8. I have a Real Doll that looks just like you.
If you have to walk around reminding everyone you're the sexiest woman in the room, chances are...you aren't. As soon as women adopt the role of "sex pot", they lose what actually made them a sex pot in the first place. Pork chops taste good, but personality goes a long way,
if you know what I mean. Scar Jo, you had me at hello with your
peanut butter smeared fingers. Angelina Jolie, I liked you better when you had a
crack pipe in one hand and
a woman in your other. Megan Fox...what am I saying? You were never more than a pair of...er. Legs. Personalities, we miss you. Come back.
Scarlett's 'now' photo is just amazing. She looks so much more beautiful now than she did back then. More glamorous, more feminine, more everything.
ReplyDeleteMegan's then/now is hilarious! :)
Some, thoughts, M:
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely true. People who play themselves up are a turn-off because they're engaging in boring, annoying, uninteresting behavior. People who boast a lot are actually revealing that they're unconfident.
Scarlett, um, looks good. I still haven't decided whether she's a good actress, tho; I hated her roles in Match Point and Scoop, she wasn't impressive at all in the Prestige, and Iron Man 2/Avengers are far from an actor's showcase. My brother's wife says she's only good in parts where she doesn't talk much, and that's a bad sign for a modern actor...
Angie is gorgeous, obviously (one of my exes looked a lot like her). She's also clearly a solid actress - her only flaw, that I can see, is that she takes some horrible roles like that Tourist movie with Depp, or that one where she's a weather reporter who receives a death warning from a psychic. There was also a lot to dislike about Mr & Mrs Smith, but you have to accept that to some degree, all actors are dumb animals who will perform as they're told. That's why I have an audio recording of Sean Connery reciting the words to "In My Life" - to remind me of that fact.
Megan Fox looks nice enough. As far as I've heard, she's never had a role that even provides an opportunity to show whether or not she has acting talent, much less range. I guess the really surprising thing is that one movie after another has been not the sort of thing to help guage whether she even has an ability. Not Jennifer's Body, nor Michael Bay's crap-o-rama, nor that thing with Mickey "uglier than Nick Nolte" Rourke.
My final point is kinda important, too. Where does all this come from? Are you saying that these 3 women are trying to say they're the sexiest thangs ever by how they're dressed up in those pictures? You are specifically saying that they're being all "I'm the sexiest woman ever!", right? Because you didn't write the part where you say when/how/if they're doing that sorta stuff.
PS, your Megan Fox pic is great comedy. Sadly, I don't think she looks attractive at all in that pic. Whoever took that photo should be slapped ungently with a fish because her hair looks weird and her face looks mannish, and her breasts actually look fake from the way she's pushing them up. It shouldn't be hard to get a good photo of Fox, and that photographer scored a D, at best.
PPS, I gave you a shout in my "takin' a blog-cation" post. My readers (if I even have any) know to check you out.
@ Nebular--See, I like the homely, small town girl that she used to play all the time! But not for nothing, she's definitely gorgeous, I'll stand by that. And I'm glad you found the Fox amusing!
ReplyDelete@ Thaddus--Glad you agree with me! This gripe mainly came to me while watching the Avengers trailer, oddly enough. Motherfucking Black Widow. The thing is, I will watch it, I will enjoy her, I will salivate when she comes on screen. Don't get me wrong, all these actresses are hot stuff. But...I can't help but kind of miss A Love Song For Bobby Long, where Scar Jo could be in a role that didn't necessitate her looking pretty in every frame. Now she's in He's Just Not That Into You, and I'm suddenly just not that into her. And soon as an actress gets labeled "sex pot" by the media and whathaveyou, she gets roles where...she has to stand there and look pretty. Which, fine, okay, Megan Fox, you do a great job of it. But some of these other actresses just seem like good talent gone to waste when they lose their market for any role that would maybe, heaven forbid, mark up their face a little.
ReplyDeleteNicole Kidman is actually a good example of what I'm talking about. She's a good actress...so long as she doesn't have to dirty her hands for the role. Moulin Rouge, she was great in, but it sure helped that her character was the ultimate seductress and therefore she didn't have to spend the whole movie worrying about being the sexiest one in the room...the role did it for her.
And then we've got someone like the recent love of my ovaries, Charlotte Rampling. So she doesn't quite look fugly in any of her movies, but she's hot as hell, she owns her beauty, and she moves on. The best scene of Stardust Memories is when she falls to pieces trying to hold it together for the camera and dissolves into a neurotic mess, ending on a simple "How do I look?". Lovely, brilliant, not a role I can see Kidman pulling off any time soon.
Last point: I'm not trying to be harsh on the ladies (well, maybe Nicole Kidman). Rather, I'm tired of movies that keep sticking in woman-as-prop. James Bond does this, but we accept it, its part of the hilarity of the thing, we move on. Modern movies don't really have that same excuse. Because the thing is, we've got our Mickey Rourkes. Our ugly-as-shit badass men who win fucking Oscars. They just don't write roles for women like that.
PS: I literally just picked the first picture that showcased her knockers. Not the most flattering, but it did the job!
PPS: Thanks, homie! I'll definitely head over to your space to check it out!
Now off to listen to Connery narrate "In My Life".
Hey, I'll send you the mp3 if you can't find it; it's hysterical, really.
ReplyDeleteAnd, from the other side of the gender divide (but still crazy for women), I can tell ya: I *hate* the way Hollywood uses women in movies. Studios feature white women all the time for major and minor roles (I'm super mixed-heritage, look white/pan-ethnic), but don't do anything with them that means they couldn't've hired a sister, or an asian, or something else.
Tinseltown follows up the race-preference by sticking women into roles like "the unhappy woman," the supportive nobody (Zelweiger in Cinderella Man, I'm lookin at you), the evil temptress, the thing to be protected, or the shallow eye candy. Often their motivations, desires, friends, and stories are completely ignored or side-stepped, because they apparently don't need character, just physical charisma.
Sometimes it's acceptable, other times it's just a sign of a massive, unforgivable blindspot in the script/story. If people really want a woman/lay/partner/whatever who's a vapid pretty "thing," then yes, buy yourself a real doll. You nailed it there.
Even worse (I will post about this someday), writers must have crap luck with pretty girls because they often write very attractive women as nothing more than wordy and mega-sarcastic. I can see "snappy" as coming off as "tough." But really, I just think screen writers are getting their unlaid, needle-dicked revenge for every time they struck out in real life, whether it was deserved or not. In fact, many of the most beautiful women I've known, whether or not I got together with them, have been anything but relentlessly sarcastic, hyperactive talkers who are "confrontational."
I found it! I died. Oh, Sean Connery...he's the gift that keeps giving.
ReplyDeleteI'm with you there--Hollywood definitely has huge problems with race. I don't quite get why when all our foreign brothers are beating us there, but there you go. And if they do have a non-white woman as a sex kitten, it's "Ooooh, look how exotic." Like, really? Didn't get get over that some time in the 60s? Even fucking James Bond has to deal with the bi-racial Bambi and Thumper (not that Bond can say anything about race but...you know what I mean).
I have a feeling it has a lot to do with the fact that the behind-the-scenes movie work is just as male-dominated as the front stage is. I mean, we JUST has our first female director win an academy. C'mon. Female directors and writes are few and far between, and when they do exist, it's always for some sappy romcom.
What really gets under my skin is when movies have the "cool female character"...but she's not cool at all. In fact, it's painfully obvious they're trying to make her badass, but then she falls to her knees when she chips a nail. I can take that eye-candy women, because shamelessness is close to godliness or something like that. At least they're admitting the sin and moving on, and everyone can enjoy it. What's really bad is when their translation of "badass woman" comes off as a pathetic, wimpy character who can't do shit. Expendables, I'm looking at you.
Nonetheless, I'm with you there. Maybe I just don't go to the right New York parties, but most gorgeous women I met are, in fact, nice and accommodating. But that doesn't make for good drama. Sometimes the "snarky pretty women" thing works, I like the way Emma Stone does it. Other times, it can get a little repetitive. Here's to hoping, eh?
OMFG, Thank you!! I can't stand all the useless eye candy roles or the young tartlets who are cast as thirty something women... Blake Lively, Jessica Biel and Jessica Alba I'm talking to you. They are not thirty-something and do not possess the chops to make the experience believable. Alba was laughable in Machete as the agent. She sucked.
ReplyDeleteWomen do get the shit end all the time because the bulk of the working screenwriters and directors are men. And they continually make movies for this mythic drooling fourteen year old boy who gets a hard on at just hearing the word "boobies."
Women also age in Hollywood, unlike men. Lillian Gish said "You know, when I first went into the movies Lionel Barrymore played my grandfather. Later he played my father and finally he played my husband. If he had lived I'm sure I would have played his mother. That's the way it is in Hollywood. The men get younger and the women get older.”
And don't get me started on the badass women. Those roles are so few and far between because they're mostly fake. There are very few truly badass actresses, worthy of the title. Geena Davis, Michelle Rodriguez, Sigourney Weaver and Michelle Yeoh come to mind.
Haywire, Haywire, Haywire, Haywire...
Super late in responding to everything, BUT. You're welcome! And I'm so with you, useless eye candy is irritating unless consumed in a responsible fashion via the likes of James Bond. Otherwise...meh. I will add though that the first time I saw Jessica Alba in Machete, I hated her guts, but the second time I saw it I just had to find her character slightly endearing (which I'll credit to Robert Rodriguez anyway).
ReplyDeleteThat quote from Lillian Gish is just fucking depressing. Really, what is it with the fact that women get "old and ugly" and men just "age like wine"? Guys don't have to retire from the film business, ever. There is a depressing number of older women in the film business, and when they ARE in movies, they just play...the old grandmother. Harrison Ford was how old when he did the last Indiana Jones (not that it was good at all, but...dude got fucking action movie hero work at his age!)?
Great list! I was definitely thinking of BAMFing Rodriguez shortly. Stay tuned...
Haywire, Haywire, Haywire, Haywire....
(If this movies turns out to be crappy, I think we're both going to cry ourselves to sleep for the remainder of our lives)