Random Misguided Ramblings

Who would have guessed that Hollywood finds one formula that works and regurgitates it over and over again until it is too old or deemed unsexy? Who would have guessed that there is another trend in Hollywood today? Oh and who could have guessed Chace Crawford and Zac Efron look the same and probably share the same DNA? Amazing journalism these days.

I’m not going to post the whole article because I will be here all day, but I will quote the bits which stood out as either being stupid or plain what the eff. I have done my utmost best not to rant but I can almost guarantee there might be points where I am clearly inscenced or so annoyed that words escape me.

Basically the New York Observer, lived up to their name and with the help of some ‘experts’ and ‘researchers’ sat in front of  a computer with Google images, observed how Hollywood was using good looking leading men to lure women into the cinemas regardless of how sub standard the films are and acting like it has never happened before. If it has taken the NYO this long to figure it out, then there’s more jobs going at The Daily Star. In particular they address the rise of the New Male Beauty. Zac Efron and Chace Crawford seem to be treated like the pioneers of the movement whilst other so called pretty boys are accused of being clones of each other.

The article talks about how Paramount saw Zac’s rejection of a role in the upcoming Footloose remake as an obstacle not a deterrant and chased Chace (lol) because he is the same as Zac minus the singing. To the best of my knowledge I do not recall hearing Chace sing or seeing him dance. Essentially, with Chace in Zac’s shoes, no one would know the difference. Hence the cloning system. I don’t find Zac Efron attractive, he’s a good looking boy, not doubting that but he’s not my type. What annoys me is it’s being treated like constitutional requirement to fancy the pants off Zac Efron so when you don’t, you have to have something wrong with you or you’re gay or something. He appeals to a certain audience and they’re usually bopping along to Hannah Montana and the Jonas Brothers. Two of the worst creations in the modern day world.

Nevertheless, the geniuses at NYO manage to link every New Male Beauty culprit to each other. Admittedly, I can see the similarities between certain people but not all of them look like each other.

Not only do Mr. Efron and Mr. Crawford resemble each another, but they both look a lot like Ian Somerhalder (Lost), who sort of looks like Chris Pine (Star Trek), who sort of looks like James Marsden (Hairspray, 27 Dresses), who sort of looks like Ryan Reynolds (The Proposal and the guy who married Scarlett Johansson), who sort of looks like Chris Evans (Fantastic Four), who sort of looks like Robert Buckley (Lipstick Jungle), who is a downright doppelgänger for Scott Speedman (Felicity).

Firstly, Ian Somerhalder looks like Thomas Dekker, but they don’t mention that one do they whilst James Marsden does not look like Ryan Reynolds at all. Ryan Reynolds is his own type of sexy which goes back to the Zac Efron likability stuff above. Ryan only appeals to some and not all. Second of all, James Marsden does look a tiny bit like Chris Pine when he was in Just My Luck and especially the Princess Diaries now I think about it. So, it does kind of get a tiny bit creepy seeing as both were in Disney films…Thirdly, where is Chris Evans these days? I had to google him to find if he looked like Robert Buckley which he does a little bit…Ah pft, they’re hot anyway. Does it matter?!?! Do you want them all to look like Blake Fielder Civil or Peter Doherty? They’re men men, albeit the type which makes them one of my pet hates. The indie rocker look which dominates every college corridor. The stick thin boys with the skinny jeans, doped up expressions which they’ve mastered EVEN if they have never so much smoked a cigarette and the hair which hasn’t been washed but backcombed to resemble a nest. No thanks, I’ll keep my ‘non-symetrical’ perfect boys thankyou very much.

Up to that point, the Observer had decided that male leads all look the same in some way or another but its the theory that they asked a so called expert to come up with which really gives this investigation some meaning. Oh, yes, better believe it this is being treated in the same way as a cure for cancer, except this doesn’t have the legs to be history altering.

But before the grand reveal, apparently, its becoming much harder to distinguish between the man-boys. The article cites some complaints made after Black Hawk Down during which audiences were unable to distinguish between Ewan McGregor, Eric Bana, Josh Hartnett and Hugh Dancy due to the visual similarities between them in the film. In a normal world, I can tell the difference between them all.  According to the Observer’s Earth shattering discovery, there is a precise science to the recent wave of really perfect guys in Hollywood. This self important group who came up with the precise science made me laugh.

“They all have a nose with a slight hump and then a minor depression and then a prominent tip—not big, but just a gentle S-curve, and the tips are slightly broad,” said Dr. Steven Pearlman, former president of the American Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery.

Yes, there you have it. The ground breaking truth is that they all share the same nose. I’m going to be bold and say I don’t think I’m alone on this but I can’t spot the similarities. So, a page and a half later and I can see why Dr Steven Pearlman is a former president of the American Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive surgery. If that wasn’t enough there’s more. Dr Minas Constantinidides points out that the New Male Beauty boys are far too perfect for their own good while I sit and wonder just how badly has the credit crunch has affected the demand for botox, for the Drs to partake in such ludicrous ‘research’.

“Everyone has a little bit of facial asymmetry, but these faces barely have any, which is very unusual,” said Dr. Minas Constantinides, the director of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at N.Y.U. Medical Center, Google Image–searching while on the phone with The Observer. “They don’t have features that can be distracting, like a strong jaw line, so we spend a lot more time around their eyes and mouths when we’re looking at them.

 

Even though I don’t want to, I have to agree. What’s the first thing I notice about Chace, Zac and Chris? The eyes. But then again, it always is the first thing I see in any image of a man and this includes Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig when they’re clothed of course.

So, I’ve learned that three guys all look the same in some way. It is their noses that make them the same as each other and because the majority don’t have strong jaw lines, we’re instantly drawn to their eyes and mouths. Which makes sense in my books. However, the assumption made that males in their 20s are the first children of divorce and therefore more inclined to be gentle and thoughtful, doesn’t make sense at all. The casting director, Randi Hiller (of the Randi Hiller casting agency in Los Angeles), the woman whose job it is to cast cute guys into romantic comedies and action hero movies holds this view. Not only is her input into the research a big assumption but I’m crying here…

On the other side of the spectrum, Ms Oliveri, the editorial projects designer at Details magazine says that it is no longer up to Brad Pitt and Clive Owen to bring the audiences into the cinemas. Instead she says it is now up to the Twilights and Star Treks to do so. She doesn’t necessarily mean it is the individual actors who work, but more the formula. Of course action movies gross higher than any other genre because they’re the attractive, big budget, get ringing in your ears for 5 minutes after the movie mainstream films which usually make previously unknown actors icons of some discription depending on the success of the movie and the move into a franchise. In film circles, the word ‘franchise’ also means selling your soul to the devil of typecasting because for the rest of your career you will always be associated with the character and/or the character traits that put your celebrity into the strasosphere.

Ms. Oliveri traced the whole thing back to Spider-Man, when Tobey Maguire threatened to pull out of the franchise and the studio cavalierly prepared to replace him with Jake Gyllenhaal. Mr. Maguire eventually came to his senses, but …

“I think people realized that at the end of the day, if it’s written well, and directed well, and marketed right, then it’s going to work,” Ms. Oliveri said.

‘Traced the whole thing’ makes it sound like Who Shot Roger Rabbit or CSI rather than a worthless piece of research into a subject everyone with half a brain knew beforehand. Needless to say, the link between good writing and good box office is the most obvious statement she came up with in this article’s long winded way of saying ‘Look here, this is the new Hollywood trend. Quick! buy into it before it disappears’.

However, I fear for the sanity of some men if this next bit is true. The article then saw the return of Dr Pearlman, with a few more pearls of wisdom about his nonfamous patients. Pearlman says that his clients have started asking for surgery which gives them facial features similar to Zac Efron, whilst Dr Constantinides’ clients have started to ask for chins and noses which make them less manly. I’m sorry but that’s either desperation to get onto the dating scene or someone’s spouse has a roving eye when it comes to younger men.

Nevertheless, it’s not the revisting of the crisis of the New Male in the early 1990s, it’s more about men feeling threatened by generally perfect men. Men who they will probably never meet but, they will spend an age (and a fortune in the case of the desperately insane) trying to live up to that image even if the trend keeps changing, which in Hollywood, it inevitably will.

FYI, Chris Pine doesn’t look like Efron or Crawford. Don’t even bother comparing him to them.