Sometimes a movie adaptation of a novel I’ve read is popular, and when people refer to the actions of the characters they would say the name of the actors instead. Recently it was with Dangerous Liaisons, and the imagery was somewhat strange.
Sometimes a movie adaptation of a novel I’ve read is popular, and when people refer to the actions of the characters they would say the name of the actors instead. Recently it was with Dangerous Liaisons, and the imagery was somewhat strange.
I’ve seen some reviewers talk about it and I did a web search to confirm.
I am actually kind of embarrassed because I have worked in entertainment all my life and I have only now copped to this. But it makes perfect sense, because
Movie stars have always been “bigger” than TV stars (and TV is always been a bit of a step down from film in actors’ eyes). Movie names have always been more recognizable, generally, than TV names.
Movie stars play a different character in almost every two-hour “episode”, while TV stars play the same character every week, sometimes for years on end. We had much more time to become familiar with the characters, and knew (mostly) that we’d be seeing them again next week.
In the old TV guide, when describing movies they always had to say “Bruce Willis plays so and so in…”; they had to introduce you to the character with every movie listing. But with TV, say MASH, they would always say “This week, Hawkeye…” and everybody was in sync right away, from exposure and experience. Alan Alda was Alan Alda in California Suite, and in interviews, politics etc., but when it came to talking about TV, he was always Hawkeye. We never said “Alan Alda did X this week.”
This is like the end of The Sixth Sense. I’m looking back now and seeing it everywhere.