Linda Hunt is a gnome of a person, a talented actress whose first major success was in playing the role of a man named Billy Kwan in The Year of Living Dangerously. I personally loved the sci-fi thriller, Dune, and thought she did an admirable job of portraying the Shadout Mapes, a dwarf housekeeper for House Atreides. Imdb also reminds me that she played Blutos mother in Robert Altmans Popeye. How could I have forgotten that?
You are probably aware that Ms. Hunt plays the Los Angeles station chief, Henrietta (Hetty) Lange on the wildly-popular prime time cop drama, NCIS Los Angeles. Part of her background story is that she is a former fearless, unbowed, and undefeated agent for some security agency or other. She has expert proficiency at various weapons and in some sort of martial art.
Looking at Ms. Hunt, either in person or on the little screen, one cannot fail to notice her almost-humorous lack of physical presence, rendering her about the least threatening human who is not afflicted with advance-stage ALS or some other debilitating disease. Physically speaking, she is an unfunny joke, and the very idea that she could be proficient at any martial art other than kick-him-in-the-nuts-and-run! is beyond ridiculous. And yet the audience is asked to believe that she is a fearsome and imposing character.
It is as though Shaq were cast as a white jockey. On the same program, Portuguese beauty Daniela Ruah (Kensi Blye) is regularly seen duking it out successfully with various Chuck Norris bad-guy types.
Another show I watch, Intelligence, features the waifish actress Meghan Ory portraying a specially-selected Secret Service agent who is assigned to be the bodyguard for the Josh Holloway character, who is literally twice her size and infinitely more physically imposing. She regularly disables and overcomes bad guys who, in actual fact, could quickly turn her into a lifeless ball of goo if they ever saw a reason to do so. The idea that she could serve in any protective capacity to anyone is a joke.
Person of Interest has basically jettisoned the Jim Caviezel character, a threatening and borderline sociopathic mercenary, in favor of one or two (maybe only one now) new female 115 pound behemoths, actresses Sarah Shahi (former Dallas Cowboy cheerleader) and Amy Acker, who physically maul and psychologically terrorize a new cast of bad guys every week. Each of them is a borderline psychopath but regardless the audience is invited to believe that they are capable of winning fistfights with large, hulking men.
I could go on for quite a while describing the current army of mis-cast female characters who, we are to believe, can duke it out with the strongest and most imposing men any time they are in the mood to do so.
There was a time when casting directors who were selecting actresses for this sort of part would at least choose people who had some physical presence and didnt insult the audience. Alternatively, if cast as police officers, soldiers, or something similar, they were shown doing things in fights that a female could actually do, rather than pretending they can knock out a man with a single punch, with is ridiculous.
It is yet another attempt by Hollywood to portray the world as a place where gender differences are only in the mind, and not based on physical reality. I wonder how many high school girls watch these programs and conclude that if they ever get pissed with some guy, they can disable him with a punch?
You are probably aware that Ms. Hunt plays the Los Angeles station chief, Henrietta (Hetty) Lange on the wildly-popular prime time cop drama, NCIS Los Angeles. Part of her background story is that she is a former fearless, unbowed, and undefeated agent for some security agency or other. She has expert proficiency at various weapons and in some sort of martial art.
Looking at Ms. Hunt, either in person or on the little screen, one cannot fail to notice her almost-humorous lack of physical presence, rendering her about the least threatening human who is not afflicted with advance-stage ALS or some other debilitating disease. Physically speaking, she is an unfunny joke, and the very idea that she could be proficient at any martial art other than kick-him-in-the-nuts-and-run! is beyond ridiculous. And yet the audience is asked to believe that she is a fearsome and imposing character.
It is as though Shaq were cast as a white jockey. On the same program, Portuguese beauty Daniela Ruah (Kensi Blye) is regularly seen duking it out successfully with various Chuck Norris bad-guy types.
Another show I watch, Intelligence, features the waifish actress Meghan Ory portraying a specially-selected Secret Service agent who is assigned to be the bodyguard for the Josh Holloway character, who is literally twice her size and infinitely more physically imposing. She regularly disables and overcomes bad guys who, in actual fact, could quickly turn her into a lifeless ball of goo if they ever saw a reason to do so. The idea that she could serve in any protective capacity to anyone is a joke.
Person of Interest has basically jettisoned the Jim Caviezel character, a threatening and borderline sociopathic mercenary, in favor of one or two (maybe only one now) new female 115 pound behemoths, actresses Sarah Shahi (former Dallas Cowboy cheerleader) and Amy Acker, who physically maul and psychologically terrorize a new cast of bad guys every week. Each of them is a borderline psychopath but regardless the audience is invited to believe that they are capable of winning fistfights with large, hulking men.
I could go on for quite a while describing the current army of mis-cast female characters who, we are to believe, can duke it out with the strongest and most imposing men any time they are in the mood to do so.
There was a time when casting directors who were selecting actresses for this sort of part would at least choose people who had some physical presence and didnt insult the audience. Alternatively, if cast as police officers, soldiers, or something similar, they were shown doing things in fights that a female could actually do, rather than pretending they can knock out a man with a single punch, with is ridiculous.
It is yet another attempt by Hollywood to portray the world as a place where gender differences are only in the mind, and not based on physical reality. I wonder how many high school girls watch these programs and conclude that if they ever get pissed with some guy, they can disable him with a punch?
