Is Casey Mulligan thinner-skinned than Tom Cruise? Oh, wait, sorry, that's "talking about her personally" and that's...wrong...now...somehow...
Dennis Harvey’s review of Promising Young Woman was published at Variety. Later, Carey Mulligan, who plays lead Cassandra Thomas, suggested that Harvey’s review didn’t deem her ‘hot’ enough for the role and that he suggested Margot Robbie, who was a producer on the film, would have been a better choice.
Is that...true? Nope! Mulligan doubled down on her Big Lie though:
I feel it’s important that criticism is constructive. I think it’s important that we are looking at the right things when it comes to work, and we’re looking at the art, and we’re looking at the performance and the way that a film is made. And I don’t think that goes to the appearance of an actor or your personal preference for what an actor does or doesn’t look like, which it felt that that article did.
When did this start? After all, Harvey's review (which you can still read, perhaps, though no guarantee it hasn't been edited to fit the new Eastasia Paradigm) doesn't contain anything that hasn't been said about media works or the actors/actresses within for centuries:
Whereas with this star, Cassie wears her pickup-bait gear like bad drag; even her long blonde hair seems a put-on. The flat American accent she delivers in her lowest voice register likewise seems a bit meta, though it’s not quite clear what the quote marks around this performance signify. Still, like everything here, this turn is skillful, entertaining and challenging, even when the eccentric method obscures the precise message.
The concept that Harvey was expressing, which has been known since the beginning of the dramatic work, is miscast. He believes that Mulligan was miscast in this role, and therefore the believability of the film takes a hit. Notice that the word "hot" doesn't make an appearance: in fact, no discussion of her appearance actually takes place. How you "wear" an article of clothing is a known thing in fashion: models are routinely selected for precisely this purpose. In the movie, the character is supposed to be acting as bait, pretending to be a lush: in order for the role to be believable, you have to believe that the pickup gear wasn't something you were just wearing in order to look more like bait. From what I can gather of the film she's not supposed to be the human equivalent of those coke-covered NYPD bait cars, but according to Harvey's review that's how she came across.
Margot Robbie, with her patented "adorable bad girl" airs, might have looked a little less girl next door and perhaps looked more convincing. Maybe there were other quirks about Mulligan's performance that didn't make the word count for the final review. Whatever. But now, because a bitchy actress can't handle criticism that any other actor/actress might experience. In between fake issues like "whitewashing", you'll find on a "miscast" list Colin Hanks on the TV show Dexter because he looks too much like a nice guy and he wasn't convincing as a villain. Denise Richards gets her own (common, if overblown) entry on that list for The World Is Not Enough because she "wasn't believable" as a nuclear scientist...presumably because she was too hot? "Hot but dumb" was enough on that list for Jessica Simpson donning the Daisy Dukes. You get the point.
If Topher Grace can be wrong for Venom due to "typecasting", and Brandon Routh denounced for playing Superman without the proper physique, then Casey Mulligan can be declared miscast for how she comes across in a role. Variety disagreed, putting in a fawning editor's note calling her performance "daring" (even though she's apparently a weak little mouse when it comes to reading the trade papers). Fortunately, the National Society of Film Critics was quick to denounce this retarded behaviour.
Harvey, it turns out, is a queer (surprise surprise) so he was perhaps a little surprised to hear that the woke standards of "men can't criticize women" applied to him.
“I did not say or even mean to imply Mulligan is ‘not hot enough’ for the role,” he added. “I’m a 60-year-old gay man. I don’t actually go around dwelling on the comparative hotnesses of young actresses, let alone writing about that.”Harvey also addressed the part of his review that reads: “Margot Robbie is a producer here, and one can (perhaps too easily) imagine the role might once have been intended for her. Whereas with this star, Cassie wears her pickup-bait gear like bad drag; even her long blonde hair seems a put-on.”He told the Guardian, “Robbie is a producer on the film, and I mentioned her just to underline how casting contributes to the film’s subversive content — a star associated with a character like Harley Quinn might raise very specific expectations, but Mulligan is a chameleon and her very stylized performance keeps the viewer uncertain where the story is heading.”He also acknowledged that he may not have made that sentiment clear in his review.
The Society also tried to couch their concerns in the language of the age, rather than just saying "second rate sluts like Casey Mulligan will be criticized as long as they perform in front of the public, and the option to stop appearing in movies and putting yourself out there in the world to be adored is always available."
Calling for the the editor’s note to be removed from the website, the group said: “Like any journalism, film criticism often displeases those being written about. And, like any journalists, film critics must have the support of their publications when that displeasure, usually coming from people far more powerful than any journalist, is made known — especially when that publication claims to report on the industry those powerful people inhabit. It is appalling that, in this instance, Variety chose to side with that power rather than supporting its writer.”
Do they need a new publicist? I suppose I can pick up my own freelance work...
(John Nolte at Breitbart is, of course, already on the case)
