This guest post is written by Mara Franzen.
With the popularity of “Project Hail Mary” it’s no wonder that fan spaces like Tumblr are full of fan art, head cannons, and in-depth analysis of the film and the preceding novel of the same name. What makes this unique however is that because the film features a scant cast, and most of the movie is Ryan Gosling acting across from a puppet there’s not a lot of room for people to play with other characters. Enter… Ryan Gosling?
Before we get too into it, I want to give the heads up that while I will be referencing many of Gosling’s roles and films, as well as another unrelated movie(we’ll get there in a minute, I promise), I’m going to be keeping this as spoiler free as possible. If it’s not something you can learn from a trailer for the movie I won’t be bringing it up here. Fans quickly decided that the best way to play with the world of the movie was to include other Ryan Gosling’s characters, Colt, from the film “Fall Guy” as the twin brother of Ryland Grace, his “Project Hail Mary” character.
The fun didn’t stop there as soon they pulled from Gosling’s vast canon of film to include characters like Court Gentry (“The Gray Man”) as an additional brother, Holland March (“The Nice Guys”) as an older uncle to the fictional brothers, and occasionally K (“Blade Runner 2049”) and Driver (“Drive”) as other distant relations.
Recently, I’ve even seen fans working to include Ken from “Barbie” and Sebastian from “La La Land” into this identical looking family. Tumblr user “sparklycartoonfair” even proposed a theory that perhaps Ryland Grace is an escaped Ken, and the more evidence they suggested, I do have to say that I can see the possibility.
What has made this phenomena a treat to look into is that every person does something different with it. While it is fairly standard to see Colt and Ryland as twins, everyone has added in new characters, made different connections, and put their own twist on it. There’s no real agreed upon story because that’s not how something like this works. There aren’t rules here, it’s all shared creativity in whatever forms people are most interested in exploring.
What’s more, the character Ryland Grace interacts with most is an alien named Rocky who is, in fact, happily mated to another Eridian, Adrian. While this doesn’t stop many fans from creating a quaint, queer platonic polycule for the trio, many fans needed to find someone more or less human to ship Grace with. Not seeing any other real contenders in the film, they turned elsewhere to the recently released “Iron Lung” based on the video game of the same name. Mark Fischbach, better known on the internet as Markiplier, directed, financed, wrote, and starred in the movie as Simon, otherwise known as “The Convict”. Iron Lung follows a man alone in a submarine in an ocean of blood following what’s known as The Quiet Rapture. Because of this the ship name for these two is simply “Bloodymary.”
It makes sense in a way. Both films feature men who find themselves the designated, albeit unwilling, sacrificial lamb to their respective dying worlds just trying their best against impossible odds. Yes, one is a comedic sci-fi film about hope and the human spirit, and the other is a cosmic horror film about the unknown and perceived frailty of humanity, but they still have enough in common that keeps fans engaged in the stories.
Recently, Markiplier even addressed the “Bloodymary” phenomenon, further fanning the fandom flames. In his YouTube video, Iron Lung Now Available**, announcing the streaming release of “Iron Lung,” he ends the update with a tongue and cheek nod to the fan base, “I’ll finally be able to escape the blood ocean and curl up in Ryan Gosling’s arms”.
As a fan of “Project Hail Mary,” both the film and the book, I’ve loved getting to see others create wonderful art about the story. As a fan of movies in general, it’s also fun seeing all these Gosling movies come together into a wonderful mishmash of genres, styles, characters, and tones.
But why do we do this? What makes us want to create when we see art we love? I would say it’s an instinct we’ve had in us for as long as we’ve been recognizable as people. A great film, book, or game, drives us to want to create for ourselves. For some of us, it fuels and inspires us to go fiddle with our own unrelated projects, for others it encourages us to respond directly to the art itself.
If you’ll allow me a little academic indulgence here, I can’t help but ponder why this particular story has so captured people’s hearts and imaginations. Ryland Grace as a character is not the typical hero archetype – he does not accept the call to action. He “puts the not in astronaut” as it were. He was an academic who was undervalued in his field but found that his true calling was to be a teacher. He’s a self-proclaimed coward, cries a lot, and is lonely but not alone.
We all like to think of ourselves as the willing heroes of the story, but it’s hard to deny that Grace is an incredibly relatable character. He embodies many people’s insecurities*, yet his arc has the satisfying conclusion I think a lot of us wish for.
In the immortal words of the great Kurt Vonnegut in “Man Without A Country:”
I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don’t let anybody tell you different.
To me that perfectly sums up my feelings on this strange internet phenomena. Getting to see people put true effort and passion into what could easily be deemed as “silly” is actually an honor to see. In a world where the budgets for arts and humanities are getting slashed left and right, there’s something strangely healing seeing strangers on the internet come together to create something that yes, might be silly, but is also beautiful.
I, personally, can’t wait to see what comes next. Before this, Gosling was not the typical Tumblr darling. What project will capture the collective hearts of the internet next? How many Gosling projects will be included in the collective fanon before it’s all over?
No one can know, but I for one can’t wait to find out.
*Not my insecurities though, NASA, if you ever need to send a writer who knows nothing about science to space for some sort of “Armageddon” or “Space Cowboy” situation, I am ready and willing.
Image credit: “Project Hail Mary”
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