It has to do with herd mentality. Take a look at this image.
https://ibb.co/if302S More specifically take a look at this image.
https://ibb.co/fdQoNS I don't even know this person. The snap shot is of a youtube comment on a video about DiCaprio and Django unchained. This guy must be around my age. 14-22 yrs. This is him describing that scene about DiCaprio accidentally cutting his hand. Look at how he is bragging about DiCaprio rubbing his hand on some actresses face. What must be going on in his head..when he is writing this comment. "You are the greatest..Leonardo dicaprio...you are the man"... "DiCaprio is such a great actor"..firstly this person doesnt even know what acting is..or filmmaking is..he might not even know how clever marketing works...but all he knows is this movie made him feel something and since Dicaprios character looks badass and does some misogynistic stuff "he is cool"..you can see this guy idolizing DiCaprio with that one sentence..."he went off script" "he improvised"..he is almost selling his performance for him...do you know how many movies have improvisations/Acting getting hurt but still keeps going on....I can think of one...JACKASS.
This comment is not just one persons opinion..its the opinion of sizable amount of movie fans..sizable enough to make 400 million $ for a movie...this fandom is only found in star wars or chris nolan or MCU. Those people earn it and don't over do it...something like Dunkirk or Inception will not work if not for Chris Nolan...so if fans of those movies are supporting him then so be it...he deserves the respect...Star wars and MCU get the exact praise they deserve. The problem with someone like Dicaprio getting the same intense fandom as those other entities i mentioned above is that film is directors medium not actors medium and actor can't be a brand. There are lot of factors that just dont add up...for an actor to be a brand you have to not take certain risks(I have already told it).He is an actor and for him to maintain such a brand he needs to be PICKED. Directors need not..they are the boss and moreover his campaign for oscars 2016 is one the most blatant desperate pathetic attempt at getting oscar. Whatever happened to performance should speak for itself.
My intention is to just make a case against herd mentality especially when the case against the perceived truth is so strong..someone had to make it. I am just interrogating this whole "greatest actor ever" notion that so many people claim him to be. I am not particularly interested in changing opinions. The fact that there is concrete specific evidence to back my claims hold some water.
Thanks for the response.
I get the emotion in what you are describing. I used to feel a lot of hatred for the band Nickelback, in the 90s for similar reasons. I guess. They were successful, all over the airwaves, and they absolutely sucked (IMO of what a musician/band
should be). In my view, there were reasonable variations of what was "good," even if I personally did not like the musician or style I could appreciate the talent. Nickelback, however, fell well outside that personal bracketing of good and talented. Still though, I can now recognize that while that band did not at all touch my standards, many people did---
for other standards.
I guess that's where the issue is. At its heart, the argument is rooted in emotional subjectivity, dismissing the subjectivity (and at times, objectivity) of other views. I believe it is totally acceptable that you do not like Dicaprio. He has been hit or miss for me through his career.
The Basketball Diaries,
The Beach, Shutter Island, and
Inception are hard to watch for me.
J. Edger and
Body of Lies were average IMO, but fine to watch. With that said, there are many roles that I thoroughly enjoyed from him.
I think your fight is with the public in general. Unfortunately, the debate has slipped away from how a broad audience (in
general) views an actor to
your own personal opinion of the actor. That's what it seems to me that people are picking up on at least. I guess I'm criticizing the tactic and ease of which the goal posts have moved page to page.
I'm not sure you will ever be able to create or happen upon an island on which you can maintain a personally purist view such as the one I'm picking up reading this thread.
All that aside though, you have invented an evil against which you stand. Because many perceive him as "the greatest actor ever," that does not mean that
all people do, or that that perception defines a universal truth. It is all still grounded in opinion. As is your
concrete specific evidence, by the way. All opinion within the vacuum of each case. And while you can cite rational examples to make your cases, it is still very
irrational to dismiss other, equally compelling, arguments to the contrary.
People have different opinions for a very wide variety of reasons. Period. And that's just something you eventually learn to live with. That, or climb a clock tower one day in a psychotic break due to the inability to accommodate for the variance in the
subjective opinions of others.
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