‘Much Ado About Keanu’ Is Just Too Much to Be an Excellent Adventure

The problem with many pop culture Critical Studies texts is that they take themselves too seriously. Readers need only go back to academic Camille Paglia, whose 1990 writing on then mega superstar Madonna tried to elevate the singer actress to the status of feminist icon. Paglia’s writing on Madonna has not aged well. More effective has been the 125 volumes and counting Open Court Philosophy series, which has effectively contextualized such subjects as Bob Dylan, Mister Rogers, and “The Simpsons” into a Critical Studies milieu. Books in this series are effective in that they collect approximately two dozen essays from differing voices that effectively argue their points. Still, the problem is tone and amount. Are their subjects truly worthy of such attention? Should the most minor traits of every pop culture icon be exhaustively mined so as to justify a critical studies text?

Into the fray now comes Sezin Devi Koehler’s Much Ado About Keanu: A Critical Reeves Theory. The most casual pop culture consumer will know actor Keanu Reeves, whose approximately 40-year career and nearly eighty feature films have run the gamut from the ridiculous (“Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure”) to the sublime (“The Matrix”). Reeves has easily fit himself into the world of teenaged angst (“River’s Edge”), costume drama (“Dangerous Liaisons”), and brutal vigilante revenge (the John Wick series.) He can be equal parts an object of female desire (“The Lake House”) and a queer icon (“My Own Private Idaho.”) Koehler also considers Reeves’s partly Hawaiian and Chinese ethnicity and the always intriguing question of the “Asian as ‘other’” trope.

Certainly there’s enough material in the rich life and career of Keanu Reeves to constitute a critical studies book. The question is whether or not it’s justified. As is, Koehler has written a book that’s equal parts exhaustive and exhausting. In the book’s Introduction she explains her own connection with her subject:

“...I might be the first multiracial, nomadic Asian American woman, whose upbringing mirrored Keanu’s in many ways, to deep dive into Reeves’s work.”

There is a clear method to Koehler’s approach here, and on a surface level there’s much to admire in this book. She notes that she breaks her book into three parts inspired by specific Tarot cards. The first, “The Emperor,” looks at films in which Reeves plays a great public character admired and respected by many in the public. The second, “The Devil,” is understandably darker. It examines some more troubling roles Reeves has taken on that tackle literal Satanic forces and troubling elements of “gender-based violence, the myth of the American Dream, the perils of technology…” The third section of this book brings us back to “The World,” in which we examine films and roles through the perspective of queer theory, philosophy, comedy, and history.

Sometimes the potential of a writer’s appetite simply needs to be more restrained in order to create a more focused and streamlined text. Unfortunately, Koehler has surrendered to the infinite potential of her appetite to draw in all aspects of her subject’s career rather than produce and present a definitive study of an artist in motion. Perhaps it’s not her fault, but the bottom line is that this all-encompassing approach results in “too” much about Keanu rather than enough. Even the most generous of fanboy and fangirl should know where to aim their attention and appreciate that the interested reader will dig deeper on their own if so inclined.

Koehler spends a lot of time providing sources as a way to legitimize that Keanu Reeves has in fact been baptized into the critical studies canon. This is where things get shaky. The early texts were fan books and comics, “Sad Keanu” memes and other methods to salute Reeves as a target of attraction/lust. Is he ethnically ambiguous? Has his true identity been whitewashed so that he could be “magically coded as both white and exotic…the universal Everyman and simultaneously the Other.” Koehler effectively elaborates on this, especially in her discussion of Reeves in the 2008 remake of The Day The Earth Stood Still. In that film, our subject plays Klaatu, an alien sent to destroy humanity for their transgressions towards the climate. Klaatu speaks Mandarin with his Asian contact on earth.

Has Keanu Reeves spent a career rejecting his ethnicity for the sake of assimilation? Has he cosplayed as a white man in his romantic dramas or- in the unfortunate case of 1993’s Little Buddah- worn brownface Koehler concludes (in a somewhat shaky way) that Reeves has succeeded because he is multiracial. He is English, Hawaiian, Chinese, and Portuguese. He’s dipped into Asian symbology through many of his films within and outside the Matrix series. The problem with Koehler’s approach comes early on, when she writes:

“Once upon a time…Keanu Reeves played…Neo who reshaped the world for everyone’s benefit. Decades later, Keanu Reeves has become the character in real life, and I’ve only just begun exploring the hows and whys of this important transformation.”

Really? That sort of gee-whiz hyperbole, a clear violation of the “show don’t tell” rule of writing, has no place in a credible critical studies text. Moreover, Koehler just doesn’t follow through. Once she makes a claim like that, she’s on to the next theme. Heat up too many pots of water at a warm temperature and none of them will boil over. That makes for a safe and admirable parlor trick, but it’s a frustrating reading experience.

The bottom line with Much Ado About Kevin: A Critical Reeves Theory is that it ultimately comes off as both fully realized and half-baked. The more compelling commentary about the work and what it’s meant comes from Koehler citing Reeves himself, especially regarding The Matrix:

“It was…Nietzsche…Buddha…Christ…themes and levels, dualities, modalities, realities, dreams…mythology, philosophy, technology, and truth. What truth…The truth is…The Matrix was a documentary.”

It’s almost as if our writer (Koehler) and subject (Reeves) have mind-melded here, and that’s not a good thing. Critical studies should maintain a critical distance. Koehler is thorough enough in her examination of Reeves but the critical moments are few and far between. To avoid deep fake Keanus on the internet she suggests Reeves have his PR and management teams create official accounts so as to provide a definite statement of who their subject is, what he is doing, where he is going. By this point in the book the discerning reader might conclude Reeves has avoided this for the very fact that he probably prefers the mystery over the press release.

All critical texts should conclude with a unifying theory, and this one is no different. The problem is that we are no closer to a clearer understanding by the time this book ends than we were at the beginning. Koehler summarizes her discussions of archetypes, Asian heritage, challenging masculinity, and the ethical leading man. What is the role of violence here? Why has Reeves straddled so brilliantly and consistently between the Apocalyptic, brutally bloody, comic, sweet, futuristic? Keanu Reeves has produced a massive body of work over the past forty years, in cinema and other modes of expression. Much Ado About Keanu: A Critical Reeves Theory is a respectable attempt at capturing the artist now, but it’s clouded by a desperate need to encompass everything. Find one theme, elaborate, and bring all the Keanu Reeves strands inside.