And the fandom peeps will never know about ‘The Purple Rose of Cairo’

Lost within the righteous and justified flames that took Woody Allen, is a film called ‘The Purple Rose of Cairo’ starring Jeff Daniels, of The Newsroom fame, in his first big role.

I found this film through a friend and exclaimed that, as it has been lost to time, I could happily steal the concept for my own gain.

Why?

Fandom peeps would eat this up.

A hard-on-her-luck, clumsy Y/N, as played by Mia Farrow, goes to the cinema to escape her dreadful life and abusive partner. She ends up seeing ‘The Purple Rose of Cairo’ a ton of times, leading to the main character breaking the fourth wall, literally. Jumping out of the screen, the character becomes a bumbling but gold-hearted devotee of this woman, completely - straight out of Fanfiction, I tell you.

This becomes an international incident, and the original actor of the part is called in to handle the situation - and soon also falls in love with Y/N.

So, to recap - two men who are identical - one a fictional character, and the other the actor who plays said character, are fighting over the affections of a self-insert character so thoroughly earnest and relatable you simply can’t take it. (The genius of Mia Farrow).

There are other self-insert characters in the WA canon, most notably ‘Midnight In Paris’, but none so egregious and fantastical as this.

In advance, I shall say, that I will be stealing this idea.

Does it work in the film? Yes. Would it work if done absent of the soul and whimsy of the premise? No. It can’t be commodified. This is, simply, camp - and cannot be treated any other way.

So yeah. Signposting that I will be doing what all the best artists do and stealing this idea entirely, that’s all I wanted to say.