I wish you would turn the discussion on its head for once, Richard Armitage

Article here. And yeah, since I’ve gotten to that point in the move where I’d probably happily just dump everything I have in a dumpster, take this for what it’s worth.

I try not to get angry about the entertainment press — although I often fail. This is one of those articles that you just read and kind of shake your head. Well, maybe he was misquoted or mispunctuated.

Yeah, Mr. Armitage, we’re happy to go with you most places you want to go (even Dickens). But that doesn’t mean everyone who follows your career with attention has to love everything you do.

I knew Francis Dolahyde was controversial because I knew a lot of people wouldn’t like him. Because they like you to be a heartthrob or attractive. So I saw that as ‘let’s see if we can change people’s tastes’

What is to like about Francis Dolarhyde, exactly? It sounds from this article like even you didn’t like him much. But (a) Francis Dolarhyde was pretty attractive. OK, not when he was violently assaulting people. But Dolarhyde in his underwear? Yeah, pretty attractive. I don’t know what the operative definition of “heartthrob” is here — but it seems to me that plenty of Armitage fans were pretty excited about that role. However (b), most of the people I know who didn’t watch Hannibal objected it to not because of Dolarhyde’s level of attractiveness or their issues with what happens when you don’t play the hero (there is certainly some of that in this fandom), but on moral-aesthetic grounds (aestheticizing gore, creating sympathy for a villain who does not deserve it) or because Hannibal is gross and violent and hard to watch for people who object to that sort of thing and are unaccustomed to, or triggered by, watching it. I guess you can call the latter sentiment “taste,” but I think that’s oversimplifying. Yeah, I watched it, because you were in it, and it was interesting to me because of my identity and self-esteem issues, absolutely. But did you change my tastes? Will I be looking for another serial killer show to watch? Om, no.

More questionable is this statement:

[Aidan Turner] was born to play those roles really. Whereas I found myself in that role in North and South not really realising what it was [potential magnet for female attention].

Laying aside what you say about Turner (about whom I know nothing other than that he’s cute, and whose press I don’t read), I think this is a really questionable assertion about why it is that people loved you as Mr. Thornton. Yes, he was attractive (and it’s simply impossible to separate the appearance of the character from the performance, acting being what it is), and certainly, we love to talk in blooming terms about how attractive he is. But Thornton captures so many fans’ attention (and is a frequent gateway drug) for reasons well beyond how he looks, or his heartthrob potential: because he is an ethical man; because he struggles with himself; because he is imperfect and yet seeks to improve; because he moves between the poles of extreme anger and violence and tremendous care; because he has to step outside his comfort zone; because, as a proud man, he comes back from humiliation time and time again — because he personifies a sort of male ideal as a whole that we don’t often see praised on screen these days. Your “heartthrob” appearance wasn’t meaningless. But it wasn’t the whole story, either.

I know that the interviewee ends up responding only to the questions the interviewer asks — and probably he got asked about how he feels about having such an intense fandom, and probably he decided to talk about how he doesn’t make his role choices based on what he thinks will please fandom, and he referred to his discomfort with the idea of being a “heartthrob.” I really wish, though, that sometimes someone — whether interviewer or interviewee — would change the terms of the discussion. I wish that YOU would change the terms of the discussion, Mr. Armitage.

~ by Servetus on December 19, 2015.