I'm Not Hungry Enough : Lessons from Marty Mouse & Asake
Sail on , silver girl *VERY MINOR SPOILER FOR MARTY SUPREME IN PARAGRAPH 4 - DOESN’T SPOIL THE PLOT OF THE MOVIE BUT IT’S A LINE THAT’S NOT IN THE TRAILER*
This past weekend, I had the pleasure of enjoying two things I had been looking forward to for months: Watching Marty Supreme in Theatres & seeing Asake perform live. I’ve been employed for a couple of months now and with that comes the crushing realisation that my time is no longer my own. From 7:30 am to 4:30 pm, my time belongs to the white man who started the company I work at in 1988. The hours before and after that time slot isn’t mine either. I spend almost 2 hours commuting to and from work, maintain at least 8-9 hours of sleep every night (anything less & I simply cannot function) and try to fit in eating somewhat healthy, keeping my room clean, texting my loved ones back and just generally keeping somewhat sane in the meagre hours I have left. I was looking forward to those two specific things because they were happening the weekend before I had to go back to work after 2 weeks of sleeping in (read: waking up at 7 rather than 5) and I wanted to go out with a bang.
It was through this lens that I sat in the theatre and watched Timothee Chalamet captivate me on screen. TC is one of my favourite actors (I’ve loved him since Call Me By Your Name but he truly stole my heart in Little Women) so I knew I would be blown away by his performance. In Marty Supreme, Timmy Tim plays Marty Mouser, a charming, determined young man, not unlike Chalamet himself who in his speech after receiving the SAG award for Best Actor in 2025 delivered words that deeply resonated with artists everywhere: “I’m really in pursuit of greatness… I want to be one of the greats”. I’ll try not to go into too much detail to avoid spoilers but here’s what you need to know about Marty Mouser: He is manipulative. He is a liar. He brings chaos into the life of everyone he interacts with. He is selfish. He is temperamental. He is someone I would hate in real life. But as I watched Timothy Chalamet smile and charm his way through his performance, an uncomfortable truth settled in my chest: I want to be like Marty.
Marty has something I’ve never quite been able to master. Unwavering self-assuredness. Determination. Knowing what you want out of life. Single-minded focus. It’s a quality I have always admired in people. I know that I’m capable of doing great things, I’ve just never been able to decide on something and face it head on. I know people like Marty in real life. And even when they are inevitably a**holes (pardon my French), I still find myself in awe of their commitment to a singular odyssey. Marty Mouser is a hungry man who is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve his dreams. I have dreams too. But I’m missing that drive. I’m simply not hungry enough, it seems.
*VERY MINOR SPOILER FOR MARTY SUPREME IN NEXT PARAGRAPH - DOESN’T SPOIL THE PLOT OF THE MOVIE BUT IT’S A LINE THAT’S NOT IN THE TRAILER*
I sit & complain about my job all the time. I don’t enjoy my job but I don’t hate it. It’s genuinely just a means to an end. What end ? I’m not quite sure yet. I hate that it takes all my time. I hate waking up at an ungodly hour. I hate that after a long week, I’m too tired to do anything other than sleep, bed-rot & doomscroll. There’s a scene in the movie where Marty’s uncle is pressuring him to take a sales job and Marty refuses but not without acknowledging “I could sell shoes to an amputee!”. The theatre laughed when he said that but as I sat there, I wondered whether I could be so committed to my dreams that I would decline a stable career in something else. It’s romantic to think that I could, but I’m not sure I’m that kind of artist yet.
The day after I watched Marty Supreme, I saw Asake deliver an electric performance at the Gold Rush Dome. I watched in awe & thought to myself “THAT is an artist”. The production was great, of course, but so much of what made the experience so captivating was watching Asake enjoy himself. He seemed to feed off the energy of the crowd. Knew when to dance and make us laugh. Knew when to initiate a call and response. Knew when to point the mic to us so we could sing ourselves hoarse. Even knew which song to repeat and though I know it must have been planned ahead, it still felt like he repeated it just for us.
I don’t know much about Asake’s life, only know his brilliance as an artist. His composure is enticing. Even though he sings about God and his worries sometimes, when he is on that stage, you cannot tell that man has ever felt anything but assurance in this life. I felt a different type of inspiration watching him. Not the kind I felt watching Marty Supreme but one that was vaster, deeper and all-consuming but somehow, calmer. Not the desperation that choked me as Marty swindled his way through that movie. I still think I’m not hungry enough and I need to be honest with myself why I am so afraid to want. But I also want what Asake has as an artist: a give and take. I want to feel good when I produce my art. I don’t mind my pain and fears peeking through, but I also don’t want to run myself ragged, desperately trying to prove something to any and everyone who will listen. I don’t want to lose myself in the pursuit of greatness. I have a lot to think about. I know that I will be made and unmade during this process. But I don’t want to be so afraid of the journey that I never start walking. I have no idea where this will go. Whether I too will sob as an oddly relevant 80s song plays in the background. I will never know until I try. It’s hard and I’m not sure what I have left in me to give to this world but I have to try. This is me trying.