This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Working Title: Playing Your Annoying Self?: From YKTTW
Andrew: Removed the Kristen Bell example because it just doesn't fit. For one, she hasn't been around long enough to establish any kind of unbreakable Typecasting. Second, "She's played two similar characters with no hint of parody or self-awareness" isn't what this trope is about.
Whogus The Whatsler: Aaron Eckhart? Huh? For one thing, playing a goody two-shoes who flips out and kills some people neither plays with or subverts a "slimy businessman" typecast. But more importantly, Eckhart doesn't have a "slimy businessman" typecast. He was vaguely in that area in Thank You for Smoking, but he was the protagonist in that and a spokesperson is hardly a businessman. Then, what, he was a good-natured biker in Erin Brockovich, a nerdy geologist in The Core, a sleazy halfwit criminal in Nurse Betty...where are the slimy businessmen?
Would The Matador count as Pierce Brosnan Adam Westing his role as James Bond? I personally thought it was funny that he was playing a character so like yet unlike James Bond or was that just me?
Jack Black is a terrible example. Did he parody Tenacious D at some point? Is that even possible? Did someone not realize that the guy in Epic Movie wasn't Jack Black? And what's with the weird phrasing?
Vampire Buddha: Cut some stuff:
- Played straight in the above, to a heartbreaking level. This troper watched the episode several times in reruns before realizing who it was; West can act, who knew?
- Because he would steal the whole movie.
- My name isn't Adam We ... is it? NOBODY messes with Adam We!
- Yes, but then he got a new serious role as Kaito Nakamura on Heroes.
- And then decided to go and dine on kangaroo bollocks on I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here!
- The Matador is a distinct aversion of this trope (played straight in The Thomas Crowne Affair). Playing a clinically depressed, hard drinking, anti-social, rather psychopathic hitman (with a mustache!) is about as far away from Mr. Bond as one can get.
- Unless you are Daniel Craig...
- No, even then it's still as far away from Mr. Bond as one can get.
- Well, apart from the "hard drinking" bit.
Non-examples
- In one episode of Eerie Indiana, the main character is dumped onto the set of the TV show Eerie, Indiana. The actor who plays the Ensemble Dark Horse Anti-Hero is an ambitious kid who is willing to commit murder to become the lead. The actor who plays the Plucky Comic Relief sidekick is a self-important diva (especially for a nine-year-old). The actress who plays the clueless big sister is a militant feminist who hates her role. And so on...
Yeah, that's...not what this trope is about.
- A "What if" episode of Futurama had Al Gore playing himself as a goofy loser trying to stop the universe from being destroyed ("as an environmentalist, I'm against that") and Gary Gygax, co-inventor of Dungeons And Dragons, as an obsessive-compulsive who couldn't make decisions without rolling polyhedral dice.
- In another episode, Gore as himself is called the "inventor of the environment", a play on the urban legend that he had claimed to 'invent the internet'. Since said episode was about Global Warming, he may also have been self-parodying his book/film franchise about the subject. He frequent appearances probably have something to do with his daughter being a writer for the show.
- Gore's role is reprised in Bender's Big Score
Al Gore: At last, I can save the planet with deadly lasers instead of deadly
slideshows"
- Al Gore also appears on 30 Rock in this capacity. After delivering a short spiel about corporate responsibility for climate change, he shushes everyone, says "A whale is in trouble!" and runs off.
Gore and Gygax aren't actors; this is just a sort of flanderisation, played for laughs.
Trogga: "Gore and Gygax aren't actors; this is just a sort of flanderisation, played for laughs." Isn't that what this page is mostly about? I don't see why it can't be expanded to include non-actors.
Garfman: I was thinking of adding Ozzy Osbourne's increasingly confused and unintelligible commercial spots, but if the above doesn't count, does this?
Kamino Neko: Cut (Re: George Takei's playing Camp Gay):
He publicly came out 2 years before the bit in question was filmed, so it really isn't hindsight.
