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okay, so the set-up of the film is about a journalist (arthur stuart) trying to find out what happened to a former glam rock star (brian slade/maxwell demon) following his staged assassination at a concert ten years ago that destroyed his career. with the set-up of arthur writing a kind of "where are they now" piece on slade, you think the film is going to be about him peeling away the layers of slade's persona to discover the real man underneath, but i think the film kind of does the reverse? we do learn some facts about the real slade–he's from birmingham, his birth name is thomas, his father ran a tile manufacturing business–but i think ultimately the film portrays him as someone who kind of exists only as a persona. the public persona of maxwell demon is a construct that literally involves putting on another skin (portraying himself as an alien) and when he publicly kills this persona, slade essentially dies as well. we see people associated with slade in off-stage, personal moments in the present day, like mandy honestly speaking to arthur in her natural accent, but never slade. the only way he can continue on is by creating another persona (tommy stone) because there's no real man left underneath the feathers and glitter.

curt wild as a character exists as a foil to this. he has his own rockstar persona, but it's more of a magnified version of who he really is. his name seems to actually be curt wild, unlike slade, and his persona as this wild (lol) card who likes to shock people with his behavior is rooted in a personal story about the abuse and homophobia of his childhood. slade is initially jealous of this innate ability that wild has to surprise and shock people through his performance and even when they become close professionally and personally, he's only able to engage with this idea of curt wild and not the real man himself, which is why they can't last. i also think that wild's performance of "gimme danger" is interesting because that feels like a moment of performance that's nonetheless channeling raw and genuine emotion?

i think arthur stuart's character ties into this as well. when living at home with his parents in the past, we see him literally hiding parts of himself–his sexuality, his clothing. what speaks to him about slade isn't really the rockstar persona, but how open slade is about his bisexuality. even in a constructed persona, there's an element of authenticity that connects with someone on a real and emotional level. and then i think there's also the fact that arthur in the present day is portrayed as this very gray and straight-laced person working as a journalist, but the layers of his character are unpacked throughout the film until you realize there's this whole side of him that isn't apparent from how he presents himself in the present day. kind of a reverse of slade, who is ultimately nothing beyond his outward persona?