Thursday 30 May 2013
Jesse Eisenberg in Fifty Shades; Writer's Prefer Self-Publishing?
Posted on 08:21 by Unknown
Jesse Eisenberg in Fifty Shades?
In one of the douchiest interviews I have ever seen, Jesse Eisenberg goes after a young journalist with such a snarky superior attitude he comes close to bringing her to tears. After I saw the video, I couldn't help thinking Jesse Eisenberg might be the best choice to play Christian in Fifty Shades of Grey. He certainly does know how to be abusive for sport.
Here's what the interviewer, Romina Puga, had to say about it on the ABC News web site, after the fact. She also writes an account of the interview, verbatim.
My goal at the press junket for his new movie Now You See Me was to loosen him up and have some fun -- but I should've known better. He didn't let me make him look like anything other than who he wanted me (or the public) to see. I caught him smirking at my attempts to be funny a few times, but he would immediately catch himself and insult me.
You can read more here.
In this piece, the author takes it a step further by getting into sexism and some of the things I talked about yesterday in my post about facebook's new stand on hate speech against women. I understand this far better than straight men because I'm openly gay. Gay men often experience the same brand of attitude from straight men, which isn't all that different from what most women experience. It's not as intense, but it's still there.
Which, yeesh, and watching the video instinctively kicks to my Tumblr-bred knee jerk reaction of “Wow, what a sexist dick,” since Puga is a woman asking admittedly silly questions. Would Eisenberg have given this level of crap to, say, Billy Bush on his dumbass Access Hollywood show?
Forget about Billy Bush, I'd like to see Eisenberg pull a stunt like that with any of the women on The View...or Oprah. Now that would be entertaining TV. Here's a link where you can watch the actual video and see for yourselves.
And why not Jesse Eisenberg in the Fifty Shades film adaptation? If Michael Douglas can play Liberace I'm sure they can come up with a make up artist that could make Jesse Eisenberg attractive enough to play Christian. And like most of the films Eisenberg has been in previously, he wouldn't even have to act all that much. In fact, the interview with Puga could be Eisenberg's screen test: privileged male creep with past issues goes after bright young woman with good intentions.
I have a feeling male celebrities with too much attitude and not enough style should seriously watch out for Romina Puga in the future. You don't let people get away with that brand of abuse more than once in a lifetime. Ten years ago I would have reacted the same way Puga reacted during the interview with Eisenberg because I'm basically not confrontational by nature. But if it happened to me today I would eat Eisenberg for lunch.
Writers Prefer Self-Publishing
This next item is interesting to me because I've been having this same conversation with a fellow author in e-mails all week. When I started to self-publish my fiction over a year ago I had no idea what I would encounter, or whether or not I would like doing it alone. It began as a humble venture, and in many ways it still is.
While there was much anticipation over Goodreads founder Otis Chandler's post-Amazon-acquisition update at this year's IDPF 2013 Digital Book Conference at BEA, it was Writer's Digest publisher Phil Sexton who might have stolen the day, with the results of a survey of author reactions to self-publishing vs. traditional publishing. The Writer's Digest survey found "hybrid authors"—writers who have published both ways—repeatedly embracing self-publishing over traditional houses, most often citing better pay and greater creative control when self-publishing.
I couldn't agree more with the survey. And it's not just for creative control with me. I like the control I get with self-publishing from business angle as well. I like knowing I have control over things like book prices and where the books will be distributed. I like knowing I can do my own promotional events that I think my readers will appreciate. I don't even mind the customer service part. And the creative control is equally as important. I had something ripped from a recent book by an editor that I thought was one of the most emotional scenes in the book. I thought readers would have loved it. And the editor thought it was too over the top because he worked in the ER one summer in college. I had to buckle to his taste, not mine. I had no choice. But I would have done if very differently had I been self-publishing the book...and I think reviewers would have received the book much differently. Sometimes the author really does know best, especially when it comes to knowing what his or her readers want.
What isn't mentioned in this article...and I haven't seen mentioned anywhere...is how small start up e-presses are going to deal with authors discovering the benefits of self-publishing. Will the small presses be able to survive for the long term? Will these small start up e-presses who are all so gung ho that began before self-publishing became so popular be able to draw bestselling genre authors the same way they have in the past? Or will they all wind up shuttering eventually due to the fact that they can't compete with the prices? I have many thoughts on this topic, and I will be posting about it more in the coming months.
The main factor for me is that I've been around for twenty years, and I plan to be around for twenty more. I can't honestly say I feel the same way about any of the small e-presses out there. In an industry where you don't get much security it's nice to know you can at least depend on yourself.
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