Q&A: "Who is that?" Actors, Streep Classics, and Gendered Oscars
Monday, August 15, 2016 at 8:00PM 
Last week there were too many questions we wanted to answer to fit it all into one post so here's a second round up of eight reader questions and brief answers. Ahem. (One answer is most definitely not brief.)
MATT ST CLAIR: When I saw Laura Linney in the trailer for Sully, my heart sank because it saddened me to see another great actress stuck in those stock "wife worrying over the phone" roles. When do you think Hollywood will ever get tired of seeing older women portrayed as supportive wifes or mothers and let more of them be in charge of their own stories?
How I wish I had a good answer to this. The answer might be a more diverse body of people telling stories because then chances are slightly better that it won't always be straight white 30-50something men as protagonists. Now, it's worth noting that it's been largely straight white men directing movies for about 100 years now and there were periods, long before our modern one, when men in charge of storytelling were interested in women and knew how to showcase them. I don't know what happened to make the alpha directors so disinterested in women's stories but whatever it was, I hate it. I guess it changed around the time Scorsese, Coppola, and Spielberg all exploded into fame together (not that we're blaming them) and none of them happened to have much interest in the ladies beyond a key atypical project each. As time wore on into the 80s and 90s less and less female projects were made. Give us more descendants of William Wyler, Douglas Sirk, and Alfred Hitchcock, Hollywood! We've got enough Spielberg & Scorsese acolytes to last another 50 years.
JAMES FROM AMES: What character actor's performance was so good it made you go from "hey, it's that guy" to "who is THAT?" and start following their work? For me: Mary Kay Place just floored me in Being John Malkovich. I was so pleased when she popped up in Lady Dynamite this year.
Mary Kay Place on the 7½ floor in "Being John Malkovich"
Mary Kay Place is a wonder, isn't she?...
I've loved her since the one two punch of My So Called Life and Citizen Ruth in the mid 90s (I had seen her before that in a few things but that was when I really noticed how perfectly she could serve it up). Curiously I am drawing a blank on this question though. IMDb has made looking up actors careers so easy that's it's tougher to remember those WOW! GIVE ME MORE OF THIS moments that stick. When I was a kid I actually used to race home from movies and scribble down names I saw in the credits that intrigued me. When Beetlejuice came out I may have been the only person anywhere in the world going "[SQUEAL] it's the new Winona Ryder movie!" because I'd scribbled down her name after watching her debut in Lucas (1986) and was madly in love already. I also remember trying to find out about Steven Hill before the internet because his work as the estranged father in Running on Empty just crushed my heart and stomped all over it.
In this new century it happens to me less frequently because I pay so much attention and generally get into people when they're fairly new but current favorite below the title character actors that I remember looking up after I first noticed them and who I'm still always excited to see are David Dastmalchian, Ann Dowd, Michael Peña, Dominic Rains, and Celia Weston.
V: If you could invite 3 or 4 movie characters to record the Film Experience podcast with you. Who would it be and why? What would be the topic of discussion?
Oh my. What a question. Possibilities are infinite so I'm just going to say four characters that come to mind really fast and leave it at that the. First two pairs: the "existential detectives" from I ♥️ Huckabees, and "Joy & Sadness" from Inside Out. Then, "Jasmine" from Blue Jasmine and "Megan" from Bridesmaids because it would be psychotically entertaining and boozy and train of thought/tough-love hilarious respectively. But when I think of how bad the sound is on the podcast maybe I should choose any Angela Bassett character since she's the queen of enunciation. So let's say "Mace" from Strange Days to the mix because she likes to drop truth bombs.
The topic. Oh, what the hell, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?
LESTER: You can give out three Oscars to actresses of color who you thought deserved one and the only catch is that one has to Black, one Hispanic, and one Asian who would you pick?
Let's take them in chronological order with the disclaimer that actresses are actresses and we hope that one day such "categorization" won't be all that important as the world becomes more diverse and hopefully Hollywood becomes more comfortable with diversity. You don't even have to look outside of Oscar's wheelhouse to do this either. First up is Sonia Braga (I will assume you would include Latinas in the spirit of your question) who I thought deserved the statue in 1985 for Kiss of the Spider-Woman. Oscar loved the movie (4 nominations in top categories) but despite a Globe nomination, Sonia was shut out. Next is Gong Li who took the NYFCC Supporting Actress prize in 1993 for the foreign hit Farewell My Concubine. It was her fourth arthouse hit in four years Stateside so she was already a very big deal and it was a perfect time to honor her after so much audience goodwill. Plus, she was better than any of the nominees that year. Lastly everyone reading this site for any length of time knows that I think Viola Davis deserved the Best Actress win for The Help (2011) a movie which she considerably elevated with her deeply soulful work.
SANTY: Is it possible to redo a Smackdown year? 1985 only had two panelists...
I had to look this up. I was like "that can't be true!" but it is. Yeah, I don't think two is enough. But for now I'm concentrating on years that weren't done before. Next up is 1984. Get your ballots in.
MARIE: Do you agree or disagree with the assessment that Meryl Streep has no classic films on her resume?
Wildly disagree. Manhattan (1979), Kramer vs Kramer (1979), Silkwood (1983) are all really great films. And after that you can find people (including me) who will make a case for Postcards From the Edge (1990) which is severely undervalued as an inside Hollywood entertainment and Death Becomes Her (1992) which is, at the very least, a camp classic. Then you've got Adaptation (2002) and The Hours (2002). Finally, I honestly think that The Devil Wears Prada (2006) is becoming a classic. Classics don't have to be perfect films. Many non-great films have become classics through the force of one or more iconic elements (which Prada definitely has) and the sheer volume of audience devotion. You'd be hard pressed to argue, for example, that the original Ghostbusters (1984) which has been discussed so much this summer is not a classic, but it is most definitely NOT a good film. I know because I've watched it recently.
The reason this idea that Meryl has no classic films has taken hold though is that she has too often worked on films that were beneath her gifts or, rather, that had little to offer other than her considerable gifts. It's truly unfortunate because when she does work with directors in her paygrade (of talent) the results are usually spectacular.
PEGGY SUE: Why aren't you watching The Affair? It's the show that calmed down my Mad Men's abstinence.
I don't know or even think I want to know what 'Mad Men abstinence' is. As for The Affair, I watched about four episodes but it didn't really speak to me. I liked the conceit more than the execution and I wasn't obsessed enough with the performances to sustain me through it since it's basically a performance show. I did think that Ruth Wilson was quite strong, though.
TRAVIS: As the awareness of trans issues gets wider, and binary definitions of gender become less relevant, what do you think this will mean for the Best Actress/Actor/Supporting categories at the Oscars? And will your answer to that question mean good or bad things for the Oscars?
Linda Hunt in her Oscar winning role (with Mel Gibson) in "The Year of Living Dangerously"
Gender isn't often discussed in Oscar context outside of the statistical differences between male and female actors. I've seen gender identity become a mainstream talking point in relation to the Oscars only twice in my lifetime. The first was in the early Eighties (1982 and 1983 specifically) when the term "genderbending" was a very trendy and oft deployed mainstream descriptor for films like Tootsie, Victor/Victoria, Yentl, The World According to Garp, and The Year of Living Dangerously. Now the characters in these films were hardly homogenous - there were trans, gay, and straight characters in those films some in "drag," some not.
Consider the very difficult-to-label case of Linda Hunt. She was not an out lesbian actor at the time so we had a case of a cisgendered assumed-to-be-heterosexual-but-actually-gay white woman playing a cisgendered heterosexual Asian man; there was no "genderbending" in the script, just in the casting/performance. So yes, binaries are very limiting. But that's why there are so many identity modifiers.
Jaye Davison in "The Crying Game"The second time I remember gender identity becoming a talking point was when Jaye Davison received the Supporting Actor nomination for The Crying Game (1992) in which he played a trans woman though people were not frequently using the term "trans" back then in the same way that they do now. Some critics were upset that the well guarded "twist" of the movie was revealed by the nomination. Some media outlets joked that Davison should have been nominated for Supporting Actress instead. Now, had Jaye Davison come out as a trans woman, that line of thinking might have made sense albeit retroactively. But that was not the case. This was a homosexual man playing a trans heterosexual woman, so the Supporting Actor category was the right place for him.
This was a long answer on a touchy topic. But my basic feeling is that the mainstream's feelings about the binary nature of gender are never going to change very much. Mostly because trans is largely, at least as its currently used, still a binary modifier. The actress Laverne Cox, for example, is not something totally outside the binary, she's a trans woman. I think we'd have to have a large number of trans people refusing to be identified as either man or woman for people to really think of gender as anything other than a binary identity with minor variations.
All that said, I hope Oscar never drops the gendering of categories because sexism has been around since the world began and it's not dying anytime soon. It would be absolutely sickening to see women pushed out of the Best Acting conversation in favor of men. I firmly believe that that's what would happen because misogyny is a sickness that all too many people in the world don't wish to ever find a cure for.
whew. that was a lot.
YOUR TURN, READERS. What do you make of these questions and answers? I'd love to hear more opinions on these topics. Which character actors always bring a smile to your face when you realize they're involved in a movie or TV show? How long do you think it will be before a trans actors start being regularly cast as trans characters and we get a nominee? Do you think Linda Hunt deserved the Oscar in 83? ( My vote would've been for Cher in Silkwood because my two favorites from that year were not nominated. They were Michelle Pfeiffer in Scarface and Sandra Bernhard in The King of Comedy.
Reader Comments (35)
Great answers, Nathaniel.
But although Sonia Braga is latin, she is not hispanic.
Nat: As far as Linda Hunt goes, I wouldn't support it for two reasons: 1. I'm an internationalist, so The Year of Living Dangerously is a 1982 movie, not a 1983 movie by my book. 2. Linda Hunt as supporting is category fraud. As far as an "of the field" selection? Yeah, I can't disagree with Cher in Silkwood. As far as acting in 1983 releases? These are my winners for all categories, and medalists for three of the four, right now:
Lead Actor: Peter Capaldi, Local Hero (Silver Medalist: Al Pacino, Scarface. Bronze Medalist: Peter Riegert, Local Hero.)
Lead Actress: Shirley Maclaine, Terms of Endearment
Supporting Actor: Burt Lancaster, Local Hero (Silver Medalist: John Lithgow, Terms of Endearment. Bronze Medalist: Jerry Lewis, The King of Comedy.)
Supporting Actress: Sandra Bernhard, The King of Comedy (Silver Medalist: Michelle Pfeiffer, Scarface. Bronze Medalist: Deborah Harry, Videodrome.)
remy -- i've heard all the arguments about this before but when people say hispanic or latina depending on who is saying it it can mean different things. But the dividing line in terms of whether people are regarded as POC (which i assume is what Lester meant) at least here in the states tends to be whether they're south american versus European. So Sonia would qualify... yes Brazilians speak Portuguese and people from Portugal are European but Brazilians are South Americans. It's all very confusing but the point is all these lines between people are endless but i was trying to answer the spirit of the question.
volvagia -- hmmm. you cant really be an internationalist with oscar because that's not how oscar works for eligibility. But for personal awards, sure.
Agree.
The gender/trans issue is fascinating. I kind of think actors would be supportive of a person being in whatever category they are most comfortable with. Except of course the actor who did not get nominated, but that happens every year.
This whole column is nicely written.
...and lest we forget, Meryl Streep also has Angels in America on her resume. I know TECHNICALLY it's a TV mini-series, but I don't care. It's an unassailable masterpiece and she's freaking fantastic in it.
Peter Bogdanovich is the guest on the latest Bret Easton Ellis podcast. Bret asked him why his movies are actress dependent. He said women are the most interesting. And when scripts exclude them he's not interested.
Thank you so much for answering my question. What you said makes a whole lot of sense. Male directors who can easily make whatever films they want nowadays often choose to make movies about older white men which is a bit of a shame because they start to become more antiquated.
I agree that doing away with Best Actress/Supporting Actress would be a terrible idea right now, but maybe somewhere down the line it could be possible... Sarah Paulson and Rachel Bloom won the individual TCA Awards this year, and the Comedy category was 5 women + Aziz Ansari. But I imagine many Best Actress vehicles get made because of Oscar possibilities, and changing up the categories for the industry's Big Award might make movies with leading actresses disappear.
Though I do wonder what good things might come out of a few precursors (Indie Spirits? Gothams?) going gender-neutral in their awardage.
In regards to the character actor question the first person who came to mind was Julianne Moore in The Hand That Rocked the Cradle but she moved into the star (or at least female lead) spot pretty quickly.
So I'd have to say Margo Martindale in Critical Care. I'd noticed her in a few small roles before but after that film I followed her. I was delighted to see her get a featured role on the short-lived 100 Centre Street which I really liked and then after that went off to see her move steadily from one of many character people to a sought after supporting player.
The Deer Hunter is definitely a classic film, hands down. I could also make the case for Sophie's Choice.
On the question of Streep classics, I would argue "Out of Africa", ask any woman what they think of the hair washing scene. I rest my case.
The Olympics have helped us learn this distinction: Hispanics speak Spanish, Latinos are from South America. While they are Latinos, Brazilians are not Hispanic.
I had a very similar experience watching Winona Ryder in Lucas. As for the amazing Mary Kay Place, I thought she was the best thing about The Big Chill (given the cast, that's saying something!)
If I had to give the Oscar out to actresses I would choose:
Katy Jurado for High Noon- 1952
Miiko Taka for Sayonara- 1957
Margaret Avery for The Color Purple- 1985
I also thank you for the answer. I hadn't even thought about Linda Hunt and Jaye Davison when posing the question. (I remember all the awkwardness about "revealing the secret" with the 1993 (for 1992 films) Oscars, but I now (with age and relatively more understanding) wonder how Davison felt during the season (I would be fascinated if anyone can unearth an interview with him, either from back then or recent times).)
Re: Meryl Streep, I would also put forward The Deer Hunter and Out of Africa as classics.
You can say what you want about the film's director/co-star and its source material, but The Bridges of Madison County is a stone classic.
The Bridges of Madison County is a masterpiece. It's the best movie directed by Eastwood, and, IMO; it's the best movie of the 90's.
He doesn't know that (or doesn't care) but he's very good with actresses.
It's not only Meryl. It's Diane Venora in Bird, Hilary Swank in Million Dollar Baby, Jessica Walter in Play Misty for Me, Kay Lenz in Breezy. He uses women as protagonists once a decade, but women can bring up the best things about him, a certain sensibility behind the boring macho front, even in key supporting roles (Sondra Locke in The Outlaw Josey Wales, Marisa Berenson in White Hunter Black Heart, even Cecile de France in Hereafter -love the performance in spite of the movie).
I love a lot of his movies. Who does he have to be such an asshole?
Cal and Paul--
The music was stellar, the scenes between Francesca and Robert (Streep and Eastwood), especially the dance and the fight are master classes in acting and direction. EVERY scene with the kids/adult children is absolutely cringe-worthy.
Tom-
Your pick for Oscar in 1952 is the best.
Character Actors--
Richard Jenkins. Really came to light for me after his brilliant performances in The Visitor and Olive Kitteridge. Then in iMDB, oh, he was "that guy" in that movie...
All above about Bridges of Madison County is totally true. The. Book itself was a piece of poorly written drivel .. The screenwriter wisely switched the protagonist from Robert to Francesca, and it made all the difference in the world.
Team Mary Kay
Nathaniel - you make an interesting point about the whole terminology for Latino/Hispanic/POC. I think GregKing's spot on, although my understanding's that part of the latino community aren't keen on the Hispanic label due to the historical implications. What caught my attention in your comment is your point about Europeans Vs SouthAmericans. As a Spaniard, I can understand our labelling as Hispanic (obvs), less so the generalisation to Latinos (as Greg says, not everyone that speaks Spanish is Latino, just like not all Latino's speak Spanish). Similarly, it's struck me in the past when US media has referred to Spanish celebrities as POC, since I think we'd generally considered ourselves caucasians. But then, that's probably a matter of (Euro-centric) point of view and the issue of generalisation. Food for thought.
I think people have a hard time defining any Streep movie as classic unless it has strong male lead or male issue attached.... It is sad that very few films with female leads/issues are considered classics or are "universal"
For me- many Streep films are classic.
James from Ames - I hope you've seen Manny & Lo. Mary Kay Place is phenomenal in a very large role opposite a child actress named Scarlett Johansson (wonder what ever became of her?). It's not the greatest movie in the world, but it's not bad and it's a necessity for any fan of Place.
Wasn't part of the subtext of Billy Kwan's character in "Year of Living..." that he was probably gay./bi and likely in love with the Mel Gibson character? I haven't seen it for years (it's on my rewatch list) but I vaguely remember that being not only my feeling but something a couple of critics picked up on.
Everything can be a classic one day. You just have to wait. Yes, that WILL include the Twilight-movies I'm sure.
I hope I'm dead at the time in happens, though.
Yes, I was going to also say that Sophie's Choice, Out of Africa, and The Deerhunter are already classics. I predict there is even a gem in Meryl's work that no one thinks is a classic now that will rise after her death. Plenty perhaps?
I'm showing my age but Mary Kay Place has been stealing scenes since Mary Hartman. She was the best thing in that without question. People didn't know her range yet though and thought she WAS that crazy character.
There are so many great actors who have popped in small roles recently. I remember just recently being thrilled by Corey Stoll in Midnight in Paris and Elizabeth Debiecki (spelling on both of those) in The Great Gatsby. I vividly recall seeing Denzel in Glory, having never seen him in anything else, and knowing without doubt that I had just seen a star being born (didn't know he was already a star).
Ask yourselves this. What movie is a genuine classic which Streep is responsible for? There's a difference between booking a classic movie and being responsible for why a film is a classic.
I don't know if they fit as character actors, but upon first sight, I immediately "researched" the following: Idris Elba, Oscar Isaac, Domhnall Gleeson, Boyd Holbrook, and Charlie Hunnam.
Agree about many of these Meryl movies - my take is that she does not get "classic" consideration because she is female, has been dominant for so long via her talent, and has received so much praise (so giving her classic film status is just too much for some people, who love to pick her apart).
But yes, Adaptation, Angels in America (TV), The Deerhunter, The Devil Wears Prada, The Hours, Kramer vs. Kramer, Manhattan, Out of Africa, Postcards from the Edge, Silkwood, etc. are all seminal for their time, and part of cinema history. It's been pointed out elsewhere, but she definitely has captured the varied female perspective and evolution of women over the last 40 years. You can look at and still enjoy her films, and you see her go from "the young woman" to "world leader." Impressive.
Streep = Legend No one and never will be like her,Eat It.
@3rtful - well, considering the changes she made to her character in Kramer, that should easily be a factor in that film's status as a classic. Plus I don't see how Silkwood doesn't count - she didn't just "book" it. You could say her performances are a main factor in many films of hers that are considered classics. And how many male actors have to prove they did more than just "book" a film that became a classic?
Totally agree, Nathaniel, that The Hours is a definite classic. It is one of my favourite books of all time and I went in to the cinema thinking "Don't you people @$#% this up!", but I loved it. Streep, Moore, Kidman, Collette are all brilliant.
And I also agree - reluctantly - that a gender binary is still necessary in awards nominations. Just imagining that DiCaprio might have won the Oscar this year ahead of Larson/Blanchett/Ronan/Rampling is making me really mad.
I love this post for the 99.99999% of positivity ... the other 000001% is in constant display throughout the blogs...
Regarding the latino/hispanic divide, both King and Carlos are not entirely right. I am from a Spanish speaking country in the Caribbean, which is NOT South America (as a matter of fact, there are 3 Spanish speaking countries/territories in the Caribbean: Cuba, Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico), and we identify both as latinos and hispanics. But we are NOT in South America. The same can be said about Mexico and all of Central America: they are not South America. Technically speaking, the Caribbean and Central America are part of North America. Hence categorizing only South America as latino is wrong.
Meryl definitely created her most iconic character with Miranda Priestly. The look, the way she talks, so calm and devilish... everything was HER idea. And I'll never be tired to repeat it: THANK YOU! Thank you so much for creating this character! For making her not just a 2-D "villain", but someone to admire. #sympathyforthedevil