Like the rest of America, I was so sickened by the whole Bennifer sideshow that I never wanted to see Ben Affleck again. The movie studios realized this and accordingly yanked him from the role of leading man. As far as could tell, his career was ruined. I mean you saw him occasionally at Red Sox game but that was it, and frankly I took pleasure in knowing that his career was ruined – what the Germans call schadenfreude.
But on some level, you had to feel bad for the guy also. If you think about it, he was the victim of making a decision any other man would have. He decided to sleep with hottest girl in the room, Jennifer Lopez. There was no way for him to predict what the media would do to him and thus his career. Nobody could. And if you could, I bet most men would still do it anyway (We are very weak in these areas)
This is what makes his choice to play George Reeves in the new movie Hollywoodland so smart. You see, George Reeves was also a man who made a decision any other man would do and was ultimately victimized for it in an unforeseeable way. He was an out of work actor who took a role as Superman in a crappy TV show to help pay the bills. A no-brainer in that situation. When the bills are piling up, you will do anything that helps you pay them.
He thought it would flop; it didn’t. It became so popular that nobody would ever look at George Reeves again and not think of him as Superman. This of course made him so typecast that it effectively killed his chances of ever landing another role, and he was to be forever punished for a decision he made that snowballed into something he couldn’t have known was possible.
The similarities are striking between George and Ben.
Ø They both made a very logical decision. Ben to sleep with JLo, George to pay the bills.
Ø And both suffered form these decisions in ways that could not be forecast (The person that said there was no such thing as bad press should talk to these guys first).
The similarities it seems end here though. George suffered an untimely death while Ben chose a movie role that was so smart that I now begrudgingly like him as an actor again.
A couple more roles like this and Ben might have a legitimate career again.
