Everybody loves Anna Kendrick

[Devon Malcolm]

2 hours ago, Carbomb said:

Actually, now that Devon's raised the point, this is where I should do a bit of self-monitoring: why didn't it occur to me to name more women? There are plenty who seem or seemed really awesome:

Tilda Swinton

Miriam Margolyes

Maxine Peake

Carrie Fisher

Whoopi Goldberg

Natalie Dormer

 

I'd say that I'm guilty of it as well but I just wondered why we all default to men. Chest made a good point about it though.

As for your nominations, can't disagree with any of them except Miriam Margolyes who just comes across as really unpleasant whenever I see her on anything, she made some particularly shitty remarks about Winona Ryder. Who might be a candidate here, by the way. Tilda Swinton is awesome.

Carefully avoiding lapsing into @Loki territory, Millie Bobby Brown is pretty brilliant both as an actress and in everything else she does, it seems.

[MVP RULZ]

Don't ever hear anyone having a bad word against Sir Patrick Stewart

 

[Hannibal Scorch]

Princess Diana

[Carbomb]

27 minutes ago, Devon Malcolm said:

I'd say that I'm guilty of it as well but I just wondered why we all default to men. Chest made a good point about it though.

As for your nominations, can't disagree with any of them except Miriam Margolyes who just comes across as really unpleasant whenever I see her on anything, she made some particularly shitty remarks about Winona Ryder. Who might be a candidate here, by the way. Tilda Swinton is awesome.

Carefully avoiding lapsing into @Loki territory, Millie Bobby Brown is pretty brilliant both as an actress and in everything else she does, it seems.

That the Graham Norton interview? It's an odd one - I thought she was feigning indignation for laughs, and that she didn't really mean it, but at the same time, she played it close enough to the bone I wasn't sure. Ended up giving her the benefit of the doubt on that one, but I have to admit, I haven't seen a lot of her saying nasty things. Probably just by chance; I'll take your word for it, though.

[Chest Rockwell]

Fuck Whoopi and her rape apologist bullshit.

Also Tilda Swinton caught some shit for playing a Tibetan monk in Dr Strange and her handling of the situation was less than great... I don't think she's a bad person necessarily, but it wasn't very endearing.

Also I can't be arsed to explain why but I veto Princess Diana.

[deathrey]

I think the standards by which we hold women are different - particularly those that are famous - and we are a little harsher on them than we are on males. I am racking my brain trying to think of a female nominee but I can't, I found it much easier to come up with males.

[Carbomb]

10 minutes ago, Chest Rockwell said:

Fuck Whoopi and her rape apologist bullshit.

Also Tilda Swinton caught some shit for playing a Tibetan monk in Dr Strange and her handling of the situation was less than great... I don't think she's a bad person necessarily, but it wasn't very endearing.

Also I can't be arsed to explain why but I veto Princess Diana.

Whoa - I didn't know about that. When was it?

Yeah, I had a bit of a problem with Swinton's casting in Dr. Strange, but put it down to the studio. Didn't see anything about her defending it. Genuinely disappointing if so. Will check it out.

[Chest Rockwell]

She defended both Polanski and Cosby. She said what Polanski did "wasn't 'rape' rape". You can watch the video if you like, on YouTube. It's been uploaded and promoted a lot by Pizzagaters as it fits their agenda.

And as for Tilda, she agreed to play the role, how could you absolve her of any responsibility? She's hardly a struggling actress who just needs to take any work she can.

[Keith Houchen]

Off on a tangent here, but what are your thoughts on Scarlett Johansson dropping out of playing a trans character?  Representation is important, I know that, however from a Producers and Studio viewpoint, the goal of a film is to make money not make art.  ScarJo is an extremely bankable star and that's why she was cast.  I'm really not on board with trans roles should go to trans actors, for me the key word is actors, they're playing a role.

I'm not saying it's ok to black up or anything like that, and as I say representation is important on the screen, but shouldn't a role go to whoever the Director and Studio think is the best person for the role?  I saw a few people slating ScarJo for accepting the role then saw the same people getting all excited about Keira Knightley being cast in the lead role of Collette.  Shouldn't that role have gone to a French Lesbian actor?

Of course, I appreciate that I'm posting this as a cis white bloke.

[Carbomb]

18 minutes ago, Chest Rockwell said:

She defended both Polanski and Cosby. She said what Polanski did "wasn't 'rape' rape". You can watch the video if you like, on YouTube. It's been uploaded and promoted a lot by Pizzagaters as it fits their agenda.

And as for Tilda, she agreed to play the role, how could you absolve her of any responsibility? She's hardly a struggling actress who just needs to take any work she can.

Fucking hell, that's terrible.

As to Tilda, not sure why I did absolve her, looking back on it. There have been a lot of people I know to be reasonable defending it, saying the point was to subvert the racism of the original Ancient One role, but my response to that has always been that they could still have cast someone like Gong Li or Michelle Yeoh in it. Or completely subvert it and cast a young east Asian woman, further implying agelessness.

[Carbomb]

9 minutes ago, Keith Houchen said:

Off on a tangent here, but what are your thoughts on Scarlett Johansson dropping out of playing a trans character?  Representation is important, I know that, however from a Producers and Studio viewpoint, the goal of a film is to make money not make art.  ScarJo is an extremely bankable star and that's why she was cast.  I'm really not on board with trans roles should go to trans actors, for me the key word is actors, they're playing a role.

I'm not saying it's ok to black up or anything like that, and as I say representation is important on the screen, but shouldn't a role go to whoever the Director and Studio think is the best person for the role?  I saw a few people slating ScarJo for accepting the role then saw the same people getting all excited about Keira Knightley being cast in the lead role of Collette.  Shouldn't that role have gone to a French Lesbian actor?

Of course, I appreciate that I'm posting this as a cis white bloke.

Because it's you, Keith, I know your argument comes from a position of good faith. But the vast majority of people I see taking this position are usually the first to rail against Idris Elba being cast as Bond or Heimdall, or the recent casting of a black actor in that Troy series on TV.

My response to that is simple: it's never just been about representation. Representation means fuck-all if it doesn't actually benefit the people from the community being represented - it's a huge part of the purpose of representation. In this case, giving young trans people characters and role models they can relate to, and then telling them "Yeah, but a cis female will represent the role just as well" is not helpful, especially when there have been trans actors gaining more recognition recently.

EDIT: Sorry, meant to add that, yes, Johansson is very bankable, but I'm sure she could have been cast in a different role - she'd have still drawn eyeballs.

[Hannibal Scorch]

9 minutes ago, Keith Houchen said:

Off on a tangent here, but what are your thoughts on Scarlett Johansson dropping out of playing a trans character?  Representation is important, I know that, however from a Producers and Studio viewpoint, the goal of a film is to make money not make art.  ScarJo is an extremely bankable star and that's why she was cast.  I'm really not on board with trans roles should go to trans actors, for me the key word is actors, they're playing a role.

I'm not saying it's ok to black up or anything like that, and as I say representation is important on the screen, but shouldn't a role go to whoever the Director and Studio think is the best person for the role?  I saw a few people slating ScarJo for accepting the role then saw the same people getting all excited about Keira Knightley being cast in the lead role of Collette.  Shouldn't that role have gone to a French Lesbian actor?

Of course, I appreciate that I'm posting this as a cis white bloke.

Thing is she did this coming off the back of her "White Washing" of Ghost in the Shell which didn't actually bother the Japanese, but did upset the rest of the world so this was never going to end well

[Carbomb]

Just now, Hannibal Scorch said:

Thing is she did this coming off the back of her "White Washing" of Ghost in the Shell which didn't actually bother the Japanese, but did upset the rest of the world so this was never going to end well

The Japanese reaction was never the problem; they have their own well-established film industry. It was how it went over with Western-Diasporic Asians, who regularly have had a problem with under-representation in Western media, and a number of whom could've had the role instead.

[Keith Houchen]

4 minutes ago, Carbomb said:

Because it's you, Keith, I know your argument comes from a position of good faith. But the vast majority of people I see taking this position are usually the first to rail against Idris Elba being cast as Bond or Heimdall, or the recent casting of a black actor in that Troy series on TV.

My response to that is simple: it's never just been about representation. Representation means fuck-all if it doesn't actually benefit the people from the community being represented - it's a huge part of the purpose of representation. In this case, giving young trans people characters and role models they can relate to, and then telling them "Yeah, but a cis female will represent the role just as well" is not helpful, especially when there have been trans actors gaining more recognition recently.

 EDIT: Sorry, meant to add that, yes, Johansson is very bankable, but I'm sure she could have been cast in a different role - she'd have still drawn eyeballs.

I think some of my thoughts were shaped by people almost demanding that a trans actor should have the role automatically.  I did see a trans actor put it well when they said it's not about getting the role, it's about not even getting an audition for the role, and other roles.  They were saying how they aren't claiming to be as good as the leading names but more a case of how they'll never be in the same room as the leading names, regardless of whether the role is trans or not.

Excellent point about Representation, I guess it's the difference between representation and tokenism.

[Devon Malcolm]

From a purely marketing point of view, you'd think it made sense to cast Johansson but I do wonder if this could be an opportunity to try something else. Would the publicity of casting an actual trans person in the lead role of a major American film generate good box office by itself? I think there's a chance it would. Johansson isn't quite a completely reliable box office presence anyway - even with all the controversy, Ghost in the Shell (which I actually liked and thought she was really good in - I much preferred it to the anime) wasn't a hit.