Not Tropeworthy (Crowner 3 Aug 2012): Cult Actor

I'm not seeing a trope in Cult Actor...maybe fodder for Trivia, but not a trope. I'm thinking this should be cut. Yea/nay?

Cut it like an old-growth forest.

It's on the trivia crowner, winning by a few votes

Well, it can't be trivia and YMMV.

Not sure if it's definitive enough for Trivia, is it? It really seems like an actor's cult status is dependent on an individual's views of the actor's ability, etc.

Not seeing the value in this. Almost any actor is liked by someone who've seen their work - even the terrible ones. This feels more like a page for ego stroking. "I like this guy but most people don't. That makes me cool."

Heck, some of the entries in the examples are borderline hilarious.

Robert De Niro a cult actor? What definition of cult does that fall into? Just so I know coz he's a two time Oscar winner, 4 times nominated. Is it at three Oscars one stops being cult?

The Three Stooges are cult actors you say? Coz as far as I know, they were in their prime some of the best selling, well known comedians. So well known that even in 2012 a studio thinks they can still milk money out of their name by making a movie titled the "The Three Stooges".

Orson Welles is apparently a cult actor. Yes, Citizen Kane & War Of The Worlds Orson Welles.

edited 1st Aug '12 7:59:34 PM by Ghilz

...Okay, now I just want to cut this on the basis of the monumental stupidity it attracts.

Oh, and Ben Stiller is there too.

Having finished reading the example, I am genuinely shocked that Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone aren't on the list. I'm sure someone thinks they are cult.

Yeah. Definition's much too broad. Definitely a cut.

Best one yet.

Marlon Brando is apparantly cult, according to the example list.

I'll just quote The Other Wiki's first paragraph for this:

And that's coming from a place with rules against showing praise for something.

edited 1st Aug '12 8:16:42 PM by Ghilz

Wow, I was all set to try to defend this, but after seeing some of what people consider examples...I can't. Cut it. Bruce Campbell will just have to be satisfied with all the other pages he's listed on! :)

This somewhat arbitrarily and hastily extracted list points to cut.

• Woody Allen
• Kevin Bacon (and by extension, everyone else)
• Jack Black
• Humphrey Bogart
• David Bowie
• Marlon Brando
• Jeff Bridges
• Albert Brooks
• Mel Brooks
• Charles Bronson
• Clancy Brown
• Nicolas Cage
• Bruce Campbell
• David Carradine
• Jackie Chan
• John Cleese
• Kevin Conroy
• Tim Curry
• Peter Cushing
• James Dean
• Robert De Niro
• Johnny Depp (before he went A-list)
• Marlene Dietrich
• Clint Eastwood
• Judy Garland
• David Hasselhoff
• Dennis Hopper
• John Hurt
• Eddie Izzard
• Samuel L Jackson
• Raul Julia
• Bruce Lee
• Christopher Lee
• Jet Li
• Bela Lugosi
• John Malkovich
• The Marx Brothers
• Malcolm Mc Dowell
• Steve Mc Queen
• Mr. T
• Bill Murray
• Leslie Nielsen
• Leonard Nimoy
• Chuck Norris
• Al Pacino
• Ron Perlman
• River Phoenix
• Kurt Russell
• Peter Sellers
• William Shatner
• Ben Stiller
• Peter Stormare
• Max Von Sydow
• George Takei
• Amanda Tapping
• The Three Stooges
• Christopher Walken
• Hugo Weaving
• Orson Welles
• Adam West
• Mae West
• Dave Chappelle
• Stephen Colbert
• Peter Cullen
• Mark Hamill
• Don La Fontaine aka 'Mr. Voice'
• Monty Python
• Conan O Brien

Cut with extreme prejudice.

Can't it just have all the bad examples deleted?

But what is the trope's definition?

We could redefine it to mean actors who are or have been members of a cult!

(/me runs and hides before the lynch mob arrives.)

That would make it an Omnipresent Trope.

Then we can just make it redirect to Actors—which would also help preserve the 16 inbounds!

If we changed it to actors who have been members of a cult...I shouldn't finish this sentence.

Even if we did, I still don't see the value of this. Almost every actor is liked by someone who'se seen their work. Them having the nebulous trait of being "cult" changes nothing. Seriously, what's the difference between liking someone who is mainstream or someone who is "cult"? Other than the ability to get some extra chest thumping in coz lots of people don't even know who that person is. "I like this actor and therefore that makes me special". That's all the purpose the page serves.

And again, Cult is at best very, very YMMV to the point of uselessness. Is a TV Actor more cult than a film actor? Since TV actors tend to be less wellknown than movie stars. Is someone who gets the lead role in a work cult? Or someone who only plays bit parts and background roles? When is one so mainstream to no longer be cult?

When it comes to Cult Classic films, there's at least some metric, they are movies that tend to have bombed or under-performed at the box office and not earned any award and a referenced and talked about years or decades after they came out. But actor popularity is far more nebulous.

edited 2nd Aug '12 5:56:18 PM by Ghilz

I think we're all in agreement with that fact. Even adding a metric of box office earnings of individual actors leaves the door open to the fact there will have been fans of them before they reached that point, or continued to be fans after they've lost that earning potential.

My vote remains to cut. Redirects for incoming. Anything else strikes me as simply pushing a mess around into new piles.

Yeah, cut it.

So much consensus and so few cutlist entries?

Cut away, and cutlisted.

Let's do this properly with a crowner, as it's not unanimous.