Monday, November 29, 2010

"Cry prettier, Jessica."

Another post unrelated to RPGs: sorry folks. But, I had to spread the word about this overlooked quote from Jessica Alba to Elle:

"I remember when I was dying in Silver Surfer...The director was like, 'It looks too real. It looks too painful. Can you be prettier when you cry? Cry pretty, Jessica.' He was like 'Don't do that thin with your face. Just make it flat. We can CGI the tears in.'" And I'm like, But there's no connection to a human being. And then it all got me thinking: Am I not good enough? Are my instincts and my emotions not good enough? Do people hate them so much that they don't want me to be a person? Am I not allowed to be a person in my work?

Thanks to Written World for drawing this to my attention: You should really go read that author's thoughts on the subject. It got me wondering about not just Alba's post-Dark Angel career, but a lot of actresses I've long thought to be cast only for looks. In how many cases is that not their fault? How many are being directed to be bad?

1 comment:

  1. Or how many directors want the stoic, single shed tear effect instead of actual pain, actual feeling? I see it so often with female characters- examples include Liv Tyler in Armageddon, anything sad with Scarlet Johannsen, etc.

    Many Directors don't want girls to have feelings- they just want them to be good looking receptacles of the crap put on them by the movie. bah.

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