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- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
Fans customized the Wicked movie poster to more closely match the original Broadway poster.
Original Broadway Poster:
Movie poster:
Some fans, disappointed by the poster, altered it to be closer to the original, moving Grande’s hand and lowering the brim of Erivo’s hat to cover her eyes. The edits prompted Erivo to respond. “This is the wildest, most offensive thing I have seen
“None of this is funny. None of it is cute. It degrades me. It degrades us,” Erivo continued. “The original poster is an ILLUSTRATION. I am a real life human being, who chose to look right down the barrel of the camera to you, the viewer… because, without words we communicate with our eyes.”
So, this seems like a completely reasonable reaction to fans making fan content.
let people enjoy erasing someone’s face and hurting their feelings?
that’s not okay and it’s offensive and shameful to defend them.
When you are an actor portraying a character, especially a character that is a cultural touchstone, you are lending your voice and appearance to that character.
I understand the emotional reaction but I think many actors would say, ‘that isn’t your face they are retouching, it is your character’s. Learn the difference for best results.’
they might say that, and they would be incorrect.
The reason the audience have that character and picture to play with is because that actor is putting themselves out there.
they are erasing her identity, the identity of the real person behind the character, and after she has told people that erasing her identity is offensive and hurtful, you are all making fun of her.
respect her perspective and reaction.
what is happening here and what you all are saying is offensive and shameful.
Thank you for demonstrating this concept so ably with the entirety of your comment.
you’re welcome.
I never liked bullies, and I like you all less now.
being proud of erasing someone after is shameful of you. bearing indignant Pride in their pain when they tell you it hurts them is shameful of you.
leave Britney alone!
I have never given the slightest fuck about the real person behind any of the characters I’ve watched, nor have I cared to portray the real me in any role I’ve acted.
It’s a fucking mask. Fuck the person behind it. Acting is not for expressing the self.
“I have never given the slightest fuck about the real person…”
mmhmmm.
“nor have I cared to portray the real me in any role I’ve acted”
can’t imagine why.
“Fuck the person behind it.”
oh, that’s probably why.
“Acting is not for expressing the self.”
yes, yesss, that’s why all actors are interchangeable and you’ll never get different performances from any of them.
That’s why studios don’t make remakes.
well!
other people have been dehumanizing in this post, but you are the most blatantly sociopathic.
She’s literally playing a fantasy witch who has already been played by dozens of other actresses. She’s the only one out of all of the previous ones to get upset about this.
If she wants to be noticed for her face, then playing an iconic villain who has been played so many times before isn’t her place to be. Fans care about elphaba, her character. She is new to the franchise and making demands of fans who have loved the character much longer than she’s been in it.
fanart is valid.
she is not “making demands”.
The actor is telling people that it hurts her for them to erase her face from the poster.
“She’s literally playing a fantasy witch who has already been played by dozens of other actresses.”
that does not make this actor less of a person who deserves basic courtesy and respect.
“She’s the only one out of all of the previous ones to get upset about this.”
being erased is upsetting. she is allowed to be upset.
“If she wants to be noticed for her face, then playing an iconic villain who has been played so many times before isn’t her place to be”
victim blaming.
Just play the character, we don’t care who you are.
shameful.
“She is new to the franchise”
you should still respect her feelings.
Her feelings are unjustified and come off as narcissistic. I would be more open to the idea that she was being erased if she wasn’t on literally every other poster for the movie. Fans made a poster that they felt more closely resembles the original poster from the franchise that was made over 20 years ago. To assume anything else is a very large stretch.
For her to react this negatively over a fan making their own version of a poster says a great deal more about her, and to me does more damage to her reputation than a poster ever could.
There are literally entire sites and databases dedicated to fan generated poster art. The entire Harry Potter series has thousands of posters that don’t include the actors faces and are based off the books. Are those “erasing” the actors? Have we seen Ian mckellan go on a tirade because fans made a two towers poster that doesn’t include his face? No, because it’s not about them and they don’t care.
If her feelings are hurt over one tiny person making a poster that doesn’t include her face then that’s her problem she needs to tackle herself, not dump on the people who were excited to see her play elphaba.
So yeah. I’m not accepting the victim blaming title because i don’t see her as a victim. She made herself a victim in her own mind when one fan did this. You know who I see as the victim? The fan who was probably really excited to see this movie, so excited they made their own poster, and then had the Hollywood celebrity call them out publicly who now has people like you defending her for basically calling this person (who again all we know is just a super big Wicked fan) basically the devil
Literally all she had to do was nothing and it would have passed with no one noticing.
“Her feelings are unjustified and come off as narcissistic.”
her own feelings are justified and not subject to your or anyone’s approval.
her feelings are justified.
they come off as narcissistic only to you because you do not see her as deserving of feelings.
this is your problem, not hers.
“For her to react this negatively over a fan making their own version of a poster says a great deal more about her, and to me does more damage to her reputation than a poster ever could.”
her reaction does not invalidate her feelings or her basic humanity, both of which you are shamefully dismissing as irrelevant.
“Have we seen Ian mckellan go on a tirade because fans made a two towers poster that doesn’t include his face?”
this situation is about a different person, Cynthia erivo, whose feelings were hurt, not Ian, whose feelings were not hurt.
“that’s her problem she needs to tackle herself,”
she is. she is explaining her feelings to the public, which as an actor is very natural.
she isn’t attacking other people, she didn’t “dump on the people”, she is explaining how she was hurt and how this feels to her, personally.
read her statement, you apparently have no idea what it says.
“now has people like you defending her for basically calling this person (who again all we know is just a super big Wicked fan) basically the devil.”
neither erivo in her statement nor i here have called the creator " basically the devil" or attacked this person at all, in any way.
we’re talking about the feelings of Cynthia, and her basic humanity, which you are shamefully dismissing as irrelevant.
there was no attack in this statement, it is an explanation of how she feels as a result of being erased from a work she cares about.
you don’t respect and are dismissing her perspective, feelings and her right to express her feelings, which is offensive and shameful of you.
Correct. I dismiss her feelings. We’re just going in circles now. I dismiss her feelings, because they are something again that she needs to deal with, not me, not her audience. She said what she wanted to say, I say that she was wrong and vain to do so. Her simply “having feelings” does not make her suddenly perfect and right. She was wrong jump to conclusions that she was being erased. She was wrong to call out a fan who just made a poster and assume that they were doing it as a personal slight. She was petty for not just ignoring the thing and moving on with her life. Those are all of my feelings, does that make me right too? We can all have our own feelings, and we’ve evolved a bit into being allowed to express them. However the same adage applies, my freedom ends where my fist ends and your face begins. Same thing here. Her feelings are valid - internally. Making them public like this exposes her to criticism, which I now have a lot of. If she didn’t want that criticism she was welcome to not say anything.
Being critical of someone does not remove their humanity.
“Being critical of someone does not remove their humanity”
I don’t think anybody told you it did.
saying that someone’s feelings are not valid?
that is dehumanizing.
“Those are all of my feelings, does that make me right too?”
you’re still missing the point. it doesn’t matter how right or wrong you were, your feelings are valid and should be respected, particularly if, instead of how you are characterizing Cynthia, she is nearly expressing how she feels so that people are aware of how erasing her makes her feel.
“Her feelings are valid - internally. Making them public like this exposes her to criticism”
criticizing her and trying to invalidate her experiences only dehumanizes you, not her.
her feelings are valid.
you don’t like it, that’s valid too.
but it does not invalidate her feelings just because you value her less than you value yourself.
The same selfish problem everyone else complaining about her merely expressing herself has.
I mean, if it’s shameful to not empathize with someone over the slight of their face being partially covered in a movie poster, then I’ll accept that. Your disdain of people means nothing to me.
'…means nothing to me."
I can tell by how invested you are in this post that you don’t care at all.
“…if it’s shameful to not empathize with someone…”
It’s not shameful to “not empathize with someone”, you’re the one that made that up.
it is shameful for you to invalidate someone’s feelings; that dehumanizes them.
I’m not invested in anything other than to point out your outrage is just pissing in the wind here. And I don’t care what you think so telling me I’m shameful means nothing to me.
Face erasing is an odd way to say shaded their eyes to match an earlier poster.
I didn’t see that one.
in this fan poster, they completely coloured over the top half of her face and her hair, which are very striking in the original artwork, then colored her lips bright red.
It’s a pretty weird edit.
they even messed up the sky.
Horse water drink. Meh.
it’s spelled “neigh”.
Being a public figure or an actor in a piece of art invites criticism. If they can’t handle that basic fact, get a new career or a therapist
“Being a public figure or an actor in a piece of art invites criticism”
being an actor does not invalidate a person’s feelings.
“If they can’t handle that basic fact”
she is handling it by expressing herself, letting people know what erasing her image makes her feel like.
your disrespect and dismissal of her personal feelings is disgusting.
Well I think it was offensive of Cynthia to erase the original artist’s vision and it’s shameful of you to defend her.
Both of you have hurt my feelings, and therefore you are in the wrong.
“I think it was offensive of Cynthia to erase the original artist’s vision”
this didn’t happen.
she’s literally bringing the character to life.
“it’s shameful of you to defend her.”
no, you’re using that word wrong.
you attacking someone for being hurt is shameful.
“Both of you have hurt my feelings, and therefore you are in the wrong.”
If this is true, you are hurt from your own actions of hurting another person.
you are in the wrong.
And thus, by putting her face all over a piece of art than fans liked for not having a face, Cynthia’s hurt arises from her own actions of hurting the fans of the original.
Congratulations! You detected my sarcasm. But if you’d like me to engage seriously, I’ll bite.
Cynthia is allowed to be upset. She made some art and people didn’t like it. It hurts to put yourself into something - in her case literally - and have people not like it. But that’s the risk you run when you make art for other people. People are allowed to engage with art how they want.
What she is not entitled to do is pretend that this is degrading, or in someway offensive. If people were going round scratching out her face from random images, she might have a point. But that isn’t what is happening here. She engaged with the original piece of art by making her own version and putting her face in it. Others engaged with her art by making their own versions and taking some of her face right back out of it in order to make it closer to the original. That’s no more or less wrong than what she did. They’re both perfectly fine. If her feelings are hurt, that’s unfortunate, but it is incidental. And she is entitled to express that her feelings are hurt, but she is not entitled to pretend that that is anything more than incidental.
I daresay Peter Jackson might be upset when people make fan-edits of The Hobbit trilogy by removing a lot of his artistic vision to edit it down to a single watchable film. But if he came out and said it was personally degrading to him, people would call that ridiculous. If Evangeline Lilly said fans were “erasing women” by cutting out Tauriel, people would call that ridiculous. Everyone has their own visions when it comes to making adaptations of other works, and if people disagree with yours, it’s not a personal attack, even if it feels like one.
That being said, I have no beef with Cynthia. She is no doubt getting a lot of grief from racist and sexist weirdos mixed in with the more legitimate negative feedback, so while I think that her statement above is ridiculous, I understand her feelings are hurt, and she is “lashing out” in what is ultimately a very small potatoes kind of way. I hope the movie does well.
As an aside; I’m a fan of musical theatre but an un-fan of the cost of musical theatre tickets, so I was very concerned that no one would attempt to adapt a Broadway/West End musical again after what Tom Hooper did to Cats. I saw Wicked in London and enjoyed it, so I’ll probably watch this film if the reviews are at least halfway good.
“Cynthia’s hurt arises from her own actions of hurting the fans of the original.”
this is incorrect and more victim blaming.
when you are assaulted, it is not your fault that you are assaulted.
is the fault of those assaulting you.
"Cynthia is allowed to be upset. "
Yes, glad tp hear at least one person admitting that she is allowed to be upset.
“What she is not entitled to do is pretend that this is degrading, or in someway offensive.”
she’s not pretending anything, and do you alleging that is rejecting her right to be upset, invalidating her emotions, dehumanizing her.
she finds erasing her face from her portrayal of the character offensive.
That’s perfectly valid, as you finally agreed with earlier.
“That’s no more or less wrong than what she did.”
you mean making fan art in general?
do you understand fan art as morally wrong in some way?
“If her feelings are hurt, that’s unfortunate, but it is incidental.”
it is not incidental, it is a direct result of having erased her from the official artwork featuring her.
that was not an incidental action, that was a deliberate action to erase part of her face and her hair. and color the sky green. which looks terrible.
“if people disagree with yours, it’s not a personal attack, even if it feels like one.”
this isn’t a disagreement. this is a personal erasure. an erasure of her person.
It’s not the same as a fan thinking to themselves that “aw gee, I like the cartoon poster better.”
"I understand her feelings are hurt, and she is “lashing out” in what is ultimately a very small potatoes kind of way. "
this acknowledgment of her feelings are the simple concept that other people will not admit to.
If you now understand her feelings are hurt, there’s not much more to worry about.
people are saying Cynthia isn’t allowed to be upset, but she is because she is a real person with feelings.
other people do not understand that or are dehumanizing her by rejecting her feelings and upset it having her identity erased as invalid.
fans are allowed to make fan art, Cynthia is allowed to be upset by fan art that erases her identity.
I’m sure I’ll watch it at some point, but it’s number 700 on my watch list for now(I try to go chronologically).
I like musicals and have fond, if vague, memories of wicked.
they’re going to try and make cats again in the next 20 years also. no property will be left untouched.
but… she wasn’t assaulted…
correct, that was an analogy of how an attacker is not a victim, a victim is a victim.
when someone is attacked, they are the victim.
The attacker is not a victim because they feel bad or ashamed about attacking the victim.
The attacker is still the attacker and the victim is still the victim.
there is no attacker. nobody attacked her. She doesn’t like it, sure. But she wasn’t attacked.
It’s not an attack. It’s a mild retouching of a photo.
Fantastic typo
how exciting for you.
Thanks, you insufferable cabbage
you things don’t like it when bullying doesn’t work, huh?
when your mob mentality is challenged?
well, let’s not call it mentality.
your rampaging aggression.
but impotent.
That’s it.
your limp, mindless aggression!
… What a weird thing to say
It’s not about her feelings. It doesn’t need to be. When I play chess, it’s got nothing to do with the person who carved the pieces.
“It’s not about her feelings.”
It’s literally all about her feelings. her personal feelings are what her entire statement is about.
how she was erased from art featuring her and how that affected her.
“When I play chess, it’s got nothing to do with the person who carved the pieces.”
what a coincidence, it also has nothing to do with this situation.
The art isn’t featuring her. It’s depicting a character. The fan art is depicting the character better than she is. She’s literally failing at her job and complaining about the people doing it better for her.
Seeing as you’re obviously here arguing in bad faith just to troll, I’m not replying to you anymore. You’re not fooling anyone.
It’s depicting a character featuring the real person Cynthia Erivo who you are dehumanizing.
“She’s literally failing at her job…”
no, she isn’t, and there’s zero evidence for this. being erased as an actress is not her job.
her job was to be featured on the official artwork, which she did.
she is succeeding at her job.
for some reason you are dehumanizing her.
“complaining about the people doing it better for her.”
this is also not true. she is not complaining about anyone.
she is complaining about edited changes to her identity that have hurt her feelings.
she is sharing her personal experience. You are dehumanizing her and dismissing her feelings.
“you’re obviously here arguing in bad faith just to troll”
trolls often dehumanize and dismiss the feelings of others, especially minorities, as you are doing.
trolls do not support the validity of human expression and sharing feelings, as I am doing.
you’re the troll here, you’re the bully, you’re the problem, and I honestly don’t think you’re even aware of how dehumanizing and disrespectful you’re being.