Why In the USA Was There Massive Stigma Against TV Acting Unlike Rest of World?
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Film General
LizTaylorLover — 2 years ago(July 08, 2023 04:50 AM)
It seems an echoed belief on the internet that TV was seen as the backwaters of the entertainment and that only the losers of the acting industry go to TV. That it was backup for former movie stars whose careers were stagnating, the last spot for people who could not launch a career in film and live theatre, and the starting point for people with minimal, if no prior professional acting experience, esp children.
And that for a long time acting on TV was so hilariously bad and that the gap with the acting of movies was very very wide. That the best TV actors were terrible if they tried feature length films or even just made for TV movies. And that the reason George Clooney was so significant to film history was that he was the first actor who came from a TV background to make it as a full time cinema actor in real Hollywood production and not just B movie roles as well as the biggest example of someone who made it to the top of the A List from the small screen…………
However someone sent me a PM in response to a post on Buffy the Vampire Slayer's Subforum on Reddit I participated in.
Saw your comments along with others about SMG not having a great career post-Buffy and how she attempted Hollywoods s well as comments on Boreanaz trying movies out….. So I had to send this.
A lot of old Telenovelas (in particular from Mexico and Argentina) had a lot of movie stars acting in them including a few A listers in the Latin America region and British TV even earlier than the Charlie's Angels day had some top actors star in it (esp since it seems in the UK there is no dividing line between TV, live theater, and cinema as there seems to be in North America)……..
I mean Timothy Dalton was the leading Shakespearan actor for a time in his career (not to mention he later became James Bond!) and he gives a phenomenal performance in the 1980s Jane Eyre TV show, giving the best Rochester ever and god even relative unknowns like Anthony Higgins gives outstanding performances in various BBC roles (just go watch The Eagle of the Ninth which is available in full). Higgins and other primary TV actors have no problem getting good careers in cinema even if they did not make the A list and actually do both full time with some adding live theater in between.
Don't get me started on nationally produced TV outside of the West such as Japan's Samurai epics and the various stuff that are government sponsored in Turkey even around the same time The Brady Bunch was running. The acting is Oscar worthy and A Listers in the countries were given roles.
Even strictly TV actors in many countries where there is a big gap in quality (esp writing) have acted in serious movie roles and gave great performances even being at B and sometimes D list act and its more common before the 90s to see TV actors outside of English speaking counties to become full time movie stars or even A Listers…..
I mean did you know Salma Hayek started out in the 80s as Telenovela actress before moving onto Dusk Till Dawn when she immigrated to the USA? It seems she and her fellow co-stars on these cheap productions had no problems moving onto to cinema full time and actually dd a mix of both serious films and soap opera TV.
And indeed many Latinas who immigrated to the USA in recent years and are now popular as move stars such as Ana De La Reguera all stared as popular Telenovela stars before moving primarily to cinema in their own country just like Salma did (though they still continued acting on TV shows before immigrating to the USA as seen with La Reguera).
I responded with a and he pointed me to an another conversation.
I'm 37 years old and can remember when television used to show stuff from before I was born quite regularly. I'm also in the middle of watching a series from 1991 called GBH and the acting in it is quite excellent.
Every era has "good" and "bad" acting. Nonetheless, I am suggesting that proceeding on the premise that the past was bad based on literally the worst shows on television from one culture only is extremely faulty.
Your responses strike me as fairly ignorant of anything beyond your immediate context, so let me help you out. In Britain and Europe, we actually have a much longer history of producing quality television than the USA. In Germany there is Heimat, Berlin Alexanderplatz, World on a Wire, and even network shows like Tatort. Britain has had countless, including its full Shakespeare revival from 78-85 and multiple 'TV play' strands, where the best writers from theatre and television would work with the best actors and directors that would go on to fame in cinema (Loach, Greengrass, Watkins, Clarke, Leigh, Frears, Kotcheff, Apted, Joffe, Ove). Poland produced Dekalog for approximately $10k per episode and it absolutely kills anything made today on practically every level.
If you want to argue that American network television has improved in some measure then go ahead, but that doesn't speak for the world. Personally I don't see a whole lot of