Gina Gershon is a haltingly beautiful woman. Too bad her personal depth and relative competency in comedic and dramatic roles wasn't matched with better decision making early on.
But he hasn't exactly been in the stratosphere of Tom Cruise. Heck, I've seen Lark Voorhies (Lisa Turtle) and even Tiffani (Amber) Thiessen in a few things but still didn't see them do much past their heyday, just like Tatyana M. Ali (Ashley Banks) and Alfonso Riberio (Carlton Banks) from the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. But it could have been worse because there's a long list of child stars who didn't do much in their latter years.
To add on, many have it tough because they get typecast as a character they played that was real popular. The best example to me is Sherman Helmsley (George Jefferson) and Jaleel White (Steve Urkel). If I was Jaleel, I would have left the spotlight for 5-10 years, changed my hairstyle and grown a beard as a way to get away from the image of Steve Urkel. I think he had a show on UPN just a year after Family Matters was cancelled on CBS and it couldn't work because our brains were wired to see him as Urkel.
Remember that not all of them want to continue in show biz. I think I recall reading that about Lark Voorhies. And Tiffany Amber Thiessen has done a lot of work since Saved by the Bell. She's had a successful career for sure. If I was set for life based on work I did as a teenager on tv I wouldn't want to spend the rest of my life living in NY or LA filming television shows or movies either. Do a few here or there, or ones that are willing to be flexible with filming, and then live a pretty free and fulfilling life.
Black actors have a narrower thematic range and time frame in which they can draw non-black audiences' attention. Their most easily written and casted roles facilitate the same behavioral and intellectual escapism that rappers/RB singers, black comedians and black athletes fill for momentarily bored, repressed or self-deprecating whites (social contrarians, the poor and the young). It's off the radar crap that's too cheaply produced or simplistically written to garner any critical or commercial success; but made for an audience desperate and one-dimensional enough in their entertainment choices to watch it in consistent, predictable enough numbers for advertisers or film retailers to pay back the investment. Had an aging, narrowly appealing Helmsley or a young, completely irrelevant Jaleel White turned down their signature roles they would have left all of their career earnings on thetable, in exchange for absolutely nothing. Incidentally I've always found the Urkel character to be the most back-handedly racially offensive concept on television: "smart" black teenager whose intellect is not displayed in the classroom, but through cartoonish, scientifically irrational means that would never translate into a good college or any kind of a successful career, whose crowning achievement seems to be the adoption of a "cooler" black persona, rather than any broader assimilation, engagement or advancement with the majority culture. The successful black businessperson who spews racial slurs and dances like a jackass every three seconds might not be that far behind.
I recall thinking the love making scene was like two dead fish going at it. One of the worst movies ever. Pretty much ruined her career as I recall it.
Wow, tell us how you really feel pouhe. What about people like Will Smith and Denzel Washington? Halle Berry can act both white and black (doesn't hurt that she has blood from both gene pools).
i remember alfonso rebeiro in that show with ll cool j.. thats about it, never saw dude again.. mario lopez and tiffani amber have probably had the most post-sbtb careers.. mark paul gossler has some show on tv now.. (i think) franklin & bash, unless it was canceled, never watched it.. dustin diamond has pretty much only been in sbtb. he was in every version of saved by the bell spin-offs.. good morning ms. bliss, sbtb, college years, summer episodes, wedding in vegas, & the new class. in fact he was the only one to do that.. someone was always missing in each variation of the show.. i always wanted to know why kelly kapowski was gone at one point in the regular show and replaced with that torri chick..
Know that crowd gets into - musicals. Thats where there's currently a Showgirls MUSICAL now! (Not linking, lead actress looks a LOT like Berkley. Just how my opinion about that coincided with this comment.) But seems we've come on another cyclical trend where now the current generation is detached just enough to laugh at the old stuff while still being "vintage" about it. Like kids in the 90's and back did with "flower power" and 70's culture before that. People actually taking the Tarantino approach, but 20 years later.
(Showgirls still gets people talking, doesnt it. t*tties! Maybe not ahead of its time, but still transcendent) I think Urkel was as much the issue that there was NO representation for the "black geek". I don't think it was THAT much "coonery". But I can see how it can be seen that way too. Ironically there's some "blipster" style of dress now with thick glasses, and being teased about looking like "Urkel" isnt too much an insult, just look at Russell Westbrook. So at least in some aesthetics Urkel isnt that damaging. I read a really short comment in an article (One of those TOP 10 LIST articles thats all the rage now) how the actor playing Jackie Robinson in "42" probably won't get any future good roles. It said because they just dont "see how he'd fit" into anything later. We know what that is, its what you said its about the accepted black caricatures thats more bankable and he's not offering that. Though staying on point here, its saying the TYPECAST is there for ALL the performers in Showgirls and other things.
That's precisely pouhes complaint. Black characters are portrayed as cool, suave and charming - something the majority can't relate to but expected to live vicariously through. There's never an immensely overweight virgin next door in his mid 30s who masturbates 3 times a day that demographic can relate to. He also suggests the lack of black father figures translates to typecast role model roles for idris Elba and the guy on the wire, leaving no room for the working class black male alienated by society due to a chronic masturbating habit and awkward mannerisms. The critic pouhe also finds a problem with muscular men like taye Diggs being sexualized and objectified under the exotic niche in movies like Stella got her groove back. Why can't he be just another guy working at mcdonalds? Basically, he hates himself.
Ronny, while too cowardly and juvenile to keep his own handle, reminding us once again that his two greatest accomplishments are having had sex before and not being black. Very telling that the only two possible images you hold of blacks are as sex mules and minimum wage earners. Kudos on still being a bigot, jerk.
He also had a starring role in one of my favorite comedies of all time, the cult classic "Dead Man on Campus." Seriously one of the most hilarious films ever made.
