Homicidal Trends

Not to get all Brent Easton Ellis-ish,  but LAist blogged recently about the return of '80s skateboarding gear behemoth Vision Streetwear.  

Gator, the teenage face of Vision went from dreamy spokesman in the '80s to jailed 

murderer and rapist of a former skateboarding groupie during the '90s.  

I wrote a review about the documentary film, Stoked:  The Rise and Fall of Gator a while ago for Micro-Film Magazine, which is posted below.  Stickler also directed the film Andre the Giant has a Posse.

Helen Stickler’s documentary film chronicles the skyrocket and crash of skateboard phenomenon Mark “Gator” Rogowski during the Eighties, itself a decade of success and excess.  The film depicts the dissolution of Gator’s self-identity from an international skateboard star and cultivated corporate image during the booming popularity of skateboarding at 17 years old, to born-again Christian and imprisonment before he was in his mid-twenties.

As the best of the best amongst skate circles, Gator was hired as the top spokesperson for Vision Skateboards, a skateboarding gear company that marketed skate trends.  His persona then grew to that of an iconic stature as his confident, laid-back, and rebellious demeanor helped sell clothes, boards, and cheesy skate videos.  By the Nineties, evolving skateboard trends left Vision on the downslide and Gator and his persona stranded on the edge of obsolete, teetering for balance.

Stickler’s travelogue of Gator’s detachment from reality paints a picture that shies away from the typical rise-and-fall-and-rise-again celebrity biography.  Interviews with friends, Gator’s manager, Vision spokesmen, and ex-girlfriend Brandi McClain, a former groupie, augment a phone interview with Gator while he is in prison.  After Gator and Brandi’s break-up, Jessica Bergsten, McClain’s friend, visited Gator at his home.  Set against an image of a California desert at dusk, the recording of Gator’s voice is matter-of-fact as he recalls where he left the body of Jessica Bergsten for eight months after her murder, to which he confessed in 1991.

As a snapshot of an era, STOKED also raises unanswered questions on reasons for the former skateboard star’s implosion.  In all fairness, certain factors didn’t prevent Gator from becoming unhinged:  A dysfunctional home life, an inability to cope with the loss of life after Vision, undiagnosed bi-polarity.  But as Stickler’s film sets out to show, Rogowski was overktaken by his adapted persona as a celebrity and for him, there was no turning back.  If anything, a cautionary tale for those stricken by fame for no other reason than they are themselves. 

Available on DVD from Palm Pictures, palmpictures.com.