So did she have a point?
[full disclosure: I was involved in responding to her]
[full disclosure: I was involved in responding to her]
~ by Servetus on June 11, 2018.
Posted in Richard Armitage
Tags: Dana Schwartz, idiots, Oceans 8, Richard Armitage
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
Adoraté!
LikeLiked by 1 person
sjcb (@cavanRA17) said this on June 11, 2018 at 3:15 pm |
Very ‘diplomatic’ response from RA… Lovin’ his emoji use!! Tee hee!
Interesting that he chose to respond to that tweet.
I’m not on Twitter so wondering whether the fans were in full Armitage Protection Mode in their respnses??!!
LikeLiked by 2 people
Zigzag said this on June 11, 2018 at 3:16 pm |
Yes, and no — there were one or two who were abusive, but most were polite AND extremely angry. The problem was that what she said was so insulting and she’s an entertainment journalist. As it turns out, she’s a Chris Pine stan. So it was a case of “why wasn’t my favorite actor in this film”.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Servetus said this on June 11, 2018 at 3:19 pm |
I think he needs to take some lessons or advice from Sandy, Cate, Clooney, Pitt, Jennifer Aniston and abstain or turn the other cheek which is what he advocated on his Cyberbullying messages right?
LikeLike
Michele Marsh said this on June 11, 2018 at 3:27 pm |
He just needs to stay out of the fandom. Period. I’m assuming he thought he could defuse the situation.
LikeLike
Servetus said this on June 11, 2018 at 3:30 pm |
I think it’s possible he knew his fans would defend him. In the politest way possible, I think he called her out on it by highlighting it on his page and furthering the discussion. And looking humble and classy doing it. Kudos.
Sorry this had to be my first comment. 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
wordtotheweary said this on June 11, 2018 at 4:17 pm |
Thanks for the comment and welcome!
I agree this was a very gracious response, although I don’t think the self-deprecation really reads the same for everyone, and I think that piece of it probably flew right over her head. Hollywood doesn’t get “self-effacing.”
LikeLiked by 2 people
Servetus said this on June 11, 2018 at 4:20 pm |
You may well be right about it going over her head but I loved this response. Very classy. This is the Richard Armitage I feel proud to be a fan of.
LikeLiked by 4 people
Bollyknickers said this on June 11, 2018 at 5:05 pm |
The add on about his Leo sign description today was a nice touch
LikeLiked by 1 person
Michele Marsh said this on June 11, 2018 at 5:21 pm |
I thought the horoscope tweet was too much. I liked the initial response but then the really classy thing would have been to leave it – walk away with head held high.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Bollyknickers said this on June 11, 2018 at 5:51 pm |
I felt like this was a response that was directed at fans, which would have been fine if only fans had read it. But I don’t think it matters that much in the scheme of things.
LikeLike
Servetus said this on June 11, 2018 at 7:46 pm |
I agree completely it flew over her head! I guess I’m hoping he took some satisfaction in doing it. It’s a little unlike him (if that really was his intention. )
LikeLiked by 1 person
wordtotheweary said this on June 11, 2018 at 4:22 pm |
She’d entitled to her opinion. I don’t agree (don’t know CP, I’m sure he’s also a good actor).
I like RA’s response. He agrees a little, but the use of the emticon is great. Goes to show how these little ‘heads’ can accentuate/soften a message.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Mermaid said this on June 11, 2018 at 4:35 pm |
he’s “cute” in a way that teenagers find attractive, and he’s a good mimic. He was lousy in the only film where I’ve seen him not trying to ape William Shatner (which is a depressing thought, if you think about it)
LikeLike
Servetus said this on June 11, 2018 at 5:42 pm |
Chris who?
LikeLiked by 2 people
zeesmuse said this on June 11, 2018 at 4:51 pm |
I know there’s three thousand of them in Hollywood right now. Plus one Irish Chris (O’Dowd).
LikeLiked by 3 people
Fatima said this on June 11, 2018 at 5:23 pm |
Chris O’Dowd is very sweet and funny. He was great in Bridesmaids!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Michele Marsh said this on June 11, 2018 at 8:15 pm |
I love him too. He also did a great turn in The Program. The funny part is, much like Richard Armitage, he had a body of work before he did more stateside projects.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Fatima said this on June 11, 2018 at 8:43 pm |
Thanks so much! I will watch The Program I had no idea and Pace is in it too.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Michele Marsh said this on June 11, 2018 at 8:52 pm |
You may know him as Captain Kirk the second.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Servetus said this on June 11, 2018 at 5:43 pm |
Oh I know who he is, he just doesn’t inspire me to go watch a movie. The other Chris doesn’t inspire me either. Ah well.
LikeLiked by 1 person
zeesmuse said this on June 11, 2018 at 5:53 pm |
I love that nickname. That film also features two Chrises, with Hemsworth playing George Kirk, Jim’s dad. Even casting directors thought ‘these guys look alike.’
LikeLiked by 1 person
Fatima said this on June 12, 2018 at 4:12 pm |
I have an ambivalent relationship with this last tranche of ST films. Most of the actors are essentially just mimicking their predecessors in the roles, and I find that really boring. I can’t imagine it’s interesting for an actor, either. Neither the characters, nor their portrayals, develop in any meaningful way. John Cho as Sulu is an exception, though.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Servetus said this on June 12, 2018 at 4:16 pm |
I’m not on Twitter so pardon my ignorance here but I wonder if some of his more well-known friends like Michelle Forbes or Jed Brophy would swoop in and defend his name and not berate her but maybe scold her for her ignorance of his work and her lack of professionalism on Twitter (she cursed rather badly I think). I know Richard probably wouldn’t want that but still…
LikeLike
Michele Marsh said this on June 11, 2018 at 4:53 pm |
The best response to this would have been total silence: cut her dead. I honestly don’t think his star sign is really an excuse. I do, however, live with a Leo and understand how fragile the Leo ego can be.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Servetus said this on June 11, 2018 at 5:43 pm |
I think the whole daily horoscope thing is a crock of sh!te but as I am also a Leo I could really take offence to that statement Serv 😂😂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Bollyknickers said this on June 11, 2018 at 5:54 pm |
I think it’s suggestive rather than causal, if that makes any sense 🙂 But my brother and father are both Leos, so …
LikeLike
Servetus said this on June 11, 2018 at 7:49 pm |
Well, and then there was the humble pie… So his strategy worked. While I agree that he should by and large just stay out of any such slinging matches, in this case he defused the situation in a clever way. He’s certainly endeared himself to me once again. (Damage control from Ms Schwartz, however, came too late.)
LikeLiked by 4 people
Guylty said this on June 11, 2018 at 5:04 pm |
It got her to shut up, I guess. Other than that I wasn’t especially impressed. In the US entertainment industry, you really don’t go around conceding to other people that you’re not important. I don’t know how important this is in the grand scheme of things but it shows a really unprofessional side of him.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Servetus said this on June 11, 2018 at 5:45 pm |
Exactly! I mean what does that foreshadow for any future US based projects if he concedes yeah I’m not important-isn’t that one of the reasons he joined Twitter to get his name more out there and market (sorry I hate that word) himself for bigger projects?
LikeLike
Michele Marsh said this on June 11, 2018 at 6:06 pm |
I think, in general, self-marketing is not a strength of his.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Servetus said this on June 11, 2018 at 7:50 pm |
Oh, that’s a reading I didn’t catch. This is where the cultural differences may come in (from my side – if applied to him, then as a US resident and participant in the US entertainment industry he should’ve known.) But I see your point – I hope he hasn’t shot himself in the foot.
LikeLike
Guylty said this on June 11, 2018 at 6:33 pm |
I honestly can’t imagine anyone except fans cares about this. It’s just that the average American bystander would think it made him look weak. If I were him, I’d just have followed her on Twitter. Nothing else.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Servetus said this on June 11, 2018 at 7:50 pm |
This may well be a case of two cultures divided by their shared language. He may look weak to Americans but from my (British-Australian) perspective his response was spot on. I thought he wiped the floor with her and showed her up as Ill informed and rude. He, on the other hand, behaved graciously not only to her but also to Damian Lewis ( who may or may not be considered an A lister but was designated as such by Armitage).
LikeLiked by 5 people
Bollyknickers said this on June 11, 2018 at 9:37 pm |
Yeah, I totally get that the Brits and Brit-influenced (and even some of the Americans) loved this reply. But I used to have this experience off and on at academic conferences where a Brit would say something that they obviously thought was the height of insult to an American, who never even noticed. I’m pretty sure she doesn’t think he wiped the floor with her, but if he does (or fans do), that’s the main thing that matters. In the end he has to be who he is.
LikeLike
Servetus said this on June 11, 2018 at 9:42 pm |
Yes – and for many Brits the best insult of all is the one that the target fails to comprehend but which is received and understood by onlookers.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Bollyknickers said this on June 11, 2018 at 9:57 pm |
which to most Americans would be pointless. Why even make the effort to insult someone then? If I insult someone, I want to be (a) impregnable and (b) absolutely certain the victim is aware of what is happening to them. For various reasons I don’t insult people very often as those are relatively high criteria to meet. Also because I don’t have a lot of cause. But when it happens … and this is something I’ve never understood about Brits … I darn well want the target to know about it. But I don’t get about half of British humor, either. I mean — I know something is supposed to be funny and I’m just like, okay.
LikeLike
Servetus said this on June 11, 2018 at 10:00 pm |
That’s a great point. He is a smart guy and would really mindfuck her in any interview. My issue is why he even replied in the first place.
LikeLike
Michele Marsh said this on June 11, 2018 at 11:56 pm |
Indeed. It just screams “this bothered me” and that’s something you don’t want to let a bully see.
LikeLike
Servetus said this on June 11, 2018 at 11:57 pm |
That’s my Canadian reading as well. To me his response was perfect – it didn’t read as weak or as self deprecating to me at all. To me it read as RA telegraphed to her ‘you’re an idiot and you don’t know what you’re talking about’ to me.
LikeLike
sparkhouse1 said this on June 12, 2018 at 3:11 am |
So I don’t know if you remember this, but during the fall of 2016 a fan from the Paciific Northwest, who had been really active on Twitter, went to NYC to see Love, Love, Love. It was an expensive trip for her and she saw the play once. After the stage door, she reported that he had snubbed her for a picture, and her friends reported that she was crying because he had supposedly ignored her. It turned into a thing on Twitter. Could it be true? Did he really snub her directly? Shortly thereafter — I think either that night or the next day — he tweeted a statement that stated all the things he had done for her — signed a program, signed something for her sister, and said that he thought he got a picture with her, and apologized.
So how would you interpret that?
What I thought at the time is, there’s no way he’s actually apologizing for this; this is a British way of saying “what is wrong with you?” I didn’t actually talk to any UK fans about it, I don’t think, which indicates to me that they understood in that way, as he meant it. But at least five Americans wrote to me to ask how I read it, was he really sympathizing with her? Why does he always reward bad behavior? And I am absolutely certain that the person in question didn’t understand it that he was being sarcastic.
LikeLike
Servetus said this on June 12, 2018 at 3:23 am |
I don’t recall that at all….I must have missed the whole sorry episode. But, from what you just wrote about it, my thoughts are she comes across as an entitled self centred whiner and if he tweeted those things the next day my reading of what he tweeted, from what you just wrote, was that he was mortified that his fans thought he had acted callously towards her and that he did not feel that he had wronged her, and that he apologized because he acknowledged her hurt and he was sorry she felt hurt, even though he did not believe she was justified in feeling that way. But, like I said, I don’t recall this happening. As a Canadian, I think we tend to say sorry to placate, even when we’re not really sorry. To quote our outgoing Ontario premier, we tend to be “sorry, not sorry” lol
LikeLike
sparkhouse1 said this on June 12, 2018 at 4:43 am |
I wasn’t there to observe this incident, I only saw the tweets about it, and I also don’t know what he did at the time or what he was thinking afterwards. I can’t speak to those points.
My point is solely that given the information that was visible to the them, American fans tended to read what he was saying very differently than Brits — and that the target of the tweet was an American, so if he wanted to shame her, he completely missed his target. Bolly (Australian) says that it’s even more of a triumph from the Brit perspective if the target doesn’t realize they’ve been insulted. I accept that that’s true for a Brit but an American goes “huh” and moves on.
My personal perspective is that I despise, despise, despise passive aggression. This is partly being American, and partly growing up with an alcoholic and having to deal with codependency issues, so that this kind of speech trips my triggers. But I do think that Americans value, and prefer, directness in situations like this. I’m very ready to apologize if I am aware that I have done wrong, and I do it directly by saying “I’m sorry.” I don’t apologize for things I’m not sorry for. The British habit of apologizing for things one is not actually sorry for (like the weather, or speaking to a stranger on the street) drives me bonkers. I wrote a whole post about this once (things that are not Richard Armitage’s fault).
LikeLike
Servetus said this on June 12, 2018 at 4:53 am |
“so if he wanted to shame her, he completely missed his target” – that there perhaps is the crux of between the British and American pov – Americans, from my Canadian perspective, are more ‘upfront’ or even ‘in your face’ so Bolly’s take on it (as an Aussie), I feel is spot on because as a Brit, RA, if he actually does want to ‘shame’ her (although I have my doubts of that as I don’t think RA would feel comfortable shaming anyone. But then again, in his own way I guess he did kind of shame the Dana lady), if he did want shame her and the target didn’t even recognize the insult, then it’s kind of a self satisfaction kind of thing – putting one over on someone. It’s kind of a double win in our kind of thinking – I insulted you but you were so dense you didn’t even feel it so I’m more clever than you sort of thing. Americans generally are much more direct which is a trait I admire but also find can be quite abrasive to non Americans like me but I don’t know about Brits being more passive aggressive (I know I am and it’s not what of more admirable traits for sure but sometimes I wonder if it’s because I’m Canadian or because it’s just me). I love British humour though. I loved watching Doc Martin last year for a while and confess for the first while I thought it was a British doctor forced to work in Newfoundland! I felt like such an idiot.
LikeLike
sparkhouse1 said this on June 12, 2018 at 5:26 am
To clarify I am actually a British person who has lived in Australia for nearly 20 years. I still identify as British although I hold dual citizenship. I feel I am culturally British – I am currently back in the UK visiting family ( well I’m typing this from an airport lounge waiting to get on a flight to Mauritius so will probably disappear from the conversation until I find wifi again).
I think this thread has interested me so much because I am aware that when I arrive in the UK I need to dial back my directness somewhat. I remember my early days in Sydney when everyone seemed so aggressive – I had to learn that what I perceived as rude was really just a more direct approach than the one I had grown up with. I had spent time in Boston immediately before and found that culture even more abrasive.
I don’t see the British approach as passive aggressive – I see it as having nice manners. Every time I come here I’m pleasantly surprised at how nice everyone is but I guess it is because I feel I have come home.
And if a tree falls and no one heard of course it still fell – just like the sun still set even through no one instagrammed it!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Bollyknickers said this on June 12, 2018 at 12:16 pm
If a tree falls in the woods and no one hears it, does it make a sound? My answer to that question has always been “no.” My off the cuff reaction in this situation is that someone who doesn’t realize they’ve been shamed hasn’t been shamed, because the main purpose of shaming is not to make the shamer giggle, but to make the shamed change their behavior, which won’t happen if she doesn’t even realize it’s happened. The effort has been wasted. Schwartz is an American. In fact, her behavior after his tweet indicates that she isn’t sorry and she got what she wanted from the incident.
I didn’t admire this response of his, though, and I’ve probably sufficiently underlined the point that the reading of it will be ambiguous. I think that if the point of shaming someone else were really to feel superior, the American strategy toward achieving that would simply be to cut the person dead. Silence. Which is why you see a few Americans here wishing he hadn’t said anything.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Servetus said this on June 12, 2018 at 5:33 am |
Cause and effect – logical. Perhaps that is the cultural difference? American way is more direct, more aggressive impact, goal to affect change? I really can’t know for sure the cultural differences between Brits/Americans/Canadians. I do know that I have noticed that what I percieve or read into tweets and quotes from RA a lot of the time are quite different than what you, or Americans, seem to see. Which is interesting to me and sometimes I get why and sometimes I don’t.
I pretty much feel that some types of people cannot be shamed – he who shall not be named, for one; this Dana woman for another. And so, therefore, it is not really important to me that the object actually FEELS the shame, only that I made my point in my own weird way that a) makes me feel better and b) makes me feel self satisfied in my execution of it. In other words, it’s not really for their benefit, it’s for my own.
LikeLike
sparkhouse1 said this on June 12, 2018 at 6:04 am
Yes, if a tree falls in the woods and no one is there to hear it … yes! Yes it did make a sound. If a tree is in a forest but no one is there to ‘see’ it then is there a tree in the forest? Is there even a forest if you are not there to see it? Pretty self-centric. American even? I’m being flippant, not trying to be rude! I never did understand the tree falling in the forest thing.
LikeLike
sparkhouse1 said this on June 12, 2018 at 6:22 am
Very well said Servetus. You think he’s a tad passive-aggressive in general? I mean I haven’t been around this very long but just reading past posts about his Brexit tweets deleting, unfollowing seems passive-aggressive to me. Honesty is always the best policy. Or if you don’t have anything nice to say about someone don’t say anything at all! Dana’s not the brightest bulb anyway and why should he give her the time of day in the bigger scheme of things.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Michele Marsh said this on June 12, 2018 at 11:50 am
To be fair Michele we don’t know that he has given it any thought beyond the tweet. Maybe he got it off his chest in that tweet and went on his merry way!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Bollyknickers said this on June 12, 2018 at 12:19 pm
Yes very true and he was just being a gentleman and gave a nice shout out to Damian Lewis.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Michele Marsh said this on June 12, 2018 at 12:50 pm
It’s a very British thing to do.
Amerikanische Schauspieler wirken hierzulande schnell großspurig und angeberisch, aber das scheint ein anerkanntes Verhalten zu sein. Man hält von sich selbst nur das Beste und steht dazu. Ich bin davon irritiert und RAs Reaktion kommt mir deshalb sehr europäisch (und vertraut) vor. Aus amerikanischer Sicht macht er sich unnötig oder verdächtig klein.
Er sollte sich einfach aus solchen Diskussionen raus halten. Reden ist Silber und Schweigen ist Gold.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Elanor said this on June 11, 2018 at 6:35 pm |
A name is important. Ask John Proctor. Someone ought to tweet her a video of loop of “because it is my name!”
LikeLiked by 2 people
Perry said this on June 11, 2018 at 7:09 pm |
I normally avoid responding to negative comments on Twitter like the plague but in this case what she was spewing just got under my skin. She could have expressed her casting preference without being so demeaning. It just seemed like a low blow. Well done to him for responding with class and humor.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Widoedm53 said this on June 11, 2018 at 5:34 pm |
yeah, my first impulse was to ignore. But then I couldn’t resist making a joke about it and that got me drawn into it. I didn’t break any of my own rules about social media discourse, though, so I’m okay with it.
LikeLike
Servetus said this on June 11, 2018 at 5:46 pm |
Why should she as an entertainment reporter/journalist show favoritism toward any actor in the first place? Your job is to report entertainment news, you’re not a movie reviewer, totally unprofessional of her.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Michele Marsh said this on June 11, 2018 at 6:10 pm |
I completely agree with you. Was a low blow and just plain mean and then she acts surprised when people call her out on it overtly and that she is of all things an entertainment reporter. It would have been mean spirited directed at anybody not just Richard. Not a fan of Chris Pine but I’m sure he’s like Dana leave me alone!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Michele Marsh said this on June 11, 2018 at 8:35 pm |
No she did not! She just has an opinion. An opinion about a man she doesn’t know anything about and about his work she hasn’t seen. That’s not having a point, that’s prejudice to me!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Marianne Zoer said this on June 11, 2018 at 7:12 pm |
Thanks for the comment and welcome.
LikeLike
Servetus said this on June 11, 2018 at 8:02 pm |
You asked, “Did she have a point?” I can see where some franchise fans would want big names for the villain and the love interest ( here they’re the same) But I don’t think the film would have been better. The role would have been the same. Becker wasn’t written as a real villain and they didn’t give him very much to work with as the love interest. If an A list actor had the same role and same direction, people might remember he was in the film – but not much else.
LikeLike
Perry said this on June 11, 2018 at 7:23 pm |
Yeah — apart from her ridiculousness (btw, I saw your tweet, LMAO) I did understand the point she thought she was making. (Which went totally under. It’s hard for me to understand how someone who presumably has a BA missed the basic principle of rhetoric and argumentation so fully. I guess she cut class those weeks).
Honestly, I don’t think it matters at all in this film that Armitage isn’t 100% recognizable. There was a small swathe of his fans who went to see this or will see it who wouldn’t have otherwise bothered; but it’s a tiny group. But it’s not like Chris Pine in this role would have changed anything about the film or the viewer numbers. As you say, it wasn’t a fully developed role because revenge wasn’t supposed to be the point.
The only point that I might concede is that had the role been bigger, then whoever played it might have been set up to star in a sequel where he’d really take on a major part of the plot. Maybe you’d want a more bankable name for that. BUT if that happened, it would then turn into very conventional male / female conflict (which this film was trying hard NOT to be about), and the plot of this film would also have had to been different.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Servetus said this on June 11, 2018 at 8:09 pm |
Yes, well as you pointed out elsewhere, Chris Pine is an odd choice considering the age difference. I don’t think Sandra Bullock’s Debbie was as old as 54, and it’s so hard to tell age these days, anyway. I think a Hugh Jackman might have changed things in that people like Schwartz would have gotten their A-Lister and Jackson fans would who would otherwise not have gone to see the film would have gone ( same as RA fans) But it would not have changed or improved the movie itself.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Perry said this on June 12, 2018 at 2:27 pm |
I had to look up her age — she must also have a portrait in her attic. But Hollywood fantasies aside, I do prefer age-comparable relationships unless one of the things being thematized specifically is the age difference.
LikeLike
Servetus said this on June 12, 2018 at 3:50 pm |
I’ve been so side tracked with this, and still working on, now a pared down First Take of the film – but I think I can say the same thing about Sandra Bullock that you’ve often said about Martin Freeman – basically, she was playing Sandra Bullock or a similar role to others.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Perry said this on June 12, 2018 at 3:56 pm |
I think she does that in a lot of her films. It’s interesting — I liked her in this one, I liked her in the one about the subway token seller, I hated her in the one about the homeless football player. Whereas Freeman consistently irritates me.
I had wondered what had happened to your review!
LikeLike
Servetus said this on June 12, 2018 at 4:20 pm |
The same as usual – I get side-tracked, not sure of the direction I want not take,not sure whether i should spoil or not, not sure if I should be as critical as I feel, not sure if I should waste my time and then just receive a handful of responses from friends who think they need to chow me they’ve read. Not sure. Not sure. But I have a draft with 1200 words right now. And – this conflict with Schwartz also distracted me and got in the way f my decision no to read other fan posts until I posted.
Bullock – I also didn’t like here in that movie- I think The Right Side, or some side, anyway. I think she does RomCom well – she was funny in the Miss USA film ( forgot the name but it’s been on this month) – if you like RomComs, that’s where she mostly fits in – there’s one with HUgh Grant and other with someone else, etc. etc. Not too much hard drama.
LikeLike
Perry said this on June 12, 2018 at 4:34 pm |
fwiw: write for yourself first. To thine own self be true and so on.
LikeLike
Servetus said this on June 12, 2018 at 4:41 pm |
Yeah well, 500 words on my history with that Museum, IDK.
LikeLike
Perry said this on June 12, 2018 at 4:50 pm |
well, that would be interesting as a separate post anyway.
LikeLike
Servetus said this on June 12, 2018 at 5:34 pm
I don’t believe Richard conceded anything. My late father used to tell me, “If someone tells you that you are ugly, say, “You’re right”, then smile and walk away. Why? Because you are not ugly and by saying that, you don’t take the bait and the argument is over before it begins.”
Was Richard offended? Probably. Does he think he’s not a good actor, that he didn’t do his best in the role? Please! I know where I excel and am 99.9% sure Richard knows his strengths too.
LikeLike
Violet said this on June 11, 2018 at 8:02 pm |
And if he’d said, “You’re right!” and walked away, I might agree with your reading of the situation. That’s not what he said, though.
LikeLike
Servetus said this on June 11, 2018 at 8:03 pm |
No, but I believe he knows he’s a Master Actor and his reply was his way of saying FU in a classy way, since he’s very careful about showing good manners in public. He will never forget nor forgive the slight, though, because he’s a Leo.
LikeLike
Violet said this on June 13, 2018 at 2:25 am |
Except see discussion above — at least half the audience didn’t understand it. But whatever. His life, not mine.
LikeLike
Servetus said this on June 13, 2018 at 7:11 am |
No A-lister for that role would have been able to save Oceans 8. Hubby and I saw the movie this weekend. He is a huge fan of all the previous ocean movies. He almost fell asleep during the first half of the movie. It wasn’t terrible. It was just “meh”. Just my opinion…..
LikeLiked by 1 person
SFgal said this on June 12, 2018 at 2:27 am |
I think about a quarter of the people who saw it didn’t like it especially. (I haven’t looked at Rotten Tomatoes yet.) To me it was very much directed at women — but as I haven’t seen the previous movies in the franchise I can’t comment on that.
LikeLike
Servetus said this on June 12, 2018 at 3:25 am |
RA fans know her name now. they’ve visited her Twitter account to see who she is. many of them will still be responding and retweeting about this weeks from now. Richard helped that happen. as a RA fan, did I feel mad or hurt on his behalf that she would say something like that so publicly? of course I did. but I saw it for what it was, just like the trolls who randomly insult actors on social media and wait for the fans to defend him. when Richard responded, he entered the game, and I really wish he wouldn’t have done that. to me, as an American, I see it as a weakness. he really needs to grow a thicker skin. to me, as a fan who is now wandering outside of the fandom, this is a big reason why.
LikeLiked by 2 people
KellyDS said this on June 12, 2018 at 1:58 pm |
yeah, I was thinking this last night. He called attention to it and now any fan who hadn’t noticed it before (it was more or less limited to the core of regular tweeps) will comment. I’ve had more likes on my tweets about this than about any tweet in my entire history. And it won’t wear off quickly.
agree re: thicker skin and this not being an attractive feature. As someone on another discussion site put it trenchantly and accurately, “why did he even take the trouble to respond to this shitstain?” Fans are going to be fans and if his point was to calm fans down, IMO, he’d have been better off just to wait for it to go away. But that’s a pattern we’ve seen before: he can’t make himself stay out of the fandom and in this sense Twitter probably encourages some of his worst impulses.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Servetus said this on June 12, 2018 at 4:24 pm |
I’m going to restart the shame conversion down here because we’ve exceeded the thread limit above.
Sparkhouse1: the example of DJT is a good one, because it illustrates to me one of the fundamental errors of politics at the moment: there’s a gaggle of journalists who spend all their time shaming him about stupid shit which he is completely ignoring. I agree: he has no shame. To me, that means what is called for is political action and not talk. Feeling superior to him may give those people a sense of satisfaction, but it’s ineffective as a strategy for changing behavior and in my opinion, dangerous.
Bolly: Boston is an extreme example of American abrasiveness, but yes. re: the tree — not whether it fell, but did it make a sound? re: British manners — I have mixed feelings. I come from a part of the U.S. which is extremely polite and places a huge emphasis on having no open conflict of any kind and being friendly at all costs. (Like I was at a gas station the other day and the clerk was busy stocking something and a line of six people formed before we all agreed that someone could ask him to come to the front and operate the cash register.) So in some ways, I find the UK sympathetic. But what I don’t like — and this has happened to me enough, and I’ve seen it happen to others enough to know it’s a thing — is when I’m being perfectly polite by my own lights, and yet am treated passive aggressively for hours because I’ve broken a rule I didn’t know about. Example from my own life: I’m at an academic banquet and a butter dish has gone all around the table and missed me. After waiting a while to see what will happen, I say to my neighbor at table, pardon me, but could you please pass the butter? For the remainder of the meal, every time the food comes up, or anything goes around the table, someone brings up the topic of butter and offers me some or even passes it to me when I didn’t ask. Okay, i get it, I’ve somehow transgressed a cultural rule. You could just say that and tell me what the rule is. Am I not supposed to ask for butter specifically? Or any food? Or is “pardon me” the wrong expression for asking for something at table? Or, I guess, if you’re a Brit, (some of) you can’t tell me and you’d prefer to make fun of me for the entire meal.
I guess that got a little long and I didn’t realize how much these incidents are still bothering me — but I guess the sum up is that I’ve regularly observed Brits using their manners to be intentionally rude, and I find this the height of unkindness — indeed, a contradiction of the purpose of manners, period.
LikeLike
Servetus said this on June 12, 2018 at 4:04 pm |
You absolutely did not break any etiquette rules asking for the butter! Or in the manner you asked for the butter – if one or more were making such a issue about it they were just just jerks, plain and simple and definitely lacking in manners or social graces. Academic banquettes sound brutal. I see your point of using manners to belittle others though and yes, it is extremely rude. I was always sure to tell my daughters that pointing out others lack of manners was just as bad, if not worse, than the other persons lack of manners. Eg. – publicly calling out “gross, stop talking with you mouth full” thereby humiliating someone in front of everyone else is a serious breach of etiquette in my mind as it is hurtful and, to me, the basic principle of good manners is to avoid harming others – they are not just to make yourself look good.
LikeLiked by 1 person
sparkhouse1 said this on June 12, 2018 at 4:44 pm |
Thanks. I do think, to be fair, that it did have something to do with me being a lone American at a table of Cambridge academics. I do have UK academic friends, but there is something about academic conferences that brings out the worst in people, because they feel insecure, and I’ve met most of my UK friends elsewhere. But I’ve seen other stuff like this. It’s even in Spooks — I wrote this post a long time ago. To see what I’m talking about, skip down to the paragraph of Lucas biting off his glove: https://meandrichard.wordpress.com/2010/06/27/ugly-american-part-3-anti-americanism-as-plot-element/
LikeLike
Servetus said this on June 13, 2018 at 7:16 am |
What you experienced was horrible Servetus – and no, I don’t know what you did ‘wrong’ but there is no excuse for that kind of behaviour. No wonder you feel sore about that.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Bollyknickers said this on June 13, 2018 at 12:06 am |
Thanks. I probably did do something wrong — I just never found out what it was.
LikeLike
Servetus said this on June 13, 2018 at 7:17 am |
Did she have a point? I don’t think so. There are enough big name stars in the movie for box office draw and a bankable man isn’t necessary here. I think it actually makes it more interesting to have less well-known faces along side the bigger names.
My first reaction in seeing Armitage’s tweet was that he took her “criticism” to heart. But I actually think he meant it as a way to call her out, with a bit of humour in the emoji. And it seemed to have worked in that she responded apologetically. But only because she was caught. Did you see the final tweet stating that after reviewing Wikipedia, she realizes she is the “ jerk on Twitter “ who “mocked the world’s most humble saint”? And then clarified that she is not being sarcastic. https://mobile.twitter.com/DanaSchwartzzz/status/1006414582955458560
LikeLiked by 1 person
SueBC said this on June 12, 2018 at 9:07 pm |
By the way, that’s not to say that I think Armitage is a saint, nor do I think she does. But if it’s truly not sarcasm, then it seems like she is admitting her ignorance in a hyperbolic fashion.
LikeLike
SueBC said this on June 13, 2018 at 3:37 am |
I could be sympathetic in that people often have a hard time telling when I’m being sarcastic, and once you start down that path in a conversation, you need a reboot before people can understand you as speaking sincerely. But I’m not sure that she ever intended to. If she’d just quit after her first tweet yesterday apologizing, she’d have been fine, but then the joke makes it look like she can’t stop. (I find this interesting, because I’m someone who jokes when she’s angry and I get the whole vibe of “I need to stop saying this stuff but I can’t”, I totally understand that — but she doesn’t give the impression that she wants to stop.)
LikeLiked by 1 person
Servetus said this on June 13, 2018 at 7:29 am |
Yeah, you may be right. She has sure carried this on for a while. I suppose her followers like her attitude. They can go right ahead and enjoy it.
LikeLiked by 1 person
SueBC said this on June 13, 2018 at 6:17 pm |
If you assume the point was to make women happy with age appropriate / maturity commensurate arm candy, that would be an argument for someone potentially even less known that Armitage.
I did see the second tweet this morning and had kind of decided to drop it, but I see it went on all day, so I added them all to the blog.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Servetus said this on June 13, 2018 at 7:26 am |