Zoolander is a 2001 movie that tells the story of an intellectually-challenged British Prime Minister male model. I love it to bits. While saying that models are a bit dim is hardly killer satire, it features amazing comic performances from Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson, Christine Taylor, and above all, Will Ferrell at his most demented. It is worth remembering that Zoolander knows it is a comedy while House of Gucci seems to think it is a… drama, I guess?
So fond am I of this movie that I refuse to watch the sequel for the same reasons that I would refuse to watch a beloved family pet getting run over by a car driven by coked-up Hollywood producers chasing a large bag of money.
Even our titular protagonist, Derek Zoolander, is ultimately a good-hearted chap beneath the intense narcissism and “Blue Steel” look. He wants to found the Derek Zoolander Center for Kids Who Can't Read Good.
So I had an eerie sense of deja entendu while listening to this episode of Jon Ronson’s Things Fell Apart. Ronson is a journalist drawn to extreme and absurd figures and in this BBC series he explores the origins of our current, extremely tedious culture wars.
In the final episode, he interviews Mikki Willis - former male model and producer of the Plandemic documentaries. Willis has had some traumas in his life including a brother with AIDS who Willis alleges died from AZT. His latest works are conspiracy theories that the COVID emergency was a plot by sinister goal forces to control populations, that vaccines are actively harmful, and that this is all linked to the trans rights and black lives matter movements.
Some people find Ronson’s diffident style (shared with Louis Theroux) annoying - faux naif. I think it is rooted in his strong sense of the absurdity of human nature and his disinterest in DEBATE ME type moves. You don’t learn much from people if their fists are raised. He coaxes things out of his interviewees.
What he coaxes from Mr Plandemic is Willis’ belief that he is a hero. Willis is obsessed with Joseph Campbell’s “The Hero’s Journey”. And sees his life as such a journey. Others might say that Willis is promoting dangerous medical falsehoods and incorrectly smearing public figures but, in his mind, he is a vigorous prosecutor of The Truth. Willis would never consider himself a baddy.
Who is more stupid: Derek Zoolander or Mikki Willis? Willis is definitely more competent. Zoolander struggles with basic technology while Willis has actually produced a movie. But poor Derek hasn’t been boosted toxic misinformation that has probably led to preventable deaths.
Derek ultimately knows his limitations. He just looks amazing in front of a camera. Could Willis really pull off “Magnum”?