I may unleash the fury of Kings of Leon’s fans once again with another post about the band, but I stumbled on this story lately: the band had posted an add on craiglist for the casting of three roles in their next video which will take place ‘in dockside bar in New England, where life has been hard’. This was part of the ad:
‘Characters with the exception of our hero need to look like life has beaten them up a bit. Scars, pockmarked skin, physical abnormalities or deformities are welcomed!!!!
ROLE: SIMPLE GIRL: Unattractive. Unloved. This woman is the adult version of the girl that no one talked to at school. She is socially abused. She might be a little slow. She is perhaps, painfully shy, completely socially awkward. She is the butt of everyone’s jokes.
ROLE: SAD GIRL: 20’s – early 40’s, any ethnicity. Woman with REAL facial deformity/abnormality or scarring to play the role of someone who is being taken advantage of by ruthless people. We want this role to be one that the audience immediately recognizes and sympathizes with. Please ONLY submit if you actually fit this role description.
ROLE: OLD WOMAN: 60’s-80’s, Caucasian. Blue Collar/Lower Class. Rough around the edges. Spends most of her time in the local pub.’
They are looking for ugly women! I don’t get it, at the age of make-up wonders, when you can transform Emma Thompson into a gross looking nanny, Brad Pitt into a creepy old man, or Charlize Theron into a ugly murderer, why do they need to find woman with real facial deformity and scars? Do they want to save on make-up and special effects?
Do they want to give their chance to naturally disadvantaged people? But what are these women gonna say, I was recruited for the role because of my facial deformities or because I was a little slow? This is terrible! Exploitative? I think so!
Why are they looking for such realism? There are good actresses out there, but they want the real scared-by-life girls, because Kings of Leon’s videos don’t lie apparently. Just like the one they did for ‘Radioactive’! Look like we are cool, we hang out with little black kids, … and now we are even cooler, we hang out with the bums and the disfigured ones.
It was not a bad deal though, it paid $300 a day, but it is too late for you bad-looking people, the ad has now disappeared, may be they have already found their ugly women.
(Editors Note: “In nature, there is no blemish but the mind. None can be called deformed but the unkind -William Shakespeare)