Once upon a time, Mel Gibson was hot. He was a swaggering, sexy Australian who was married to his sweetheart and popping out tons of kids and he was hot. Smoking hot. Now he's an embittered alcoholic with a receding hairline who spews racially insensitive hatred and beats on his fame fucking girlfriend.
Once upon a time, Jake the Bachelor was hot. Now he's a maniacal fame whore with a vacuum cleaner for a soul.
Once upon a time Charlie Sheen was a hot bad boy. Now he's a multi-marrying substance abuser who can't make a single positive choice.
There are so many of them. Hollywood created fantasy men who reveal their truer selves and our hearts plummet more than a little at how far they are from fantasy.
George Clooney remains hot and brilliant yet his girlfriends stay the same age as he gets greyer. My joke is that soon my 9 year old will be able to date him.
I miss seeing these men through romance covered glasses. I miss when Mad Max made me melt and I thought George might one day find a wife and damn it, when Hollywood lust meant more than just he hasn't been busted yet.
Am I just feeling like this because I'm older or are these men destroying something precious?
I was just thinking this about Mel today, seeing the latest news about his ex-girlfriend and all. He was so beautiful when he was young, so pretty to look at and he had a beautiful wife and family. It breaks my heart how ridiculously his life has turned out!!
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with you- they are destroying something precious. It may be that they don't care, because they didn't really have any say in the "image" that was created for them by their managers/studios/etc. But they need to take it into consideration when they go about making stupid choices, treating other people like crap. There comes a point when we will NOT go to see another movie of theirs, or anything they might be associated with. (Although Mel is pretty wealthy by now, so he might not care about that..)
The same could be said for sports figures, of course, but I won't even get into that. And I've never really mooned over any professional jocks out there...
Isn't this just a natural progression of time? I remember when Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer were wicked hot (especially in Top Gun... YUM!)and now they are crazy and turning into Jabba the Hutt. But there are up and comings who are not eye sores to look at, just viewed in a different generational lens. I mean now there are new and young hot guys out there, who will also age and probably make poor choices.
ReplyDeleteSexy, smoldering, sensual etc, are all terms with meanings that have evolved in changing levels of what is acceptable in multimedia. So the expectations are going to have to evolve as well.
This line is my favorite of the day: "Now he's a maniacal fame whore with a vacuum cleaner for a soul."
I still have the rose colored glasses when it comes to Tom, Charlie and Val (beach volleyball anyone!!) although I will admit the rose isn't as vibrant.
ReplyDeleteI cannot believe Mel has gone from hero to zero like this. Although not a huge fan some of his movies are faves. Alec Baldwin is another - after that phone call to his daughter, even the sight of him in a uniform can't quite bring back the adoration to where it was.
As L said, management/studios build a persona for these people and expect the actor to stick to it. It's like playing a role. I suppose in the end that particular role gets old and the actor rebels. How many times have we heard about actors/actresses making a particular kind of movie just so they can break free of the typecast they've been seen in?
Of course that's no excuse for some of the behaviour that's been displayed. At the end of the day these people need to take a good hard look at themselves and realize just because they have money/power and have the world fawning over them, it doesn't give them the right to be douche bags.
Maybe that's half the problem - we put these actors/sports people etc up on pedestals, affording them a certain 'godly' kind of awe while all the time they are just human.