Andros said:
Exactly! Couldn’t agree more. Oh, sorry. You were trying to be contrary. My bad.
And RezDog? If Catherine and Michael, in every appearance they ever made before the media, promoted nothing but their heterosexual lifestyle ad nauseum, as their careers slowly faded away into the ether, I’d flame them too.
I’ll put my pink lapel ribbon on now and shut up.
“You should tell the truth, expose the lies and live in the moment.” - Bill Hicks
See the post above by Ultress. Did I mis-read it, or does the “also” refer to Melissa Manchester being gay…?
Yeah, yeah, I know Melissa Ethridge is gay.
Which reminds me, what do you call 1,000 well-armed lesbians in camo fatigues?
Militia Etheridge.
(sorry)
“You should tell the truth, expose the lies and live in the moment.” - Bill Hicks
Yes Yes Yes it is Melissa Ethridge. Sorry guys lost my mind for a minute and had a major brainwave.
I’ve learned that if someone says something unkind about me, I must live so that no one will believe it.
Try saying that three times, fast.
It is too clear, and so it is hard to see.
Why? Isn’t it called “acting?”
Yer pal,
Satan
Satan,
So the only real actors out there are straight people playing gay roles, right? Or vice-versa? Come on.
I didn’t see the movie in question, and to me the point is kind of moot because I’m not convinced of Ellen’s acting chops, be the role gay or straight. If she wants to play mid-thirties blonde lesbian dry-observational-humor roles exclusively, I’m not saying it makes her a great actor, but I understand.
I mean, Bruce willis has milked the squinty-eyed raspy put-upon introspective machismo thing since Die Hard and I don’t see any “Enough With the Squinting, Already, Bruce” threads.
stoli
Well, blessed is just about everyone
with a vested interest in the status quo,
as far as I can tell.
You haven’t? One of my favorite fake movie posters is for the “Bruce Willis in a Vest” movie, which does poke major fun of the rut he is into (somebody else plays Bruce Willis).
While I hadn’t heard much about Ellen for ages (I liked her stand-up, but only watched her show a couple of times), for a while there she got on my nerves too.
But maybe that was on purpose, she might have been trying to engender the “so you’re gay who cares already” reaction in preference to the less popular but still thinkable “you pervert, I am going to tie you to a fence and beat you to death” reaction.
**
No. You miss the point.
The POINT is that you said “Ellen is, as you’ve pointed out, gay. Therefore, I would expect her to take roles that resonate with that.”
The POINT is that an actor or actress, if they are worth a shit, should be able to play any role when it comes to sexual preference without their own sexual preference hindering the performance.
If Ellen is only playing lesbians, I sumbit this it either because she just NEEDS to flaunt her gayness for the whole world to see, or she’s a shitty actress. Could even be both!
**
Ah, so you say it’s the shitty actress defense… okay, as long as we’re clear…
You must have missed them the last time around…
Is squinting analogous to muff-diving? I must have missed that one in… Well, fuck, I don’t know WHAT class would have covered that one. It wouldn’t have been logic class, though. Of that I’m pretty sure…
Yer pal,
Satan
Satan:
“flaunting her gayness”? Is, say, Will Smith to be accused of “flaunting his dashing heterosexuality?” Is Robin Williams “flaunting his sensitive wackiness”? And isn’t that to be expected? I put it to you that even great actors settle in roles in which they feel comfortable and singling out the gay one for doing the same thing reeks of alternative motives. The implication is that all gay roles are exactly the same. I disagree with that. If Ellen chooses to stretch as an actor, she doesn’t need to play straight to do it.
Well, I know I’ve squinted on occasion…
Miami U has a fantastic Oceanography program- I’m sure diving is touched upon…
stoli
Well, blessed is just about everyone with a vested interest in the status quo,
as far as I can tell.
stolichnaya:
The difference is that Robin Williams could play a gay man, and probably do a good job of it, just basing it upon the vast disparate roles he did in fact do well.
If Robin Williams sought out roles after the demise of Mork & Mindy, which only showed his goofy demeanor IRL, I would submit that he WAS an actor with limited range, and I for one would get sick of seeing “that goofy guy” all the time.
The same applied for Ellen. If she cannot escape roles that are all about her (self-)identifying character, then she has a limited range that I for one don’t need to see anymore.
Yer pal,
Satan
Uh, actually, he did in “The Birdcage” opposite Nathan Lane, and he did an outstanding job of it, too.
Well, she’s actually better at playing goofy blonde types than lesbians, as that has been her schtick all along. She played straight characters in “Ed TV” and “The Love Letter,” IIRC.
Esprix
Oh, and Anne played the romantic lead opposite Harrison Ford in “Seven Days.”
Oh, and not to nitpick, but didn’t Will Smith play a gay guy in “Six Degrees of Separation?”
Yup - and a hustler at that.
Another interesting thing was that in last year’s indie film “Trick,” about a go-go boy who picks up a guy and they spend the rest of the night trying to find someplace to have sex, both actors are straight, and the actor who played the go-go boy (somethingorother Pitoc) was offered the part after several gay actors turned it down for fear of being typecast in only gay roles (this according to the “Summer” issue of XY Magazine).
Esprix
D’oh! Forgot about that one. Good damn movie, and great performance. As others have said, Ellen has played straight before, as long as we’re listing performances. For the first few seasons of her show, and that movie “Mr. Wrong” which I thankfully never saw. And the “EdTV” character wasn’t specifically gay or straight, IIRC. And the Veryfine commercials. “I’m not gay, buy Veryfine!”
Of course, many of those were pre-public-lesbian. Maybe she should have stayed closeted, and then if she played a gay character, she’d get all kinds of praise as an actor. I still dispute the point that if a gay person plays a gay character they’re not acting. That’s the only thing I take issue with, regardless of how I feel about Ellen as an actor, which is lukewarm at best.
stoli
Well, blessed is just about everyone with a vested interest in the status quo,
as far as I can tell.
As already noted, Williams played gay in “The Birdcage,” and I think his character in “To Wong Foo” was also gay (although never stated explicitly). At the start of his movie career he did play “goofy guy” kinds of roles (World According to Garp, Survivors, Moscow on the Hudson). Good Morning Vietnam was a transitional role. Later roles of his I find to be of the “warm eccentric” variety. I don’t think he has that great a range as an actor, bt he’s good at turning out the kind of performances he does. Ellen isn’t that great of an actress either, but she’s good at what she does. I’ve been a fan of Anne Heche ever since her days on “Another World” (playing twins no less) and I think she’s really only begun to explore her talent.
As to the complaint of the OP…get over it. So every once in a while you see a couple of lesbians together on TV. Change the channel.
I really have nothing against Ellen or Anne, (and yes, I remember Anne from “Another World” too!) I loved Ellen’s standup, and also enjoyed her sitcom, which I never failed to watch. And enjoy.
But, when she came out of the closet (which was no shock to me) I did notice a preponderance of “preachy” episodes. Enough so I wanted to squirm. Maybe I’m just being uncharitable, I don’t know. But I always was drawn to her show for the fun plots - I mean, there usually was some stab at unique stories, and the funny zaniness that I enjoyed. And then it seemed like the plots all resembled each other too much. It became a different show, and my viewership fell away. Not because I was unsympathetic to gay people, but enough already. She was preaching to the choir! I wanted to see an episode about something else for once!
So that’s all I have to say. I like Ellen, still a fan, but she lost me from being a loyal viewer of her show because of the shift in the plots. As for the rest of it, don’t care, it’s her (and Anne’s) life, yadda yadda yadda.
It’s not that gay people playing gay people aren’t acting, it’s that gay people exclusively playing gay people implies a lack of acting ability. That or else typecasting.
Given the entire history of broadcast television, the ratio of gay-themed episodes to non-gay episodes is overwhelming. 1 to 100,000 or higher? This was a series about an openly lesbian character and her friends, the first ever with an openly lesbian lead character. I unfortunately was working nights during the lesbian season so didn’t see very many of them, but those I saw were about Ellen’s coming out to her parents, looking for a girlfriend, etc. The only one that struck me as “preachy” was the one where Spence dreamed he was the only str8 person in a gay world. It strikes me as unfair to tag something as “preachy” about gays if the same episode in a str8 context would not be considered “preachy.”