The Oscar-winning director who said Ryan Gosling was wasting his career: “He should be doing serious films”
He’s handsome, funny, a talented actor, has great hair, and he’s from Canada. It could be really easy to dislike Ryan Gosling. Those are all wins in my book but it turns out, though, not everyone is a fan.
While Gosling almost impossible to hate, Oliver Stone occupies a very different position. The famously uncompromising director is admired and scorned in equal measure, sometimes in the same breath. His body of work speaks for himself; he’s a three-time Oscar winner behind some of the biggest movies of the 20th Century. However, his outspoken political stances and supposed promotion of conspiracy theories have turned him into a pariah in the eyes of many. Then there are his views on cinema.
Stone’s films often deal with ‘serious’ subjects like war, politics, and America on the world stage. He has no time for anything his deems frivolous, at least according to an interview he conducted with City AM. When the topic of Barbie came up, he launched into a tirade about the film, its cast, and the general state of Hollywood, calling the project “ridiculous”.
“Ryan Gosling is wasting his time if he’s doing that shit for money,” he clarified. “He should be doing more serious films. He shouldn’t be a part of this infantilisation of Hollywood. Now it’s all fantasy, fantasy, fantasy, including all the war pictures: fantasy, fantasy. Even the Fast and Furious movies, which I used to enjoy, have become like Marvel movies. I mean, how many crashes can you see?”
Stone isn’t the only person to make this observation about the heartthrob. Gosling’s career trajectory is fascinating. He started off starring in romcoms and so-called ‘chick flicks’ before abruptly taking on roles in films deemed more ‘serious’ by the mainstream press. It was out with The Notebook and in with Drive.
In a post-Barbie world, however, the man with the ‘Ken-ergy’ has seemingly struck the perfect balance. His follow-up film, The Fall Guy, was a mixture of drama and comedy and now his schedule is rammed. We could be entering a very interesting era of Gosling.
These comments made by Stone and others are indicative of a wider issue. What makes one movie more ‘serious’ than another? Why does it matter that Ryan Gosling doesn’t make movies like The Place Beyond the Pines anymore?
For longer than anyone would care to admit, films that deal with certain subject matters or that dare to be funny or loose aren’t given the same respect as the same type of rigid, self-mythologising fare we see at the Oscars every single year. This attitude also betrays the deep misogyny running through film criticism. As soon as Gosling stopped making films that were primarily marketed at women, he was taken more seriously. Once he went back to this audience with Barbie, he was made fun of again. What gives?
It’s not like Stone even plays by his own rules all of the time. This is a guy whose CV includes movies about rock bands and American football, not to mention the script for Evita. Would any of those films fall under the category of ‘serious’? Probably not. The fact that he ended up apologising for his remarks about Gosling and Barbie shows that even he doesn’t believe the nonsense he’s spouting.
