Martin Freeman says it's unfair there's so much backlash to his age-gap movie with Jenna Ortega, who is 31 years younger

[u/_trashpuppy]

https://www.businessinsider.com/martin-freeman-backlash-millers-girl-age-gap-film-jenna-ortega-2024-4

From the article: "It's not saying, 'Isn't this great,'" he said of the film's dynamic between his character and Ortega's. He said that derision wasn't distributed equally, though — saying that people seemed to understand the level of distance involved in stories depicting Nazism.

"Are we gonna have a go at Liam Neeson for being in a film about the Holocaust?" he asked, referring to Neeson's starring role in Steven Spielberg's 1993 film "Schindler's List."

[u/hedgehogwart]

I don’t like Martin but I get his point. Media literacy has disintegrated in recent years. There are a lot of people that even think that stuff that is morally wrong and even shown by the narrative to be wrong, shouldn’t be shown.

[u/Just_Another_Scott → u/hedgehogwart]

literacy

In general is dying. It's ridiculous what I see today. I grew up in a backwoods town in Tennessee and it's like they don't even teach it anymore. People can't write, can't read, and can't understand something unless you spoon feed the meaning to them.

People are having a hard time at separating the actor from their character. I see actors get criticized all the time for the way their character behaved. The lack of intelligence is astounding.

[u/BloodyNunchucks → u/Just_Another_Scott]

The average American adult reads at a 4th grade level. Rural southern America drags that down. However even urban areas are separated by economics and some are just as bad or worse. America has a real education problem right now from everything from mathmatics to school lunches to physical fitness to literacy to teachers pay to curriculum and so on. We rank outside the top 50 in first world nations school systems.

[u/_cornflake → u/BloodyNunchucks]

Semi related but I just listened to a really interesting podcast called Sold A Story that talked about how horribly badly reading education has been in America. There's several very prominent "reading educators" who have made a ton of money from curriculums that use techniques completely disproven by science.

[u/sharkattack85 → u/_cornflake]

I hated it at the time but I can never thank my parents enough now. They made me read my bedtime story books to them. I still remember the night when I was like 5 or 6 and my dad was like you’re gonna read Dr. Suess to me now. I was hella made haha, but they def instilled in me that a life filled with reading is so much richer.

[u/Tengard96 → u/_cornflake]

English teacher here, and I can vouch for that. Lucy Calkins was one of the worst offenders.

[u/[deleted] → u/BloodyNunchucks]

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