Date: 2014-05-14 01:31 am (UTC)
(Anonymous)
You look at him, on a movie poster, or maybe you hear about him from a friend. Oh, you think to yourself,So that’s Channing Tatum. He’s alright, I guess, but he’s sort of funny looking. Maybe he’s handsome to someone- people who like football players or something. But he’s not my thing.
And then you see a movie with him in it. It isn’t on purpose; Channing Tatum movies are almost exclusively the sort of movie you end up seeing late on a thursday night because you weren’t sure what you wanted to see but came out to the theater anyway, or you were browsing around Netflix because your life has no direction and you picked a film with your eyes closed.
I won’t fall in love with Channing Tatum, you think, and you believe it, because he looks like what would happen if- through some terrible mistake of nature- Matt Damon had sex with a Sontaran.
You don’t know it yet, but this is how it starts.
As the film plays, he will grow on you. Like a cancer. You’ll look into his tiny, squinty eyes, framed in his comically enormous face, bracketed by ears that make him look like he escaped off the set of The Great Mouse Detective, and something inside of you will shift.
He wasn’t bad! You’ll tell your friends, after you finish the movie. You will tell them this because you expected him to be bad. Yeah, they’ll say, perhaps, if they discovered Charming Potato before you did. He isn’t bad, is he?
He looks a bit like a potato, though, you’ll say. And you’ll think nothing of it.
Then, you’ll have cause to see another Channing Tatum movie. This one may be something you like- something you’re seeing of your own volition. That Johnny Depp gangster movie you’ve been meaning to watch, or the Jonah Hill buddy cop thing, or that swords and sandals film everyone says is so slashy. Sure,you’ll say, After all, I don’t dislike Channing Tatum. I’m not unreasonable. You’ll say this, but deep down inside, you’ll know. You’ll know that it was his face that moved it to the front of the queue. You win this time, Channing Potato, you’ll whisper.
And you don’t know it yet, but it’s true. As you watch this squat little man let waddle across the screen, he’ll look at you. He’ll look at you with those unattractively plush lips and squinty little cerulean eyes, and he’ll smile, that shy, soft little smile, and something inside your heart will crinkle up and die and it will be replaced by the knowledge that Charming Potato looks like a hamster when he tries to grow facial hair, and that he wants to sleep with George Clooney.
And that’s when you know you’ve lost. He’s done it; he’s charmed you. He’s taken those beefy, square hands and wrapped them around your heart. You have lost. He is the Charming Potato, and you cannot deny it. Not to yourself of anyone else.