Gwyneth Paltrow is the left's new favorite actress, like Meryl Streep was for a while. Both their acting involves quite a bit of indulgence in "self-expression". And Paltrow has perfected that in her new movie Country Strong, where she plays an alcoholic country star just out of "rehab" and trying to get back on the big stage.
Hollywood these days is doing a lot of song and dance acts, and Paltrow just won't be left out. Paltrow took on her singing role in Country Strong most likely because it focused on a "serious" topic like alcoholism and suicide, but the musical role must have been attractive.
Paltrow had a voice coach to help her with Country Strong. She does have musical talent, yet she is lazy about it (the way she phrases the melodies is slack and careless). I cannot see her as the bejeweled stars of old Hollywood, who sparkled as they sang, danced and acted.
Classic Hollywood stars have often had (and were trained for) the whole package - look at Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. And for some reason, modern Hollywood is trying to bring that back. But what we get now are stuffy and self-indulgent liberal actresses, who take all the glamor and creativity out of Hollywood, and give us sordid "reality" instead.
Meryl Streep relentlessly uses accents at the expense of acting to form her various roles. From guru cook Julia Childs to the Italian woman in Bridges of Madison County, almost all her roles involve changing her natural speaking voice and impersonating another.
I think all those accents are a substitute for singing - one needs a good ear to figure out and replicate (sing) accents. Streep's biography shows that as a young girl she had regular private operatic instructions from famous voice teacher Estelle Liebling, who also coached Beverly Sills. At thirteen Streep simply quit her voice lessons. It could have been a rebellion against her strict schedule. Such high-level musical coaching is grueling. Or, Streep instinctively felt she wouldn't make it as an opera singer. I think her acting talents are overrated, and she most likely realized that she wasn't as artistic as she was made out (or expected) to be.
Streep says about herself "I was an ugly little kid with a big mouth, an obnoxious show-off". Another source writes: "By high school, shedding her braces and a dark-haired, bespectacled appearance, she willed herself into a dynamic, blond-haired social butterfly, cheer leading and swimming on the Bernards High School squads and ultimately becoming its homecoming queen." Acting provides this outlet for constant attention and adoration.
Streep uses her musical background to reproduce (or recreate) the accents of her characters. These accents act as easy substitutes for the hard work of getting into character. Streep simply has to reproduce (for entire, interminable movies) Julia Childs' voice we're so familiar with from her cooking shows, or provide a strong Italian accent for Francesca in Bridges of Madison County, and we are temporarily fooled. A closer analysis shows that Streep subtly over-plays her roles, as though she is afraid we won't get them unless she exaggerates them for us. Film fits Streep's narcissism to a hilt. She uses her musical talents with her accent tricks, and can be admired and watched by the whole world.
Paltrow and Streep demonstrate what is amiss in the modern Western culture. The newest interpretation of Western ideas has subscribed to liberal ways, where immediate gratification and an underlying narcissism guides many people's decisions. Rather than pursue the rigorous Western excellence, these two actresses catapulted to their base indulgences. Yet, they are not fully to blame. They have been fed the liberal mantra that the (conservative) West is an abusive, elitist, racist, fascist, misogynistic and altogether inhuman enterprise. Hard work, rigorous training, following subscribed (true and tested) directions all collided with individual expression. This usually translates, at least in the arts, to a slack individualism where expertise and study are shunned for personal interpretations. And for Paltrow and Streep, their superficial meandering around various artistic territories is also to hold the bright, but ever-vacillating, attention of their "fans".
