It's awards season. Seems interest in these is waning among the general populace. But interest in the products the awards are meant to promote is not. 'Cause, that's what the awards are all about, really. Promoting the films and TV shows, not necessarily the actors.
That's something even some of the actors seem to forget. (I'm looking at you Kate Blanchett, for your "acceptance" speech at the Critics Choice Awards.)
But there's one actor this year who, I hope, will finally get his due.
Brendan Fraser has been to hell and and back and survived. Numerous surgeries, the death of his mother, the dissolution of his marriage, and --- worst of all --- sexual assault backstage by the then-CEO of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (presenters of the Golden Globes). Fraser reported it. Nothing was done. The organization never even apologized.
Fraser's star turn in The Whale, playing a gay man who has been so ashamed in his sexuality that he hid behind food, is amazing. That the man could come back from being sexually assaulted by a gay man and then play a gay man is nothing short of astonishing.
There is no excuse for shaming over someone's sexual orientation. When it comes to acting in theatre, film, or TV, a gay man can play straight (they did it for decades in Hollywood), a straight man can play gay.
The Kinsey Scale should be proof enough for that.
There should be no room for body shaming, either.
We come in all body shapes and sizes.
