{"id":667,"date":"2005-07-12T01:24:00","date_gmt":"2005-07-12T01:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/rubber-mask-theater\/"},"modified":"2005-07-12T01:24:00","modified_gmt":"2005-07-12T01:24:00","slug":"rubber-mask-theater","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/rubber-mask-theater\/","title":{"rendered":"Rubber mask theater"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Ian McKellen was really awesome in that movie, but he’s never gonna win an Oscar for it because it’s rubber mask theater.” <\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

“Rubber mask theater” is slang for any movie or television show in which some or all of the actors must emote through layers of latex or silicone prosthetics and heavy makeup. These productions are typically genre-based and deal with science fiction, fantasy, or horror topics. As such, the actors also often have to interact convincingly with puppets and react to CGI and special effects that they can’t properly perceive as they work. Recent, classic examples of rubber mask theater include Farscape<\/i> and the Lord of the Rings<\/i> movies.<\/p>\n

No matter how well written, acted, and directed such works are, their genre nature guarantees that some critics will never consider them to be “serious” works worthy of true recognition. (On the plus side, such works often do very, very well at the box office.)<\/p>\n

Thus, actors who work in such films not only have to contend with the physical challenges and discomforts of working in makeup and appliances, but they have to deal with prejudice against them and their work. An actor has to turn in a really astounding performance in such movies and shows before he or she will be critically recognized with award nominations. Some performers, such as Andy Serkis as Gollum in the aforementioned The Two Towers<\/i>, are overlooked despite the extraordinary nature of their work. Contrast this with movies such as The Green Mile<\/i> which, while strongly (but subtly) genre-based, lack overt “rubber mask” trappings and garner plenty of critical respect for their actors.<\/p>\n

It’s all a little like the distinction between fantasy and magic realism in books. Straightforward modern fantasy is inevitably considered to be juvenile, commerical trash worth no serious notice by the Great American English Departments, whereas magic realism is often hailed as important literature.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Ian McKellen was really awesome in that movie, but he’s never gonna win an Oscar for it because it’s rubber mask theater.” “Rubber mask theater” […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[60,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-genre","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8qT6f-aL","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":662,"url":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/movie-review-the-return-of-the-king\/","url_meta":{"origin":667,"position":0},"title":"Movie Review: The Return of the King","author":"Lucy A. Snyder","date":"July 20, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"This final installment in Peter Jackson's filmed trilogy based on Tolkien's Lord of the Rings is a hard film to review properly because there's so much packed into the movie's 3.5 hours ... where to begin? Is it epic? This movie hearkens back to the vast old epics of the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "movie"","block_context":{"text":"movie","link":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/category\/movie\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":573,"url":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/ghoulardi\/","url_meta":{"origin":667,"position":1},"title":"Ghoulardi","author":"Lucy A. Snyder","date":"January 22, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Ghoulardi was the Cleveland TV alter-ego of mercurial actor Ernie Anderson. The 38-year old Anderson had already had an up-and-down 10-year career in radio and TV when he joined the staff of WJW Channel 8 TV in Cleveland as an announcer. A year later, he was offered a job at\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "biography"","block_context":{"text":"biography","link":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/category\/biography\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1686,"url":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/the-ministers-black-veil\/","url_meta":{"origin":667,"position":2},"title":"\u201cThe Minister\u2019s Black Veil\u201d by Nathaniel Hawthorne","author":"Lucy A. Snyder","date":"January 17, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"\u201cThe Minister\u2019s Black Veil\u201d is an allegorical story in which the parson of a small New England town, Reverend Hooper, abruptly starts wearing a black veil. The townsfolk are all tremendously disturbed by the sight of his veil; his fianc\u00e9e breaks off their engagement after he refuses to remove or\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "book review"","block_context":{"text":"book review","link":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/category\/book-review\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/blackveil.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1921,"url":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/some-of-my-recent-favorites\/","url_meta":{"origin":667,"position":3},"title":"Some of my recent favorites","author":"Lucy A. Snyder","date":"April 21, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"I have done a bit of media tie-in work \u2014 most recently I wrote stories for\u00a0Shadowrun\u00a0and\u00a0X-Files\u00a0anthologies \u2014 but there are two shows on that I would dearly love to write fiction for (and, frustratingly, there don\u2019t seem to be plans for any yet). 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Horror is an emotion.\"-- Douglas Winter, 1982 As a literary genre, \"horror\" can be\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "genre"","block_context":{"text":"genre","link":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/category\/genre\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=lookwhatifoun-20&l=ur2&o=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=667"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}