Films/DVD Asylum

Posted by jamesgarvin (A) on August 11, 2005 at 15:44:31

In Reply to: nostalgia posted by tunenut on August 11, 2005 at 13:55:35:

I think that you hit the nail on the head. The Gidget films brought thousands to surfing. I think the problem that the big wave surfers had with those films was that they misrepresented their lifestyle, and the people who knew nothing about surfers absorbed those images, thinking that is what surfers did and who they were. The beach bum, after nothing but girls, drinking on the beach, etc. Those Gidget films did not show the extreme amount of work to obtain a certain skill level, or the risk to life and limb. I think that is what they complain about.

I think you can see this in the admiration they had for Laird Hamilton, and what he has accomplished. He was certainly young, and actually eclipsed their accomplishments. But he paid his dues, worked very hard, and ultimately, became, according them, the best big wave surfer in the world.

I think the same thing applied a number of years ago when Michael Jordon tried to play baseball. Many major league baseball players were not happy he was allowed to attend spring training. Randy Johnson quipped that he would knock him out of his Air Jordons if he ever pitched to him. Some players felt that they had worked their lives to acheive their level of success, and here was a guy that basically paid his way onto the team. Well, I suspect that most of the people who flocked to the beaches of Hawaii did so because they thought it cool.