Actors Are Not Your Posable Dolls: A Rant.

[rionaleonhart]

Hello! First, a call for help: are you from the East Midlands? Are you aged between eighteen and twenty-five? If so, and if you have the time, please consider popping over here to help sparklenight, my fellow English Language student, with her dissertation on accent features of the East Midlands. It would be extremely kind of you.


And now, alas, although I generally try to keep this journal a place of happiness, I have to take a moment to express how appalled I am by the way in which certain parts of the Supernatural fandom are reacting to the news that Jared Padalecki and Genevieve Cortese are engaged.



DEAR SUPERNATURAL FANDOM: PLEASE STOP BEING INSANE. I cannot believe some of the comments I have seen on the announcement that Jared Padalecki and Genevieve Cortese are engaged. One person across whose comments I have unfortunately stumbled has essentially said 'I CAN'T BELIEVE JARED IS GOING TO PAY FOR A WEDDING TO SOMEONE HIS FANS HATE WITH OUR MONEY'.

Firstly: Jared has not committed a crime against his fanbase by choosing to marry someone he wants to marry, rather than someone of whom his fans (speak for yourself, by the way) approve. All Jared owes us is his acting. We have absolutely no influence over his personal life. We have no right to influence his personal life.

Secondly: as we as fans don't actually know much about Cortese as a person, I can only assume that the dislike of her is based on a dislike of the way she played Ruby. I personally liked her Ruby, but that's beside the point. If you don't think someone is a good actor, that does not mean she is not a good person. I can't act at all, but I hope that doesn't mean I deserve to have scorn and derision poured on non-acting-related areas of my life.

I have seen absolutely no solid reasons to hate Cortese. All I have on which to base my judgement of her as a person is our very brief exchange whilst she gave me her autograph at Asylum, and she was lovely then. That's not solid evidence that she's lovely in her day-to-day life, no, but I am happy to assume, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, that she is not a horrible person (would Jared be marrying her if she were?). Hatred is a dangerous judgement; surely it should be based on something.

Another argument I've seen is 'he can't marry her, she's not pretty enough'. This is evidently complete nonsense, because she is adorable, but even if she weren't: attractiveness is not a requirement. Even if Cortese were the ugliest person on the planet, that would not mean she didn't 'deserve' Jared.

In conclusion: please stop saying that Jared 'deserves better'. You do not know his fiancée, and his personal life is really none of your business. I love the Supernatural fandom; please stop making me feel embarrassed to be a part of it. I really, really hope nobody attacks the poor woman in the street.



Er, sorry about the rant. Congratulations to Jared and Genevieve, and I hope they're very happy! Have some adorable dancing Pikachu videos to make up for this entry: one, two.

Comments

[darkest-alchemy.livejournal.com]

Mm, they can write it and read it and wank over it or whatever they want to do as long as they leave me out of it, but it's still insanely weird when that's all they write, just these fics that are endless variations on Sam rapes Dean or John rapes Dean or Dean gets abused by someone else or whatever (seriously, what is it about Dean that says 'rape me'? I don't get it), not even as part of some overall story where it's a plot point that actually makes any sense and is not 'sexualised' (that, maybe I can deal with). I don't necessarily mean just rape even, often straightforward rape actually seems very tame. It's like... demon-Sam makes multiple copies of himself to screw Dean constantly and just bizarre stuff like that (I'm sure I saw something about Dean spontaneously has cum constantly materialise in his mouth the other day, very briefly before my brain blocked it out). I'm completely bewildered how anyone can even think these things up never mind find them hot. I don't even go looking for weird stuff but it still turns up. Oh and sex with little kids fic. urgh. That creeps me out no end. I mean something like mpreg squicks me but that doesn't creep me out and make me feel skeevy about sharing the same fandom as some of these people. I end up wanting to scrub myself to get the taint off just reading some of the story headers sometimes. LOL

That probably happens with everything on TV really though. Probably not necessarily the jealousy aspect but people start beating up actors from Coronation Street or whatever because their character does something nasty. Though with Coronation Street it does usually sound like it's mostly little old ladies (with umbrellas! They always seem to hit people with umbrellas) who have trouble telling fact from fiction, so that's probably a bit different to the SPN fandom. The principle's the same though, sadly.