081200 - ABOUT FAN IMAGE
Anakin McFly: Ok ok I'm here.
Read the article, and yeah I don't think it was meant as a criticism of Keanu, just an assessment of his general perception by the public. In which case I think it is pretty accurate from what I can tell, and apart from how the author appears to agree with the supposed consensus that Keanu can't always act, s/he at least appears to like Keanu as a person and respect him - the latter especially being important - which gives their essay better weight than the usual "he sucks and can't act lol".
I like the part where it says:
In short, he's managed to create the impression that, more so than any other celebrity, he doesn't much care about being a star -- and not in the self-conscious, look-at-me way of someone like Johnny Depp, which requires getting a lot of tattoos, moving to Paris, and no longer washing your hair. With Reeves, it simply seems as though, if someone tapped him on the shoulder one morning and told him that he would never again appear in a movie, he'd shrug, roll over, and go back to sleep.
I totally agree. And the Depp comment made me laugh. XD
And not to mention:
Late night + the couch + big bowl of popping corn + The Devil's Advocate on cable = Happiness
^ yes.
Now regarding the rest of this thread:
Yeah, WINM was created because of that general consensus mentioned above, which I still believe was created by a mixture of several factors - including untimely coincidences and general bad luck that Keanu was not specifically responsible for.
There is definitely a bandwagon involved. I know because I was part of it. I was once a fish, because I liked to think of myself as one of those profound intelligent movie critic people, and such people - from what I learnt from reading movie magazines and such - had to agree that Keanu couldn't act if they wanted to be respected in any way. Those who did were sad pathetic masses who agreed with any drivel the Hollywood machine fed them, the ADD generation who thought that The Matrix was really really cool and were too enraptured by the cool shades and trenchcoat and special effects to actually pay attention to the acting and things that 'mattered'.
And then - somewhat related to that - there were the folks who seemed convicted of the notion that if one thought that Keanu could act, they were either straight female or gay male (or bi), hopelessly attracted to The Anu, and that it was only the non-androphiliac people (such as the highly sensible and mature straight guys) who would be able to look past the surface and see *The Truth* about Keanu's acting abilities. (Hence the way I greatly confuse the people who are for some reason convinced that I'm a lesbian.) This is especially effective among homophobic straight males. The last thing they want is to be thought of as gay.
Hence the bandwagon of people who did not wish to be lumped into either one of those categories. It was a matter of personal self-esteem and self-worth, one's own image that they wished to present to others - if you wanted to be seen as sensible and intelligent, you had to agree that Keanu couldn't act.
And judging from the posts I've seen on IMDb and elsewhere, most of the criticism of Keanu does appear to follow from that. Statements like "Keanu is the worst actor ever lol" aren't exactly the most thought out; and their authors very rarely actually follow up those assertions with actual evidence, suggesting that they don't actually have any evidence and are simply repeating what they think they should say if they wish to be taken seriously.
So that's one of the purposes of WINM - to enlighten people, so to speak, to show them that perhaps their assumptions about Keanu might not be that accurate after all. It's telling how many of those critics persist in watching his films despite their loud claims that they can't stand the sight of him and wish he would quit Hollywood altogether. So many of those people have enjoyed his films - mostly The Matrix, Speed, Bill & Ted - and if this had been any other actor, most likely than not they would consider themselves fans.
For me one of the turning points was realising that an actor who was able to portray two so widely differing characters as Neo and Ted couldn't be half as bad as people claim - that's range there, and the mere fact that there are both so many people who claim that "he always plays Neo" and an equal number of people who claim that "he always plays Ted" just says something about Keanu's talent, because just about anyone with a functional brain can see that Neo and Ted are nothing alike at all.
Keanu has been typecast not once but twice, and that's a pretty big achievement in my opinion. Not many actors reach that point, and what I don't understand is how so many people don't appear able to see that.
My guess is that they don't want to, that they've trained themselves subconsciously to only see bad acting from Keanu because that's what has been driven into them by their peers and by the mass media, and possibly themselves. Because it would challenge their perception of themselves and threaten their ego, after all that has been said about the supposed intelligence levels of Keanu fans. People don't want to be part of that group, that supposed hormonal screaming bunch of ADD kids who wouldn't know bad acting if it hit them in the face. That's not a nice group to be associated with, and in the general public's eye, that's the group you belong to if you like Keanu and - worse still - actually believe that he can act.
That's one of the perceptions that WINM wishes to change. Hey, we're the Keanu SWAT Team. That alone makes us cooler than the disorganised mess of fish that come up here unprepared and don't even have a name for themselves. It's a lot to do with image, really.
If we, as Keanu fans, can present intelligent insightful arguments, hold reasonable discussions and debate, and show with actual supporting evidence that Reeves can act at a standard comparable at least to the average Hollywood actor, then that would already give us an edge over the dissenters who can't do the same to support their points, and any casual observer would be able to see which side has the stronger and better-justified argument. If we can show that Keanu fans can too be cool and smart and critically aware when it comes to film and acting, then that would do at least something to raise the public opinion of us to a group that people would not feel ashamed of being a part of.
True, there will always been the hardcore critics who genuinely believe that Keanu can't act and have their reasons for it, and while I respect their opinions, I strongly believe that the bulk of the current critics are of the camp that simply goes with what they think will make themselves look good to others, which in this case is to believe that Keanu sucks. If it became suddenly cool to like Keanu, I'm fairly certain that a lot of them will switch sides.
So, yeah. That's my thoughts on this matter.