I don’t think that’s true. I was never a huge X-Files fan and knew the characters from TV Guide covers and checkout lane magazine stands more than anything but, looking at the linked image, I would have immediately guessed Duchovny and… some random woman.
Then again, I haven’t seen Anderson in hair and make-up (going back to red would have been a big visual clue) so who knows but I disagree that at present they’ve both changed equally. What that should mean for their paychecks, I’ll leave you folks to hash out.
Has Anderson seen much work post X-Files? Because the would be one non-sexist reason to low ball her.
This whole nonsense about aging and looks as a reason not to pay her as much is sexist though.
Glowacks, tell these folks to check out Gillian Anderson as a police commander in the Netflix original series “The Fall.” She may not look like she did 20 years ago, but damn is she FINE! If anything, she’s grown into an even more interesting, powerful actor – along the lines of Helen Mirren.
Anderson is also quite an active actor, especially in the UK (she is quasi-British, spent her youth in England). The X-Files reboot is actually extremely lucky to have landed her again.
She looks hotter now than she did 15 years ago (if she goes back to redhead-she better!). Whereas Duchovny’s facial features have migrated several millimeters south. Still an attractive person, but she is by **far **the better aged of the 2.
First, don’t bother giving your opinion on whether you think Gillian Anderson looks like Scully today any more than Duchovny looks like Mulder. That’s not what I’m interested in, and it’s not at the heart of the matter. All that you need to know is that my personal judgement is that Anderson no longer looks like the character she used to play while Duchovny does. Whether you agree with that or not has no bearing on the opinion I am seeking. Perhaps for the sake of argument you can consider a hypothetical situation with the names replaced but the relationship between all the characters and actors involved are the same, because it’s the reaction to that general situation that I’m interested in the most.
Back on Topic, look, I understand that women suffer from problems of being judged by their appearance. I know that what I am saying, if generalized, is sexist. But I am saying a very specific thing about a very specific actress in relation to a specific character that actress used to play. If I had said that Duchovny had looked less like Mulder than Gillian did Scully and deserved to get paid less for it, would that be sexist? What if I were to say that if they make another Jay and Silent Bob movie, Jay should get paid more relative to before compared to Kevin Smith because he continues to look more like the character that he played than Smith does? That certainly can’t be sexist; it literally makes no sense for that comment to be sexist. Why does changing the gender of one of the characters suddenly make things sexist? Does the simple fact that a woman is being compared to a man mean we absolutely have to have a positive outcome for the woman?
If it’s the general opinion that despite my rationale behind what I’m saying being very objective that it’s still a sexist thing to say, then that is exactly what I want to know. I will keep that in mind in the future when dealing with future situations. I vehemently disagree with that notion, but if that’s what people think, then I guess I’ll follow along. I have the same feelings about “Oriental” being used to describe people from East Asia simply because it’s fine to use “Middle Eastern” to describe people from Southwest Asia, but I recognize that it’s no longer something you want to be saying, and so I’ve stopped. I have absolutely no intention of saying demeaning and derogatory things and just want to know where the lines are.
What is Dana Scully aged 20 years supposed to look like that isn’t Gillian Anderson aged 20 years? It’s an idiotic notion, and it is one grounded in sexism.
I watched the show in its original run and I have seen both leads in other things. The problem here isn’t that they tried to underpay her. It is that they overpaid him. Neither of them is what I would consider a great actor. They are competent, but not much more.
As to my parts of the conversation, the content is contained in the first two posts I made in this topic. I mean, I can post things verbatim if that’s helpful, but it’ll just repeat everything I already said. I made absolutely no value judgement that women should be paid based on their looks and men should not. I made no judgement that Scully’s role was less important because she’s a woman. I made no judgement that Mulder should get paid more because he’s a man. The only thing that I’ve said that is possibly demeaning is that I think Person A looks less like Character S than Person D looks like Character M, and it is my opinion that it would be justified to pay Person A less because of it. That Person A is a woman has absolutely no bearing on what I said. If you feel I’m being unfair to Person A, that’s a justifiable opinion. But I don’t understand how the analysis of a generic scenario of people and characters changes because it happens to be the case that I’m providing the negative opinion to the gender that is historically disadvantaged. If you claim that the fact that Person A is a woman is clouding my judgement, all I can say is that you are absolutely wrong. I have one of the most robot decision making processes of anyone I know. I get referred to as “the glowacks machine”. If, given all that I have done to try to show that what I have said is due solely to how the people’s features changed as to as impair their recognition as a character that it becomes a sexist thing to say simply because the person is a woman, then fine. I’ll accept that society feels that way, even if I think they’re dead wrong.
How do you know that? All I’m saying is basically what someone else said up thread: When I saw a publicity photo, I saw a random woman standing next to David Duchovny. The absolutely only reason that I had any idea that it was Gillian Anderson was the fact that it was an X-files publicity photo. It could have been a random actress for all I knew.
In contrast, I went to a high school reunion once upon a time, and recognized most the women, but very few of the men, so I don’t think it’s something that is specific to a gender. Some people change in appearance as they age such that they no longer look like the person they did before, and some people don’t. It has nothing to do with the sex of the person involved, and everything to do with whether I recognize that person as the same person as before.
Perrsonally I have no real problem with Duchovny being paid more than Anderson. In my opinion Mulder is the main character, Scully is the second character. A film with Scully missing could wortk well, a film with Mulder missing seems rather pointless.
I’m definitely trying as hard as I can to not be sexist, but no one is giving me any reason as to why it’s sexist; all they are doing is saying that it is. I simply don’t understand the reasoning process that leads to that conclusion. The only thing I am getting out of what people are saying is that any time you judge a woman by her appearance, it’s sexist, even if you’d judge a man by his appearance in the exact same manner. Is this because of the historic disadvantage women face in terms of being judged on appearances? If so, then again, I will accept that although I disagree with the fundamental notion that singling women out to not be the target of appearance-based criticism is fundamentally a sexist notion, as it treats woman differently than men. If it’s something that society feels needs to be done to help protect women because of the difference in power that they have in society, then I can understand that. Perhaps the problem is just a definition of what “sexism” is; I would assume that it’s prejudice against a person based solely on their sex, and as I have tried to demonstrate, my prejudice against Gillian Anderson is not based on her sex. People seem to be extending the definition of sexism in ways that I don’t quite understand.
I can understand your point about looking less like a character. I saw Anderson in some POS spy spoof with Rowan Atkinson not long ago. I did not recognize her. I thought she sounded vaguely familiar, but it took the credits to give me her identity. She seems to have had work done and looks kind of synthetic now, rather than older. FTR, she was not memorable in that movie.
For a couple of medium talents like Duchovny and Anderson, being the faces of two such popular characters is most of the leverage they have. I could name half a dozen performers easily who could play the roles better than Duchovny and Anderson. They wouldn’t look like the characters, though, and since this isn’t a reboot the nerds would never accept it.
If the series were meant to pick up right where it left off, such that the characters were supposed to be the same age, then the OP would have a point: Gillian Anderson no longer looks like that iconic character, and so her value to the series is less.
If, however (as appears to be the case), the series is picking those characters back up fifteen years later, then Gillian Anderson should look like Scully would fifteen years later. And as it happens, we know exactly what Scully would look like fifteen years later, by example from Gillian Anderson.
Note that even if the OP is wrong, this does not necessarily indicate sexism. He could have gotten into his head that both characters should look substantially the same now as they did in the old series. And the fact of the matter is that Duchovny does, and Anderson does not. But of course, sexism is also a possible reason for the OP’s objection. Lacking telepathy, I decline to say what the actual motive was.
You still haven’t explained some of your basic reasoning: How do you know what Dana Scully—a fictional character—is supposed to look like 20 years later? And how do you know that your notion of that is more valid than what Gillian Anderson looks like 20 years later? And how does that equate to Gillian Anderson deserving less money for playing the role? None of it makes any sense.
People keep saying that, and I’ve come around to think that perhaps it is a little silly. However, it’s still my opinion, and it’s one that has nothing to do with sexism and everything to do with my silly notion that I don’t recognize Anderson as Scully and I think when casting characters with their previous actors that the amount of money one should get is correlated with how much they look like their previous character. Is that a silly notion? Perhaps. I’ll accept that people think it’s silly and think it’s absolutely flawed reasoning. But I can’t accept that it’s sexist. I don’t care whether you agree with me or not, I just want to understand how an opinion formed on the basis of something other than sex comes to be sexism. Those making accusations of sexism simply claim that it is without coming forward with any actual logic behind it from my perspective.
Putting all the issues of sexism and compensation aside, you are in a distinct minority (perhaps even a minority of one) if you do not instantly recognize Gillian Anderson as Dana Scully. Ms. Anderson is a very distinctive-looking woman, and although she certainly looks twenty years older (well, twenty *Hollywood *years) than she did when the X-Files premiered, nobody except you would fail to recognize her as Dana Scully.
That said, I have to say that Ms. Anderson has only gotten more beautiful over the years. She’s a better-looking woman today than she was when X-Files premiered. Maybe that’s just me and my age (I’m a few years older than her) or maybe it’s cosmetic surgery and Botox, but she has really aged beautifully.