The Film Industry In The West Tells Me One Thing: These Countries Must Be Dictatorships

August 13, 2009

Do you know why in every authoritarian state the film industry is always weird? Because most of the so-called stars of the big screen are usually talentless, deeply unattractive people who nevertheless make it big and are presented as huge talents and stunning lookers.

Let me explain: back in the bad old days of the USSR the Soviet film industry was full of actors and actresses, who possessed practically no talents and, even worse, who looked absolutely revolting. And yet, they seemed to appear in every major film and would always play the parts intended for people with pleasant physical features and good acting skills.

You would often encounter deeply unatractive actresses playing supposedly stunning heroines, who would be admired and worshiped by all the men on screen. The poor males would be seen telling them how madly in love they were with their beauty and would even fight each other to win the hearts of the females in question. And the people in the audience would frown, understandingly, and whisper to each other that the unattractive actress playing the part of the beautiful heroine was probably related to one of the members of the Politburo or was a mistress of some KGB general.

And it would even comfort Soviet people to think that strings were pulled and orders given to push that ‘ugly cow’ up the ladder in the film industry.

The same would often apply to actors, very average looking guys with limited acting skills, who would still be appearing in many big films and have all the women on screen fancying them like mad, and even committing suicide, having been turned down by them. And again the audiences would understand, thinking that it all had to do with the actors’ family connections or high level patronage.

We live under a dictatorship, the audiences would reckon, so how can we expect decent, good-looking actors to make it big? The feeling was that it was part of life in an authoritarian state. Black was called white, good was called bad and unattractive actors and actresses with limited abilities were considered hugely talented and strikingly beautiful.

There was nothing anyone could do about it.

The same, by the way, applied to the film industries in Eastern European communist countries and still applies to Russia, China, North Korea, Cuba and other authoritarian nations. The people there simply accept their fate and not really say anything about their abysmal film industries. They watch helplessly as new unexiting stars of the big screen emerge and dissapoint them with their abysmal acting and unimpressive looks.

So let us agree then that dictatorships tend to flex their cultural muscles and force their people to accept rubbishy, unpleasant looking actors and actresses.

But what about the film industry in the West? How come so many mediocre abd very avarege looking film actors and actresses in the West become huge stars? Who is helping them to reach the top? Do high-ranking government officials tell film studious to cast talentless broads and turn them into huge movie stars? And how come these very same broads, who are not exactly beauties, get the roles that should be played by seriously attractive women?

You must have seen plenty of films like that: a below average looking thing plays the part of female fatale, driving all men crazy with her looks. I usually laugh at such films. Because I instantly remember the Soviet days and all those relatives and girl-friends of top Communist Party officials and KGB bosses.

And the same goes for actors: many of them lack acting abilities and yet become huge stars and even – mercy on us all – turn to directing films themselves.

How does that happen? Who helps them to get to the top of the film industry? Are there senior politicians in Washington, London and paris who push them? Or are they related to top party apparatchiks? How does it happen that in a seemingly democratic countries seriously damaged goods, if you pardon the expression, get the stamp of quality?

Does it not mean that Western counties are actually all dictatorships? Think about when you have a minute. In a strange sort of a way it actually makes sense.

– End –

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