inexplicable leading ladies

[Blarg]

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Sally Field is a really good actress, WTF?

But my real major WTF is for anyone hating on Jodie Foster. She is a FANTASTIC actress and I'm not sure why anyone would think otherwise. As in, Meryl Streep-level good.

I also think she is exceptionally beautiful and that doesn't hurt either.

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Major respect for Sally Fields as an actress.

I find Jodie Foster unexceptional in every way. I didn't even find her very compelling in Silence of the Lambs, which I thought was a lot more dull than most people did. I thought it was a role many actresses could have handled at least as well and not nearly as "deep" as others do.

[Blarg]

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Wow. So I read this whole thread -- I can't believe I did, but I did -- and it has been one pretty scary ride. Not only isn't anyone taking into account all of the various reasons for the variety of actors that we have, no one seems to even have a grasp of the origins of acting and purpose.

If we were simply talking about what is unappealing about each of these actresses, that would be one thing, but there seems to be an engrained expectation here that any of these actresses should strike a certain chord with the audience -- and that chord, for the most part, seems to be having a body and face that wouldn't make you close your eyes before you let her go down on you.

Has star commodifying gotten so far out of whack that a person is simply reduced to filling a fantasy role? Does anyone even remember that acting used to be about telling a story with what you were given, as a way of enhancing communication between people (relieving tension, commiserating on politics, etc.?) That women used to be played by men?

Here's the thing: you may not be willing to let Kathy Bates or Angela Lansbury suck your [censored], but that doesn't mean that people can't relate to them vis-a-vis their acting styles and life experiences -- which inform their work. Kathy Bates is just as essential to the tapestry of human interaction as Ned Beatty or M. Emmett Walsh. I mean, Christ, if I turned off a movie or didn't go to see one just because there was going to be an "ugly" man in it, I'd rarely (ever?) watch anything.

Now that I've gotten that off of my chest, it's pretty safe to say that this is part of the reason why many actresses have such a hard time transcending decades. A lot of women fell by the wayside on the way from the '70s to the '80s, for example, when the change was so drastic in styles and political attitudes towards just about everything. People have mentioned Margot Kidder, Faye Dunaway and Sally Field, but does anybody even know who Jill Clayburg is? The competition among women actors is so fierce because of attitudes like these that women almost have to strategize like Field and Foster, or get a meal ticket like Superman, or marry Woody Allen...or become tour-de-force acting talents like Faye Dunaway and Sissy Spacek. Neither of those last two is considered a mainstream sort of "beauty" yet they survived. It's pretty tough out there.

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Few things. First, Dunaway was a mainstream beauty(see Bonnie and Clyde, Network also makes a decent argument). Her acting has been questioned more than once.

Agreed with love for Jill Clayburgh, though she tanked herself pretty hard with the awful Luna. Still, it's amazing that today almost nobody has even heard of "An Unmarried Woman," which was a sensation when it came out and enormously popular for a long time afterward. I went to look for it a couple of years ago and I think it wasn't even out on DVD.

As to what we expect of actresses, it reflects what we expect of movies. A love interested is brutally shoe-horned into movies with no particular place or need for them, without remorse. The films themselves are shallow. So the female role genuinely goes to some more or less interchangeable hottie. If we expected more of movies, or were able to get more from their corporate creators, we would have a broader arena for actresses. As it is now, the degraded public taste and the fiscal conservativeness of movie studios makes actresses essentially eye candy on the one hand or some hero's mom on the other.

[thecincykiddo]

Thanks for the new definition. It's hard keeping up with the changing times.

Here is a mildly broader definition of "leading lady" for those interested. It's on wikipedia. I don't know whether that makes the definition more important than any post or its contents, but there it is nonetheless.

Oh, and Margot Kidder, by the way, was not that slutty.

Blarg,

Nice.

[MrMon]

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Sally Field is a really good actress, WTF?

But my real major WTF is for anyone hating on Jodie Foster. She is a FANTASTIC actress and I'm not sure why anyone would think otherwise. As in, Meryl Streep-level good.

I also think she is exceptionally beautiful and that doesn't hurt either.

[/ QUOTE ]

Major respect for Sally Fields as an actress.

I find Jodie Foster unexceptional in every way. I didn't even find her very compelling in Silence of the Lambs, which I thought was a lot more dull than most people did. I thought it was a role many actresses could have handled at least as well and not nearly as "deep" as others do.

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I find Jodie Foster an exceptional actress who doesn't have a romantic bone in her body. She, to me, is incapable of projecting romantic interest on the screen. Her performance in Maverick was painful to watch, and she was supposed to be this sexy foil for Mel Gibson. Didn't work in the least. Apparently didn't work in Anna and the King either, but I knew she had no chance, so I didn't bother to see it.

Cast her as a tomboy, a sexless careerist, a rape victim, a protective mom, but please, never again as a romantic lead.

[bogey1]

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[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Sally Field is a really good actress, WTF?

But my real major WTF is for anyone hating on Jodie Foster. She is a FANTASTIC actress and I'm not sure why anyone would think otherwise. As in, Meryl Streep-level good.

I also think she is exceptionally beautiful and that doesn't hurt either.

[/ QUOTE ]

Major respect for Sally Fields as an actress.

I find Jodie Foster unexceptional in every way. I didn't even find her very compelling in Silence of the Lambs, which I thought was a lot more dull than most people did. I thought it was a role many actresses could have handled at least as well and not nearly as "deep" as others do.

[/ QUOTE ]

I find Jodie Foster an exceptional actress who doesn't have a romantic bone in her body. She, to me, is incapable of projecting romantic interest on the screen. Her performance in Maverick was painful to watch, and she was supposed to be this sexy foil for Mel Gibson. Didn't work in the least. Apparently didn't work in Anna and the King either, but I knew she had no chance, so I didn't bother to see it.

Cast her as a tomboy, a sexless careerist, a rape victim, a protective mom, but please, never again as a romantic lead.

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Jodie Foster is the anti-Sally Fields. Jodie lacks the likable, approachable personality that Sally exudes. I can't say Sally Fields blows me away, but I like what she does generally and find myself rooting for her character.

Jodie, either by her acting or character choices, turns me off. She seems harsh on the edges and unfriendly. I don't enjoy watching her. Though, as was said above, put her in a role as a distasteful or unlikable person and I'd probably think she was great.

Could be both are acting brilliantly to portray exactly those things, but as a watcher I know which I enjoy.

[Blarg]

The comment about her unsuitability as a romantic lead really hit the right note. Foster seems flat, distant, uninvolved. Kind of like a stripper or pro who has seen too many men in too many ways to care any more. She doesn't give me the impression that she is likely to take much joy in many things even in the best of times.

I guess that's actually fine for roles suggested, like a distasteful or unlikeable person, or a careerist or something all-business. But my problem is, a lot of a movie's effect on you comes from identifying with characters. That's why you care what happens to them, and in the movie. Foster doesn't make me care. I don't see the spark of life in her. She seems kind of flat, cold, and forbidding, and so I don't relate to her much. So I don't get taken along for the ride like I should be and the movie gets drained of a lot of its potential life.

[thirddan]

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[ QUOTE ]
Sally Field is a really good actress, WTF?

But my real major WTF is for anyone hating on Jodie Foster. She is a FANTASTIC actress and I'm not sure why anyone would think otherwise. As in, Meryl Streep-level good.

I also think she is exceptionally beautiful and that doesn't hurt either.

[/ QUOTE ]

Major respect for Sally Fields as an actress.

I find Jodie Foster unexceptional in every way. I didn't even find her very compelling in Silence of the Lambs, which I thought was a lot more dull than most people did. I thought it was a role many actresses could have handled at least as well and not nearly as "deep" as others do.

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I find Jodie Foster an exceptional actress who doesn't have a romantic bone in her body. She, to me, is incapable of projecting romantic interest on the screen. Her performance in Maverick was painful to watch, and she was supposed to be this sexy foil for Mel Gibson. Didn't work in the least. Apparently didn't work in Anna and the King either, but I knew she had no chance, so I didn't bother to see it.

Cast her as a tomboy, a sexless careerist, a rape victim, a protective mom, but please, never again as a romantic lead.

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agreed, i thought the role that she had in "inside man" was much better suited to her than a romantic type role...