The most polarising actor of all time, according to science
Think of your favourite actor in the whole world and of all the incredible scenes they’ve been in, the times they’ve made you laugh, the times they’ve made you cry, the times they’ve reached out of the screen and personally changed your soul and the joy they have brought you throughout your life.
It’s pretty special, right? Well, you should know that there’s probably somebody out there who looks at that same actor and feels sick to their stomach.
Art is incredibly subjective, and actors doubly so, wherein even the most revered and acclaimed stars, with trophy cabinets bursting with prizes, have those doubters who don’t quite get what all the fuss is about. Some performers are more polarising than others, though, but who is the most divisive actor to ever step in front of the camera?
Luckily for us, the fine folks over at Stat Significant have done all the hard work for us. They have conducted extensive research into what splits opinion among movie fans by trawling through stacks of online film reviews, searching for films with peaks at both ends of the critical spectrum.
Great movies tend to have reviews clumped together in the four to five star range, while middling films usually hover around the three star mark, occasionally foraying into the twos or fours. What this survey is interested in are the ones with just as many top-level reviews as bottom-level ones: the proper inverse bell curves.
This research yielded some very interesting results, and what was found was that Plan 9 From Outer Space, Ed Wood’s endearingly shit science fiction camp-fest, was the film with the highest average gap between reviews, with Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ and Twilight following close behind. In terms of genres, horror took first place, with family films and sci-fi rounding out the podium.
Perhaps the most interesting findings come from the section about tags, where the researchers looked at the ones most associated with polarising films and discovered that ‘low budget’ was the worst offender. ‘Jesus’ came second, which isn’t surprising, while other terms like ‘dancing’, ‘musical’, and ‘franchise’ are scattered around the top ten. One actor’s name is included in this list, and it’s a biggie; according to Stat Significant, the most divisive actor of all time is Jim Carrey.
This is a guy who’s not only starred in some of the most beloved comedies of all time, but has proven capable of branching out into other genres too. However, while Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and The Truman Show might be untouchable, his other big hitters aren’t so bulletproof. His silly, often juvenile brand of humour is very hit or miss for a lot of people, and where some delight in the absurdity of Dumb and Dumber’s infamous toilet scene, others find it repulsive. Then there are the films that were critically mauled, like The Cable Guy, the second Ace Ventura, and more, but are heralded by his fans as some of his best work.
Clearly, being polarising hasn’t affected Carrey’s career too badly, and sure, being beloved is nice and all, but so is being a multi-millionaire.
