Entries in the Category "daniel fienberg"
No Use Lying in the Electronic Age
Oh, Chloe Sevigny! Caught red-handed!
Just a few days ago, the oddly fashionable actress did an interview with Sean O'Neal of the AV Club, where she made some dismissive comments about the TV show Big Love. That's the show she's on, incidentally, the show for which she won a Golden Globe this year.
Well, O'Neal commented about the show being "over the top" in its most recent season, and she agreed with it, but more than that--she ran with it. She riffed on the question, talking about how "awful" it was, comparing it to a telenovela, ultimately finishing on this statement:
Oh God, I know. Oh, God. It’s too much. It’s too much. But I hope the fans will stick with us and tune in next year. There’s a lot of people who really love this season, surprisingly. God, I’m going to get in so much trouble. [Laughs.]
Hey, she was right! She did get in trouble, and immediately announced that she had been quoted out of context, that she was exhausted, that she didn't know what she was saying, and (this is my favorite) that she hadn't even seen the whole season yet because she doesn't have a TV.
Well, that made everything all kittens and roses again--excepting for Sean O'Neal, who recorded the interview and posted a clip of it on the AV Club site. Was Sevigny exhausted? Well, maybe. She kind of always sounds exhausted. That's how she sounds. Was she confused about the question? No, she and O'Neal bantered about it, there was back-and-forth. Did he "provoke" her into saying it? He did deride the show first. But she hasn't confessed to being under some magic spell which makes it impossible for her to disagree with things.
Did she cross some professional boundary by making the comments? Well, that's less cut-and-dried. Don't bite the hand that feeds you and all that. There's a great rundown of the whole thing at The Fien Print. Fienberg asks,
why is it acceptable for an actress to throw a professional journalist under the bus (pretty clearly without cause), but it's unacceptable for an actress to have a clearly articulated and intelligent point of view? Why can't Sevigny just be proud to be smart and opinionated?
Good question. I agree that if an actress doesn't personally love and adore the show she happens to be on, it doesn't have to be a PR crisis. Do you think there's an actor anywhere who would declare, "I am in love with every project I ever took part in! Every movie I made is my favorite movie." Personal taste is variable. What does she really owe her show-runners other than turning in the best performance she can every week? She has to be the show's Number One Fan also?
In my opinion, the most insulting thing she said was actually this line: "There’s a lot of people who really love this season, surprisingly." That takes it out of the realm of "Chloe didn't like it," to "if you liked it you're stupid." But she hasn't apologized for that line. Interesting.