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Tuesday, January 23, 2007 |
OT: Kirsten Dunst And Not-So-Ugly Betty
Comedian/writer Scott Long, who's taken over The Juice Blog, recently got my hackles up on the second of his "Please Explain" posts, this one about Kirsten Dunst. Long slags her acting ability, and I have to give him that; in the Spiderman movies, she's the vacant hero's girlfriend, played by some wholly forgettable ingenue.
That, to me, is a legitimate reason to find her lacking, because her screen presence never impressed me, nor did any of her acting ability. But Long walks right over the line with this:
I don't like to get too personal on the looks front, but if you are a lead actress, you need to be sexy. Kirsten Dunst is not. The biggest role of her movie career has been playing Peter Parker's girlfriend in the Spider Men movies. When you watch a scene on the big screen and think that even Toby McGuire is slumming it, I think you need to reconsider casting your lead actress."Slumming it"? Any woman crazy enough to want to get acting jobs in a fiercely competitive place like Hollywood has to start at three sigmas above the mean in beauty, i.e., about one in a 100,000 at least. Sexy she isn't — she's too girl-next-door innocuous — but it's a long slope down from there to "slumming".
Which brought me to a recent article I happened to scan in the Register about "Ugly Betty", ABC's commentary sitcom about beauty and body image and the like. The show has been adapted from a Colombian show with a similar name (Yo soy Betty, la fea, I am Betty, the ugly); versions have been exported all over the world. And yet.
The eyebrows, the glasses, and the braces were all props. America Ferrera is one dandy looking woman, which leaves me to wonder what Long might say about Dunst if she weren't in the straightjacket of being Peter Parker's girlfriend.
Comments:
I think this is where there's a disconnect between "real life" hot and "movie star" hot. I can see how someone might not consider Dunst "movie star" hot. When you see her on screen, you aren't seeing among everyday people you'd see on the street. You're seeing her around a bunch of other hot chicks. But I'd imagine that if Scott or anyone else saw her on the street, she'd get a second and third look.
As for America Ferrera, I agree with you. She's very pretty. She doesn't have a leading lady's body, but I think that's part of her charm. Though admittedly, I've never seen an episode of Ugly Betty (though I've seen her in other stuff).
As for America Ferrera, I agree with you. She's very pretty. She doesn't have a leading lady's body, but I think that's part of her charm. Though admittedly, I've never seen an episode of Ugly Betty (though I've seen her in other stuff).
Janeane Garofalo has a lot of the same kind of appeal. She's charmingly human; she seems like the sort of person that you could actually talk to without her condescending to you.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks America Ferrera is beautiful. She definitely beats the skinny women that are usually on the screen (be it TV or movie). Real women do have curves.
you don't have to be attractive to make it as an actor in Hollywood, you have to look different. Dunst, with her saber tooth tiger heritage, looks different and sometimes attractive but offscreen photos of her are some of the nastiest I've seen of a major movie star. see wwtdd.com for more objective analysis.
As an actor, maybe; Nicolas Cage, Jack Palance, and Danny DeVito are but three such with unusual looks. But which actresses — and I will continue using that term for the female of the species until such time as the Oscars stop giving out Best Actress awards — fit into that category? I can't think of a one; Dunst's sabertooth looks (and I admit that's pretty clever) don't especially count, because it's a relatively minor flaw. She would have made a mint in the 20's with that face.
Women who have unusual faces in Hollywood are an unusually short list: Sophia Loren, with her dirigible lips and unusually broad eyes -- well, there's a cornucopia of feature flaws that taken as a whole add up to a gorgeous woman. It somehow just works, but nobody thinks of her that way. You could also nominate Katharine Hepburn for that prize, her face a collection of angularities that really belonged on a man but somehow was recognizeably female.
Women who have unusual faces in Hollywood are an unusually short list: Sophia Loren, with her dirigible lips and unusually broad eyes -- well, there's a cornucopia of feature flaws that taken as a whole add up to a gorgeous woman. It somehow just works, but nobody thinks of her that way. You could also nominate Katharine Hepburn for that prize, her face a collection of angularities that really belonged on a man but somehow was recognizeably female.
I'm sorry, but if you don't think Kirsten Dunst is an uncommonly beautiful woman, you have severe problems with your grading scale. I really like seeing actresses that aren't in the standard movie star vapidly pretty mold. Speaking simply from a totally carnal viewpoint, WOOF!
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: 1/25/2007 03:17:00 PM
: 1/25/2007 03:17:00 PMNewer› ‹Older
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