Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, and Humphrey Bogart

May 7, 2023 3:45 AM

In other words, this isn’t the most obvious foursome to occupy a painted, nostalgic eternity together. But now, ironically, thanks to these ubiquitous paintings, Monroe, Dean, Presley, and Bogart seem forever inseparable. So who decided on this grouping, and why? The answer is comically, unnecessarily complex. from The Hopper-Consani Connection [The Believer; ungated]
posted by chavenet (15 comments total)

Holy effing fuck, I can’t believe that “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” is by Gottfried Helnwein. That’s like finding out G. G. Allin wrote “Last Christmas”.
posted by Kattullus at 4:26 AM on May 7, 2023 [13 favorites]

Cool- Thanks for posting! Now trying (unsuccessfully thus far) to locate a site or source that explains all the Consani "Easter eggs" in each of his images.
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 4:39 AM on May 7, 2023 [1 favorite]

The late 90s video game Fallout 2 had a forlorn bar you could randomly stumble upon called the Cafe of Broken Dreams.

I have a vague memory of early teen me recognizing that this phrase was a reference to something involving Nighthawks and not being able to figure out how they related (I think I must have had this game before I had even dialup internet at home and almost certainly had seen the poster for sale at the mall next to those Kramer portraits), so thank you for tying it all together.
posted by smelendez at 4:43 AM on May 7, 2023 [3 favorites]

Metafilter: he agrees with my assessment that Bogart is the perpetual odd man out, but stops short of cosigning my interpretation that he’s trapped in some kind of cursed existence as a permanent witness to others’ lives yet never living his own.
posted by taquito sunrise at 4:51 AM on May 7, 2023 [4 favorites]

Okay...I’m generally considered to be a boomer, though I feel I share little with my elders who were legitimately part of the post-war baby boom. This little bit of decorative zeitgeist is one piece that draws a clear-ish demarcation between people my age and the ones I consider actual boomers.

To wit...
If you visit the home of a true boomer, and they have anything in the home resembling a family room/gaming room/entertainment space/etc., you will unfailingly find one of these homages (if not all of them) hanging on the walls. It’s practically a given, and it’s done without a single drip of irony. And, I just don’t understand it.

Also, there’s bound to be some depiction of a ‘57 Chevy somewhere in the room.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:31 AM on May 7, 2023 [3 favorites]

Oh man, I loved that article. It was a little like a good episode of Connections. It explains this little piece of pervasive pop culture and how it got there and now I feel like I know a little bit more about the world.

It's interesting the article didn't provide many links, even going so far as advising the reader to Google a given phrase. I assume there's some legal reason for this. I'd never heard of Gottfried Helnwein before, and wow, I would have never guessed his role in all of this given the rest of his work.
posted by DrumsIntheDeep at 7:32 AM on May 7, 2023 [4 favorites]

I remember visiting a mom'n'pop pizza restaurant on a small side street in a northern Italian city in the early '80s and being surprised to see posters (although not the referenced ones) of James Dean, MM and Elvis on its walls. Until then, I hadn't realized how much that iconography traveled.
posted by the sobsister at 8:59 AM on May 7, 2023 [2 favorites]

I’ve always hated this stuff and the Coca-Cola, Betty Boop, and other fake-vintage tchotchkes that go with it. But once I found myself watching an Australian reality show with competing Airbnb owners, where I saw a suite decked out in all the 50s-80s American diner kitsch you could ask for. No windows, though. It was one of the dwellings in the underground desert town of Coober Pedy, where it’s mostly too hot to live otherwise. The couple who ran it loved this dream aesthetic so much that they really wanted to win the big prize, a trip to California, and see the American highway themselves. This moved me. I don’t remember if they won or not, but I hope they got to see America someday.
posted by Countess Elena at 9:27 AM on May 7, 2023 [5 favorites]

My neighbors, who are Chinese and don't speak English, have “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” hanging in their kitchen. If I'm going to have to see one Gottfried Helnwein work every time I look the wrong way while taking out the garbage, I guess that's the best one?
posted by The corpse in the library at 11:28 AM on May 7, 2023 [2 favorites]

Legends of Hollywood mural is much better, but alas, no Elvis.
posted by Ideefixe at 11:58 AM on May 7, 2023 [2 favorites]

Needs more dogs playing poker.
posted by y2karl at 12:36 PM on May 7, 2023 [3 favorites]

After finding out the Scorpions connection, I'm not super-surprised to find out that Helnwein also did the cover(s) for Rammstein's Sehnsucht, one for each of the band members. Du... du hast... du hast nostalgia!
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:38 AM on May 8, 2023 [1 favorite]

(erratum: the Australian diner house was in the Barossa Valley, also hot and lonesome but not underground. There was definitely a place in Coober Pedy on that show though)
posted by Countess Elena at 8:50 AM on May 8, 2023 [1 favorite]

Needs more dogs playing poker.

If there isn’t a painting of Mafia, Tuck, Sherlock and Harvey playing poker out there somewhere, there really should be.
posted by zamboni at 5:07 PM on May 8, 2023 [2 favorites]

there’s bound to be some depiction of a ‘57 Chevy somewhere in the room

And why not? Best tailfins in the Free World.
posted by Rash at 3:00 PM on May 9, 2023 [1 favorite]