May 11, 2021
How Will Smith’s Hitch(2005) became the first influencer I ever subscribed to
I remember my 14-year-old-or-so self, ringing my neighbor’s doorbell at least two times a week. Not because my mom ordered me to, or because I really liked the guy that much. No, it was something he possessed that was of particular value to me at that time.
Some of you might not remember, but here’s some proper back-in-my-day nostalgia coming from a 26 year old: if you wanted to watch a particular movie, you had to have a DVD copy of it — Yes, a physical, highly tradable commodity. Even came with a cover, isn’t that something. Well, that’s exactly what he had. Many of them. But the one I was interested in was called Hitch (directed by Andy Tennant and written by Kevin Bisch). Once borrowed, I would go on to shove it in and out of my cheap grey DVD player as many times as I could, before he would eagerly come knocking on our door to retrieve it.
Only as I’m writing this, it makes me realize that it’s kind of strange how much he wanted it back at times. Either he was just as fascinated with it as I was, a young boy in the midst of his puberty trying to figure out where he stands with girls and with himself for that matter. Which, in hindsight, becomes a little stranger when you realize he was well in his 50’s. It only hits me now that I got entangled in possibly one of the creepiest games of tag ever, but let’s leave that aside for now.
Let’s talk Hitch. Probably not the most common binge-able title, back when binging wasn’t even a thing yet. I just couldn’t help myself, I imprinted on this thing mentally and physically. I believe if I could show you the very disc now, it would look like a Gerhard Richter painting. But what made this movie so intrinsically valuable to me? Well, it all starts at play.
We hear the very pleasant & soulful sound of Same Cooke’s: Wonderful World, which back then, with my ‘very contemporary’ taste in music, must have sounded like a very pleasant ear flush. Then we hear Hitch start his opening monologue, starting with: “basic principles,” principles? Is he talking about a type of chip? For a fella barely understanding rules, principles were a thing of the future. A thing that goes together with mortgage and divorce. But it didn’t sound like that at all. Now Will Smith deserves some credit for this, having great flair and all, but it was probably also the first time someone explained some very-much needed ground rules to me. Not even in regard to women, but in general.
It made me think about having a plan, a strategy. Something quite useful for a hormone-driven kid who has yet to find out about the horribly satisfying importance of responsibility. The intro goes on and after some cutscenes, we are introduced to Smith’s character. A sophisticated looking man with flair, charm & pizzazz, unlike anything I had experienced in the world up until that point. Not to discredit any men I grew up around with, but he just brought a sense of aspiration to it.
Sitting straight-up in my football-themed, bed-sheeted covers, I knew I was looking at something that was going to change me. Man, I studied that intro like the Old Testament. If we ever were to meet, I could probably recite it to you. I found myself easing into this movie with literally zero kickback. From the homey color-grading to the superb writing. At the end of the intro, Hitch delivers his tagline. One of the best I’ve ever heard or read in my humble, copywriting opinion:
“Life is not the amount of breaths you take. It’s the moments that take your breath away.”
While the movie progresses with a couple of visual distortions here and there from overplaying the disc so much, there is one particular scene I’d like to single out here. A scene that was so well written, it still makes me vicariously envious. We see Hitch approach his love-interest to-be in a bar. Not a very extraordinary scenario right? As soon as Hitch moves forward, so does the scene and it shoots all of the cliché expectations right out of the air. What follows is a conversation which, between you and me, I still hope to somewhat loosely recreate one day. It is a hyper-intellectual, semi-hypothetical, flirtatious tasting, with our man Hitch as the connoisseur. Go see it for yourself and start living with the dreadful fact that most of your pick-up lines will still more often than not, start with: ‘How are you?’ or ‘How’s it going?’
It’s in the middle of the movie that things really started to become interesting to me. We see a protagonist, or multiple, who are starting to find themselves at the end of their character’s perceived emotional limits. My words, not those of my 14 year old self. At that age, it’s interesting to see people burst through a wall they’ve set for themselves. Especially since you’re so busy building walls around yourself at that age, with the sole purpose of tearing them down. Moreover, Hitch manages to keep his flair through it all, as his character’s love-interest will also ‘conveniently’ mentions a couple of times. After all, it remains a romantic comedy.
Let’s fast forward, even past the ending, which I think is understandably moderate by the way. It disregards the principles in true romcom style, leaving all rationality behind, jumping the broom, living happily ever after and so on — I might have been young, but I wasn’t naive. Let me digress, watching something more than a couple of times a week will have an effect on you. While we see many of today’s kids repeating the catchphrases of their favorite influencers, I was implementing some of my own principles. Did that work very well for me? Well, the short answer is no. I soon learned first-hand about the magic of film and how girls that age don’t really respond very well to semi-hypotheticals.
It wouldn’t be long until my first heartbreak and a momentary relapse into very obnoxious, popular sad songs. There was good news however, after tiring my neighbor out for a year with requests to borrow the DVD, he finally decided to gift it to me on my 15th birthday. Probably more of a good riddance than a happy birthday, but it’s still a win. A classic rope-a-dope, I now realize.
Where does that leave us today? Do I still watch Hitch from time to time sitting up under my now solid, dark grey-colored bedsheets? Perhaps. But that’s not the point. The point is, that in a time where social media was still in high development and influencers were still referred to as ‘those kids and their Youtube’, I subscribed to my first ever influencer. His name was Alex Hitchens and he started something in me that is probably, like social media back then, still developing. And you’ll be glad to know that i’m not going around throwing Hitch catchphrases out there. At least not until asked.
