How Does One Become a National Treasure?

It happened to Jeff Bridges last year.  An actor long respected, he achieved national treasure status at some point last year, and I don’t think it was just the Oscar that got him there.  After all, Denzel Washington has two Oscars, but he’s not a national treasure (Morgan Freeman is, but that’s an explanation for another day), and he never will be so long as he keeps making movies with Tony Scott.

It started happening with Lebowski, picked up steam through the Oscar campaign, and was certified with the unforeseen box-office success of True Grit, for which Bridges could take most of the credit if he was the sort of guy who would, which he isn’t.  Not even the middling cultural impact of Tron: Legacy can besmirch his new status.

How does one get here?  For Clint Eastwood, it happened somewhere around the time of Unforgiven and In The Line of Fire.  For Neil Young, it happened shortly after he picked up a guitar for the first time (wait, is he Canadian?  Fuck it: we’re claiming him anyway).  Why do some people work their entire careers and never achieve the level of a national treasure?  When did it happen to Bill Murray?

Anyway, that’s my real ambition.  Fuck “Tumblr famous”, anybody can pull that off.  I want to be a national fucking treasure.  I’d better get busy; I’m running out of time.