In the past few weeks in America, oh now let's see ...
Actual neo-Nazis marched through the streets of Charlottesville and killed someone.
Transgender servicemembers are being banned from the military for seemingly no reason.
Hurricane Harvey became the single largest rain event in our country's history, burying our fourth largest city in a trillion gallons of water.
Recipients of the DACA program have learned that the program is being ended, and if Congress takes no action, they'll likely face deportation.
Hurricane Irma has strengthened to a Category 5 storm and is headed straight for Florida.
It's times like this when I sometimes pause and wonder why Stacey and I spend so much time watching movies and TV shows so that we can meet on the weekends and have long extended conversations about them. I mean, the nominal "leader of the free world" is a spray-tanned toddler and the planet is apparently trying to eat us alive, and this is what's important to us?
And you know what? Yes. Yes, it is.
For starters, I love movies. I love good television. Additionally, I love books and theatre and music. I have a love/hate relationship with awards shows, but I still end up watching them and caring who wins. I grieve (in my own way) when young artists die too soon and older artists leave behind a stunning legacy of work to inspire the next generation. I believe that pop culture is art. And I believe that when art ceases to be important, we're in real trouble.
Your hosts. And wine.
Also, if you haven't already noticed, most of the POPeration! episodes we record are basically me laughing hysterically. Stacey has always been able to make me laugh, no matter the topic, and so no, I won't give up the hours we spend together planning the next episode, fighting over which movies and TV shows we need to watch the following week, and recording our conversations; it's just too much fun.
And I need a little fun right now. I need some joy in my life. I suspect I'm not alone.
It can be very easy during troubling times to resist those things that bring you joy, but I believe it's a huge mistake. Yes, you should watch the news, if you can stand it; I do. Yes, if you feel so moved, you should protest; I did, and I probably will again before too long. But no, you should not stop doing things that make you happy. Walk your dog. Watch the game. Knit. Play a round of golf. Lose yourself in a good book. Travel. And if you're like me, see a movie you loved as a child or binge the latest must-see show on the streaming service of your choice.
Above all, laugh. If you don't have a Stacey in your life, you should get one. Vent about the state of the world if you need to, but at least tell a joke while you're doing so, and then change the topic eventually and do something that makes you happy.
Also, podcasts. Podcasts are good. I know of a really excellent one you should try; we're on Apple and Stitcher and Google Play and iHeartRadio and YouTube and ... okay, you get my point.
This week's episode was all about child stars, the dangers of being world famous at a very young age, and the number of entertainers who began working professionally as children and have, either despite or because of that experience (and probably, in most cases, a mixture of the two), achieved success as adults.
Entertainment is one of the few professions where children are still employable; stories about people naturally involve children, and audiences would never accept an adult playing the role of a young child -- teenagers, maybe (see: Grease), but kids in the business are a necessity.
But are they any good?
Some of them certainly are. We discussed Shirley Temple on the show, who was -- at the height of her career -- was a four or five year old child, and simultaneously the biggest box office draw in the world. In 1935, she won an Oscar in special recognition of her contribution to film the year before -- a year in which she made eight films.
There are a lot of problems with using the Academy Awards as a barometer of quality; they're so incredibly political -- literally the result of campaigns waged by the nominees, and besides, who's to say among five performances as five different characters is the "best"? But in the absence of any other metric, there are some performances by kids that the industry has chosen to nominate for one of its highest honors.
There used to be special categories for "Juvenile" performances (Judy Garland won the same award as Shirley in 1940, the year after The Wizard of Oz), but they eventually went away, and the only way for the Oscars to recognize child actors was to nominate them along with the adults.
Tatum O'Neal was 10 years old in 1974 when she won the Best Supporting Actress Award for her work in Paper Moon, beating out her co-star Madeline Kahn and fellow child star Linda Blair (The Exorcist). Tatum played the accomplice of a Depression-era con man (played by her father, Ryan O'Neal, who was not nominated for an Oscar for his work - just saying), and there's a decent argument to be made that she belonged in the Lead Actress category. There's little argument that she's terrific in the film, moving from vulnerability to precociousness in the blink of an eye sometimes.
In 1994, three women won Oscars for The Piano: director/screenwriter Jane Campion (nominated for directing, but a winner for her screenplay), Holly Hunter, and Anna Paquin in the Supporting Actress category -- Anna was 11 years old. As I mentioned on the show, as much as I admire Paquin's later work, I didn't really care for her performance in The Piano. As I recall, she was often grating in the film, and I wonder if she was supposed to be at some level. Mostly, I remember that I believed that Rosie Perez should have won instead, for her performance in Fearless (if you haven't seen it, don't judge; Rosie was amazing).
Six years later, Haley Joel Osment was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for his work in The Sixth Sense. He didn't win; that award went (deservedly, I think) to Michael Caine in The Cider House Rules. But again, there's a real argument to be made that he belonged in the lead category as the little boy who "sees dead people." The film is really all about him, and there's good reason to believe that the producers of The Sixth Sense ran him in the supporting category because he had a better chance to win there, as Tatum and Anna had done before him. If you've seen The Sixth Sense, you know how good Haley is in this film -- because of the plot, he's asked to do things that weren't imminently relatable to his young experience, and the surprise ending aside, Haley's understated nature of his performance is ultimately what made that film a worldwide hit (sorry, Bruce).
More recently, in 2013, Quvenzhané Wallis was nine years old when she was nominated as Best Actress in a Leading Role for Beasts of the Southern Wild (a movie she had auditioned for when she was only five). She is still, to this day, the youngest performer ever to be nominated for an Academy Award in a lead category (before Quvenzhané, the youngest nominee was Keisha Castle-Hughes, who was 13 when she was nominated for Whale Rider). I really wanted Quvenzhané to win in 2013 (the Oscar ended up going to Jennifer Lawrence for her work in The Silver Linings Playbook). Yes, she was really young, but she was fantastic. I heard people say that as a child, she wasn't really acting, but probably just playing, and wasn't doing the work that her fellow adult nominees were doing. I didn't care, really; all I knew was that she leapt off the screen in that movie, and affected me much more deeply than the other nominated performances I'd seen that year. I was sad, but not surprised, when the Academy did not send a 9-year old home with an Oscar.
And perhaps the critics had a point. Of the five young Oscar nominees discussed here, only Paquin has been doing work as an adult that I've seen (and yet, another young Oscar nominee -- Jodie Foster -- later went on to win two Academy Awards as an adult, so it's not always a fluke). Quvenzhané is still a kid, but her follow-up effort, as the lead in Annie, didn't show the same promise that she exhibited in Beasts.
So are amazing performances by children just luck? Do they have an advantage, in that they don't edit their emotions in the way that most adults have learned to do? Do they really understand, when immersed in a set and a story, that they're pretending? I guess for me, the most important question is: does it really matter -- so long as they're telling a story in such a way that it takes the audience with them, at least for a time.
If I missed your favorite performance by a young child here, leave us a comment below. And, as always, thanks for listening.
If you’ve listened to our fourth episode already, you’ll
notice that for the first time, it doesn’t begin with a guitar riff and the
resonant baritone of Frank DeSando, our editor, mixer, occasional critic, and
constant cheerleader.
Instead, I kicked off this episode, with a disclaimer.
Specifically, I said exactly this:
Hi, this is Eric, and you’re listening to POPeration!. We’re
beginning this week’s podcast with a disclaimer. This episode is all about what
happens when actors, directors, and other artists do unsavory things in their
personal lives, and how it affects their audiences. One of the people we
discuss at length is Casey Affleck, who recently won the Oscar for Best Actor
amid allegations of sexual harassment dating back to 2010.
Stacey and I had this conversation about a week before we
were ready to publish it. At that time, I was under the impression that Affleck
had essentially admitted to some of the allegations made against him. He has
not. To be clear, Casey Affleck hasn’t admitted to anything. The lawsuits
against him were settled out of court, and he has not specifically confirmed or
denied anything he was accused of. I apologize for misspeaking. Enjoy the show.
My words were not lightly chosen. Nor were they “off the
cuff,” as is typical for the conversations Stacey and I usually have on our
show. They were written in advance, then rewritten, then edited, then perused
by Stacey for her agreement. It was the first time we’d noticed we’d gotten
something wrong, and wanted to be very clear and intentional about how we
admitted that.
It was important to me that I take full responsibility for
my mistake. If Casey Affleck ever listens to our conversation (and I realize
that he probably wouldn’t want to and therefore won’t), he deserves to have
these allegations discussed factually. More importantly, Stacey and I won’t
always be perfect, and we wanted to set a template for taking accountability
for our errors in a way that was satisfying from an ethical standpoint. We’re
really proud of our show thus far, and wanted to remain so.
Try shaving, Casey. Also, try not being so rapey.
So there are things I said in my little disclaimer and
things I didn’t say. I said that I got the facts wrong. I said that it was a
mistake (i.e., I didn’t know I was mistaken at the time). I offered an apology.
What I didn’t say was this: I still believe that Casey Affleck did just about
everything that he was accused of doing.
And it’s a long
list. Affleck’s two accusers stated that he consistently bragged about his
sexual exploits in a way that made them uncomfortable. According to them, he
ordered a crew member to take off his pants and show one of the women his penis.
One of the women says she was prevented from returning to her hotel room one night because Affleck and Joaquin Phoenix were there,
having sex with women (and, by the by, the fact that Affleck was, at the time, married to
Phoenix’s sister adds an additional layer of creepy to this story). At one point, Affleck allegedly suggested sharing a hotel room with one of the women,
who refused; at that point, Affleck was alleged to use physical intimidation to
force her to comply.
Let’s pause for a moment and recognize that yes, this was a
movie set, which many of us probably imagine is one big creative playground for
adults, and … for these women, it was their workplace. Think about your boss
treating a woman who works for him in this way, and ask yourself if that’s
remotely okay.
Of course, there was also the incident mentioned on our
show, where one of the women alleged that she woke up in the middle of the
night to find Affleck in her bed, fondling her from behind. Again, just for
full accountability, Affleck never admitted to doing this.
Nevertheless, I believe that it happened, just like I
believe everything else in that suit. I can’t prove it; I can’t responsibly
discuss it as fact. I regret doing exactly that during our show -- hence the disclaimer. But I can repeat that I believe it as often as I want, and
so I’ll do it again: I believe Affleck’s accusers.
A quick review of the Internet
Movie Database reveals that one of Affleck’s accusers, a cinematographer,
has continued to find work on a number of projects, with four currently in
production. The other woman, a producer, has two credits that follow I’m Still Here and hasn’t worked in the
film industry since 2012.
This evidence isn’t conclusive, but it does suggest that
filing these lawsuits was a big risk for Affleck’s accusers, and that one of
them – either by circumstance or by choice – is no longer working. And while
some find it feasible, even likely, that for these women, this was just a big
money grab from a rich and famous person, the fact is that you can make a lot
more money being a successful producer in Hollywood than you can from suing
Casey Affleck for sexual harassment (each woman sued for around $2M, and the
case was settled for an undisclosed amount, which could very well be less).
Add to this a 2013
study that suggests that 70% of sexual harassment goes unreported, and it’s
clear that there are a lot of people out there (mostly women) who will remain
silent about sexual misconduct from bosses and colleagues – probably for a host
of reasons, but the fear that they’ll be forever known as the woman who sued
her boss (and therefore “can’t take a joke” or “hates men” or “is motivated by
greed” or “probably asked for it”) is likely chief among them.
When Variety
asked Casey Affleck about the lawsuit, he said this: “People say whatever they
want. Sometimes it doesn’t matter how you respond ... I guess people think if
you’re well-known, it’s perfectly fine to say anything you want. I don’t know
why that is. But it shouldn’t be, because everybody has families and lives.”
It’s an incredibly dismissive comment, one that suggests
that these women were just interested in gaining attention, probably motivated
by greed and/or jealousy, and that these allegations just fell thoughtlessly
out of these women’s mouths, as if the act of recounting these stories wouldn’t
be degrading in and of itself. It's almost as if Affleck takes for granted that anyone who would buy a copy of Variety to hear what a movie star has to say about anything would take his word over the idea that the only good reason his accusers would have to sue him would be to see justice done.
Personally, I find it a lot more believable that Casey
Affleck thinks that if you’re not
well-known, it’s perfectly fine to do
anything you want.
