BOX OFFICE HEROES: Reflections on Hollywood Myths

IMAGE: A smoldering pistol on a black table with a image of a woman's face floating 
       in space against a strange jagged, cobwebbed image.

	All Hollywood heroes
	eventually get stuck up
	in the assholes of imagi-
	nation and dark h
	oles of his
	tory . . . Meaning
	is not import 
	ant – only
	sales receipts . . .

	If that isn't clear
	stuff this po
	em & gawk
	at the silence
	ah blank screens
	blank minds
	blank dreams
	waiting
	for the next schedu
	led performance
	to be gin.

Terri let out a long, shuddering sigh, her shoulders dropping as she pushed the poem away. 
The fluorescent lights of the cafe hummed overhead, casting a sickly pale glow on the text. 
"Lot's ah anger here," she murmured, rubbing her temples as if the jagged line breaks had 
given her a physical headache.

Ted slumped further into the vinyl booth, the springs groaning under his weight. He stared 
out the window at a movie poster across the street, its colors oversaturated and fake. 
"Yeah, I'm tired ah reading 'bout how screwed up our planet is," he muttered in a voice 
thick with exhaustion. "Every time I open a book or turn on the news, it seems like another 
autopsy of the American Dream. I want to turn my brain off for once."

"Agreed," Kris chimed in, staring blankly into the depths of her black coffee. She watched 
her own reflection ripple in the dark liquid. "It makes me want to either medicate or meditate. 
Either numb the noise or try to float entirely above it. Anything to stop feeling that I'm 
a 'blank mind' waiting for a 'blank dream.'"

Tim, who had been tracing the broken words of the poem with a scarred finger, looked up. 
Unlike the others, there was a strange, haunting spark in his eyes—a look of someone who 
had found a strange comfort in the wreckage.

"There is a beauty in all monstrosities," Tim said, he said quietly but steadily. The 
table went still as he leaned in, his shadow stretching across the table. "This is the 
paradox of America. It is a grotesque nightmare clothed in the fabric of a beautiful dream.
It is both terrifying ans fascinating."


=================================================================================
from _AmeriSong: Poetry, Art, & Dialogs about Amerika_ by T Newfields
SUMMARY:  Some thoughts about the monstrous mythization of American movie heroes. 
KEYWORDS:  Hollywood heroes, sunset myths, American film stars, impossible masculinity
	cinematic mythos, commercialism, cultural decay, american paradox, existential void,
	media saturation, escapism, iconoclasm, commodity fetishism, aesthetic nihilism, 
	social critique, the hollywood machine

Author: T Newfields [Nitta Hirou / Huáng Yuèwǔ] (b. 1955)
Begun: 1994 in Shizuoka, Japan / Finished: 2026 in Shizuoka, Japan
Creative Commons License: Attribution. {{CC-BY-4.0}} Granted

Disclosure: This piece was partially generated using AI tools for styling and ideation; 
            human editing was then applied.

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