Have you ever stared too long at the font on a movie poster and thought it was just a lazy graphic design choice? Steven (Ryan Gosling) has. And since his debut in 2017, Steven’s one-man vendetta against a font has spawned one of the best internet obsessions ever.
I am referring, of course, to the Saturday Night Live sketch “Papyrus”. When Gosling hosted in 2017, he starred in a digital short about Steven, a man who discovered that James Cameron’s Avatar was copying the Papyrus font. Seven years later, Gosling returns with a sequel short released as a special gift for fans of the sketch. “Papyrus 2” was everything I hoped it would be and more.
The first sketch saw Gosling sitting at home, frantically trying to understand why Avatar (one of the biggest and most expensive films ever made) would use Papyrus. Steve talks to his therapist and his friends, but his obsession grows. Eventually, he’s stalking the film’s graphic designer Jacob Crone (Kyle Mooney), screaming that how he knows what he did.
For many years (seven to be exact), we wondered what Steven would think about the new Avatar movies and how he would cope with their release in theaters. When Avatar: The Way of Water came out, our thoughts and prayers went to him. But now, Saturday Night Live has answered our prayers and we know what happened to our beloved Steven.
He just put it in bold
The follow-up sketch sees Steven in therapy, trying to move on with his life, and dating someone new, Annabeth (Sarah Sherman). But as “Papyrus 2” goes on, we see that not everything is as it seems.
I have never been happier than watching this sketch. Is it just as unhinged as the first one? More so! Gosling ratchets up the intensity as he discovers, to his horror, that the logo for Avatar: The Way of Water is just Papyrus in bold. It turns out that Annabeth works for Disney, and Steven is just dating her to get close enough to Crone to confront him. Perfection.
When Steven confronts Crone, we learn that he is, in fact, Steven Wingdings, son of the Wingdings font inventor, Jonathan Wingdings. Steven even bemoans how hard his father was to read. Everything about this sequel was flawless and well worth the wait.
Is this the end to the “Papyrus” saga now that Steven and Jacob have had their moment together? Or will there be more stories to tell when future films in the Avatar franchise are released? I guess we’ll have to wait and see whenever those films premiere/Gosling hosts for a fourth time.
(featured image: screenshot/NBC)
