The Reel Critic - "Francophilia"

As it is now de rigueur for every serious news publication to publish an evaluation of James Franco’s career, I decided it was high time for The Campus to pass judgment. Franco, now ubiquitous in the cultural sphere, is an actor, artist, writer, Oscar host, Oscar nominee, television daytime soap opera star, student at Yale’s PhD program in English and professor at Columbia College, Calif. James Franco is 32. His highest-grossing film is Spider-Man 3, and he has played James Dean, Allen Ginsberg and himself (numerous times). Next year, he is adapting and directing films based on novels by Cormac McCarthy and William Faulkner. I have spent long hours wondering — as I’m sure you have — after reading profiles of him in The New York Times, New York Magazine, The Wall Street Journal and many others: what is James Franco, and is he actually good at anything?

His first and most evident strength is in his looks, a combination of classic Hollywood twinkle-eye and toothy grin, with the slightest hint of charming sleazeball in his greasy hair and cocked eyebrow. His career was launched with a role in the short-lived Judd Apatow cult television series Freaks and Geeks. He is successful and arguably quite good at his primary career (acting) with an ability to deftly shift from absurdist humour (30 Rock, Pineapple Express) to understated performances in realist dramatic roles (Milk, 127 Hours). If anything, however, he is most skilled at the art of self-reference, constantly mocking his own Renaissance man public image and rumored proclivity for getting high.

His recently published book of short stories, Palo Alto, received mixed reviews — it reads, in this reader’s opinion, like a 14-year-old trying to channel bad Ernest Hemingway, except on purpose — but it is generally agreed that he “has potential.” His artwork, consisting of short films, photography, and installations, has been exhibited in Berlin, Los Angeles and New York. Whether or not these pieces are different in their basic content from the short films (okay, video clips) and photography that he takes on his smartphone and tweets — @jamesfranco, get at it — is uncertain. He has a recurring role on the soap opera General Hospital as an artist and potential serial killer named James Franco. The real Franco is using footage from this role for an art exhibition later this year at the Museum of Contemporary Art in L.A.

Many Hollywood stars dabble in other arts, such as music and fashion, or more accurately, “music” and “fashion” (see: Lindsay Lohan and friends), but Franco’s dabbling feels more authentic, perhaps by dint of the fact that he has an MFA from Columbia University, a graduate degree in film from NYU and a graduate degree from Brooklyn College in creative writing. He was also enrolled in a poetry program in North Carolina, which to Franco, I imagine, is like adding a side of fries to a four-course meal. All of these programs, incidentally, were undertaken at the same time. If we are a generation of academic overachievers, Franco is our patron saint.

What keeps Franco from being utterly insufferable is, I think, his self-awareness, which is evident in every kind of art he produces. The interest in self-reference, it turns out, is not just a clever comedic device deployed for Funny or Die, SNL or 30 Rock, but, befitting the intellectual obsession of our generation, a meta-exploration into what an actor’s “art” is in the 21st century: not his roles, but himself. Franco takes this conception to new heights in producing, reproducing and deconstructing every element of his own image. For example, the class that he is teaching is called “Master Class: Editing James Franco … With James Franco,” and the final project is to compile a 30-minute documentary on him. What method was to Marlon Brando, meta is to James Franco. With a sharp awareness of multiple facets of the media as an interactive outlet for self-expression and examination, Franco is representative of the 21st century youth ethos: create your own brand, and get good at marketing it. Except, of course, he is much better at it than anyone else. Franco, stop making the rest of us look bad. We’re already less attractive than you.