I’m a Theatre Studies major. I want to focus on Acting. I enjoy acting because I can do that….or I can try to….I can’t build sets or put up lights….because those involve heights and lots of sweat. I don’t like sewing costumes, and hair and makeup is not my thing. I’m also scared of falling from the catwalk with a rope around my neck….anyways…I just read an article on Yahoo! about Rose McGowan. If you don’t know her, she was on Charmed for awhile and on Nip/Tuck. https://www.yahoo.com/movies/rose-mcgowan-on-the-rolling-stone-cover-that-made-her-98229655742.html
Film is great. Film is powerful. Film is fun and inspirational and visual and yadda yadda yadda. But what people are not honest about is the whole “image” and business aspect of it. Actors like Johnny Depp, Denzel Washington, Helena Bonham Carter, Bette Davis, or Queen Latifah are the lucky ones who were able to stay true to the image THEY themselves created. Most actresses (because it mostly happens to them especially if they enter the business unaware of how they wish to present themselves), are molded and shaped by major producers, agents, publicists, parents, outside influences, artists, and opinions….or money. Look at all those Disney kids for example.
In the article McGowan says, “It’s always part and parcel of it, you’re expected as a woman, this is what you trade off of, this is how you sell tickets to the movies, this is your part of it,” she rattled off, regretting the state of the business. “Your job as a promoter is this: They’re not sticking a guy on the cover doing it, unless it’s like Seth Rogen doing a joke. So as a woman I’m expected to sell myself, my body, my image, my sexuality, in order to get your ticket sales up. It’s kind of fucked up. And it’s like, wait, I wasn’t aware that when I signed on to act, I had to sell myself that much.” Miles Teller is an actor as well and he says, “I didn’t have an interesting part [in Divergent], and I’d taken the film for business reasons: It was the first movie I’d done that was going to have an international audience. I called my agent and said, ‘This sucks.’” https://www.yahoo.com/movies/miles-teller-filming-divergent-made-me-feel-dead-98247937992.html
Of course, they didn’t have to do these projects. One can always say “no” regardless of the consequences. Right? Rachel McAdams said no to Tom Ford and Vanity Fair http://www.today.com/id/11216869/ns/today-today_entertainment/t/scarlett-keira-bare-all-magazine-cover/#.VCJMEyh2CCI. But if you compare McAdams to Keira Knightley and Scarlett Johansson, who has more media attention? International success? More major film roles and opportunities? Not McAdams.
A business is a business. Some of it’s amazing and some of it is disturbing…or am I thinking too much about it? I mean, if I want people to see my work, they need to see me right? I could do the whole “Screw society man, Imma do me.” That DOES work for some people. Or I can say, “Yes, I’ll pose naked for you Rolling Stone because it’ll help promote the movie and me!” Because that works too. Or shall we pretend it’s all for the sake of art? Is it too late to be a psych major? A business is a business right? Or is the desire to be seen the real problem here?
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