Fedoras in "The Adjustment Bureau"

[Eric Renderking Fisk]

I actually didn't mind at all because there is something about that article that made me smack my forehead and say "Oh, THAT'S why members of my family treat me different than everyone else." It actually explains why people treat me as if I'm dark, dangerous, and ominous.

When I first dated my wife, she told me that one of the reasons why she was attracted to me was because she thought I looked dangerous. I looked like I could actually kick someone's ass or potentially kill someone to protect her. She knew that being with me was going to be fun and exciting while there a high potential of getting hurt or broken bones. As I'm stitting here writing this post with a brace for my broken back that's still true and my wife doesn't have a single gray hair because I'm keeping her young.

It's been too long since I hit someone, though. Bags and furniture, yes... faces, no.

Yea, we look like the kind of men other men are afraid of and women want. Work it to its full advantage, it's not a horrible thing. Run with it.

[DanielJones]

Yea, we look like the kind of men other men are afraid of and women want. Work it to its full advantage, it's not a horrible thing. Run with it.

We're the kind of men that other men only wished they were.

Cheers!

Dan

[Super Ordinary Guy]

We're the kind of men that other men only wished they were.

Cheers!

Dan

YOU'RE JUST SAYING THAT CAUSE IT IS TRUE !!

[DanielJones]

Yup!

Cheers!

Dan

[CharlieB]

Some people just can't handle the truth...

[Eric Renderking Fisk]

Extreme Fedora Wearers

It's a human condition. The reptilian complex in our brains tells us fight or flight. Those of us more evolved beings understand why there is a like for retro clothing and hats. Those still primitive minds don't understand it. Thus they fear what they don't understand, and then they hate what they fear and want to destroy what they hate. So maybe we need to take pity on our caveman brethren who are less evolved than we. Understand that they still fear the night and believe in the boogyman. That they will lash out at us because they don't understand and thus fear us. Fortunately I have more evolved relatives for the most part. A couple are still in question though.

I wanted to reply to this earlier and I never got the chance to do so before my computer had to reboot and I lost what I wrote. What we've all read from The New York Times article there's a new opening to make this comment.

I've spoken about the reptilian complex in our brains before and I have to agree with you that there is something very base about the people who openly reject us and anyone else who are a little strange. There is someone in my circle who prescribes to the notion that there are only a few "groups" or categories that people should be long to. You're either a "Jock" or a "Nerd," a "Musician," or a "Burn-Out" or "Stoner." You're either a member of the AV Club or play sports and that's it. There are no gray lines... or there aren’t supposed to be according to her.

Being a member of The AV Club who also wants to work out and lift weights and fight back at those who are trying to fit your ass in the locker is according to those people (who subscribe to "The Committee of They") is unacceptable. You're the nerd and the geek and being an athletic muscle “nerd” is a contradiction that bound breaks the stereotype and makes you more than 2 Dimensional and that’s an invitation for exclusion from many or all of these groups.

Being the nerd who wore a fedora and wanted to be on the rock-climbing team, go mountain hiking, and be Extreme Camping outdoor adventure nut was wrong and people with-in my family excluded those things from my “life-story.” It was easier to talk about me as the geek watching “Temple Of Doom” and “Return of The Jedi” over and over again while drinking Peppermint Schnapps when I wasn’t reading Frank Herbert’s DUNE. This is your box, this is where you belong, and this is where you have to stay. You are forbidden from breaking out of it.

Many people in my life have become furious for me for saying “No, I’m going to include all of these things in my life. I want a full life and you can’t tell me I can’t.” The same people who were happy to label me as the happy drunk geek stopped calling as soon as I chose sobriety and healthier lifestyle. ‘Hey! What happened to the drunk dork we loved to put down!’ Unacceptable and intolerable.

Simultaneously, there’s something I’ve noticed about our fellow fedora wearers and classic movie fans. None of us allow ourselves to be kept in those boxes, either. All of us are people of extremes. When we really like something we really like it a lot. When we hate something, we really hate something. When we’re ambivalent about something it just doesn’t exist for us. Passions run deep and most of us feel deep emotions and that scares many people around us. They skim the shallow of the superficial; it’s impossible for them to get too mad or too glad. I know that’s not me, and I don’t think that’s all of us here.

In my experience, and perhaps yours, I’ve noticed that I’’ve been excluded from many things. There have been a lot of family gatherings and reunions that have come and gone and I’ve found out about hem after the fact. There have been a handful of births and deaths that I heard about without even knowing that someone was pregnant, sick or had been in an accident. It’s been harder and harder to hide these events with the advent of facebook, but the exclusions still occur.

What I find odd is that I still get wedding announcements. We don’t get wedding invitations, but we get announcements: You’re not invited to the ceremony but we still expect the gift. Is that the message? I’m at a loss to explain this, other than the fact my money is still green enough, but my company isn’t.

There are also the pleas for help. The same folks who shun me from the positive life-changing events and celebrations will pick up the phone and ask for assistance; either via cash or two helping hands and a strong back. Or there’s someone having a fight with a sales person or bill collector and they want me to just show up, be quiet and look intimidating.

All of this leads me to a couple of questions and the conclusions that follow. Who or what is my real family? To whom do I really owe my allegiances to? Is it really “the fedora” that’s the problem, because I remember first thinking when I first starting wearing one that I might as well since I’m already alienated for being myself, why not go all the way?

I have no idea why there is so much negativity towards people who wear fedoras that’s alluded to in some of the articles that have been published recently. I’m only speaking for myself when I say that I wear them in part because I’m trying to emulate the heroes of my grandfather’s generation, real and cinematic. I had no real-world male role models who were as consistent as the ones on the movie screen. And I feel naked without one.

So we’re “dark, ominous and sinister.” Is it because we wear fedoras or are we those things first, and then we donned the mellon-toppers?

[n11pilot]

I could be that there is a little Raoul in every fedora and by inference every fedora wearer. I however believe that the fedora came to us like Excalibur came to Arthur, the right man with the right sword or in our case the right retro with the right lid.

[Super Ordinary Guy]

I could be that there is a little Raoul in every fedora and by inference every fedora wearer. I however believe that the fedora came to us like Excalibur came to Arthur, the right man with the right sword or in our case the right retro with the right lid.

Does that mean I get to meet the Lady Of The Lake ????
Huh, huh, does it ????? <pant, pant, drool >>

BUT I LIKE YOUR REFERENCE,,, NICE THINKING

[n11pilot]

I could be that there is a little Raoul in every fedora and by inference every fedora wearer. I however believe that the fedora came to us like Excalibur came to Arthur, the right man with the right sword or in our case the right retro with the right lid.

Does that mean I get to meet the Lady Of The Lake ????
Huh, huh, does it ????? <pant, pant, drool >>

BUT I LIKE YOUR REFERENCE,,, NICE THINKING

SOG, like I told you before the Lady of the Lake is a metaphor. That is spelled P-H-O-R.

[DanielJones]

When it boils down to family and friends that shun others and us for being different, well, it is their loss not ours. They are fair weather friends and family. A close friend of mine from many years back once said, "the less you expect of your fellow man, the happier you're going to be.", there is a lot of wisdom in those words. Only worry about what you can control, all else is just superfluous fluff. It will be the people that get you and understand you that are the ones to be cherished whether they wear a fedora or not, they understand, they get it and you.

Eric, from all that you described, you managed to evolve to the next level of consciousness that your other family members will fail to attain. You are the next generation that has shed the desire to judge others just because they are different and don't fit into that convenient 'box'. What makes us seem dangerous is that we are free. We have gone beyond the protective walls of the fort to explore the surrounding wilds unafraid. We dare to tread where they do not. Thus we are not understood because we have knowledge of the surrounding that they do not, and with that knowledge we are feared and thus put down. Why do they keep doing the same things over and over, because their ancestors did it. We break from the herd and blaze our own trail unprotected, and that is what makes us dangerous to them. Heck they are the same kind of people that if you know some one that is gay, you might turn gay too and turn their children gay.

Again, we go back to the notion of the reptilian complex. The very primitive portion of our brain that creates the fight or flight in us. It can be subjugated, and thus put under control, and then you get extreme sports and fun. In the other realm, they hide behind the protective walls and do what they need to do, including putting us down, to make themselves feel better about the life that they lead. Their primitive mind needs to lash out and if it doesn't conform it is dangerous and subversive, thus it must be destroyed.

Personally, I would put as much distance as possible, geographically and emotionally, from friends and family that treated me this way. It is not a healthy environment to be in and not an healthy one to raise ones kids around. Those kind of people are not worth the effort, blood or not. If all they want to do is pull you back down when you're trying to clean up your act, then as little contact as possible is in order. Don't waste your time or energy with them. There are better things to be looking forward to and enjoy. If your wife agrees with you, then maybe it is high time to look to a new bearing and blaze a new trail. But hey, that's just my thought on the matter, for what it is worth. We are far more evolved than they are, plain and simple and will never be understood, and that is fine. We are who we are. When we love it is with all our hearts,and we hate is is complete, no quarter given. We don't waffle on our emotions so I suppose we wouldn't make good Vulcans.

Like the character in The Adjustment Bureau, we have emotions that are strong, strong enough to break the bonds an burst the walls of the boxes that re pre-imposed on us. We make our own path and story, not them.

Cheers!

Dan

[Super Ordinary Guy]

I could be that there is a little Raoul in every fedora and by inference every fedora wearer. I however believe that the fedora came to us like Excalibur came to Arthur, the right man with the right sword or in our case the right retro with the right lid.

Does that mean I get to meet the Lady Of The Lake ????
Huh, huh, does it ????? <pant, pant, drool >>



BUT I LIKE YOUR REFERENCE,,, NICE THINKING

SOG, like I told you before the Lady of the Lake is a metaphor. That is spelled P-H-O-R.

OH !!

[The Oracle]

I just don't think a movie today can influence people that way that Raider's did 30 years ago. In the age of Star Wars and Raider's people had no problem looking to the characters on screen as heroes. Many of the characters of these movies gave us a message of hope and ideas that a person can make a difference even when the odds were against them. Very few movies have that impact today. No longer are movies an experiance. So, I don't think the movie will have much of an impact.

Unfortunately because of my work, I don't get to wear my topper all the time, so people do see me without it. This increases the comments when they see me with it on. Still, as to the people who don't like my fedora...They can get bent! I don't care what people think. They are normally just the ones that are uncomfortable with themselves to begin with. If I am viewed as a person “dark, ominous and sinister” so be it. In response to REN, it IS because we were those things first, and then we donned the mellon-toppers. A fedora does not change who you are. However, it does bring out confidence, because you know you are demonstrating that you are not afraid to be different than everyone else.

[Eric Renderking Fisk]

L.A. Times: "Return of the broad-brimmed hat."

The men's wardrobe arena is a place where even the slightest change in lapel width unfolds at a glacial pace. So it's worth noting that the standard-issue stingy-brim fedora is giving way to its broader-brimmed brethren on the menswear runways, magazine covers and the big screen.

[DanielJones]

Well, this film should be released on DVD pretty soon, so we should get some good screen caps coming on line.

Cheers!

Dan

[scottyrocks]

By the way, you send a gift if you get an invitation and can't make it. With an announcement, the call is totally yours. By the looks things, I'd throw it in the trash and not give it a second thought.