ginia bellafante is really starting to piss me off...
here's a snippet and link to her piece on kyle chandler and friday night lights:
"The obviousness of his looks — soap-opera hair, soap-opera smile, soap-opera skin — is incongruous with the refined style of his performance..."
while it's an extremely complementary piece for a wonderful actor, this almost sounds as though she's damning him with faint praise. she could have just said that his is a refined, subtle and economical performance, and left it at that. who would argue? but, instead, she has to slam every actor ever to grace a soap opera, some of whom, not all, to be sure, but some, have indeed delivered refined and elegant performances. i mean, it's not as though she's never watched soaps; it's pretty clear from other pieces she's written that she has, and may still. she must have caught a few good performances.
what i don't get is why she feels the need to denigrate all soap actors in order to praise one who, according to her, only looks like one.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/08/arts/artsspecial/08Bell.html?ref=artss...
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critical observations about soap operas – their content, the industry that produces them, and the culture that both loves them and loves to ridicule them...
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I found the same lazy, stereotyped descriptions annoying. Also, I think his TV career wasn't the wasteland that she depicts. Although nowhere near the quality of Friday Night Lights, Chandler did some terrific work in Early Edition and Homefront. The latter was a soap, albeit a nighttime one, and he and Tammy Lauren were wonderful together.
this is what our mutual friend, sam ford, had to say...
"It's funny that she finds them culturally relevant enough to refer to often or even write about but yet feels the need to do so in a way that puts them down, that seems to justify their reference with a wink and a nod that of course she's aware that they are inferior cultural products..."
and my response: "yup -- a perfect example of that internalization thing i keep talking about."
this is a link to a conversation i had with one of the students in sam mit soap class on this whole idea of what it means to be a soap fan.
also, .fyi -- there's a rss feed at the top of the blog.
http://mitsoaps.wordpress.com/2008/04/21/could-it-be-the-fans/#comments
God forbid he has good hair and skin!
What a snot. (Gina, of course, not you Lynn)