Self (Involved)

 Mr. Chips

        It is not in doubt that the most self-involved people Iknow, or have ever known, share the same profession. They are all collegeprofessors, all tenured and, I would say (based on honors and accolades theyhave received), highly esteemed in their narrow fields of largely irrelevant studies.

Professor Indiana Jones

        It would be painful to recite details of their near completenarcissism and would be far more fun to tell jokes about it, or makevalid (and only  slightly extreme) comparisons between their behavior and that of other self-obsessed characters like the ones Tony Roberts performedso amusingly and convincingly in Play It Again, Sam and Annie Hall.  Like the fictional Dick Christie in the first movie and Rob in the second, these people are very hard to "reach," both figuratively and literally.  Making meaningful contact with them is, as some people say, like trying to get an appointment to see the Pope.

Tony Roberts as Dick Christie in Play It Again, Sam

 

        When I was in college, I held my professors in almost uniformly high regard and did not notice (in most cases) whether or not they were as blinkered as my contemporaries are.  Because I worked on campus during  several summers, I got to see many of them in quiet, "non-business" moments and, based on that, I do not think so.  They actually seemed pretty normal and to have an enthusiasm for life, family, friends (and summer) that was infectious.

Professor Edward Jessup (in Altered States) giving self-involvement a bad name and reaping (temporarily) just desserts. Blair Brown saves him and brings him back to himself.  I love Altered States.

 

        I myself am not terribly self-involved, just looking for other selves to be involved with.  I'm what you might call "lonely sociable."