Links: Born Sexy Yesterday, Acting as Self-Actualization, and More...
Friday, May 5, 2017 at 3:33PM Pajiba gird your loins - Dan Stevens is in everything
Tracking Board Diane Keaton, Jane Fonda, and Candice Bergen to co-star in a comedy about a book club reading 50 Shades of Grey? This could be awesome or terrible...or both. Whichever way it turns out, we're there!
Coming Soon Focus has acquired the new Jason Reitman / Charlize Theron collaboration Tully but we'll have to remove it from the Oscar charts. It's not coming until Spring 2018 now
AV Club NBC greenlights its first two series of the new year, one of them that used to be called Drama High (and sounds like it has potential) is now called Rise. Why does Hollywood love to go from specific to generic titles? Are their studies that show that generic titles do better or is it fear of specificity?
/Film the first cast photo of Marvel's The Inhumans has been released and boy is it underwhelming. I've always loved Medusa but you really shouldn't be able to tell that it's such an obvious and stiff looking wig since the character is so tied up in her hair! I mean, couldn't they have gotten RuPaul's wig designers to do it if they wanted something both outlandish and real looking?
Tony Season
Theater Mania hoping to dominate the original play Tonys next year, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child has announced an opening for the tail end of eligibility in 2018
Playbill did you know that Audrey Hepburn won her Tony Award the same WEEK as her Oscar? Isn't that crazy? She won the Oscar for Roman Holiday on March 25th, 1954 and then the Tony for Ondine on March 28th!
Deadline Amélie, a New Musical, based on the Oscar nominated French classic, is the first casualty of the Tony nominations, announcing its Broadway closing date for May 21st after a short run and zero nominations.
Broadway World Despite a disappointing Tony showing (2 nominations) Anastasia, based on the 90s animated movie musical, announces a world tour. It helps to have that known "brand" going in. (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which was savaged by critics and received zero Tony nominations, is still doing well and the box office and is already working on the tour)
THR Tony nominee anecdotes including Laurie Metcalf on the proposed Roseanna revival and Sally Field discussing the release she felt when she found her calling as a young girl:
It isn't something that I just decided one day or backed into it one day. I found a stage when I was 12 when I was lucky enough to be in a school that still had a theater arts department. And something inside of me changed, woke up, I could hear my own voice for the first time when I was onstage, and then when I would get offstage I had to be all the things that little girls in the '50s had to be, and all of that went back in the box. But when I got onstage I could be all the things I wasn't allowed to be anywhere else, so I could hear my own self.
Love ya Sally!
Exit Video
Got 18 minutes? That might seem like a lot but this video essay really is compelling. It names a sci-fi fantasy trope that I haven't personally seen named before but which is as familiar as they come. He calls it "Born Sexy Yesterday" and it's all about the way genre fiction infantilizes women so that men are their natural superior.
At the very least it will make you rethink mermaid and sexy android movies, The Fifth Element and Splash a little bit.
Reader Comments (11)
Wow...Audrey and Mel's chemistry (in the Playbill photos) is off-the-charts.
I have absolutely no doubt that a film about obsessed "50 Shades of Grey"-readers will be a 1000 times more entertaining than the book/film/whatever.
I love Sally too.
Such a great artist, so taken for granted.
There's a fourth actress yet to be cast in the Fonda/Keaton/Bergen movie. Please send them that list you posted on Twitter.
Born Sexy Yesterday. Related to sexy baby. Also weird science is a perfect example (even worse because the men are teenagers but still get to be superior). Good clip.
Also think that Dan Stevens works better in stills than film. Something about his presence is deeply self-aware. I think it's the consistently half open mouth--aghast, about to speak but restrained... etc. I liked him as the beast--the makeup/costume forced a clenched jaw--but when he became the prince it took me out of it. Same in Colossol.
For the record, Bob Fosse won his Cabaret Oscar just two nights after he'd won his Tony for Pippin (March 25th/27th 1973). It's why Fosse said in his Oscar speech that "these past few days could turn me into a hopeful, optimistic person and ruin my life".
Thank you for posting the Born Sexy Yesterday video. It's very good. What a shitty trope.
Meanwhile, if the video had been narrated by a woman she would be coping so much abuse right now :(
I don't really like the name Drama High. Rise, while a generic title, gives off the feeling of achieving ones dreams. Naming tv shows or films is a strange art. Somethings work and some don't. What would you name it instead because honestly Drama High sounds bland and Rise is generic.
There's a reason the Born Sexy Yesterday trope is evident in many science fiction and fantasy films. The filmmakers were aware and wanted to create a male fantasy. Just like other films, namely romantic comedies, create female fantasies.
The trope is real and in a certain context I can see how it may be harmful. But sometimes there's nothing wrong with a male fantasy and, frankly, you can't force men to change what they're attracted to.
Nice post.