…Son, this world is rough
And if a man's gonna make it, he's gotta be tough
Johnny Cash – A Boy Named Sue

A few weeks ago on Stevie’s myspace web page, a fan asked if anyone had ever met the real Stevie Ryan. It seems like a silly question unless you are familiar with the many faces of Stevie’s characters. Watch a video blog from any of these YouTube characters and you may be amused by The Real Paris’ imitations or perplexed by Ooolalaa’s behavior or challenged by LittleLoca’s rants or entertained by Jamie Lynn’s ramblings. After you’ve seen these characters you may be asking yourself too, what is Stevie Ryan really like?

About five months ago, after we had published our article on Stevie for bullfighters café, Angel and I arraigned to meet Stevie for lunch in a Venice restaurant. I admit I was infatuated with Loca, and although I knew better, I was anxious to meet Loca! Well, after the first minute of meeting Stevie, I realized that Loca wasn’t going to have lunch with us. Stevie is not the in your face, expressively featured, highly opinionated LittleLoca on YouTube. Rather Stevie is soft spoken, humble and cheerful like a kindergarten schoolteacher. She’s always saying thank you, and means it. She laughs and smiles every chance she gets and radiates with positive energy.

If this were a celebrity blog I could go on gushing, but the fact is, Stevie is more than just an attractive actress. Stevie is a filmmaker and an artist. She is smart, creative and dedicated to her craft to the point of being obsessive. On a Friday night, Angel and Stevie went to a “Hollywood party” to network but after an evening of plastic hob-knobbing, Stevie told Angel that she wished she had stayed home to edit her next video blog.

Stevie is focused on being creative, period. She studies, asks questions and works hard to be as entertaining as possible. Yes, she writes her own material. Yes, she shoots and edits her own video blogs. And yes, she knows her characters create controversy but she relishes knowing that her characterizations challenge people and spark debate.

The other day Stevie and I were talking about her new character Jamie Lynn and I mentioned how surprised I was that Jamie Lynn wasn’t receiving as many racial comments as Loca. As we discussed this, I was left with the impression that Stevie is not only entertaining us but she’s performing a social experiment. She is creating characters that make us (the viewers) ask questions about our social issues and personal beliefs. Stevie is like a painter that paints a cubist figure and then asks us what part of the figure we see. Some people see (Loca or Jamie Lynn) as a stereotypical, racial, nit witted character, and if this is correct, then why aren’t they both being commented with similar racial slurs? That’s a question Stevie and I could not answer at the end of our discussion, but I’m sure Stevie will continue to experiment and test our sensibilities with the characters as long as people respond to them.

Life is art for Stevie. Not only does Stevie use racial issues, she also uses her real life occurrences as fuel for her video blogs. A couple of examples are that Stevie’s car was broken into and Silent’s friend was stabbed in his head. This is what makes Stevie’s performances so compelling, at some level she is always telling the truth. I think Stevie’s ability to incorporate truth with make-believe is what frustrates viewers as to whether they should accept Stevie’s blogs as real or not. When Angel and I have casual conversations with Stevie, she’ll mention that she’ll makes notes on instances in her life that she may use later in a blog. In fact, Angel and I have become careful on what we say or do with Stevie because we know she may use some aspect of it.

There’s one more quality you should know about Stevie. This girl has guts! She is tough. It’s not easy putting yourself out there for everyone to see, especially when you get comments ranging from juvenile to evil, ugly. It’s a testament to Stevie’s courage that she continues her work and that speaks for itself.

Well, I’ve gone on too long. It just goes to show that Angel and I believe that Stevie is a multifaceted filmmaker, it’s just up to you to choose which side of Stevie you want to see. In our eyes, a girl named Stevie is a tough artist that can be amusing, perplexing, observant and challenging and that’s what makes for great talent and we are thrilled Stevie has let us come into her world of creativity.

*The photo above is from the Fox 11 (KTTV) interview with Loca and Angel. The segment will air November 25th.

pm