Reply With QuoteInteresting question (as always).What do you think?
Hi,
How far should we allow our likes, dislikes, love, hates, etc; of people who are stars, to influence as to whether we buy their records, or see their films?
Alan French.
Last edited by Nick Dando; 05-12-11 at 03:11 PM.
Interesting question (as always).What do you think?
Very interesting question. If you like someone you generally are more disposed to watch their work, good or bad; and if you don't like someone you are most likely to avoid their work. This does mean that you probably see some rubbish featuring x that you'd rather not, or that you miss out on some good work purely because it features y, but so be it!
What about the other contributors? I hope the drummer's shocking behaviour hasn't put fans off buying Bay City Rollers merchandise. Or records produced by Phil Spector. Or even films including O.J. Simpson ("not guilty" of murdering his wife, apparently, but spending the rest of his life in jail anyway for an unrelated robbery and kidnapping!).Originally Posted by alan french
Sometimes the decision is made for us:
http://filmdope.com/forums/br...r-existed.html
Jonathan King's performance was removed from the Top of the Pops repeat, which was pretty unfair on our Lulu (Cartwright) but we soon put that right!
As I recall, Barbara and didi-5 have given pretty definitive views about this subject at the http://filmdope.com/forums/ac...avourites.html thread.
Last edited by cornershop15; 05-12-11 at 04:04 PM. Reason: Improved poor writing.
It depends on how far like-ability is a part of the necessary appeal of the artist. For a singer or a comedian - I think how you feel personally about them is pretty intrinsic. For a writer or film director - less so.
It matters not a jot to me that Philip Larkin was a miserable, old, right wing, borderline racist, misogynist. I still adore his poetry. I find Ricky Gervaise a bit smug, so I can't watch his stand-up. I'd rather be Ricky's mate - I prefer Larkin as an artist.
It is a bit more difficult with actors - some stars are so much part of a collaborative effort or another person's artistic vision, that their off-screen lives barely impinge. I'm like that with John Wayne (although I know others loath him!) - it was directors like John Ford and Howard Hawkes that gave us Wayne's image, the real life man hardly matters. But other... The sheer niceness of some stars is part of their appeal - it would be crushing to find out that Jimmy Stewart was a nasty swine in real life! I did go off Danny Kaye over the stories about him being unpleasant to child fans - the friendly twinkle just looked false after that.
It is a question of how much we accept that an actor's (or other artist's) public persona is separate from their real selves - and how much we don't want to believe that. Who knows what Bob De Niro is like - and who cares?! But if Tom Hanks was really a complete bastard? That would hurt his fan base.
i heard him referred to somewhere as the Sinatra of modern poetry for more or less that reason.
Larkin was horrid to his hardworking underlings too
Interesting comments, it's when people say or do not very nice things I go off them but it's a bit of a grey area for me really, Towering Inferno is my all time fave 70's film and O.J. has a small but significant part in that one, I'm not going to not watch it because of his conviction, after all haven't millions of people watched the BBC soap 'Eastenders' back in the day when an actor who became it's biggest star had a conviction for the most henious crime there is?
Yes, he had served his sentence but so had Jonathan King, again his crimes were beyond naughty, but it's hypocritical of the BBC to edit out his TOTP performance.
I won't watch anything with Hugh Grant in it, not because he's a hooray henry but because of comments he made to journalists once at a film premiere, "I hope your children die of cancer", what a nasty, evil thing to say, entertainment journalist Baz Bamigboye witnessed the whole thing, then on TV I saw him drive his Range Rover up a kerb and almost into bystanders, a truly horrible man, Jim Carrey is also on my wont watch list also, he makes facial contortions to earn his millions and I'm expected to laugh at that?
A persons political stance has no influence on whether I like them or not, I like some of Vannessa's work even though she advocates revolution, Kate Williams, Helen Mirren, Prunella Scales are staunch labour, r Cilla is a staunch tory, as is Clarissa DW, I love all regardless, Charlton Heston, George Clooney, both polar opposites politically, I admire them both and will always watch their films.
Hm, I took Alan's original posting in a rather different way - as I have commented before on the King issue I don't really want to go through that again.
Very true. I cannot stand Michael Gambon - in my opinion he has as much talent/charisma as a dead snail - so his name on cast list is the kiss of death as far as I am concerned. He completely ruined the later Harry Potter films.
I thought he was effective and convincing as King George V in 'The Kings speech', a small but significant part.
It makes me smile when John Wayne and Charlton Heston's political views are held against them by some movie fans .... yet good ol' Jimmy Stewart's right wing views (which were almost identical to those of his close friend John Wayne) rarely get a mention.
As about the actors, there are some names that do not incite me to watch a film (or most exceptionaly) : Tom Hanks, Kevin Kostner, Leonardo di Caprio... also it may be the "kind" of film they're mostly in, but I don't like them as actors, and that's important when you're about to spend one hour and a half with a character
Absolutely Bats, Chuck's championing on civil rights hardly ever gets mentioned, just his love of guns and right wing politics, though maybe the Duke overstepped the mark when he said "to end the war in vietnam bomb moscow", and he wasn't joking, but everyone is entitled to their opinion, that's democracy.
I care not a jot for the personal views/activities of 'stars'.
Do we, or do we not, is surely the only question. Otherwise who decides that we *should* or should *not* ?
And as batman indicates, we can only judge on what we know, and what we know is often very flawed. Personally I could never see what so funny about Michael Barrymore so I still don't like him, but Gary Glitter was big fun, and so I still have regard for what he did back when he was famous for the right reasons. I've been reading some highly unpleasant stuff about Steve McQueen recently but find it hard to see how it matters when I watch him *acting*, even if he did slap Ali McGraw a lot in The Getaway. I think Rock Hudson retains a firm (but possibly ageing) female fanbase too.... even if he was *lying* through his beautiful teeth.
I think it depends on how "loud" the celebrity is about their political views.
I have a definite problem with Leonardo Di Caprio. I just cannot take him seriously.
Well, he wasn't lying any more than any actor does when they are acting. Or do we presume that all film stars really fancy the people they romance on screen?
As the situation remains that there are no male Hollywood A-listers prepared to admit that they are gay, I think a good deal of Hudson-esque "lying" still goes on.
The fact that he was gay would only affect his fans to the extent that Rock's appeal was based on their sexual fantasies of him. This probably was a good part of his appeal back then. The pleasure we can all take in his performances is not diminished by the revelation - unless we let prejudice get in the way.
Since I don't need to believe that William Powell was really in love with Myrna Loy, I'd find it interesting (though suprising!) if I discovered one of them was gay but it wouldn't spoil my enjoyment of their films. But someone recently said, on this forum, that they rarely found gay men believable as leading men so I suppose it depends how much you can suspend your disbelief. Clearly some gay actors do have a fanbase that refuse to accept reality (which I always find slightly puzzling - is Kevin Spacey's sexuality really the only thing that's keeping us apart?
)
Posting Permissions
