Wes Anderson has not seen your Wes Anderson memes — and doesn't want to
Wes Anderson — often imitated, never duplicated.
Anyone who's spent any time on TikTok, Twitter, or Instagram lately has likely seen the proliferation of memes that aim to ape the Asteroid City director's signature cinematic style: Dollhouse precision, pastel color palettes, and subdued emotions. Some draw upon his work to present their own lives in his style, while others have used AI or made their own fan edits to reimagine other franchises — like Star Wars — as imagined by the filmmaker.
What does Anderson think of the phenomenon? Well, he has no opinion, because he has no desire to engage with it.
"I'm very good at protecting myself from seeing all that stuff," Anderson said in a new interview with The Times. "If somebody sends me something like that I'll immediately erase it and say, 'Please, sorry, do not send me things of people doing me.'"
Roger Do Minh/Pop. 87 Productions/Focus Features Wes Anderson, Jason Schwartzman, and Tom Hanks on the set of 'Asteroid City'
Anderson continued, "I do not want to look at it, thinking, 'Is that what I do? Is that what I mean?' I don't want to see too much of someone else thinking about what I try to be because, God knows, I could then start doing it."
When EW recently spoke with Anderson ahead of Asteroid City's Cannes premiere, he noted that "TikTok is not my area." But 27 years into his filmmaking career, he is well aware of how the cultural reception of his movies can evolve over time.
"You make a movie and at first it gets whatever reaction it gets, and that's just what it is," Anderson told EW. "But in time, some of the movies have a different kind of life; they sort of go off on their own and people rediscover them, or not."
Anderson has another release set for later this year on Netflix, The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, though he recently clarified that it's more of a short film.
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