Status of Actors in our Society: A Philosophical Debate

[Rune of Corruption]

Agree with most everything already said here. People want to escape from their hard lives what better way to do that than to constanly bombard themselves with all those celebrity reality shows. The T.V. producers now this. Celebrities have millions of dollars and can live the life that most of us will die working to achieve even if it is only a fraction of that life. When celebrities like Britney Spears make songs on the frustrations of celebrity life, people reject those songs, because that is not the life the fans have perceived.

The fans could be a problem themselves. They live, eat, and breathe celebrites. That is why VH1 and MTV have almost stopped showing videos and just have a few people gossiping which celebritey did what, where, why, and how. This is why VH1 show celeb reality shows. (which is not really reality.) People see these people lives through sugar coated lenses and want to live that life. How good that celebrity looks just adds to the equation.

Mostly, it is just perception. The fans see the million dollar homes. clothes, cars, and just about everything else and they are drawn in.
_________________
arise my great fool and take over this foolish world with your foolish powers!!!!!

[Yvl]

It's probably because of the publicity that they are paid so much - everyone pays attention to them, so everyone wants them ot endorse this or that. Which continues to make Hollywood make less and less sense, since the publicity itself is ridiculous. The stars and their producers just exploit the public's stupidity, really.
_________________

[Shrew]

Err... I think it's more that people like seeing others screw up than seeing a life they want to live. After all, what is most celebrity news about? How a celebrity screwed up some way. People get a kick out of seeing people make mistakes, makes them feel good.

Anyway, the money is a relatively new deal. Stars have always been able to make a decent amount of money, but the studio system kept salaries from rising too high. Stars were kept under tight contracts, and they couldn't really shop around for the best offer. They just took what the studio gave them. But after the 1950s that began to break apart, and stars could demand more money, or else they'd jump the ship.

If an actor can develop a trust with the audience, where they can expect a certain experience that they will enjoy, than they become a star. And with this trust comes a crowd of people who will come to a film expecting a good time. So... stars get paid because producers think they'll draw a big crowd and thus the movie will make a lot of money. If they don't pay the star than they'll do something else with their time and the film won't do as well (unless it has some sort of extra substance).

Like it or not, most films are silly fluff that ride on the appeal of an actor. It's just due to capitalism. Although often a high-paired star isn't a guaranteed ticket to success, studios still pay them because of the chance it will pay off big.
_________________


Fear our Vagueness.

[Yvl]

[Shrew]

Errrr... no, that's not true. Voice Actors in Japan are pretty damn popular, and they become stars in their own right. I mentioned the idol system earlier, in which girls do voice-acting, TV work, music, modeling, etc. Anime theme songs are almost always tie-ins with some voice actor on the show, or at least they play off of that. Heck, it even applies to males. I remember Gundam Seed Destiny actually created a character based off some J-Rocker that he could play for awhile.

And then you get the onslaught of merchandise connected with the anime, and the spin-offs, films, OVAs, numerous manga adaptations, that all get created when an anime hits it big. It's a glutton's market.

And if you can't settle for your sex appeal outside or tangent to the anime, that's why fan service was created.

Sorry this is a tad off-topic, but I feel anime is just as commercialized as American Cinema. You can find good stuff in both, but the majority relies on advertising, stars, and tired cliches.

EDIT: I just want to make clear, that this star exploitation system isn't really new. It's just reached new heights due to the demise of studios' irontight grips on stars and the birth of the blockbuster film. For the past twenty-thirty years, the mentality has increasingly become take big chances, score big, thus spending has skyrocketed. As opposed to when studios made lots of smaller films that didn't risk losing much, but didn't generally gain a whole lot either.
_________________


Fear our Vagueness.

[Yvl]

And that's why I need to go to Japan and see for myself.
_________________

[Timbo]

Reallt , this discussion isn't about actors, its more about celebrities. I mean, the people on Broadway are actors or there are phenomenal actors who never go off of the stage, but they aren't followed around.

[Yvl]

[Masa]

Their being paid 'big' ties in with their idolized status. A big name actor, Tom Hanks, can turn a movie no one would be interested into in a movie that makes people's heads turn and at the very least, find out if the movie is worth seeing. It's all about star power. Since we consumers are willing to break out 10-15 bucks to go see a movie at the local theater (willing, even though we don't want to, paying it means we're willing) that means movies can afford to cater to our absurd desire Star Power.

Hollywood shapes how we let it shape. By our act of buying DVDs and seeing movies, we determine if an actor rises or falls. Star power grows and wanes depending on how well we bought into a star's last movie. It's how movies work and how Hollywood can bust out several million dollars to get a big name actor and end up spending a fraction of that to get a horrible script that ruins the movie.
_________________

[Eden]

[Yvl]

I've heard my acting instructors praise Johnny Depp for being genuine as well.

[Eden]

Yeah, thank you. Bard seems pretty much appropriate. I should have known on my own, by thank you the more for your help.

Another note on J-Depp: Some of his movies are Corpse Bride (voice), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Finding Neverland, From Hell, Clocolat, Slepy Hollow, Don Juan DeMarco, Ed Wood and What's Eating Gilbert Grape and that are only some of his more successful movies... Until Pirates of The Caribbean he never was a real magnet money-wise... ;)
_________________


The Fool

[Vincent Chase]

I really don't think it's the fault of celebrities (actors especially) that they have such a high status in society. People have always looked to others as figures of worship, from Gladiators with the Romans to the Geisha in Japan. I think that the fascination with actors is largely because beneath all of the money and the plastic surgery, they're people, no different from us, and people are naturally fascinated with the scandals of others, hence why gossip mags like Us and Variety that offer all of the latest dish on celebrities tend to sell pretty quickly. But really, acting isn't easy.

1) Someone already mentioned the part about how they have to channel another character. That's good, not everyone can do that.

2) Acting is hard. Sure, they look good on the 70 foot screen, but what aren't you seeing? 16 hour days, 4 AM wake ups, personal training, coaching, extensive travel. There isn't a much harder job out there.

3) 'Selling out'. Who wouldn't want to undertake all that hard work for a nice paycheck of a couple million? Selling out = getting by.

If actors were undeserving of their fame and status, and acting was easy, then everyone would be an actor and not just a very tiny fraction of the population. People complain that they're overexposed, when really they should be complaining to their shrink. It's not an actor's fault that some paparazzi asshole snapped their pic with a long lens from 50 feet and then sold the pics for a cool quarter mil, it's our fault for continuing to buy the magazines that exploit actors in this way (and keep that same paparazzi asshole in work). Yeah, I personally wouldn't mind if we lived in a world that valued Salman Rushdie as much as it did Ashlee Simpson, but I know that's never going to happen; no one wants to have to think about anything when they can just look at pictures of their favorite celebs and read the unimportant details of their lives.

Now, musicians have it much better. They can go out in public with less a chance of being recognized and music has a much more powerful, permanent effect on people than film. However, I think that being able to channel character and tolerate the rigors of acting is pretty comparable to singing and playing an instrument, so both are about equally worthy of their status. Music is also much more free; you don't get called in to read scripts that someone else wrote, you buy a few pounds of grass and hole up in a penthouse in New York City and record your own material at your own pace. I'd much rather be a musician than an actor, but really...if I had the choice between either I wouldn't be too upset.

And I could start a first and mention models, but if you don't get why models have the status that they do, go back to the first grade.

Now I know why entertainers have such a near godlike power in our society; they provide us with our entertainment. Without them we'd be forced to entertain ourselves, which would end in either mob violence or a huge orgy. They hold everything together.