Monday, December 3, 2012

Better roles for child actresses than adult actresses? Jennifer Lawrence graduates to 'adult' roles by playing the token girlfriend/manic pixie dream girl.

Yes, this started as deleted material from my Silver Linings Playbook essay from Saturday. I don't want to get into another 'roles for women' rant, but it's interesting that Jennifer Lawrence may win an Oscar for arguably the first role of her career where she exists purely to support the male lead's arc (even her token girlfriend role in The Beaver had a character arc for *her*). She has not a single scene in this film where she exists as a character outside of her role as Bradley Cooper's girlfriend/spiritual healer. She is basically a glorified manic pixie fuck toy who exists purely to support the male lead's emotional journey, not fit for even a single scene disconnected from Cooper's story. This parallels the career trajectory of the likes of Shailene Woodley and Blake Lively, solid actresses who did film and/or television work as leads who only earned real acclaim after they took supporting roles in more automatically prestigious 'manly dramas'. Blake Lively was a lead in films like Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and the television show Gossip Girl.  But she was written off as a kid-friendly television star before she played a strung-out junkie with romantic feelings for Ben Affleck's oh-so-conflicted bank robber in The Town. Shailene Woodley was a lead actress in ABC Family's The Secret Life of the American Teenager, but critics only started taking her seriously once she played supporting fiddle to George Clooney in The Descendants. It's a great film and Woodley is terrific in it, but would critics have even noticed the picture had it been told from her point of view? I suspect we'll be seeing a lot more of this as the newer crop of child actresses 'come of age'.

Chloe Moretz, Dakota Fanning, and Saoirse Ronan have given superb performances in any number of films and they've often been proverbial masters of their own destinies in films mostly about their journeys. But what happens once they graduate into 'adult roles'? Will the kind of leading roles in star vehicles like Hanna, The Lovely Bones, Hick, Let Me In, Hound Dog, or The Runaways still be there? Or will they end up alternating between the fairy tale princess box (as we speak Saoirse Ronan is 'in the running' to play Cinderella) and token girlfriends there to be eye-candy and/or emotional therapy for the male leads? It's not set in stone, as any one of them (or all of them) could have careers along the lines of Rachel Weisz, Nicole Kidman, and/or Naomi Watts. But even Weisz and the newest wunderkind Jessica Chastain (who arguably should win the Best Actress Oscar for Zero Dark Thirty) find themselves as the glorified arm candy and/or second fiddle to manly would-be heroes (see, or don't see, Lawless and The Bourne Legacy). The sad irony, especially when it comes to mainstream Hollywood products, is that there are better roles for child actresses than their are for adult actresses. Once she is old enough to be viewed as a sex object, into the girlfriend box they go. Heck, Elle Fanning, barely past puberty has twice found herself playing the token love interest and/or the helpless hostage in the likes of We Bought A Zoo and Super 8.

Jennifer Lawrence is a relative newcomer and has already given several fine performances playing teenagers in films that are either about her or give her meaty subplots to play with (Jodie Foster's The Beaver, X-Men: First Class, etc.). It is perhaps no accident that her first major 'adult' role (never mind that she still looks like a teenager which makes her onscreen romance with 37-year old Cooper borderline creepy) finds her playing the token love interest, and that said role finds her earning some of the best reviews of her career. To be fair, she is an adult who made the choice to play a relatively thin character among the surely many screenplays that have landed at her door over the last couple years. But it's odd and arguably dispiriting that critics/pundits are so quick to proclaim Lawrence's 'just good enough' supporting turn as a kind of 'star is born' moment, as if her terrific leading turns in Winter's Bone and The Burning Plain didn't really count. And it's no coincidence that her one 'big' moment in The Silver Linings Playbook involves her recounting off a flurry of football stats. Yes her concluding line saves the scene from utter implausibility, the fact still stands that it's another 'wow, this girl is awesome because she knows stuff about stereo-typically male interests!' moment that often pops up when dealing with female protagonists. IE - Merida is automatically a more feminist character than Ariel because she enjoys archery and Kristen Stewart's Snow White is automatically a positive female role model because she wears a suit of armor and rides into battle.

Would The Silver Linings Playbook have been taken as seriously had it been about an angry young widow who bonds with a just-released bi-polar teacher whose wife recently cheated on him? Would the film be getting the huzzahs if it were basically the same contrived narrative told from the female's point-of-view? I think we all know the answer to that. We'd be bemoaning Lawrence for starring in a romantic comedy and wring our hands about her traveling down the Katherine Heigl path. But it is nothing less than annoying that one of our finest new actresses is being lauded for playing (pick one) the 'token girlfriend', the 'prize to be won', the 'manic pixie dream girl', etc. She can do better and let us hope that this isn't a testament to the kind of roles that she will be getting offered now that she's old enough to theoretically play adult characters.

Scott Mendelson

17 comments:

Maxwell Haddad said...

Amen.

Hector said...

You don't think the lack of acclaim for Shailene Woodley in Secret Life of the American Teenager might have something to do with the fact that it's one of the worst scripted television shows of all time?

Astro said...

Actually I thought there was a lot of self-healing involved in Lawrence's role in SLP. They were both damaged souls, so I didn't take away your idea that she just existed to heal Cooper's character at all. Her character seemed much more self-assertive.

And frankly so what? Terms like Manic Pixie Dream Girl sound interesting, but they are just lazy taglines. Every role has characteristics of other roles. Tragic disability. Heroic crusader, etc. But this is all a way to avoid the main issue: the quality of the acting. If you don't like Lawrence's performance so be it, but I thought she was brilliant. So did a lot of other people. It's frustrating when the world doesn't agree with you, but get used to it already. There is a lot more where that comes from.



And if you are looking for an angle (original or not), I'm not sure the feminist route is the way to go. Poker House. Burning Plain. Winter's Bone. Heck the Hunger Games was as significant a feminist statement as you are going to get. Lawrence always brings a solidity to her roles. In fact maybe that is the point. You are looking at the role in SLP while I saw something very different in the execution. For me Lawrence was able to take a potential ancillary character and and infuse a tremendous amount of depth and strength into the character. I never got the impression she was secondary to Cooper's character at all. That's worth an award in itself.

Angela said...

I have to strongly disagree. In fact, one of the reasons why I thought the movie was so good was because her role WASN'T just the usual MPDG character who existed only to support the arc of her male counterpart, which she easily could've been if Lawrence was less talented and if the movie as a whole wasn't so well-made. Yes, the movie was told from Bradley Cooper's point of view, but I thought it was as much about her character attempting to heal and grow as it was about his. Also, that scene you're talking about, where she goes through the sports stats, it wasn't a signature moment because she was a girl; it was because her character made a point throughout the movie about how she hates football. It cast her character in a completely new light for both the other characters, and for us as an audience. And why did you find that scene so on the verge of "utter implausibility"?

Also, is your central argument here that there aren't enough leading roles for women? Because if so, I agree, but it also seems to me that you're dismissing any female supporting role as insubstantial and weak simply because it's supporting, regardless of the roles' actual quality.

And I do think the movie would still be getting the same acclaim if it was told from her point of view, assuming, obviously, that it's still made just as well.

Elle said...

Excellent, excellent. Couldn't have said it better.

Karen said...

I also have to strongly disagree. In a world where so many young actresses have to play strippers or go full frontal to get their first adult role, Lawrence is a conundrum. I was astonished that the young woman in SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK was the same girl from THE HUNGER GAMES. Tiffany in SILVER LININGS has layers. She is a sexual being but her character is far more than and not an MPDG. I wouldn't classify Tiffany as any man's dream girl. She has her own story arc and is at times more flawed than Bradley Cooper's character. I found myself looking for her when she wasn't onscreen. The film would have actually been MORE interesting if she had been given more time.


Furthermore I am more than glad to see a talented young actress like Jennifer Lawrence being allowed to explore many different types of roles so early in her career. She has the chops to be one of the greats. I have to say you do her a great disservice to write her off in SILVER LININGS which will undoubtedly earn her another well deserved Academy Award nomination.

Dennis Jernberg said...

It may be done well, here or elsewhere, but I think the "manic pixie dream girl" is lazy in itself, in the time-honored Hollywood way. If I were to do one, she'd have to corrupt the love interest (gender not important) into a life of crime, piracy, revolution, and forbidden lust. And she'd be the hero.

...nah, it wouldn't fly with the critics. The studio heads, even less. And the eightysomething billionaire media conglomerate owners who always get the last word, not at all.

KXB said...

Has it ever occured to you that maybe Jennifer Lawrence brought MORE to the role (even if it was lacking in some respects) than the likes of Katherine Heigl or Kate Hudson would, and that may be why she's getting the acclaim she is (I'm pretty sure she got similar acclaim for Winter's Bone *and an Oscar nom* and yes, The Hunger Games, BTW) for SLP? Of course, that may not fit your starting-to-get-tiresome PC feminist strraw-man narrative; as for the possibility of her "maybe not" becoming Nicole Kidman, we can only hope that's the case, as Mrs. Keith Urban has become a real dreary actress in the last decade...

Candice Frederick said...

yeah...that's how i feel about marion cotillard's character in rust and bone. cotillard is a far more sophisticated actress to me though.

Sal said...

The thing is, Jennifer Lawrence is spectacular in SLP. She elevates the movie. I have a feeling that the rapturous reaction to the film has a lot to do with how insanely good she is. Her performance elicited several audible gasps when I watched the film. Sure, it was Pat's story, but Lawrence's character isn't passive or simple by any means. She's messed up and she's trying to work on herself. Her work in this film is just one in a series of breakout moments she's had over the last couple of years (most of them in films where she is the protagonist), and the reason people are going nuts over this performance, I suspect, is that they found it just that stunning. You didn't, which is fine. But lots of people (this commenter included) did.

Also, Blake Lively got noticed for The Town because she is terrible on Gossip Girl, but was surprisingly decent in that male-dominated film . Ditto Shailene Woodley - The Secret Life is just a very bad show, and she's showed none of the chops on it that she displayed in The Descendants.

A lot of the female lead work getting noticed this year is in films where the female actor plays the protagonist (Jessica Chastain in Zero Dark Thirty, Marion Cotillard in Rust and Bone, Quvenzhane Wallis in Beasts of the Southern Wild, Rachel Weisz in Deep Blue Sea). Thus, I don't think your thesis that "one of our finest new actresses is being lauded for playing (pick one) the 'token girlfriend', the 'prize to be won', the 'manic pixie dream girl', etc" holds water. Also, ought we to ignore great work simply because it is in service of a role that is not that of the protagonist or because it fits into certain archetypes? Should critics have looked away from Helen Hunt's magnificent turn in "As Good As It Gets" because her character "helped Jack Nicholson through his illness" and finally chose to be with him? Or should they have dismissed Anthony Hopkins in Silence of the Lambs because Jodie Foster was the real protagonist?

I have to add, though, that I may not agree with you on this one, but I do appreciate the discussion.

Scott Mendelson said...

My concern is simply that her first adult role, and one that has her receiving some of her best reviews, is a relatively token love interest role. I'd argue it's a trend.

Scott Mendelson said...

"I found myself looking for her when she wasn't onscreen. The film would have actually been MORE interesting if she had been given more time."

On this we agree...

Scott Mendelson said...

I would argue the difference between Lawrence's character and Hunt's AS GOOD AS IT GETS character is that Hunt gets scenes disconnected to Nicholson and his arc. She has her own issues and has meaty moments with other characters in the story as well. I won't pretend that JOHN CARTER is a wildly feminist treatise, but I appreciated how much time we spent with the heroine away from/before she even met the title hero.

Scott Mendelson said...

We're going to have to agree to disagree on Kidman. I would argue that Lawrence did arguably bring more to the part than what was written on the page. But the argument I am making is less about Lawrence's performance (which I'd still argue is far from her best work) but the quality of the character in the film itself. Good actors overcome bad material all the time. But that doesn't mean we should excuse the quality of the material.

Zach said...

That show is train wreck TV.



It is as if someone watched Seventh Heaven and thought its problem was the characters didn't self-righteously lecture each other enough in plain spoke uninteresting ways.

Zach said...

It should be noted that the book it's based on is a first person narration. The only person whose thoughts you ever really know are Cooper's character's.

Zach said...

Again, the book was a first person narration. I guess they could have completely broken from that, but that wouldn't make a lot of sense either.

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