daves—but it's little more than a laundry list
here.
Still,
there is something endearing about Rebensdorf and her journey.
Though not particularly revelatory, there is an engaging quality
to the narrative that will almost assuredly imbue the reader
with the urge to pack a bag and hit the road. Perhaps Chick
Flick Road Kill's greatest strength is its appeal to a
generation raised on the same fantasy road trip visions as
Rebensdorf herself.
(August,
2007)
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