#bankable star

[pynkhues]

Why do you think there are not many new faces in film/Tv anymore it seems like there is a common list of actors always used for the main stream stories. Do you agree with this? And do you have any thoughts on why this always happens. Like I’m sure auditioning happens still but I wonder if there’s always a select group of actors they choose from. Like I feel like I always see Timothy/ Jacob/ Zendaya etc

Mm, I mean, I kind of disagree with your proposition, anon? I think we're in a huge state of flux right now with mainstream stars with actors like Jenna Ortega, Ayo Edebiri, Cailee Spainey, Daisy Edgar-Jones, Margaret Qualley, Glenn Powell and even Jacob Elordi (who actually is still pretty new star-wise) all on the pretty dramatic rise.

That said, yes, name recognition has always mattered when it comes to films regardless of how mainstream they are. It's actually more about production and distribution than it is about anything else. Investors want a return on their investment when financing films, which means they want stars with proven box office draw, and distributors rely on name stars to sell a film to the market. It's not a perfect system by any stretch of the imagination, but it's basically the way it's always been within the studio system (although I do think it's worse now).

Name actors are still the way most films get bankrolled because they ultimately are the public face of it, for better and for worse.

[conradrasputin]

[navree]

mandy patinkin seems like a genuinely good guy but i remained baffled by the fact that he signed on to do the serial killer show and then promptly ghosted the entirety of production two years later because the serial killer show just had too many serial killers

[marisatomay]

Glorious morning getting to explain the origin of the term “A List” to a friend who did not know that there used to be an actual Annual List of Bankable Movie Stars

[ohgaylor]

In 2006, the year Taylor Swift released her first single, a closeted country singer named Chely Wright, then 35, held a 9-millimeter pistol to her mouth. Queer identity was still taboo enough in mainstream America that speaking about her love for another woman would have spelled the end of a country music career. But in suppressing her identity, Ms. Wright had risked her life.

In 2010, she came out to the public, releasing a confessional memoir, “Like Me,” in which she wrote that country music was characterized by culturally enforced closeting, where queer stars would be seen as unworthy of investment unless they lied about their lives. “Country music,” she wrote, “is like the military — don’t ask, don’t tell.”

The culture in which Ms. Wright picked up that gun — the same one in which Ms. Swift first became a star — was stunningly different from today’s. It’s dizzying to think about the strides that have been made in Americans’ acceptance of the L.G.B.T.Q. community over the past decade: marriage equality, queer themes dominating teen entertainment, anti-discrimination laws in housing and, for now, in the workplace. But in recent years, a steady drip of now-out stars — Cara Delevingne, Colton Haynes, Elliot Page, Kristen Stewart, Raven-Symoné and Sam Smith among them — have disclosed that they had been encouraged to suppress their queerness in order to market projects or remain bankable.

The culture of country music hasn’t changed so much that homophobia is gone. Just this past summer, Adam Mac, an openly gay country artist, was shamed out of playing at a festival in his hometown because of his sexual orientation. In September, the singer Maren Morris stepped away from country music; she said she did so in part because of the industry’s lingering anti-queerness. If country music hasn’t changed enough, what’s to say that the larger entertainment industry — and, by extension, our broader culture — has?

Periodically, I return to a video, recorded by a shaky hand more than a decade ago, of Ms. Wright answering questions at a Borders bookstore about her coming out. She likens closeted stardom to a blender, an “insane” and “inhumane” heteronormative machine in which queer artists are chewed to bits.

“It’s going to keep going,” Ms. Wright says, “until someone who has something to lose stands up and just says ‘I’m gay.’ Somebody big.” She continues: “We need our heroes.”

What if someone had already tried, at least once, to change the culture by becoming such a hero? What if, because our culture had yet to come to terms with homophobia, it wasn’t ready for her?

What if that hero’s name was Taylor Alison Swift?

In the world of Taylor Swift, the start of a new “era” means the release of new art (an album and the paratexts — music videos, promotional ephemera, narratives — that supplement it) and a wholesale remaking of the aesthetics that will accompany its promotion, release and memorializing. In recent years, Ms. Swift has dominated pop culture to such a degree that these transformations often end up altering American culture in the process.

In 2019, she was set to release a new album, “Lover,” the first since she left Big Machine Records, her old Nashville-based label, which she has since said limited her creative freedom. The aesthetic of what would be known as the “Lover Era” emerged as rainbows, butterflies and pastel shades of blue, purple and pink, colors that subtly evoke the bisexual pride flag.

On April 26, Lesbian Visibility Day, Ms. Swift released the album’s lead single, “ME!,” in which she sings about self-love and self-acceptance. She co-directed a campy music video to accompany it, which she would later describe as depicting “everything that makes me, me.” It features Ms. Swift dancing at a pride parade, dripping in rainbow paint and turning down a man’s marriage proposal in exchange for a … pussy cat.

At the end of June, the L.G.B.T.Q. community would celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots. On June 14, Ms. Swift released the video for her attempt at a pride anthem, “You Need to Calm Down,” in which she and an army of queer celebrities from across generations — the “Queer Eye” hosts, Ellen DeGeneres, Billy Porter, Hayley Kiyoko, to name a few — resist homophobia by living openly. Ms. Swift sings that outrage against queer visibility is a waste of time and energy: “Why are you mad, when you could be GLAAD?”

The video ends with a plea: “Let’s show our pride by demanding that, on a national level, our laws truly treat all of our citizens equally.” Many, in the press and otherwise, saw the video as, at best, a misguided attempt at allyship and, at worst, a straight woman co-opting queer aesthetics and narratives to promote a commercial product.

Then, Ms. Swift performed “Shake It Off” as a surprise for patrons at the Stonewall Inn. Rumors — that were, perhaps, little more than fantasies — swirled in the queerer corners of her fandom, stoked by a suggestive post by the fashion designer Christian Siriano. Would Ms. Swift attend New York City’s WorldPride march on June 30? Would she wear a dress spun from a rainbow? Would she give a speech? If she did, what would she declare about herself?

The Sunday of the march, those fantasies stopped. She announced that the music executive Scooter Braun, who she described as an “incessant, manipulative” bully, had purchased her masters, the lucrative original recordings of her work.

Ms. Swift’s “Lover” was the first record that she created with nearly unchecked creative freedom. Lacking her old label’s constraints, she specifically chose to feature activism for and the aesthetics of the L.G.B.T.Q. community in her confessional, self-expressive art. Even before the sale of her masters, she appeared to be stepping into a new identity — not just an aesthetic — that was distinct from that associated with her past six albums.

When looking back on the artifacts of the months before that album’s release, any close reader of Ms. Swift has a choice. We can consider the album’s aesthetics and activism as performative allyship, as they were largely considered to be at the time. Or we can ask a question, knowing full well that we may never learn the answer: What if the “Lover Era” was merely Ms. Swift’s attempt to douse her work — and herself — in rainbows, as so many baby queers feel compelled to do as they come out to the world?

There’s no way of knowing what could have happened if Ms. Swift’s masters hadn’t been sold. All we know is what happened next. In early August, Ms. Swift posted a rainbow-glazed photo of a series of friendship bracelets, one of which says “PROUD” with beads in the color of the bisexual pride flag. Queer people recognize that this word, deployed this way, typically means that someone is proud of their own identity. But the public did not widely view this as Ms. Swift’s coming out.

Then, Vogue released an interview with Ms. Swift that had been conducted in early June. When discussing her motivations for releasing “You Need to Calm Down,” Ms. Swift said, “Rights are being stripped from basically everyone who isn’t a straight white cisgender male.” She continued: “I didn’t realize until recently that I could advocate for a community that I’m not a part of.” That statement suggests that Ms. Swift did not, in early June, consider herself part of the L.G.B.T.Q. community; it does not illuminate whether that is because she was a straight, cis ally or because she was stuck in the shadowy, solitary recesses of the closet.

On Aug. 22, Ms. Swift publicly committed herself to the as-of-then-unproven project of rerecording and rereleasing her first six albums. The next day, she finally released “Lover,” which raises more questions than it answers. Why does she have to keep secrets just to keep her muse, as all her fans still sing-scream on “Cruel Summer”? About what are the “hundred thrown-out speeches I almost said to you,” in her chronicle of self-doubt, “The Archer,” if not her identity? And what could the album’s closing words, which come at the conclusion of “Daylight,” a song about stepping out of a 20-year darkness and choosing to “let it go,” possibly signal?

I want to be defined by the things that I love,

Not the things I hate,

Not the things that I’m afraid of, I’m afraid of,

Not the things that haunt me in the middle of the night,

I just think that,

You are what you love.

The first time I viewed “Lover” through the prism of queerness, I felt delirious, almost insane. I kept wondering whether what I was perceiving in her work was truly there or if it was merely a mirage, born of earnest projection.

My longtime reading of Ms. Swift’s celebrity — like that of a majority of her fan base — had been stuck in the lingering assumptions left by a period that began more than a decade and a half ago, when a girl with an overexaggerated twang, Shirley Temple curls and Georgia stars in her eyes became famous. Then, she presented as all that was to be expected of a young starlet: attractive yet virginal, knowing yet naïve, not talented enough to be formidable, not commanding enough to be threatening, confessional, eager to please. Her songs earnestly depicted the fantasies of a girl raised in a traditional culture: high school crushes and backwoods drives, princelings and wedding rings, declarations of love that climax only in a kiss — ideally in the pouring rain.

When Ms. Swift was trying to sell albums in that late-2000s media environment, her songwriting didn’t match the image of a sex object, the usual role reserved for female celebrities in our culture. Instead, the story the public told about her was that she laundered her affection to a litter of promising grown men, in exchange for songwriting inspiration. A young Ms. Swift contributed to this narrative by hiding easy-to-decode clues in liner notes that suggested a certain someone was her songs’ inspiration (“SAM SAM SAM SAM SAM SAM,” “ADAM,” “TAY”) or calling out an ex-boyfriend on the “Ellen” show and “Saturday Night Live.” Despite the expansive storytelling in Ms. Swift’s early records, her public image often cast a man’s interest as her greatest ambition.

As Ms. Swift’s career progressed, she began to remake that image: changing her style and presentation, leaving country music for pop and moving from Nashville to New York. By 2019, her celebrity no longer reflected traditional culture; it had instead become a girlboss-y mirror for another dominant culture — that of white, cosmopolitan, neoliberal America.

But in every incarnation, the public has largely seen those songs — especially those for which she doesn’t directly state her inspiration — as cantos about her most recent heterosexual love, whether that idea is substantiated by evidence or not. A large portion of her base still relishes debating what might have happened with the gentleman caller who supposedly inspired her latest album. Feverish discussions of her escapades with the latest yassified London Boy or mustachioed Mr. Americana fuel the tabloid press — and, embarrassingly, much of traditional media — that courts fan engagement by relentlessly, unquestioningly chronicling Ms. Swift’s love life.

Even in 2023, public discussion about the romantic entanglements of Ms. Swift, 34, presumes that the right man will “finally” mean the end of her persistent husbandlessness and childlessness. Whatever you make of Ms. Swift’s extracurricular activities involving a certain football star (romance for the ages? strategic brand partnership? performance art for entertainment’s sake?), the public’s obsession with the relationship has been attention-grabbing, if not lucrative, for all parties, while reinforcing a story that America has long loved to tell about Ms. Swift, and by extension, itself.

Because Ms. Swift hasn’t undeniably subverted our culture’s traditional expectations, she has managed, in an increasingly fractured cultural environment, to simultaneously capture two dominant cultures — traditional and cosmopolitan. To maintain the stranglehold she has on pop culture, Ms. Swift must continue to tell a story that those audiences expect to consume; she falls in love with a man or she gets revenge. As a result, her confessional songs languish in a place of presumed stasis; even as their meaning has grown deeper and their craft more intricate, a substantial portion of her audience’s understanding of them remains wedded to the same old narratives.

But if interpretations of Ms. Swift’s art often languish in stasis, so do the millions upon millions of people who love to play with the dollhouse she has constructed for them. Her dominance in pop culture and the success of her business have given her the rare ability to influence not only her industry but also the worldview of a substantial portion of America. How might her industry, our culture and we, ourselves, change if we made space for Ms. Swift to burn that dollhouse to the ground?

Anyone considering the whole of Ms. Swift’s artistry — the way that her brilliantly calculated celebrity mixes with her soul-baring art — can find discrepancies between the story that underpins her celebrity and the one captured by her songs. One such gap can be found in her “Lover” era. Others appear alongside “dropped hairpins,” or the covert ways someone can signal queer identity to those in the know while leaving others comfortable in their ignorance. Ms. Swift dropped hairpins before “Lover” and has continued to do so since.

Sometimes, Ms. Swift communicates through explicit sartorial choices — hair the colors of the bisexual pride flag or a recurring motif of rainbow dresses. She frequently depicts herself as trapped in glass closets or, well, in regular closets. She drops hairpins on tour as well, paying tribute to the Serpentine Dance of the lesbian artist Loie Fuller during the Reputation Tour or referencing “The Ladder,” one of the earliest lesbian publications in the United States, in her Eras Tour visuals.

During the Eras Tour, Ms. Swift traps her past selves — including those from her “Lover” era — in glass closets.

Dropped hairpins also appear in Ms. Swift’s songwriting. Sometimes, the description of a muse — the subject of her song, or to whom she sings — seems to fit only a woman, as it does in “It’s Nice to Have a Friend,” “Maroon” or “Hits Different.” Sometimes she suggests a female muse through unfulfilled rhyme schemes, as she does in “The Very First Night,” when she sings “didn’t read the note on the Polaroid picture / they don’t know how much I miss you” (“her,” instead of that pesky little “you,” would rhyme). Her songwriting also noticeably alludes to poets whose muses the historical record incorrectly cast as men — Emily Dickinson chief among them — as if to suggest the same fate awaits her art. Stunningly, she even explicitly refers to dropping hairpins, not once, but twice, on two separate albums.

In isolation, a single dropped hairpin is perhaps meaningless or accidental, but considered together, they’re the unfurling of a ballerina bun after a long performance. Those dropped hairpins began to appear in Ms. Swift’s artistry long before queer identity was undeniably marketable to mainstream America. They suggest to queer people that she is one of us. They also suggest that her art may be far more complex than the eclipsing nature of her celebrity may allow, even now.

Since at least her “Lover” era, Ms. Swift has explicitly encouraged her fans to read into the coded messages (which she calls “Easter eggs”) she leaves in music videos, social media posts and interviews with traditional media outlets, but a majority of those fans largely ignore or discount the dropped hairpins that might hint at queer identity. For them, acknowledging even the possibility that Ms. Swift could be queer would irrevocably alter the way they connect with her celebrity, the true product they’re consuming.

There is such public devotion to the traditional narrative Ms. Swift embodies because American culture enshrines male power. In her sweeping essay, “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence,” the lesbian feminist poet Adrienne Rich identified the way that male power cramps, hinders or devalues women’s creativity. All of the sexist undertones with which Ms. Swift’s work can be discussed (often, even, by fans) flow from compulsory heterosexuality, or the way patriarchy draws power from the presumption that women naturally desire men. She must write about men she surely loves or be unbankable; she must marry and bear children or remain a child herself; she must look like, in her words, a “sexy baby” or be undesirable, “a monster on the hill.”

A woman who loves women is most certainly a monster to a society that prizes male power. She can fulfill none of the functions that a traditional culture imagines — wife, mother, maid, mistress, whore — so she has few places in the historical record. The Sapphic possibility of her work is ignored, censored or lost to time. If there is queerness earnestly implied in Ms. Swift’s work, then it’s no wonder that it, like that of so many other artists before her, is so often rendered invisible in the public imagination.

While Ms. Swift’s songs, largely written from her own perspective, cannot always conform to the idea of a woman our culture expects, her celebrity can. That separation, between Swift the songwriter and Swift the star, allows Ms. Swift to press against the golden birdcage in which she has found herself. She can write about women’s complexity in her confessional songs, but if ever she chooses not to publicly comply with the dominant culture’s fantasy, she will remain uncategorizable, and therefore, unsellable.

Her star — as bright as it is now — would surely dim.

Whether she is conscious of it or not, Ms. Swift signals to queer people — in the language we use to communicate with one another — that she has some affinity for queer identity. There are some queer people who would say that through this sort of signaling, she has already come out, at least to us. But what about coming out in a language the rest of the public will understand?

The difference between any person coming out and a celebrity doing so is the difference between a toy mallet and a sledgehammer. It’s reasonable for celebrities to be reticent; by coming out, they potentially invite death threats, a dogged tabloid press that will track their lovers instead of their beards, the excavation of their past lives, a torrent of public criticism and the implosion of their careers. In a culture of compulsory heterosexuality, to stop lying — by omission or otherwise — is to risk everything.

American culture still expects that stars are cis and straight until they confess themselves guilty. So, when our culture imagines a celebrity’s coming out, it expects an Ellen-style announcement that will submerge the past life in phoenix fire and rebirth the celebrity in a new image. In an ideal culture, wearing a bracelet that says “PROUD,” waving a pride flag onstage, placing a rainbow in album artwork or suggestively answering fan questions on Instagram would be enough. But our current reality expects a supernova.

Because of that expectation, stars end up trapped behind glass, which is reinforced by the tabloid press’s subtle social control. That press shapes the public’s expectations of others’ identities, even when those identities are chasms away from reality. Celebrities who master this press environment — Ms. Swift included — can bolster their business, but in doing so, they reinforce a heteronormative culture that obsesses over pregnancy, women’s bodies and their relationships with men.

That environment is at odds with the American movement for L.G.B.T.Q. equality, which still has fights to win — most pressingly, enshrining trans rights and squashing nonsensical culture wars. But lately I’ve heard many of my young queer contemporaries — and the occasional star — wonder whether the movement has come far enough to dispense with the often messy, often uncomfortable process of coming out, over and over again.

That questioning speaks to an earnest conundrum that queer people confront regularly: Do we live in this world, or the world to which we ought to aspire?

Living in aspiration means ignoring the convention of coming out in favor of just … existing. This is easier for those who can pass as cis and straight if need be, those who are so wealthy or white that the burden of hiding falls to others and those who live in accepting urban enclaves. This is a queer life without friction; coming out in a way straight people can see is no longer a prerequisite for acceptance, fulfillment and equality.

This aspiration is tremendous, but in our current culture, it is available only to a privileged few. Should such an inequality of access to aspiration become the accepted state of affairs, it would leave those who can’t hide to face society’s cruelest actors without the backing of a vocal, activated community. So every queer person who takes issue with the idea that we must come out ought to ask a simple question — what do we owe one another?

If coming out is primarily supposed to be an act of self-actualization, to form our own identities, then we owe one another nothing. This posture recognizes that the act of coming out implicitly reinforces straight and cis identities as default, which is not worth the rewards of outness.

But if coming out is supposed to be a radical act of resistance that seeks to change the way our society imagines people to be, then undeniable visibility is essential to make space for those without power. In this posture, queer people who can live in aspiration owe those who cannot a real world in which our expansive views of love and gender aren’t merely tolerated but celebrated. We have no choice but to actively, vocally press against the world we’re in, until no one is stuck in it.

And so just for a little while longer, we need our heroes.

But if queer people spend all of our time holding out for a guiding light, we might forgo a more pressing question that if answered, just might inch all of us a bit closer to aspiration. The next time heroes appear, are we ready to receive them?

It takes neither a genius nor a radical to see queerness implied by Ms. Swift’s work. But figuring out how to talk about it before the star labels herself is another matter. Right now, those who do so must inject our perceptions with caveats and doubt or pretend we cannot see it (a lie!) — implicitly acquiescing to convention’s constraints in the name of solidarity.

Lying is familiar to queer people; we teach ourselves to do it from an early age, shrouding our identities from others, and ourselves. It’s not without good reason. To maintain the safety (and sometimes the comfort) of the closet, we lie to others, and, most crucially, we allow others to believe lies about us, seeing us as something other than ourselves. Lying is doubly familiar to those of us who are women. To reduce friction, so many of us still shrink life to its barest version in the name of honor or safety, rendering our lives incomplete, our minds lobotomized and our identities unexplored.

By maintaining a culture of lying about what we, uniquely, have the knowledge and experience to see, we commit ourselves to a vow of silence. That vow may protect someone’s safety, but when it is applied to works of culture, it stymies our ability to receive art that has the potential to change or disrupt us. As those with queer identity amass the power of commonplaceness, it’s worth questioning whether the purpose of one of the last great taboos that constrains us befits its cost.

In every case, is the best form of solidarity still silence?

I know that discussing the potential of a star’s queerness before a formal declaration of identity feels, to some, too salacious and gossip-fueled to be worthy of discussion. They might point to the viciousness of the discourse around “queerbaiting” (in which I have participated); to the harm caused by the tabloid press’s dalliances with outing; and, most crucially, to the real material sacrifices that queer stars make to come out, again and again, as reasons to stay silent.

I share many of these reservations. But the stories that dominate our collective imagination shape what our culture permits artists and their audiences to say and be. Every time an artist signals queerness and that transmission falls on deaf ears, that signal dies. Recognizing the possibility of queerness — while being conscious of the difference between possibility and certainty — keeps that signal alive.

So, whatever you make of Ms. Swift’s sexual orientation or gender identity (something that is knowable, perhaps, only to her) or the exact identity of her muses (something better left a mystery), choosing to acknowledge the Sapphic possibility of her work has the potential to cut an audience that is too often constrained by history, expectation and capital loose from the burdens of our culture.

To start, consider what Ms. Swift wrote in the liner notes of her 2017 album, “reputation”: “When this album comes out, gossip blogs will scour the lyrics for the men they can attribute to each song, as if the inspiration for music is as simple and basic as a paternity test.”

Listen to her. At the very least, resist the urge to assume that when Ms. Swift calls the object of her affection “you” in a song, she’s talking about a man with whom she’s been photographed. Just that simple choice opens up a world of Swiftian wordplay. She often plays with pronouns, trading “you” and “him” so that only someone looking for a distinction between two characters might find one. Turns of phrase often contain double or even triple meanings. Her work is a feast laid specifically for the close listener.

Choosing to read closely can also train the mind to resist the image of an unmarried woman that compulsory heterosexuality expects. And even if it is only her audience who points at rainbows, reading Ms. Swift’s work as queer is still worthwhile, for it undermines the assumption that queer identity impedes pop superstardom, paving the way for an out artist to have the success Ms. Swift has.

After all, would it truly be better to wait to talk about any of this for 50, 60, 70 years, until Ms. Swift whispers her life story to a biographer? Or for a century or more, when Ms. Swift’s grandniece donates her diaries to some academic library, for scholars to pore over? To ensure that mea culpas come only when Ms. Swift’s bones have turned to dust and fragments of her songs float away on memory’s summer breeze?

I think not. And so, I must say, as loudly as I can, “I can see you,” even if I risk foolishness for doing so.

I remember the first time I knew I had seen Taylor Alison Swift break free from the trap of stardom. I wasn’t sitting in a crowded stadium in the pouring rain or cuddled up in a movie theater with a bag of popcorn. I was watching a grainy, crackling livestream of the Eras Tour, captured on a fan’s phone.

It’s late at night, the beginning of her acoustic set of surprise songs, this time performed in a yellow dress. She begins playing “Hits Different.” It’s a new song, full of puns, double entendres and wordplay, that toys with the glittering identities in which Ms. Swift indulges.

She’s rushing, as if stopping, even for a second, will cause her to lose her nerve. She stumbles at the bridge, pauses and starts again; the queen of bridges will not mess this up, not tonight.

There it is, at the bridge’s end: “Bet I could still melt your world; argumentative, antithetical dream girl.” An undeniable declaration of love to a woman. As soon as those words leave her lips, she lets out a whoop, pacing around the stage with a grin that cannot be contained.

For a moment, Ms. Swift was out of the woods she had created for herself as a teenager, floating above the trees. The future was within reach; she would, and will, soon take back the rest of her words, her reputation, her name. Maybe the world would see her, maybe it wouldn’t.

But on that stage, she found herself. I was there. Through a fuzzy fancam, I saw it.

And somehow, that was everything.

[chevelleneech]

I hope non-Black and non-Asian fans who might also ship Reylo quickly come to understand that while Reylo did get a lot of push back for both valid and bullshit reasons… Oshamir shippers do in fact get to celebrate some of the hypocritical arguments working on our favor, because Black/bi-racial femme presenting and Asian male actors are almost never the leads in popular television and film.

They are either paired off with a white partner or they themselves are the sidekick to a white lead, and usually only date people within their ethnicity. The latter of which is neither bad nor wrong, but adds to the misguided belief that Black women and femmes and Asian men are not bankable or attractive outside their own demographic.

So I’m sorry to say, but if you are a Reylo shipper who feels slighted or even frustrated, that’s fine. Feel how you feel, I’m not saying you can’t or shouldn’t make posts about it, but white people being in corruption arc romances or etl is not a rare occasion. Meaning, when yet another one exhibits traits that are toxic or not so great, it is fine for people to not like it. It’s fine for people to call it annoying or repetitive, because it is. When it comes to non-white characters who either match ethnicities or are in an interracial relationship without a white partner, it automatically becomes something new.

Why? Because we do not often see it play out that way on screen. And no, Osha won’t be dealing with anti-Blackness or misogynoir on screen nor will Qimir deal with Asian stereotyping, because race and ethnicity aren’t played the same in Star Wars as far as I know, but that doesn’t mean their casting matters less in reality. At the end of the day, it’s all fiction, but that doesn’t change the fact that Black people and Asian (Filipino men to be exact) people shouldn’t be allowed this opportunity to seem ourselves reflected back on screen in the same genre based shows white people get.

Star Wars, science fiction, and fantasy in general is so overwhelmingly white and creatured/alien, that people don’t even realize how uncommon the tropes and cliches they’re tired of seeing, really are. Osha and Qimir would kikeky still work yet not be as thrilling if either one of them were white, because a white woman being corrupted by the evil man of color has very racist connotations, and a woman of color being corrupted by a misunderstood white man is very common on screen. And if they’re both white… then it’s just a Reylo do over, isn’t it?

So like I said, I understand people will be frustrated and want to know how Oshamir is different regarding the character journeys themselves, but it’s not always just about what’s on the written page. The Acolyte needs fine tuning in terms of the writing, but it’s not the worst show on tv by far. And the fact that Oshamir is interracial and non-white in the classic sense, is a huge part of why they work and why people are more interested than what may have been for Reylo.

[missathlete31]

A great read!

Even if the solo photos aren’t my favorite…. But I’m so happy he was included in this group!!

Nothing will ever beat this photo shoot:

[vintage-every-day]

Ray Milland, here 1936, became one of Paramount's most bankable and durable stars, under contract from 1934 to 1948.

[whiskeylover75]

Marilyn Monroe, born Norma Jeane Mortenson; June 1, 1926 – August 5, 1962),

She became one of the most popular sex symbols of the 1950s, emblematic of the era's attitudes towards sexuality. Although she was a top-billed actress for only a decade, her films grossed $200 million by the time of her unexpected death in 1962. She continues to be considered a major popular culture icon. Born and raised in Los Angeles, Monroe spent most of her childhood in foster homes and an orphanage and married for the first time at the age of sixteen. While working in a factory as part of the war effort in 1944, she met a photographer and began a successful pin-up modeling career. The work led to short-lived film contracts with Twentieth Century-Fox (1946–47) and Columbia Pictures (1948). After a series of minor film roles, she signed a new contract with Fox in 1951. Over the next two years, she became a popular actress with roles in several comedies, including As Young as You Feel and Monkey Business, and in the dramas Clash by Night and Don't Bother to Knock. Monroe faced a scandal when it was revealed that she had posed for nude photos before becoming a star, but rather than damaging her career, the story increased interest in her films.

By 1953, Monroe was one of the most bankable Hollywood stars, with leading roles in three films: the noir Niagara, which focused on her sex appeal, and the comedies Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and How to Marry a Millionaire, which established her star image as a "dumb blonde". Although she played a significant role in the creation and management of her public image throughout her career, she was disappointed at being typecast and underpaid by the studio. She was briefly suspended in early 1954 for refusing a film project, but returned to star in one of the biggest box office successes of her career, The Seven Year Itch (1955). When the studio was still reluctant to change her contract, Monroe founded a film production company in late 1954, Marilyn Monroe Productions (MMP). She dedicated 1955 to building her company and began studying method acting at the Actors Studio. In late 1955, Fox awarded her a new contract, which gave her more control and a larger salary.

After a critically acclaimed performance in Bus Stop (1956) and acting in the first independent production of MMP, The Prince and the Showgirl (1957), she won a Golden Globe for Best Actress for Some Like It Hot (1959). Her last completed film was the drama The Misfits (1961). Monroe's troubled private life received much attention. She struggled with addiction, depression, and anxiety. She had two highly publicized marriages, to baseball player Joe DiMaggio and playwright Arthur Miller, which both ended in divorce. She died at the age of 36 from an overdose of barbiturates at her home in Los Angeles on August 5, 1962. Although the death was ruled a probable suicide, several conspiracy theories have been proposed in the decades following her death. Marilyn Monroe is interred at Westwood Memorial Park.

[scarfacemarston]

I wish Bucky was leading the Thunderbolts. It's what he did in the comics and he was damn good at it. He enjoyed it in comparison to having the Captain America mantle placed on him My only guess is that maybe some people don't believe Sebastian is as "bankable" as Florence. I'm a fan of both, I'm just saying that the company might be debating who has more star power and in their opinion, that may be Florence. I don't know what the answer is, but considering she's leading everything including press conferences, that is what I believe is happening. THIS DOES NOT MEAN I DISLIKE FLORENCE OR YELENA. It's just a theory.

[rebelsofshield]

Did you hear?!?

The next Star Wars movie is going to be a movie adaptation of a show that's been solidly mediocre for most of its existence but happens to star two incredibly bankable, toy ready protagonists! And it's being directed by the guy whose last feature film directing credit is that soulless Lion King remake! Aren't you hyped?!? Star Wars on the big screen!!!

Ugh, okay, I don't want it. This is maybe the least interesting Star Wars movie that could be announced right now. I don't know if I really want to spend money to go see an extra long episode of a show that has completely abandoned being about characters.

Also! Isn't it just a little gross that The Mandalorian and Grogu (God I hate that title so fucking much) is announced less than a week after the far-right nerds of the Internet decided that Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, director of the upcoming New Jedi Order movie, was their villain of the week simply because she was a woman of color? How can you not read this as Lucasfilm being like "Oh shit, before we release the Star Wars movie directed by a woman, I guess we gotta distract the pissy racists with some boring sludge."

[powderblueblood]

thinking about the old hollywood au and in particular Steve Harrington in the absolute twilight of his patience with Warner Brothers so being the biggest nuisance on set in every way he possibly can. entering scenes backwards. kissing the dog instead of his love interest. when sound comes in (since Warner more or less pioneered it), you have Steve saying his lines backwards on purpose. Jack Warner wants him fucking DEAD but can’t kill him because he’s their most bankable star

Steve in a fitting with Beadie, costume fitter!reader who is so thrilled to be close to him even if she’s a little crestfallen about how moody he is (she is so so so sweet), and having this exchange (which I lifted almost directly from the mouth of Errol Flynn lol)—

“Do you like to read, Mr Harrington?”

“Not illiterate, despite what Louella Parsons would have you believe.”

Beadie, just about sweating her setting lotion out, “Oh, gee, well I certainly didn’t mean— well, what do you like to read?”

“Law books.”

“Law books?”

“I want to be well armed once those sonofabitch Warner brothers come for me.”

[marisatomay]

honest to god i don't think young people understand what a real movie star is anymore

They don’t! They think it’s a social media flavor of the month and not a bankable actor (gender neutral)! They don’t even know that “the A List” was a real list of bankable movie stars!

[nrilliree]

I can’t say I’m surprised TB Matt was shorter. Even though he is their most bankable star, no contest. Or that they put Matt w/ Fabian. Now it is inevitable that they are going to pair Emma and Olivia. And no offense to the actors … but I am so beyond over the Allicunt Rhaenyra being up together all the time, it’s garbage.

There is no comparison. And zero reason why that ‘friendship’ shouldn’t be 💯 dead in the water.

I'm still amazed that the creators are so naive that they think this friendship could survive after everything Alicent has done. If I knew her, after her pathetic green dress stunt at Rhaenyra's wedding, I would have written her off completely. And then she abused Rhaenyra and her children for years. Her family stole Rhaenyra's throne, murdered Rhaenyra's son, caused the death of her unborn daughter, and Rhaenyra would want to "repair the friendship"? Does anyone at HBO really think women are such shallow creatures that they can't hold a grudge for more than five minutes?

[ncisfranchise-source]

here’s a lot of talk about how handsome Glen Powell is and how he’s bringing back the vibe of the old-school Hollywood leading man. But if you want to understand who he is deep down, just note that when he got the chance to write his own lead role, he made himself the dorkiest character imaginable—one who masquerades as a succession of increasingly ridiculous figures in outrageous outfits and absurd hair.

That was Netflix’s Hit Man, directed by Richard Linklater, a fellow Austinite who gave him his big break in 2016’s Everybody Wants Some!! We’re thrilled to have Powell as part of our 2025 Hollywood Issue. Here, he delves into not just his impressive string of hits, but also the lean years when he was a Hollywood nobody. If he happened to get invited to the party back then, he says, he’d have to smuggle in his own drink in a flask because he was so broke.

Vanity Fair: In Hit Man, your character gives a speech in which he talks about living on the edge, and how you’ve got to have some danger and excitement in your life. There are many things not to live your life by in that movie, but that’s not a bad message, is it?

Glen Powell: You don’t want to take all the lessons from it. [Laughs.]

Your filmography is very eclectic. You’ve got romantic comedies like Anyone but You, you’ve got big-budget tentpoles like Top Gun: Maverick, visual-effects action movies like Twisters, you’ve got indie-feeling, cross-genre films like Hit Man. Are you deliberately mixing it up to avoid being pigeonholed?

When it comes to that, the thing I’ve really tried to chase is a feeling, like, “I hope I have it in me,” right? I’m trying to do ambitious things that scare me a little bit, because when they scare you, it means that you have to rise to the occasion.

You don’t just want to do the thing that has already been a success.

I understand why some people would just play the greatest hits. But at the same time, you get into trouble when you’re trying to diversify for the sake of diversification, and you leave the audience out of it. And that’s where I try to be really thoughtful. I try to think, “Audience first,” rather than, “Me first.”

What does the audience want to see? How can I fit into a role that really challenges what I do, where I’m not settling into any sort of groove that feels too familiar or too monotonous? Do you know what I mean?

I do. You see that phenomenon all the time: Actors will have a number of hits and then suddenly get the chance to make something they want—and they make something that nobody else wants to see!

Yeah, totally. There’s always been this phrase, “One for me, one for them.” And I just completely disagree with that idea. I think it can be all for them, and it can be all for you, and you just have to be really deliberate about what you’re a part of. You just have to find roles that are flavors that you’ve never explored, or just because a movie’s smaller doesn’t mean it has to be unappealing to an audience. I find that there’s this interesting creative drunk driving where you’re like, “Okay, I’m going to go do a small movie for me, a big movie for them.” That’s not a plan.

People refer to you as a classic movie star. You’ve got the matinee-idol good looks, but you also have the instinct to make stories that don’t just rely on that. I think it’s interesting that the movie you cowrote, Hit Man, has you in all of these ridiculous costumes and haircuts.

For me, I’m just having fun. Hit Man is an example of a kind of movie that I really, really like, but also I got this great joy out of wondering if I could pull it off. The more I researched the real-life Gary Johnson, the more that I was like, “Wow, this is a tall order and not necessarily a natural fit.” Gary and I don’t share, I would say, a lot in common in terms of the way we orient our lives, and yet it’s really fun to step into the skin of someone like that.

It doesn’t seem like the kind of movie studio executives were offering you.

Hit Man was one of those that really taught me. The business—as we were selling it—didn’t understand what it was. We pitched it around town and people were like, “Oh, great, we want to be a part of this.” Then they were like, “Actually, we don’t want to be a part of that. Can we change that?”

And [director Richard Linklater] and I were always excited about the potential of what we were creating. It was unique and it was different. Audiences couldn’t get out ahead of this movie. It didn’t really fit into one genre.

To get to create that kind of story, you have to have status. Do you feel that there is a performance aspect to just being a lead actor in this industry? In addition to being in front of the camera, do you have to play a part in Hollywood?

I’ve failed for a lot longer than I’ve succeeded. I’ve really gotten a chance to see other people do it. And what I realized is, I think the trap is trying to fit into the mold of something like that where it’s inauthentic.

I guess what I was thinking about was the New York Times article in which you and Sydney Sweeney talked about playing up flirtatiousness in public, even though you weren’t in a relationship, because that’s what the audience of a rom-com like Anyone but You wants.

I think what people forget about with a press tour is that it’s its own sense of entertainment. I don’t think it’s duplicitous. For Twisters, I had the best time because I’m getting to literally live in a world of trucks, and tornadoes, and the South, and country music, and all these different things where I was like, “This is authentically all me.” Shotgunning a beer onstage with Luke Combs is press, but that’s also something that I had the greatest time doing. That was so damn fun.

It sounds like you’re saying you and Sydney would have to be actual friends to play up that kind of thing.

I love her. She’s the greatest. If you’re not having fun with this job, then I think you get burnt out. We just had a really good time. So we have just such a great friendship and really cheer for each other and it’s been a fun ride to do this thing together.

What was it like for you in the years when you weren’t in demand, when you were in your 20s?

As a struggling actor, there’s no harder place to live than being in Hollywood with nothing going on. The currency of that town is how relevant you are and what your last job is. It makes you oppressively self-aware. Where people can get caught in a rut is where they just want to continue spinning the roulette wheel without any thought of why. They just stay at the table for no reason other than to stay at the table.

How did you cope with having nothing going on?

Even at the darkest moments in that town, when I really didn’t have anything happening, you sort of have to lie to yourself, at least a little bit, and act like this is that chapter of the story where things just aren’t going right. You have to believe in the Hollywood legends of those people that you admire, the people that you’re chasing, that had those long stretches of famine as well. I’m very grateful about getting a chance to understand a lot about writing. I had to occupy different types of jobs that allowed me to understand how to finance things, and produce things. I started understanding a facet of this business that’s really serving me right now.

What type of things were those?

I’d hit random people up and I’d try to drum up money for other people’s shorts to turn them into features, or I’d try to hunt down stuff and pitch people to get a small role in things. In LA, you are really just hustling to just try to be a part of the experiment at all. People are like, “Oh man, auditioning must be tough.” And I’m like, “No, auditioning is a luxury.”

Finding an agent, finding anybody to talk to you at a damn party, having enough money to pay for headshots, these are the things that no one talks about. Trying to pay for acting class, and trying to get better. Auditioning feels like you’re at the party. You’ve gotten past the velvet rope. You may not be able to afford a drink at the party, but you’re in it, you can taste it. But so often in Hollywood, most of the time you are outside that velvet rope. Most of the time the bouncer is not even allowing you anywhere in the vicinity.

What kind of bit parts paid the bills?

That’s the other interesting thing about this business right now—how much it’s changing. The business no longer supports struggling actors the way it did when I was kind of coming up. I would do an episode of NCIS, and that would keep me afloat for a year. You know what I mean?

But only if you’re careful with the money.

My overhead’s not high. You’re not living a lavish lifestyle. You’re hiding a flask in your boot if you go out for a drink. You’re not necessarily able to afford anything significant in that town, but you are able to stay there. Those little jobs, like getting a commercial, keep life in the system.

What’s it like doing a small part in a big movie? I saw one of your credits on IMDb was a stock trader in The Dark Knight Rises, which is a massive movie, but you’re only a small part in a machine like that. What do you remember about doing that?

I remember everything. You never forget the feeling. It’s something I carry to every set I walk on now, which is just the reverence for being on a set in general. But I remember on Dark Knight Rises the feeling of being able to walk onto a set and you knew everybody in the world wanted to be on that set, right?

Even though it was a small role, I auditioned several times for it. I was getting to work with the greatest director on the planet, Christopher Nolan. And you’re sitting there and all of a sudden Tom Hardy walks in as Bane. It’s electric. It’s sort of out-of-body. That was one of those movies when nothing was going on in my life. I was just fighting for every inch. And when Christopher Nolan casts you in his movie, it’s a validation that’s hard to explain. And I’ve talked to Chris about this. We’ve run into each other at different things. I saw him during his amazing Oppenheimer run, and he’s very proud that he plucked me early. I’m just very grateful that he took a shot.

[lightofraye]

Vanity Fair--The 2025 Hollywood Issue

Glen Powell has been featured, and so he shared it on his Instagram and on a reel!

glenpowell: Iconic Cover. Iconic Group. Hot damn, what a year…

Vanity Fair “The 2025 Hollywood Issue”

Glen Powell talking to Zendaya about accents, sci fi shit, and magic camp.

The collective stars having a quick chat.

More quick chats with the stars.

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