I’m not ruling anything out. Who would have predicted Halle Berry, Angeline Jolie, or Charlize Theron were future Oscar winners when they were twenty-five years old? (Well, okay, technically Jolie was twenty-five when she won her Oscar. But hopefully you get my point.)
As just idle chit chat, ok. Some people get downright hurtful about it.
But for the people who “must” do it for professional reasons read the biography of Don Simpson. (Simpson/Bruckheimer produced Flashdance, Top Gun, and a ton of other hits)
Simpson told Debra Wringer that she shouldn’t have the role in An Officer and an Gentleman “because you are not fuckable”. She got the part anyway but to prove he isn’t an idiot he is the one who insisted that “Love lifts Us Up Where We Belong” be in the movie. Leading actresses need to look fuckable. Is she fuckable? Jennifer Beals got the role after he and Michael Eisner (then head of Paramount) arranged screenings of the three women up for the role to all the “average guys” (painters, set builders, other laborers) and then asked them which girl they most wanted to fuck. (Demi Moore and some other woman were passed over for Jennifer)
in the Biz, it gets a little brutal about your looks. They don’t need more of it from the general population.
A pretty good example is the movie vs. the stage play version of Frankie and Johnny ( originally Frankie and Johnny in the Claire de Lune ). It was originally cast with the relatively unglamorous Kathy Bates as the female lead in the play. In the movie it became Michelle Pfeiffer, which gave rise to some criticism ( fair, IMO ) that no matter how much you dowdied her up and played up her emotional issues, Pfeiffer was still a stunner. Having Al Pacino fall for her was rather less impactful than having him fall so hard for Bates.
It’s free speech, so appropriateness has nothing to do with it. She’s a public figure: people are going to comment on her every move. So what? Does she really think that making some self-serving public statement about it is going to make it stop?
Well, who’s doing the criticizing? If Ashley Judd were auditioning for the role of a hot young sorority girl then the casting director and other people involved in producing the film would be perfectly justified in turning her down because she doesn’t have the right look for such a role anymore. But Judd already has the lead role in the TV series Missing, so clearly someone thought she was right for the part. If she’s been miscast then it’s not really her fault, and from what little I know of the show I don’t see how the way she looks makes her unsuited to the role. Wikipedia tells me she’s playing a retired CIA agent/mother of a college student, a part which does not strike me as requiring youth and beauty or precluding a puffy face.
I think people are unnecessarily mean about Sarah Jessica Parker’s looks.
I said “sometimes.” If the actress is actually ill or suffering from some illness or condition that makes her unattractive, I think it’s uncouth to comment upon it. Otherwise, physical attractiveness is second only to acting skill (and sometimes not even that) as the coin of the realm in Hollywood. Perfectly proper to remark upon it.
I think it’s a reaction to the fact that she hasn’t had a nose job. She’s gorgeous from some angles, horse-faced from others, because of her nose. So we look at her and maybe are a little jealous because she has this one slightly unattractive feature – that she could easily fix – but she doesn’t care. She’s happy with herself. We wonder why we can’t be happy with our own selves.
And then we look at that actress from Dirty Dancing who fixed her nose and never worked again. (Was it her or somebody else?)
She has had a nose job. http://hollywoodnose.com/SarahJessicaParkerNoseJob
Don’t believe sites like that. They see plastic surgery where everyone else sees a shadow, or natural ageing, or caught mid-sneeze, or a particular camera angle.
I haven’t seen that movie. Was the beautiy of the woman the reason given (in the movie) for him “risking his shot at being a big shot”, or is that your interpretation of why he would risk it for her?
You are aware that there are unattractive actors and actresses out there? There’s also this thing called talent.
Now, there being a lack of decent roles for women of a certain age. That’s a valid discussion. But this “you have to be good looking to make it”? Absolute bollocks.
I was going to say always until I read this. I guess it would be wrong to criticize someone in that predicament, even when not talking directly to them.
Yip, that’s why I was going to say always. I took it as given that you don’t tell someone they don’t look good to their face, except in certain rare instances. I assumed criticism just meant what these people did here, which is just talking in public about their perceptions of a public figure. Saying it to their face wouldn’t be a criticism but an insult.
And, anyways, I’m sure she didn’t feel that way when she constantly used her looks to get where she was. It will take more than just defending herself against criticism to get me to believe she actually believes what she is saying. I mean, she got her plastic surgery because she was trying to adhere to the very standards of beauty she is decrying. If she has kids, let’s see what she teaches them.
I answered “something else”.
Basically, I think the issue isn’t people being critical - I don’t know how you’d stop that - it’s the sheer quantity of reporting which goes on about famous people. To a large extent, the interest in minutiae like this is manufactured for the simple sake of having something to discuss.
I think that one could create legislation which would, to at least some extent, help to protect the famous from the constant bombardment and eavesdropping by the media. A rule that even famous people can’t have their photo published unless they were at a public venue, minus consent, would go a long ways towards diminishing the press’ interest. There isn’t a great public need served by spying on the private lives of the famous, and I’m sure that the media will quickly find some other way of filling pages that entertains the general public.
I just assumed it was “being 43”. And not in a particularly bad way - she’s a fine-looking 43-year-old (says the man one year older than her). But no one looks the same at 43 as they did at 23, and people who complain about actors ageing are exactly the reason so many of them go out and get terrible plastic surgery.
I don’t think it’s inappropriate to comment on an actor or actress’ looks, particularly in the context of a role. But there’s no need to be a dick about it.
After listening to Judd talk yesterday, I started thinking about this.
I’m definitely in agreement that the rules of etiquette and politeness shouldn’t fall by the wayside just because someone is in the public eye. I wouldn’t ask my coworker about her plastic surgery or ask her to explain her weight gain or any such thing, because it would be rude. I would expect anyone in this position to feel uncomfortable. Celebrities have feelings too.
However, it seems kind of strange to be pouty about people talking badly about your looks but not saying anything all those years when they talk about how beautiful you are. Ashley Judd would not be where she is if she weren’t good-looking. She’s banked on this advantage for years. And this isn’t to say that she doesn’t have it going on in other areas (she seems pretty intelligent too), but she can’t have her cake and eat it too. You can’t say, “Stop being superficial!” when the times are going rough, and then be smiley-happy when everyone fawns over you during the good times. That’s just as superficial.
So her looks can be criticized and be used against her in hiring decisions, IMHO. Because as a public figure, looks are a factor in her stardom. But people shouldn’t be mean about it. Idle chitchat is one thing, but grilling her about it in an interview is just wrong.
I think this is one of the worst ideas I’ve ever heard. Personally, I vote for freedom of the press.
It’s not quite the Patriot Act, but geez, our freedoms are already eroding at an alarming rate; curtailing the press is the last thing we need.
Another prime example of this same idea. The movie Only You starred Andrew McCarthy as a guy who met two women and had to decide between them. One (Kelly Preston) was the beautiful one who had a difficult personality. The other one was the less attractive one who was a wonderful person. The point obviously was whether McCarthy’s character would be able to look past the surface and see the real woman underneath. A cliche, but made even more ridiculous by the actress they cast to play the “unattractive” woman: Helen Hunt.
Seriously? We’re supposed to accept that this character’s major flaw is that she’s only as good looking as Helen Hunt?
See also: The Truth About Cats and Dogs, with Janeane Garofalo as the uggo.
Or the television show “Popular” where the unpopular sister’s main flaw as far as i could tell was not being blonde.
Or indeed any film where the nerd girl removes her glasses and lets her hair down, revealing her to be a stunner.