This is not a movie, but the post is about an actress, so I think it works for the format. Plus there's a movie tie-in coming later.
I should say, "at long last" we have made it through all but two episodes of 3 Body Problem. More than a year ago, with the arrival of this show on the horizon, my wife encouraged me to read Cixin Liu's three-book series, which is about as heady science fiction as you are likely to find, while remaining accessible enough to warrant adaptation into a TV show. I'm glad she pressed me to do it, because I doubt I would have bothered to read the books if I had already seen the show, and the books blew my mind. The show is doing a pretty good job of recreating that sensation, though obviously is not as effective, because as we all know, "the book is better."
But I did finish reading them last September, so it's taken quite a while for us to get to this point.
And, I should say, whatever pleasure we've taken out of watching the show -- me, a lot the whole time; my wife, more and more as it goes -- it's been despite actress Eiza Gonzalez.
If your "misogynist troll incel" warning bells are going off, don't worry. This story has a happy ending. It does not have a particularly happy beginning, but that charge was not led by me, but rather, by my wife. Who is, as you might have guessed, a woman.
I didn't have particular feelings about Gonzalez one way or another when we first started. She fulfilled a particular type you get in a lot of movies or TV shows, which is "woman who is objectively attractive but does nothing for me personally."
By no later than the second episode, though, my wife was starting to talk about her as having a "stupid face."
Now I have to explain that for a moment. It doesn't mean she thinks the person looks like they are stupid. She means that the face itself is stupid, like it's galling in some way. I've written about this before, but I won't link to that post because that post did attract some trolls in the comments section, as well as some commenters who though I was as troll, and for that I feel shame.
And this term is never used on people who are unattractive. In fact, it is more likely to be used on a person who is attractive, but who has something about their face that exudes unpleasantness or meanness or, in its most benign form, just a certain boring blankness that belies the fact that they are supposed to be beautiful.
Like Eiza Gonzalez.
At this point I suppose it is time for me to give you a look at poor Ms. Gonzalez -- a closer look, I should say, since she's also front and center in the poster above:
Is this the perfect shot from this show to illustrate the thing I'm talking about? Probably not. But I see it in her every expression, because once my wife mentioned it, I couldn't not see it. If you saw the show, maybe you know what I'm talking about. Or maybe I just sound mean, but remember -- happy ending.
My wife got to the point where at least once an episode, she would make a "tsk tsk" sound of exasperation when she would see the actress on screen, especially since they made the poor choice of dressing her like an underwear model even though she's supposed to be a genius physicist. Emboldened by her distaste for Eiza Gonzalez, I joined in with my own, because indeed, I do find something objectionable about her.
Or, did. Found. Past tense.
Because right when we'd worked ourselves up to a particular lather in episode 6, one of the other characters called out the very thing we were talking about.
It's the character played by Jovan Adepo -- I won't bother explaining who these characters are or the context of their interactions -- and there's a moment when Gonzalez' character invites Adepo's character to say something negative about her, because she called him "professorial." So he does.
Here's how he starts:
"You're beautiful."
My eyes rolled a bit. On this we agree with Mr. Adepo, though he seems to be missing the whole point of why we don't like her.
Then he continues:
"In a boring way."
What? We're on to something here. She laughs
"You're like a movie star, but in really bad movies. Like you'd be the bad girl in Speed 3."
OMG.
Nailed it.
The character takes offense to this. Obviously, the actress did not.
How else to explain something so spot on, but so otherwise unrelated to anything this show is about?
This is a TV show about -- well, I don't want to spoil what it's about. Let's just say it contemplates the vastness of the universe and scientific advancements beyond our imagination. The fact that there is a reference to the fictitious but very plausible Speed 3 is out of left field, indeed.
Which means it only could have gotten in there if the actress okayed it and if she recognized some essential truth about the observation.
And I think that's a pretty cool way to take the piss out of yourself.
Eiza Gonzalez must have heard this about herself before. Or it must be some expression of her inner self-loathing. Like, she wishes she were beautiful in a distinctive way, not just the generic way that would get her cast in Speed 3. Like, an actual successor to Sandra Bullock, not some cheap ripoff with no charisma.
But it's one thing to accept a joke at your expense. It's another thing to insert a random bit in a TV script that really does not have anything to do with the moments that come before and after it -- and therefore, according to ordinary script logic, means it should probably be excised -- that cuts to the core of a phenomenon that some not insignificant percentage of the people watching are actually thinking about you.
Because didn't she kind of have to be the impetus for this joke? What person writing a script is going to say "Let me see what you think of this ... I want to write a mean joke about one of our lead actresses that has nothing to do with the story and therefore is possibly inexcusable on a basic narrative level. That okay with everyone?"
No screenwriter who wants to keep writing scripts would say that, so Eiza Gonzalez had to be the one who did.
Big ups, Eiza. Really big ups.
Your face is not so stupid anymore.
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