FANZINE

When the archaeologist Grant (played by Sam Neill) saw a living dinosaur for the first time on Isla Nublar, he removed his floppy foolish hat, and pulled himself into standing position on the idling Jeep.

 

Then he removed his sunglasses in a slow bumbling, but singular motion.

 

His eyes widened but unevenly. Certain muscles around his eyes and mouth flexed or tightened asymmetrically. According to the internet, there are forty-three muscles in the human face. In this scene the actor playing Grant, this Sam Neill, used most–if not all– of these muscles.

 

Sunglasses distort or change one’s natural, native vision of the world.

 

Grant lost some of the inner control when he removed the sunglasses from his face…

 

His regulation mechanisms were weekending somewhere… His eye twinched.

 

I don’t have access to his lens prescription, so I don’t know if the glasses were intended to only protect his eyes from the harmful and strong and sometimes harmful rays of the Sun or if the lenses were also corrective.

 

His girlfriend Ellie (played by Laura Dern), also an archaeologist, examined a large, ancient & living leaf – engineered and grown on Isla Nublar – while also wearing her sunglasses.

The sunglasses obscured her from fully examining the leaf, but she’s engaged, chatty, and focused.   Like me after yoga class: vocal and not depressed!

 

She was in awe of the leaf she held.

 

But she could not fully see it in its original natural form while wearing sunglasses.

 

Glasses were invented by humankind to improve the vision of humans.

 

Additionally, sunglasses often provide a cool detachment in characters in Hollywood films and other visual media. I’m too cool to care enough to see what you’re doing, they seem to say.

I’m too cool to see anything.

 

Seeing is, as you may know, believing.

 

Grant took his hand to his girlfriend Ellie’s head and turned it like a familiar, head-sized faucet toward the direction of the dinosaur. The way he handled her head gives us subtle hints about their sex life and who dominates whom.

 

Then Ellie steadied her head in a bobbling woozy gaze. She also took off her sunglasses. But she did so in a swift, singular motion before standing up in the Jeep.

 

She does not see or perceive of a dinosaur until a man points it out to her, physically.

 

Wonder, a state of fascination, like the world appears after snorting few lines of coke, and suddenly this is getting interesting.

 

When I saw my newborn baby sister the first time in the hospital, I held the small girl and her head smelled like yogurt or spoiling milk and that was, suddenly, fascinating.  It was like I, only ten, took my sunglasses off in a swift right to left motion.

 

Though I am left handed for writing, I often favor my right with certain sports like taking my sunglasses off.

 

I bridged the divide between my brain’s hemispheres through art and soft drugs and bad decisions.

 

I can see everything.

 

When I arrive indoors in a relaxed state, I take my sunglasses off with both hands. This motion is an adjustment to a differing lighting and my human form’s adjustments. It is reasonable.

 

But when I see something good or charged in some way, I start from the right, using my right hand, and slowly take my sunglasses off.  By the time the glasses are off, my hand is on the left hand side of my face. Then my arm falls slowly beside me holding the frames.

 

Then I stand in my Jeep, soiling the leather.

 

I stand in the Jeep of my life thus confounding scores of ex-boyfriends.

 

When I run into a friend on the sidewalk, I might take off my sunglasses to see the friend better.

 

Right to left.

 

Or left to right (if holding packages).

 

I love my beautiful friends.

 

I love to regard my beautiful friends.

 

To take the lens between us away is to show you the wonder of friendship and what beauty, glamor, handsomeness or trashiness I might not have before seen.

 

To see that which previously could not and perhaps may never be seen again.

 

I want to take my sunglasses off for those I care about.

 

I felt I might drop my sister, but I didn’t because I wasn’t wearing any sunglasses. I was correct.

 

Later on, an hour and a half into the movie, Ellie admitted that when she took her sunglasses off she didn’t fear the dinosaur enough.

 

She took her sunglasses off, but she was too open to them and their beauty. She should have kept her sunglasses on. Or she should have returned them to her face.

 

She did not respect and fear them like she should have. She admits this in the movie.

 

Rewatch it if you don’t believe me.

 

Take your sunglasses off if you don’t believe me.

 

And she, Ellie, took a kind of responsibility for the whole thing which is (keep your sunglasses on for this) not unexpected: women often apologize for things they have nothing to do with.

 

You bumped into me.  I’m sorry.

 

I’m sorry!  It’s a tic.

 

Take your sunglasses off now.

 

Put them back on.

 

Jeff Goldblum played Ian Malcolm, a mathematician, whose sunglasses stay on his head for most of the movie.

 

He gave a short speech on chaos theory to Ellie while flirting with her. He wore sunglasses the entire time.  So too for his “Life Finds a Way” speech…

 

He was the only character who knew right away the dinosaurs being genetically engineered was a bad idea.

 

In Jurassic Park, sunglasses should always be worn.  Protect yourself.

 

By keeping his sunglasses on the whole time, Ian Malcolm protected himself, his human form, from being exposed to the wonder of the beating, breathing, blazing physical artifact of a physically alive dinosaur in the 20th Century.

 

Hold my hand in a fist and pour some water on it.

 

The drops fall in the direction of the floor of my Jeep.

 

I stand witnessing the world wearing sunglasses in my Jeep.

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