Curious about Cool

"Ah," she cried, "you look so cool."

Their eyes met, and they stared together at each other, alone in space. With an effort she glanced down at the table.

"You always look so cool," she repeated.

She had told him that she loved him, and Tom Buchanan saw."

— F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby)

The above is a a famous excerpt from one of my favourite books. Daisy, the speaker, is saying this to Gatsby, a lover from the past, while her husband Tom watches. The dynamics are not totally clear if you're not familiar with the story and its setting in the Roaring Twenties. The statement about "looking cool" is one that sticks and what I thought of when we covered the topic of Hot and Cool in class. This book was written and set in the 1920s which is before the use of 'cool' as we discussed in class came about. I actually feel like it refers to a slightly different sentiment: look at this clip of the dialogue from the 1974 film version with Robert Redford, scroll to 8:21.

To me, Gatsby is anything but cool, as is evident from the video as well. First, he literally seems to be sweating (yes I know that isn't the opposite of cool as we mean it, but it does add to negating the cool of 'coolness'). Secondly, from the story, we know that Gatsby is someone who is trying very hard, not just at being cool, but really to woo Daisy (who is kind of shallow and idiotic) and so become all she seems to covet materially.

Another thought that came to mind during lecture, and I believe others will be more familiar with this one, is this clip from 'Almost Famous'. Start watching from 2:55.

In case you don't wanna watch, "William’s mentor and fellow music critic Lester Bangs offers a frightening prophecy for rock and roll: You missed it. Rock and roll is dead. It’s nothing more than an industry of cool. And of course, as everyone knows, trying to be cool is uncool." (taken from http://www.next-wave.org/apr01/cool.htm)

Here, cool refers to the meaning we understood in class. But it raises an interesting and inherent characteristic of 'cool': it okay to be cool, but its very uncool to TRY to be cool. That makes me wonder what Fitzgerald's meaning was when he used it in 1925. From the text and Daisy's generally flakey and silly personality, I always inferred it to mean something like the 196os cool. Is it irony then that Fitzgerald was going for? By trying to very hard to be cool, Gatsby is positively uncool. Yet Daisy calls him cool, maybe because compared to her own 'normal' expected existence, Gatsby comes across as this cool, mysterious person who walks out and walks back in to her life as he pleases? Despite his apparent lack of cool, I still feel terribly sad about Gatsby; his trying, instead of being pathetic (which some think it was), was passionate to me and showed his utter desperation. I find that very sad.

This post is a bit rambling and I'm not really trying to make a point, just wanted to muse aloud about some things that ran through my mind while wondering about the quality of 'cool'.