Where The Real Genius Lies
One of the many frustrations I have with American society is how we worship celebrities. More specifically, I am puzzled by our obsession with actors and actresses. We place on pedestals men, women, boys and girls those whose special talent is pretending to be someone they are not.
Do not get me wrong here. The ability to perform as an actor takes an enormous amount of talent and creativity. One needs to become another person, take on traits that do not readily belong to them, and make it believable. It is a talent which I doubt I possess.
Still, I find a peculiar sense of justice at the recent strike by the writers of television and movies. It is now that we are seeing where the true genius of Hollywood lives. It's not with the actors, but with the very creators.
If you weren't sure before, look at what has happened to television recently. Shows have been forced to go to reruns. The supposedly quick-witted and sharp-tongued hosts of late night television have been silenced. 24, my favorite show, has been placed on hiatus. Other shows have found themselves struggling as well.
Writers, not actors, are the irrepplaceable ones. One may always associate Sean Connery as the "true" James Bond, but Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan and others were able to successfully play the same role. Replace James Caan with, say, Paul Newman as Sonny Corleone and The Godfather would still be a great movie. Remove Sylvester Stallone from the Rocky role and it would still be a fantastic movie. Remove him from the writer's role and Rocky wouldn't exist.
2007 has marked some interesting turning points in American society. We've witnessed the fall of the publicity-obsessed trio of Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears (though sadly her new album is actually selling). We've seen the pendulum begin to swing away from the superstar super-contracts (see the big black eye to Scott Boras' invisibility with the A-Rod fiasco). And we've witnessed the fact that our beloved actors cannot function without the writers who put them on the screen and tube.
Maybe we're finally getting wiser.
Do not get me wrong here. The ability to perform as an actor takes an enormous amount of talent and creativity. One needs to become another person, take on traits that do not readily belong to them, and make it believable. It is a talent which I doubt I possess.
Still, I find a peculiar sense of justice at the recent strike by the writers of television and movies. It is now that we are seeing where the true genius of Hollywood lives. It's not with the actors, but with the very creators.
If you weren't sure before, look at what has happened to television recently. Shows have been forced to go to reruns. The supposedly quick-witted and sharp-tongued hosts of late night television have been silenced. 24, my favorite show, has been placed on hiatus. Other shows have found themselves struggling as well.
Writers, not actors, are the irrepplaceable ones. One may always associate Sean Connery as the "true" James Bond, but Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan and others were able to successfully play the same role. Replace James Caan with, say, Paul Newman as Sonny Corleone and The Godfather would still be a great movie. Remove Sylvester Stallone from the Rocky role and it would still be a fantastic movie. Remove him from the writer's role and Rocky wouldn't exist.
2007 has marked some interesting turning points in American society. We've witnessed the fall of the publicity-obsessed trio of Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears (though sadly her new album is actually selling). We've seen the pendulum begin to swing away from the superstar super-contracts (see the big black eye to Scott Boras' invisibility with the A-Rod fiasco). And we've witnessed the fact that our beloved actors cannot function without the writers who put them on the screen and tube.
Maybe we're finally getting wiser.
posted by E-Luv at 9:46 AM
1 Comments:
Without good actors, good writing cannot by given the justice it deserves. Screen and stage writers need the actors to convey and portray. And the world needs good actors to relay the writers' stories. If i'm able to lose myself in a piece, and am able to forget that these are actors delivering lines from a script, the real genius lies in the collaborative efforts of all the elements involved. The world has always been obsessed with actors because they, like writers are artists. They too are the host that allows an audience to escape, to think, to cry and laugh. If they weren't, everyone would be content with just reading books.
~Another Eric Anderson
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