Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Unsolicited Career Advice

Dear readers: Yesterday's Bruce Campbell entry should have been a tip-off, because today marks the official start of Domesticity's Hollywood Week! For the next few days I'll be offering up all sorts of B-list snark - I can't guarantee you that you will care about these famous peeps, but I will guarantee a lot of unsolicited career advice, wardrobe wrangling, and lots of eye candy. Oh yes, there will be eye candy. But first...




Poor Anna Maria Perez de Tagle. First she gets typecast as the spoiled Asian girl on Camp Rock, Hannah Montana and Cake TV. Then she gets antagonized by her stylist and lands on the pages of Go Fug Yourself.

And now... darling, don't tell me that your makeup artists have antagonized you, too! How else to explain the "supertan tranny" look (TM Scribe) in this video? Because you look pretty normal otherwise.

'Tis a pity, because her grandmother happens to be the superfantastic Sylvia La Torre - a legendary (though now retired) character actress, on top of being a classically-trained singer - and even Sylvia was well past the drinking age when the Pinoy movie industry started typecasting her as a donya. Heck, even the Fug Girls would've taken one look at La Sylvia's sequinned ternos (because nobody else wore 'em better... sorry, Imelda) and declared them the height of fabulousness.

So then, Anna - can we talk now? Because I still think there's hope for you. You're 18 years old, for crying out loud; there's still time to walk away from the Disney ghetto while you still can. (Look at what happened to Lalaine!) I'm not suggesting that you consider going straight away on the "sexy" route - first, ew, and second, you'll give your Lola a connniption - and while college may be good for the long run, I won't be surprised if you really are determined to make it as a stahhhh. Even if it means taking roles from Brenda Song's slush pile... or, worse, doing the cliched route of "exploring your roots" in the Philippines, aka moving to Manila in the hopes that your Tagalog will improve and your countrymen would embrace you so warmly that they'll never let you go back to Hollywood.

Here's a thought, if not a suggestion: Ditch the Bratz-doll roles and start looking at more dramatic and action-packed scripts - less Lindsay Lohan and more Shia LeBeouf, if you have to. Also, rent Juno and pay very close attention to whatever it is that Ellen Page is doing - contrived, yes, but at least there's broader appeal and less stereotyping. If you can't do it, now's the time to start honing the craft; maybe now's the time to start hitting the boards for some Shakespeare.

Who knows, maybe when you're finally old enough and well-established in your career, you can now look back on all of this madness and think, "Well, that was interesting." And maybe then - just maybe - you can probably discuss working with JJ Abrams as the lead actress in Domesticity: The Movie, where you play the fictionalized version of a sassy Honolulu blogger whose life takes an interesting turn after a trip to the MAC counter...

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