# Scenery Chewing **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 26, 2002, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scenery-chewing/100098 "2002-03-26T00:16:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![vibrotronica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/a9a28c/32.png) [@vibrotronica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vibrotronica)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2002, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scenery-chewing/100098/1 "2002-03-26T00:16:47Z")
I’ve recently seen the term “scenery chewing” in lots of movie reviews. It seems to be applied mostly to bad actors. Can someone define “scenery chewing”? Where does this term come from? And if you want to give a few examples of a scenery chewing performace, I’d appreciate that, too! ---
**Author:** ![KillerHamster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/41988e/32.png) [@KillerHamster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KillerHamster)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2002, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scenery-chewing/100098/2 "2002-03-26T00:31:44Z")
I’ve never heard it specifically defined, but I think I got the basic meaning from the context in which it is typically used. I think it describes overacting, or hogging the camera’s attention with your performance, thus making everything else in the camera’s frame (the “scenery”) irrelevant. I might be wrong, though. That’s just my interpretation. It’s a stupid, overused phrase, in my opinion. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2002, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scenery-chewing/100098/3 "2002-03-26T00:49:57Z")
It is kind of a dumb phrase, but it still gets used, so… Basically, it refers to an actor who will do absolutely anything to retain the audience’s attention, no matter how ludicrous, including ripping down the walls and chewing on the edges. An excellent example of a _good_ scenery-chewing performance – in that it’s appropriate to the film – is Ricardo Montalban as Khan Noonian Singh in _Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan._ He alternates between growling, hissing, spitting, etc. his dialogue, makes faces, gestures hugely, and so on. One could conjecture he didn’t want to disappear behind Shatner’s scenery-chewing, of course. 😉 There’s an apocryphal story about some famous actor – possibly Humphrey Bogart, though I don’t remember exactly – actually chewing the scenery on some movie, thus giving rise to the phrase. Like most tales that posit an actual event as the basis for a colorful expression, it’s probably bunk. ---
**Author:** ![Hello\_Again](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/85e7bf/32.png) [@Hello\_Again](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hello_Again)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2002, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scenery-chewing/100098/4 "2002-03-26T01:00:46Z")
Think “Al Pacino whenever the camera is pointed at him” Yeesh, with the hollering… ---
**Author:** ![Crunchy\_Frog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ebca7d/32.png) [@Crunchy\_Frog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crunchy_Frog)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2002, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scenery-chewing/100098/5 "2002-03-26T01:13:27Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Hello Again \* > **Think "Al Pacino whenever the camera is pointed at him"** I just wanted to amend this statement a bit: “Al Pacino whenever the camera is pointed at him ever since the Academy gave him an Oscar for doing it in _Scent of a Woman_.” With the possible exception of Pacino in _Donnie Brasco_ and _Glenngarry Glenn Ross_ (the latter, I think, was the same year as SofaW, so maybe that doesn’t count). Jack Nicholson can also be good at doing this, such as his performance as the Joker in _Batman_. Or any Jim Carrey movie from _Ace Ventura_ until _The Truman Show_, when it finally seemed he learned the meaning of the phrase “less is more.” Then he reverted again for _The Grinch_. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2002, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scenery-chewing/100098/6 "2002-03-26T01:56:40Z")
Oh, please. You haven’t seen scenery chewing until you see John Travolta in “Battlefield Earth.” Why do you think the sets on the film are all ruins? ---
**Author:** ![Crunchy\_Frog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ebca7d/32.png) [@Crunchy\_Frog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crunchy_Frog)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2002, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scenery-chewing/100098/7 "2002-03-26T02:08:46Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by RealityChuck \* > \*\*Oh, please. You haven’t seen scenery chewing until you see John Travolta in “Battlefield Earth.” Why do you think the sets on the film are all ruins? \*\* But the problem with that is it would involve me having to watch _Battlefield Earth_. BTW- just to share… One of my favorite line of a review came from a review of _Battlefied Earth_. I don’t remember if it was the local paper or Entertainment Weekly, but it read along the lines of: “Watching Battlefield Earth does for Scientology what watching the Pope spontaneously combust during Easter mass would do for Catholocism.” ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2002, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scenery-chewing/100098/8 "2002-03-26T14:49:47Z")
I _have_ seen **Battlefield Earth** (someone else paid for it). This movie just begs for the MST3K treatment but it does have a great ending. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2002, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scenery-chewing/100098/9 "2002-03-26T15:08:12Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Crunchy Frog \* > \*\*But the problem with that is it would involve me having to watch _Battlefield Earth_. > \*\* All you need to see is the previews. ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2002, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scenery-chewing/100098/10 "2002-03-26T15:47:04Z")
"There’s an apocryphal story about some famous actor – possibly Humphrey Bogart, though I don’t remember exactly – actually chewing the scenery on some movie, thus giving rise to the phrase. " —It predates that by a good 100 years. “Scenery-shewing” goes back to the 19th century and the travelling mellerdrammers. The only way to come across to a rowdy audience in those gaslit stage days was to ACT (it was also a good way to outshine your costars). So people who acted, umm, a little too enthusiastically were accused of chewing the scenery. . . . Next week, “East Lynne” . . . ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2002, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scenery-chewing/100098/11 "2002-03-26T15:49:21Z")
“Shewing?” Oy. I guess that’s what you did on The Ed Sullivan Show . . . ---
**Author:** ![N9IWP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/n9iwp/32/3154_2.png) [@N9IWP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/N9IWP)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2002, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scenery-chewing/100098/12 "2002-03-26T20:17:34Z")
Jermey Irons for an Oscar (heck, a Nobel and a Pullitzer too) for scenery chewing in “Dungeons & Dragons” Brian