fantastic four

because my husband loves the comic and enjoys these big Marvel productions, i have recently seen both Spiderman 3 and The Fantastic 4. i want to talk about the latter. it was fine, i suppose, for what it was, but what of the horror show that was the besmirched beauty of Jessica Alba? What does it mean to pay a lead actress a large salary for her, um, skill (that "um" is about what we know . . . she may be a fine actress, but it's about her look) and then do everything possible to mask, hide or otherwise transmute that skill? i'm referring to the ridiculous, frightful blonde wig and blue contact lenses used to do everything possible to hide Alba's dark complexion and the attendant features (dark eyes, dark hair) and make of her a typical whitegirldream (i've found tons of web entries about this mistake). i concede that there is a possibility regarding moves to enhance her similarity to the (a) cartoon character, but this move failed. She looked alien, bizarre, not lovely, and, well, "invisible woman" indeed (how much more weight can she possibly lose and remain ambulatory? . . . this question from a crippled mind who thinks that no one is too thin -- i'm exaggerating but also admitting to my culpability w/r/t the ways in which i see and consider women's bodies, and yes, there is a history of "issues" . . . blah, blah). was the paycheck so high that she was able to look in the mirror after her round of transfigurements and say "i look good. let's shoot"? i can't imagine it. once, on a shoot i did for a local business (for an in-house training video/an "industrial" film), the makeup was so heavy -- the makeup woman *airbrushed* the foundation on, which felt and looked awful . . . the eye's so overdone, the lips shiny to distraction . . . i could barely focus upon my character. and yes, as an actor, you must transcend your look to be your character, and i suppose i did fine, but the discomfort was excrutiating. but so i thought, "this is no career-making or breaking material; a handful of people will see this, half of them distracted, and, forced to watch this will likely be texting friends, doodling, making a mental grocery list, or overdoing it on the free pastry and coffee." not so for Jessica (DARK Angel) Alba; certainly, she wants people to see her in the film, to see her like this . . . it's simply bizarre (the word i'll keep coming back to).

it's too easy to ask "what does it mean?" -- the answer, much harder to discern. i mean, they had monitors; they could see what we saw. perhaps they were so focused upon her incredibly lean physique (aka, her "sexiness") that they simply decided not to send her back to the trailer for alterations. it's simply bizarre.

i'm thinking more and more of not going out on auditons any longer. this is what we have, for women. so.