Gail and pop culture

Gail has a long and deep fascination with the entertainment industry, so much so that it has affected her perceptions of the world and has become an integral part of her personality and her fantasies.

Celebrities

Gail has an iconic obsession with celebrities. She admits to viewing them as people of greater humanity than ordinary citizens, reasoning that it requires extra intelligence and strength to put up with the harsh realities of being famous (mostly since it affects their love lives so much).

Part of this may also be due to the fact that Gail has a tendency to equate celebrities with the characters they play in movies, often assuming that the roles they portray are specifically representative of their real life personalities and beliefs. This is most often how she comes to develop crushes on the ones she likes.

Gail first learned of Brent Spiner while watching Star Trek: The Next Generation. She specifically became fascinated with him after the episode Pen Pals in which his character, Data, accepts contact from a girl on a dying planet and breaks all of the rules to rescue her.

"...I observed Brent Spiner’s expression as he contemplated whether to rescue this little girl from her dying planet, and observed in him compassion, a greatness that refused to be small, one who could reach out and submerge his own safety to embrace and console suffering, who rallied his energies to alleviate pain and injustice, who denied his feelings to minister and care for another (when he let the little girl leave him to go back to her planet), who acknowledged and dealt with the suffering of innocents--when I saw this, in Brent Spiner as he portrayed Data in “Pen Pals”, I could not forget him. I sensed that the actor himself had these traits. In this, my brilliant perception was correct." --Gail

Gail found quickly found herself attracted to Brent Spiner because of her perceptions of his character Data (who, given context, didn't actually have emotions, feelings or a sense of justice at all, since he was an android) and began writing him for that very reason. She was so prone to celebrity worship that when she merely received an extremely late form letter in reply, she quickly fell star struck and in love.

Similar perceptions have initiated the attraction to nearly all of her men, after having seen them in movies in which she falls in love with her interpretation of their characters. There are instances where this is not always the case, such as with Matthew McConaughey, who she became attracted to because she saw him on the cover of People Magazine simply being touted as Sexiest Man Alive. Gail later laments that Hollywood would not cast him in roles that represented his real personality, which Gail feels was accurately presented by his positive depiction in the magazine.

"It appears the Jesuits have done a good job portraying you as compatible with the shallow and vain Camila Alves, and ever since you've fallen for me, you have never been cast in any Hollywood roles that show your deeper, committed and manly devotion to your woman--i.e. your Texas manliness...It looks like the only way the world can see that side of you that I fell in love with, would be through your portrayal of Dor in my Silver Skies" --Gail

This is not the goal of the film industry.

Tabloids

While Gail acknowledges that tabloid magazines are often filled with voyeuristic, sensational and inaccurate details about the intimate lives of celebrities, she still models her own beliefs and behaviors after the thematic styles of the magazines (and indeed, picks out what she wants in regards to what is true and false about the celebrities portrayed in them). She is intensely keen on fashion trends, and takes the monicker "Sexiest Man Alive/Sexiest Woman Alive" very seriously, perhaps believing this title to be something prestigious akin to the Nobel Prize, as well as something that the whole world votes on and seriously acknowledges. She may have believed that at the time she was "introduced" to him, Matthew McConaughey was literally the sexiest man alive, to which she applied her own interpretation of what that meant, once again layering on a belief as to what the celebrity was like in his private life without actually knowing about anything other than his portrayal in a tabloid magazine.

Noticeably, many of Gail's posts, videos and e-mails are titled like an article in a tabloid magazine. They are often very dramatic, styled like news reports and written in all caps.

Personal Fame

Although she will pretend to dislike fame, Gail likes to believe that she herself is a celebrity. She fears the press as if they follow her, is convinced she has millions of fans around the world, is an important political figure, is regularly voted to receive commemorative awards for her accomplishments, and believes that all of her novels are best sellers. She will frequently reference movies, books or television shows to describe their similarities to her own life, as well as to explain the things she desires most, especially when it comes to romance. Very often, celebrities will use the media to communicate with Gail by starring in certain movies that make references to her. For instance, Gail believes that the movie Legally Blonde was about herself, Brent Spiner, and Loree McBride.

It would seem that Gail has always been very fantasy prone and loves to get lost in idealized, imaginary characters, worlds and scenarios. She longs to be regarded as a celebrity and have the entire world marvel at her greatness and grieve for her troubles, caught up in her every move. The glamorous world of beloved celebrities, drifting in and out of the fantasy realms in which they are the stars, seems to be an ideal world for her.

Favorites of Interest

Gail is most influenced by her favorite movies and shows, such as:

(list here)