If you are one of those who love to buy with Amazon Prime, I hope you know that you have access to Amazon Prime Video – the streaming service of Amazon TV, series and documentaries – for free. If during this quarantine you are running out of ideas on what to watch, Rocketman released only last year, is available on Prime Video.
Rocketman: the plot
Rocketman is Elton John’s biopic, although many of the events that are told don’t always follow the real chronological order. Even the songs (old ones and others composed specifically for the movie) are not presented in the way they were born, but they are an expedient to tell the episodes of the life of Elton John – from youth until, when the pinnacle of his career, he decided to change his dissolute life that was going to bring him to the abyss.
Elton and his relationship with the body
An interesting aspect of the movie, unfortunately little explored, is Elton’s relationship with his body: the movie talks about how, between alcohol, drug and drug abuse, Elton also suffered from eating disorders. It’s not directly connected to his relationship with the body, but in the movie it’s highlighted how Elton suffered of being fat.
In a scene of the film he asks a member of his band (Wilson) “How can a fat guy with glasses who comes from Pinner called Reggie Dwight become a songwriter?”. Wilson’s answer is unsettling “Writing songs”.
The message of the movie against internalized fatphobia
Although this wasn’t the solution to his bulimia problem, what Wilson’s answer means is that all those flaws that Elton saw in himself could not prevent him from doing something that had nothing to do with his talent! On the contrary, all that negativity was leading him to not achieve his goal of becoming a rockstar.
I often say this, even to myself: we must not believe that we can achieve everything we would like only when we would have a body different from what we have now!
Of course, we all feel the pressure of having a different body and it’s natural to look more on what we consider “defects” than our strengths. But waiting to do something only when we are in a certain way will not bring that time back. All the wasted time will not return and the experiences we left behind are not necessarily said they will return.
Because, as Elton says in the song that closes the film, “I’m still standing after all this time”
