Yesterday, while I was teaching a class about Huckleberry Finn, I noticed a couple of students in the back corner as they were gesturing and giggling a bit. Since it is the beginning of the semester, I did not make an issue of it, because even university students tend to settle down a couple of weeks in. After class, the two came up to speak, and I thought that it was likely that they were going to ask a question about the material that I had just covered. I thought that I would be nice about repeating myself, and then the next class would go a bit smoother. One of them smiled and said, "You know that show King of the Hill? You look just like him. You are so funny."
They were thinking of Hank Hill, the lead character of King of the Hill, an animated series about a socially conservative Texan who deals with the shifting standards of contemporary American life. Of all the responses that ran through my mind, I told them that I had won a look-a-like contest at one time, and they both offered that "compliment" again and left smiling. That is not the first time that a student here on the ETSU campus has told me that I look like Hank Hill, and I have to admit that I have difficulty imagining a situation where one welcomes the comment that he resembles a cartoon character (unless attending a comics convention or joining a cosplay group), but I just felt unprepared to hear it yesterday, and I really did not want to hear it from a couple of my students.
Part of that unpreparedness comes from my being accustomed to being unseen by so many of the students here on campus when I am outside the classroom. The fact of the matter is that I do resemble Hank Hill a bit. We are both relatively tall, we are both a bit thicker in the middle than we would like, and, while Hank is a bit younger than me (I think he would be in his mid-forties or so), when I have a short haircut and wear my usual style of glasses, the similarities between our facial features appear more prominent. I was even wearing a blue work shirt yesterday, and I wear jeans every day. I was just a bit more like Hank yesterday than usual. I might as well also admit that my consciousness of their comparing me to Hank will affect the way I conduct the class, at least for a while. And, while I am at it, I might as well further admit that being told by pretty young women that I resemble an ordinary-looking cartoon character wounds a bit.
It shouldn't. They certainly did not intend to be hurtful and would likely feel shamed were they to understand what the comment did. And I have coped with this face for a long time--about twenty years ago, I looked in a mirror and realized that instead of looking like Tim Robbins, I looked a lot more like Michael J. Pollard. When my self estimation slipped from Nuke LaLoosh to C. W. Moss, I dealt with it. Even years later, when I posted a still image from Eraserhead on my office door and a student confused Jack Nance for me, I just smiled and shook my head.
I am more likely to see specific facial features when I now look in the mirror, the similarities of my eyes' shape with those of my father, how I have my mother's nose, even how I've seen that same hair curl on two or three of my family members. I see myself in such a context that I do not see Hank Hill unless I look for him. With any luck, over the semester my students will see enough of me so that they do not see Hank unless they look for him.
Physical vanity, and at this stage of my life, too--sometimes I surprise myself.
No comments:
Post a Comment