Looking at Actors
Phew! My flist has exploded with all sorts of great stuff while I was spending the day at Jury Duty...which wasn't too bad, actually, though my butt hurts from falling asleep in a hard chair. (It was right out of The Breakfast Club, actually. Everybody around me had zonked out and the guy came in and said into the microphone, "Who wants to go home now?" and the whole room raised its hand.) They even gave us a two hour lunch so I had a nice time walking around Little Italy and Chinatown and bought a flying pig. I haven't gotten called for voir dire or anything yet, and I have to go back tomorrow. If we're not on time our time today doesn't count and we have to do it all over again. We were threatened pretty severely with having to watch the movie again if that happened. In general the place was run in the very New York way, with the woman in charge giving us instructions on what they would do, what we would do, and what we would think of doing that we should not do. The basic attitude is always, "The deal is we won't treat you like idiots if you won't act like idiots."
Anyway, it seems like the controversy about the young HP actors is still going strong and I figured I'd stick my own thoughts out on it. I'm one of those people who does get uncomfortable with it, but it doesn't seem like this is because of the same reason most other people do...
I actually have little problem with the whole "don't call them hott when they're 13!!" stuff. I think most of the claims about The Bad Place are more silly than serious and probably a sort of fandom bonding thing, especially, if they're coming from somebody too old to realistically be interested in somebody that age. I, personally, don't "see" the actors when I read H/D (except with just_harry and potterstinks, but even then I suppose I age them up a bit in my head. Iow, I'm not attracted to prepubescent or even adolescent bodies, or real 15-year-olds. H/D might as well be Romeo & Juliet, imo. There's a difference between real teenaged romance and adults writing teenaged romance, just as there's a difference between children's lit and lit about children (The Secret Garden vs. What Maisie Knew).
I also think Western--in fact, probably most--societies have a long tradition of sexing up children. There's just something people like about dressing up kids as adults. Sometimes it's downright creepy, like in those Little Miss beauty contests, but I don't think it always has to do with pedophilia. Maybe there's just a fascination with innocent sensuality or something. Anyway, that seems to sometimes be the focus with these kid actors. It's, like, fascinating to see them change into something sexual or something. I don't think it's all that bad to have fantasies about them either, really--that is, I don't have much problem with the idea of a 40-year-old woman having a fantasy that involves a young man in his teens and if one of the HP actors strikes her fancy I don't know how different that is from Brad Pitt doing the same thing--acting on it would be quite different, of course. That's part of what being a movie star is about. For me, the problem is when people cross the lines into reality for whatever reason, if the person starts thinking about the actor as being "hers" or needs the actor to know about her rather than just appreciating him or whatever. As usual I come down on the side of any fantasy being okay (even if some might point to trouble more than others). I mean, there are some photos of the movie characters I've thought were great but I don't care about seeing pictures of them in general.
But like I said, I do have a problem, it's just not got anything to do with the kids being sexualized. I get uncomfortable with the focus on their looks, period. To me they're kids who were cast as kids and are now going through adolescence. I don't think any one of them lives up to either the hype or the criticism they get, and sometimes that just makes me cringe for them. It's not that I have a problem with people finding things funny about them, like if Emma Watson's tight jeans and high heels raise some eyebrows or Rupert Grint just looks so endearingly like he's in a band. But like this focus to proclaim whether or not they are now BEAUTIFUL or UGLY just makes me...well, sometimes nervous because I think it's fake and sometimes upset because it's mean.
There are very few people in the world who are movie-star beautiful, and a lot of them are movie stars. It's rare that an actor cast as a child is even lucky enough to make the jump to adult acting much less turn out to be a movie star known for great beauty--Elizabeth Taylor comes to mind, but not too many others (and I don't even care for her much). Another reason a lot of kid actors don't make the jump is that acting as a kid is very often different than acting as an adult--being good at one does not always mean you will be good at the other, particularly if you were known for a specific role or a schtick as a kid. So, like, even if Emma Watson is as good as some of her reviewers say she is (though to me she comes across as a competent amateur at best so far) she's not guaranteed a big career. And if that doesn't happen what would all that come to? I suspect if she wanted this career she might very well have to go the whole, "Hermione grows up--and gets naked!" route like Melissa Joan Hart and her constant interviews about drinking and sex and posing for Maxim (for which she got smackdown from Archie comics and I was so glad I wrote a letter to them about it, a story I'd be glad to tell if anyone's interested but is a different story!), or Brittany Spears who seems to have tried so hard to be sexy she now looks about fifteen years older than she is. It's like...men may fawn about how she just shines from within at 13 but I suspect those same men will expect her to put-out (figuratively) if she really wants to be the movie queen they're flattering her by saying she already is now.
It's just the whole thing is so capricious. I don't mean I don't believe that a person can't find a certain actor or actress attractive themselves, it's more the judgements on it: This girl is BEAUTIFUL! That boy is UGLY! There's not always agreement and sometimes they go from one to the other. I mean, poor Tom Felton. I can't really read some of the stuff about him.To me they all just look like kids who were hired as kids and now they're adolescents. That means some of them will have a better time with the hormones than others and that they may look wildly different from one photo to the next. A good adolescence doesn't guarantee a great-looking outcome anymore than an awkward one guarantees a bad one. It can go either way. Sometimes people who are lucky enough to escape sudden growth spurts, acne and silly putty face do so by seeming to never quite make the transition to adulthood, if you know what I mean (Fred Savage anyone?). And the girls who were the prettiest in high school? Do they all grow up to be beautiful women? Most of them just grow up to be regular-looking adults--like the really annoying Mom of one of your friends who tells you about how popular she was when she's driving you to the eighth grade dance while you wonder how different the world was years ago that this woman was popular. The point is, you just can't tell so the pronouncements just seem random to me. Like, as if we feel like they have to be either beautiful or ugly. If they're ugly they've failed in some way, so if they've succeeded they have to be unnaturally gorgeous to the point of driving young people wild and making adults think sinful thoughts about children!
I don't know...I realize it's just a star thing. Their personalities get it too. I'm not saying I don't do this too, it's hard to help it. You like somebody, you're predisposed to like them more, they say things in interviews that you like and you tend to build up this image of them that's just so special. Since you don't actually know them personally you just base things on public things you see of them and that starts to build into a pattern. So the seven minutes you see of them being interviewed because fraught with meaning but when you think of yourself, if you were ever interviewed for something professionally, would you consider that a good example of who you were? I wouldn't. (Not that I'm interviewed on a regular basis, obviously!)
So, I don't know if that really made sense. I guess it's just I think there are plenty of ways to overstep the boundaries with a celebrity and making sexual comments about ones that are underaged doesn't have to be one one of them (though I'm as creeped out as anyone else over the whole "Countdown to the Olsen Twins being legal!" thing). I think it's an interesting topic in any fandom, though: the relationship between the fans and the actors, their responsibility to each other, which way is the "right way" to think about them.
Anyway, it seems like the controversy about the young HP actors is still going strong and I figured I'd stick my own thoughts out on it. I'm one of those people who does get uncomfortable with it, but it doesn't seem like this is because of the same reason most other people do...
I actually have little problem with the whole "don't call them hott when they're 13!!" stuff. I think most of the claims about The Bad Place are more silly than serious and probably a sort of fandom bonding thing, especially, if they're coming from somebody too old to realistically be interested in somebody that age. I, personally, don't "see" the actors when I read H/D (except with just_harry and potterstinks, but even then I suppose I age them up a bit in my head. Iow, I'm not attracted to prepubescent or even adolescent bodies, or real 15-year-olds. H/D might as well be Romeo & Juliet, imo. There's a difference between real teenaged romance and adults writing teenaged romance, just as there's a difference between children's lit and lit about children (The Secret Garden vs. What Maisie Knew).
I also think Western--in fact, probably most--societies have a long tradition of sexing up children. There's just something people like about dressing up kids as adults. Sometimes it's downright creepy, like in those Little Miss beauty contests, but I don't think it always has to do with pedophilia. Maybe there's just a fascination with innocent sensuality or something. Anyway, that seems to sometimes be the focus with these kid actors. It's, like, fascinating to see them change into something sexual or something. I don't think it's all that bad to have fantasies about them either, really--that is, I don't have much problem with the idea of a 40-year-old woman having a fantasy that involves a young man in his teens and if one of the HP actors strikes her fancy I don't know how different that is from Brad Pitt doing the same thing--acting on it would be quite different, of course. That's part of what being a movie star is about. For me, the problem is when people cross the lines into reality for whatever reason, if the person starts thinking about the actor as being "hers" or needs the actor to know about her rather than just appreciating him or whatever. As usual I come down on the side of any fantasy being okay (even if some might point to trouble more than others). I mean, there are some photos of the movie characters I've thought were great but I don't care about seeing pictures of them in general.
But like I said, I do have a problem, it's just not got anything to do with the kids being sexualized. I get uncomfortable with the focus on their looks, period. To me they're kids who were cast as kids and are now going through adolescence. I don't think any one of them lives up to either the hype or the criticism they get, and sometimes that just makes me cringe for them. It's not that I have a problem with people finding things funny about them, like if Emma Watson's tight jeans and high heels raise some eyebrows or Rupert Grint just looks so endearingly like he's in a band. But like this focus to proclaim whether or not they are now BEAUTIFUL or UGLY just makes me...well, sometimes nervous because I think it's fake and sometimes upset because it's mean.
There are very few people in the world who are movie-star beautiful, and a lot of them are movie stars. It's rare that an actor cast as a child is even lucky enough to make the jump to adult acting much less turn out to be a movie star known for great beauty--Elizabeth Taylor comes to mind, but not too many others (and I don't even care for her much). Another reason a lot of kid actors don't make the jump is that acting as a kid is very often different than acting as an adult--being good at one does not always mean you will be good at the other, particularly if you were known for a specific role or a schtick as a kid. So, like, even if Emma Watson is as good as some of her reviewers say she is (though to me she comes across as a competent amateur at best so far) she's not guaranteed a big career. And if that doesn't happen what would all that come to? I suspect if she wanted this career she might very well have to go the whole, "Hermione grows up--and gets naked!" route like Melissa Joan Hart and her constant interviews about drinking and sex and posing for Maxim (for which she got smackdown from Archie comics and I was so glad I wrote a letter to them about it, a story I'd be glad to tell if anyone's interested but is a different story!), or Brittany Spears who seems to have tried so hard to be sexy she now looks about fifteen years older than she is. It's like...men may fawn about how she just shines from within at 13 but I suspect those same men will expect her to put-out (figuratively) if she really wants to be the movie queen they're flattering her by saying she already is now.
It's just the whole thing is so capricious. I don't mean I don't believe that a person can't find a certain actor or actress attractive themselves, it's more the judgements on it: This girl is BEAUTIFUL! That boy is UGLY! There's not always agreement and sometimes they go from one to the other. I mean, poor Tom Felton. I can't really read some of the stuff about him.To me they all just look like kids who were hired as kids and now they're adolescents. That means some of them will have a better time with the hormones than others and that they may look wildly different from one photo to the next. A good adolescence doesn't guarantee a great-looking outcome anymore than an awkward one guarantees a bad one. It can go either way. Sometimes people who are lucky enough to escape sudden growth spurts, acne and silly putty face do so by seeming to never quite make the transition to adulthood, if you know what I mean (Fred Savage anyone?). And the girls who were the prettiest in high school? Do they all grow up to be beautiful women? Most of them just grow up to be regular-looking adults--like the really annoying Mom of one of your friends who tells you about how popular she was when she's driving you to the eighth grade dance while you wonder how different the world was years ago that this woman was popular. The point is, you just can't tell so the pronouncements just seem random to me. Like, as if we feel like they have to be either beautiful or ugly. If they're ugly they've failed in some way, so if they've succeeded they have to be unnaturally gorgeous to the point of driving young people wild and making adults think sinful thoughts about children!
I don't know...I realize it's just a star thing. Their personalities get it too. I'm not saying I don't do this too, it's hard to help it. You like somebody, you're predisposed to like them more, they say things in interviews that you like and you tend to build up this image of them that's just so special. Since you don't actually know them personally you just base things on public things you see of them and that starts to build into a pattern. So the seven minutes you see of them being interviewed because fraught with meaning but when you think of yourself, if you were ever interviewed for something professionally, would you consider that a good example of who you were? I wouldn't. (Not that I'm interviewed on a regular basis, obviously!)
So, I don't know if that really made sense. I guess it's just I think there are plenty of ways to overstep the boundaries with a celebrity and making sexual comments about ones that are underaged doesn't have to be one one of them (though I'm as creeped out as anyone else over the whole "Countdown to the Olsen Twins being legal!" thing). I think it's an interesting topic in any fandom, though: the relationship between the fans and the actors, their responsibility to each other, which way is the "right way" to think about them.