Almost Famous is one of my favorite movies and it's ironically circled around people hiding their identity to pursue the personality they want to have. A couple of scenes came to my mind:
Ms. "Penny Lane" is a band-aid, not a groupie, and follows bands for the love of their music. William is a 15 year old trying to make it big writing for The Rolling Stone. He's a sweet, innocent and charming boy who clearly doesn't fit in with the rock'n'roll craziness but attempts to anyways. "Penny Lane," whom I put her name in quotations because it's not her true name, where she later confesses her mother wanted her to live a suburban Southern life with a husband and kids, which is why her mom named her Lady Goodman. She turns out to be a bonafide hippy and "true" lover of '70's music. As we were talking in class two questions came to mind: Does Penny Lane actually love the music or is she being the opposite of what was expected of her? Why does she take on a "hippy" persona?
As everyone knows at some point in their lives, rebelling is cool. Doing something out of the ordinary is exhilarating and refreshing, even if it's just a haircut. But Ms. Lane took her new self to the extent of changing her name and never looking back, because a true hippy would change their name to an iconic Beatles song; whereas William wanted to be dark and mysterious but it didn't fit his actual self. The entire movie was centered around characters being who they thought they should be: William as a badass, Penny Lane as the best band-aid around, and the band as a group who only "plays for the love of music."
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