Simply Shatner

CALGARY -She calls him simply "Shatner." Not William Shatner, Mr. Shatner or even Bill Shatner, as his Hollywood pals do. Janine Vangool is no friend of Shatner. They have no personal connection. She has communicated to him only through his assistant. She is, she explains, merely an observer. And, as curator of what is surely the first art exhibit dedicated to exploring the man's mystique, she has become a documenter of the cultural phenomenon that is, to sum up in a single word, Shatner.

"Shatner is Shatner," explains Ms. Vangool, owner of Calgary's Uppercase Gallery. "It's a unique character he's created."

Seventy-six artists (one for each year of the man's life) have contributed as many works to The Shatner Show, which opened this month in the tiny downtown gallery and runs until Aug. 15 with a portion of the proceeds going to Mr. Shatner's favourite charity, horse therapy for handicapped children. Works cover the span of a roller-coaster career: One moody gouache portrait recreates a Shatner close-up still from 1962's Judgment at Nuremberg, another alludes to his role in 1965's bizarre horror picture, Incubus, filmed entirely in the constructed universal language of Esperanto.

There are too many Star Trek influences to count, of course. But others represent more contemporary incarnations. There is an enormous Lego bust of Denny Crane, the eccentric lawyer played by Mr. Shatner on Boston Legal (constructed with 9,000 pieces, and with more than 180 hours of work sunk into it by New York artist Sean Kenney, it's the most expensive piece at $16,000). And at least one artist, depicting Mr. Shatner riding a turd like a horse, says he had in mind "regularity" --a nod to the actor's current role as spokesman for All-Bran. That, suggests the artist in question, Clayton Hanmer, or "the big poop could also represent the bulls--t of celebrity and Hollywood-dom that he totally has control of."

Like Mr. Hanmer, most artists seem eager to get beyond the characters that Mr. Shatner plays and into the character of the man himself -- someone who seems uniquely able to simultaneously enjoy his celebrity and mock it. (When Ms. Vangool asked for his blessing, Mr. Shatner e-mailed: "Every artist has their muse. Leonardo was inspired by the ceiling in the great chapel. Who am I to stand in the way of all these fine artists and artisans who want to use my lumpy, ageing face for inspiration?")

The inspiration for the exhibit came last summer, Ms. Vangool says. She and her husband had never given much thought to Mr. Shatner, before. They are not Trekkies, nor avid fans of T.J. Hooker, Rescue 911 or Boston Legal. But on a road trip to Nova Scotia, they listened over and over to Mr. Shatner's 2004 spoken-word album Has Been. In it, the star known most for his pop cultural camp value, offers up sometimes painful reflections on his life. "It has a nice emotional range and [it] intrigued me that he had this other creative side," she says.

Several pieces in the exhibit play with the theme of Mr. Shatner as Lothario. In one imagined mash-up from the legendary Star Trek episode Arena, Kirk's death-struggle with a Gorn lizard becomes a love scene. Several artists are absorbed by Mr. Shatner's Quebec roots, portraying him as the iconic Bonhomme and as a cat (a play on the French transliteration of his name, "Chat-ner").

But given that this is a man who has become a cultural icon, despite never having aspired to acting and who has succeeded in transforming typecast into self-parody, making millions doing so (his estimated $40-million net worth comes more from his work in the past decade than anything from his more serious past), it is remarkable that so many works portray a dark, tortured side.

In one linocut, he sits anxiously on a tree limb, in his pyjamas, gripping his knees to his chest. One disturbing painting shows the Montreal-born actor at a pool-side funeral -- in 1999, he discovered his third wife dead at the bottom of his pool-- while mourners in black swimsuits sip punch.

Amazingly, though, it's Mr. Shatner's mystifying performance of Rocket Man at the 1978 Science Fiction Film Awards that emerges as the dominant theme. At least 16 different works evoke the melodramatic scene, in which a tuxedoed Mr. Shatner, atop a stool lit by a single spotlight, contemplates a cigarette while speaking the lyrics to the Elton John song.

While Ms. Vangool says she asked the artists to treat the subject with "playful reverence," most apparently couldn't escape an image of Mr. Shatner as the enigmatic, rather absurd, Rocket Man: a human of dimensions at odds with each other.

They weren't alone. The most serious work of the exhibit is Shatner Reflecting. In it, an older looking Shatner slumps in a dressing room, cigarette in hand, a scotch on the vanity. There is nothing "playful" about it. It is the one work Mr. Shatner asked to keep for himself.

I suppose this is the best place to re-post William F'n Shatner's FAME AUDIT

We've wanted to audit William Shatner for a while, but here's the problem: which William Shatner? Shatner, the early charmer with a talent for frantic paranoia, as evidenced by his sweaty, twitchy star turn in the famous 1963 Twilight Zone episode, "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet"? Or Breakout Shatner, the dashing J. Tiberius Kirk, captain of the starship Enterprise? Or Late-Kirk Shatner, with his smirk, his corset, his boner, his wandering eye?

Or how about Kitsch Shatner, when he gamely slid across car hoods as T.J. Hooker, with Adrian Zmed and Heather Locklear in tow? Or Shatner Redux, in the early, good Star Trek movies, screaming skyward, shaking his fists, the corset only slightly more generous, the toupee only slightly askew, giving us the most immortal of immortal quotes: "Khaaaaaaaan!"

Or Ironic Shatner, spoofing himself in Airplane II? Or Literary Shatner, cashing in with a series of TekWar books? Or Wink-Wink Shatner, crooning in Priceline commercials? Or how about the early, earnest Singing Shatner, be-bopping through Tambourine Man? Or the latter, I-get-it-now Shatner, duetting with Ben Folds? Or Buoyant Shatner, now appearing on Boston Legal? Now winning an Emmy! Now winning a Golden Globe!

So many Shatners. So much Shatner. So much Shatner love.

Most stars are lucky to have a three-phase career: young heartthrob; blowsy superstar; Austin Powers cameo. Or some careers play out this way: heartthrob; handshakes; U.S. President.

By that yardstick, Shatner's had ten careers. He's had twenty. He's had entire careers before breakfast. You could tell your life story twice in the time it would take him to tell the story about that one time he pantsed DeForrest Kelley. Shatner has conquered. He was cool, then he was nerd-cool, then he was kitsch, then he was kitsch-cool, then he was knowing-wink cool, then just plain cool again, and now he's something better than cool. He made himself a punchline with such debonair cunning that -- guess what? -- the man is not a punchline anymore.

When the world zigs, he zags. When the world zags, he zigs. When the world zigs back, he records an album with Ben Folds. When the world chuckles, he pantses the world.

Some celebrities think they've got this whole image thing figured out, they can have fun with it, and they can make it their bitch. Sure, we like John Malkovich, and, sure, we thought it was cool and funny when he starred in Being John Malkovich. But for William Shatner, every day is Being William Shatner. Some celebrities get it, but Shatner so thoroughly gets it that "it" no longer exists. He's consumed "it." He's crawled up inside celebrity and made it explode, the way that Neo finally crawls into Agent Smith and makes him explode. (Uh, sorry -- Matrix spoiler, for all you Amish out there.)

As a result, Shatner is so damned awesome, so abundantly unexpected, so fucking necessary, he's practically Biblical. It would be an insult to Shatner to compare him to some other celebrity and suggest they are equivalents. There's only one other celebrity who comes to mind as being even one iota as cool as Shatner, in the way that Shatner is cool, and that's Leslie Nielsen. And the only way that Leslie Nielsen could ever be even remotely as cool as Shatner is if he'd spent the first half of his career flying around the cosmos banging space broads on Styrofoam rocks.

By the way, Shatner and Nielsen are both Canadian.

Damn, Shatner, you're making our teeth ache, you suave bastard.

There's more at the link above -- it's a riot.

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