Supplemental Post #2

After seeing a few posts about method acting, I wanted to talk about one of my favorite recent examples of method acting.  Dyer defines method acting as a performer feeling their way into a role from the inside, temporarily identifying with a character, or actually becoming the character while playing them.  My example is Matthew Mcconaughey in Dallas Buyers Club.  He dropped over 40 pounds to play the role of a man diagnosed and dying of HIV/AIDS.  He committed to the role by keeping a very strict diet and exercised excessively.  Although he acted quite well in this film, if it were not for his skinny look, diving completely into this character, his performance would not have nearly been as good.
                          

Core Post #2

Richard Dyer mentions in Stars what he likes to call the "perfect fit".  To him the perfect fit is when all the aspects of a star's image fit with all the traits of a character.  One actress that I immediately thought of was Melissa McCarthy.  Her breakout role was in Bridesmaids where she basically filled the role as the crazy, over weight character.  Her sense of comedy and her ability for physical comedy made her the perfect fit for that role.  Because of her success as playing Meghan in Bridesmaids, Melissa McCarthy was then casted for the film Identity Thief.  Again this role called for a great deal of physical comedy that she pulls off effortlessly.  There also is an absurdity to her personality to her on screen personalities that makes you wonder as a viewer, "Is she really like that?"




The pattern continued and McCarthy was asked to play another role where she disregarded ever acting normal in public.  Although I do love Melissa McCarthy and I think she is very funny, I think taking role after role that qualifies her to be obnoxious, socially unaware, and overweight, is hurting her chances to ever be taken seriously as a real actress.  Luckily for her, she received a role in the film St. Vincent, where she played a completely different role than everyone is used to seeing.  Rolling Stone Magazine gave her a great review and said: "McCarthy, playing her role straight and true, downplays the comedy to show surprising nuance and feeling."  

It is not an easy task to take on a completely different role than usual, especially when you have such a large following of people that love the expected antics of McCarthy's characters.  But due to her a talent, she was able to have people take her seriously and forget about the roles she normally as, which is definitely not an easy task.

Marlon Brando's search for a lost masculinity - Sandhya Nadadur Core Post #3

Brash. Brawny. Bold. From the overly-tight shirt that leaves little to the imagination, to the massive sweat stain running down the middle of his shirt, to the flexed muscles and even the sly off-center look that suggests inaccessibility, Stanley Kowalsi in A Streetcar Named Desire (and by extension Marlon Brando) is unmistakably masculine. Indeed, he often occupies the entire frame (just as he is doing above) shedding light on the fact that his dominance and masculinity stems from his physical presence.

This image of Marlon Brando is emblematic not only of his character in the film, Stanley Kowalski, but also sheds light on particular tensions underpinning his personal life.

Brando is a well-noted method actor, which makes his portrayal of Stanley Kowalski particularly powerful, especially when taken within the context of his personal life. Brando was the son of alcoholic parents. His mother was practically absent while his father was abusive. He was a military school dropout. As a result, during the most formative years of his life, Brando's masculinity was consistently threatened. This context allows Brando's portrayal of Kowalski to serve as a fictional extension of his true personality (SID, 224).

Thus, through the lens of Stanley Kowalski, we can see Brando compensating for a personally diminished masculinity, which in turn promotes the authentic development of the work, which can be defined as a melodrama. Brando's well known inability to maintain stable relationships in his personal life can be seen through Stanley Kowalski's unstable relationship with his pregnant wife, Stella. In the scene where Kowalski throws and destroys the radio, physically threatens his wife, shuns her from the home and then cries until she comes back is nothing short of poignant. It also perfectly embodies Brando's emotional instability and conflicted relationship with dominance and vulnerability.

Dyer might even see Brando as embodying the cultural tension surrounding the definition of masculinity. Does ones masculinity rely on the way one looks and occupies space? Or, does it rely on ones interpersonal relationships? While with respect to the former, Brando certainly would be considered masculine, the latter point problematizes his masculinity because he has to literally beg Stella to come back to him (which, at the end of the day, he always successfully manages to do). In embodying this tension, and further in receiving widespread recognition for his role as Stanley Kowalski, Brando not only reveals cultural tensions surrounding masculinity. but in doing so, also embodies them.

Ultimately, the fictional Stanley Kowalski serves as a pathway for the star, Marlon Brando, to express his hidden "moral drives and desires" (SID, 224). That is, a desire to prove an otherwise threatened masculinity. In turn, this mutually beneficial relationship between the Kowalski and Brando sheds light on the the film's overwhelming success as a melodrama because it conflates Stanley Kowalski's fictional search for a lost masculinity with Marlon Brando's very real journey to the same end.  

Weston-Smith Core Post #4: Dyer- Stars and Performance

There is often a lot of talk, interest, and criticism surrounding method acting in today's society. I found it very interesting to read Richard Dyer's definitions of different types of acting, including method acting, in Chapter 8: Stars and Performance. I think it is especially interesting to think about the modern day Marlon Brando's. Brando was famous for the way using the method effected him off screen, and despite that, there are still actors experiencing the same effects. What I also find intriguing is that a lot of the actors famous today for using the method are also some of the most critically acclaimed actors. Dyer writes that method acting "involved the performer feeling her/his way into a role from the inside, temporarily identifying with a character or, in a widespread distortion of the approach, actually becoming the character playing him/her" (Stars, p. 141).

One of the reasons there is so much talk surrounding the topic of method acting in society is because of the effect it has on a lot of famous actors who use the method. For instance, Shia Lebouf is constantly in and out of the news for his off screen antics and the trouble he gets into. Shia is confirmed to be a method actor, and many tabloids blame his inability to let go of a character off set as the reason he gets himself into such newsworthy situations. Another method actor is Daniel Day Lewis. When he accepted his Oscar for his lead role in "Lincoln," he thanked his wife for sticking by his side despite how hard it must have been to live with him when he was playing such a dark role. Lewis often talks about how lost he gets in a role.

Perhaps one of the most famous method actors, a part from Marlon Brando of course, was Heath Ledger. Most people, including his family, blame his method acting for his suicide. Soon after  wrapping as The Joker in the Batman trilogy--a particularly dark and messed up character--he killed himself. It was made public that he was on many anti-depressents at the time, and his family said Heath had an incredibly hard time shaking the twisted, self-hating mentality of The Joker. The conversation surrounding the effects of method acting reignited after his suicide.

Jennica Wragg Supplemental Post #3: Stars as A Vehicle for Change? Star Presence on International Women's Day

Many stars female stars in particular utilized International Women’s Day to promote an agenda that contradicts the long established values set by the patriarchal society we live in.  In one particular video the voices of Amy Poehler and Cameron Diaz promote the “We’re Not There Yet” campaign set by the Clinton initiative. 

Leading off the heels of Emma Watson’s #HeForShe and Reese Witherspoon’s #AskHerMore these stars capitalize on an idea that has become largely popularized by celebrities throughout the past year. The large number of female (and many male stars as well) that have shown their support for gender equality has led to this topic becoming much less controversial. 

Credited with bringing awareness to this issue once again 2 weeks ago, celebrities are quick to also show their solidarity. 

In fact, the continuing efforts and initiatives by multiple female powerhouses have launched the issue of gender equality into a national agenda that appears to be receiving more and more support even when evidence of changing the issues surrounding gender equality may not exist. As the idea of gender equality becomes apart of dominant ideology we notice a trend that is especially particular today as a vast number of celebrities reach out to lend their support towards endorsing gender equality and breaking down the barriers to allow these discussions to happen. The power of the star vehicle is especially helpful because if nothing else it raises awareness about major issues in particular because of the sheer presence stars have on social media that actively encourages ordinary citizens to engage with the conversations. Even on a Sunday in which stars are not working they actively engage with audiences getting hashtags to top the Facebook and Twitter news feeds.

A unified approach to bringing awareness both amongst stars and citizens was created by changing ones profile picture to this image.

Other celebrities too found other ways to creatively craft a message designed to influence others.

Supplemental Post #3 - Patricia Arquette's Contradictory Comments

As I was browsing through Time , I came to this article about Patricia Arquette. Like what she said in her interview, I was also surprised that there was such a negative response to her speech (but then again, her backstage comments didn’t exactly line up with the point she was trying to make on the Oscar stage). Even still, Arquette brought down the house during her acceptance speech for some socioeconomic commentary on wage inequality.

 “To every woman who gave birth, to every taxpayer and citizen of this nation, we have fought for everybody else's equal rights. It's our time to have wage equality once and for all and equal rights for women in the United States of America.” With many celebrities wading into feminism by offering scripted statements prepared by a PR team, Arquette was able to make a firm point about wage inequality in two sentences on a large platform (with billions of people watching)—creating a positive response from the audience (including Meryl Streep and J.Lo).

 But when Arquette was asked to elaborate backstage, she gave a lengthy answer that included this statement: “And it's time for all the women in America and all the men that love women, and all the gay people, and all the people of color that we've all fought for to fight for us now.”

Where to begin? Perhaps with pointing out that “gay people” and “people of color” are both categories that include women. Indeed, when it comes to wage inequality, race is as much a factor as gender. As Arquette explained how she connected her role in Boyhood with wage inequality: “I thought long and hard about how [the single mom in Boyhood] life would have been better with wage equality, and if she made those extra cents on the dollar; and how if she was Latina, she’d need to make those fifty cents more, or how if she was African-American, she’d need to make those 40 cents more.” Like what she suggested, race and sexual orientation are issues that builds on top of the larger issue, wage discrimination.

 Many people argue that Arquette's political grandstanding played into every ugly stereotype about “feminism” being about privileged white women trying to become more privileged; and that her comments were bad for the cause of equal pay and for feminism. However, I honestly believe that she was overwhelmed with her Oscar win--hence, her after-Oscar-win ramblings and comments about “women” without the inclusion of race and sexual orientation. It was a definitely a mishap, but hey, at least she redeemed herself with her Time interview. All in all, I am happy she used her precious Oscar time to address this decades-old problem. As Arquette stated, it is a huge discrimination issue affecting women across not just in the U.S. but also everywhere around the world; and its impact greatly affects women's (and their children's) lives.

Hepburn & Hathaway: Building & Maintaining Images of Class {Nadine Watar: Post #3}

The integration of media has rapidly expanded throughout the past decade where all aspects of media have intertwined, weaving our minds and souls along with its strands. We base our existence on the mere fact that everything must be recorded, uploaded and shared through devices of all shapes and sizes. Yet media wasn't that much different a few decades ago. The medium wasn't as advanced of course, but it did help shape, reinforce and even exploit stars at that time, as the media does today. Superstars like Marilyn Monroe, Grace Kelly and Audrey Hepburn were all famous for their different iconic roles and characters in Hollywood, yet what really made them global phenomenons were their personal lives that were presented in the media for so long, to the point where their private personas began to compete with their careers onscreen. 

In his book Stardom, Thomas Harris describes the importance of a star's image, both onscreen and off and how image was and still is a dominant and significant factor in an actor's career. Hence, Harris further states that a "star becomes a symbol to an unseen mass audience whose only contract with him/her is through the indirect means of the media". Both Monroe and Kelly gained international success from their movie careers as well as their personal engagements, marriages and royal affairs, yet they stayed true to the characters and personalities they wanted to be known for. For instance, Kelly's onscreen persona was always poised, lady-like and elegant, and these traits were only amplified when she would step off camera and onto Monaco's royal grounds, her heels dripping class and finesse. 

Another star who was known for her talents as well as her classy ways was Audrey Hepburn. She emerged as the stereotypical quirky and shy actress who soon blossomed into a talented actress and fashion icon. Her private life mirrored her career as it only progressed and landed on every magazine, advertisement and conversation. She was a rising star but never allowed it to deter her from her morals of being an elegant and sophisticated English woman. Her film roles depicted characters of status, education and intelligence that complimented her true personality offscreen. She was in fact extremely educated and influential as a humanitarian. The studios were more than happy with this star because of her efforts in maintaining consistency between her two lives. 

Despite being a fragile and slim willow of a woman, Audrey Hepburn commanded any stage she graced. Her presence illuminated the essence of poise, class and wholeness that was consistent throughout her years. Today, Anne Hathaway embodies Hepburn's sparkle, versatile talents and red carpet glamor. Both Hepburn and Hathaway began their careers through wholesome roles and slowly moved to more challenging and mature roles with an ocean of depth. Yet neither one steered away from their true genuine, "elegant" and "reserved" qualities and features. Hathaway also started out as the quirky and different Disney star who matured elegantly without sexualizing herself like other ex-Disney personas (dreaded Miley Cyrus example). Her roles were more realistic and challenging as the years progressed, yet Hathaway's image offscreen kept on reflecting positively. Even when her ex-boyfriend brought her shock and shame after being convicted for defrauding investors and her face featured on the news and printed on every magazine and newspaper, she kept her poise and took time off away from the spotlight. With these turmoils, she was never caught doing something that could jeopardize her image, especially due to the fact that all eyes were on her, including the FBI!

It takes a true talented individual to be able to balance their personal life and career where the image is consistent, honest and true. And I believe that Hathaway's journey has only just begun...