I feel so dirty...

So I watched an episode of The Starlet yesterday, which is the WB's new reality series where they look for an actress who (I think) gets a recurring, if not regular, role (I think) on a WB series as her reward. A couple thoughts.

First of all........wow, a series on the WB. I saw a magazine at the iaTV offices the other day that had a big cover montage of WB shows, because of its 10th anniversary. Am I the only one who is both shocked and surprised that the WB has lasted that long? Is there another network out there with a crappier assortment of shows? How many souls did they have to sell? Seriously. If nothing else, that goes to show you that you can have crappy ratings as long as you market to the right demographic and advertisers want to reach that demographic.

Second, I never want to hear the words "the Starlet" again. They had this panel of three judges who decide who stays and goes and whatnot; one guy who I didn't know, a girl I think was Vivica A. Fox and Faye Dunaway. And (probably because they were told to use the words whenever referring to the eventual winner of the competition) they kept saying "the Starlet has to have this" or "If you want to be the Starlet"...WTF DOES THAT MEAN? THAT'S NOT A WORD, GODDAMMIT.

Lastly, I kind of have issues with what the show chooses to air and make public. Like the audition process of American Idol (which is somewhat similar to the audition process for a play, movie or musical), acting classes and the process of learning the craft of acting are an extremely difficult process; not because it's difficult to understand what the teacher wants you to do necessarily, but because acting deals with all the emotions and all the baggage that you as a person and as a performer bring. If you're taking "Method" classes - the Method referring to Stanislavski's beliefs regarding acting and sense-memory - which is what they seem to be teaching the girls on the show, the process is bound to be extremely emotional and leave the performer very vulnerable. This is, of course, understandable in terms of the show - emotional vulnerability and the situations it causes are gold for ratings. But I have an issue with the show choosing to air these moments, which most actors would (I think) be horrified to have shown to a general audience. It's true that hopefully the performer will hit those same notes in a performance, but I feel there is a difference between that and the process that an actor goes through to be able to recreate the emotions in a performance.

On that note, I've read a couple of interesting interviews recently with two actors I wasn't really too sure what to think about; Russell Crowe and Daniel Day Lewis. The first I've never really liked, the second I've never really seen in things. Both are Oscar winners (though I don't think Crowe really deserved his), and both have negative reputations in Hollywood. Anyways, what brought those to mind (aside from the fact that they were pretty good interviews) was that Daniel Day Lewis was asked about his process - one of the reasons he has a reputation for being kind of weird is that he's notorious for doing a ton of background research for his characters and always staying in character on set. He mentions that one thing he hates are the "roving press kits" or something of that kind - basically this group of people that catches up with you after you've finished a scene and asks about the scene and where it fits in, the character's motivations and all that, to which he replies that he never really knows because he's still in the middle of his own process, still trying to figure those things out for himself. I find that interesting because it's actually much more of a stage training view than film; typically on a film shoot you're expected to come to the set/shoot location with all your character work done; setups and filming are so time consuming that there is no time to work on character on set. For a stage production though, there are several weeks of rehearsal in which you can explore characters, explore choices and select the one you like best. The more you rehearse, the more the character tends to grow; the more levels you find and the more subtleties you can add to a character. I find the film actors who I appreciate the most are the ones who can bring this to a film role - Kevin Kline, Meryl Streep and Johnny Depp to name 3. Anyways, I have to go because a friend is harassing me to go watch the latest episode of Red vs Blue. I think that's more than enough for now anyways.