This is not a writing post. This is a post about movie credits.
I'm not sure when it started. Maybe it's always been around. Anyway, if you watch movie credits there's usually a sort of order to it. You have the stars of the movie and then some supporting players AND then you have "And" which is usually some supporting actor played by someone of note. Like in the credits for The Dark Knight you have Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Heath Ledger, Aaron Eckhart, Maggie Gyllenhaal, AND Morgan Freeman. So you have top billing going to the hero then some other people AND then single out one person to be last. Is it just random? I don't really think so.
When watching the credits for a movie (end or beginning) you can usually tell how big a movie is by the quality of the AND. If the AND is someone like Morgan Freeman then it's definitely a big budget movie. Or if the AND is some C or D-list "star" then it's like the movie isn't huge but they at least saved up some money to pay for someone people might have heard of. If the AND is no one you've ever heard of, then it's probably a really low budget movie.
When you watch something like the Avengers movies that has so many notable names it's fun to try to guess who the AND might be. Though it was weird to me that in Avengers Infinity War the AND was Chris Pratt. I mean he seemed too main a character and really has Chris Pratt been around that long that he should be singled out like that? Maybe his agent lobbied the hardest or got it written in the contract or something.
Along with and you also have WITH. That's a way to single out multiple actors, but WITH is not really as important as AND. I mean you're being singled out but there can be a lot of WITHs and only one AND so I maintain the AND is still more important.
Besides Infinity War there were a couple of other Marvel AND choices I disagreed with in the last couple of years. For Black Panther there were a lot of great and important actors. You had Angela Bassett who was nominated for an Oscar and won a Golden Globe. You had Forest Whitaker who won an Oscar. Maybe one of them would be your AND? Nope. The AND goes to...Andy Serkis. Who was nominated for a Golden Globe but has never won an important award and is mostly known for playing CGI characters. AND more importantly in the first major black superhero movie you give the AND to a white guy? Really?! It's like saying, "All these black actors are nice, but you know who's really important? The white guy." It'd be bad optics if anyone but me cared about this.
It's the same thing with Captain Marvel. It's the second major female superhero movie and who does the AND go to? A guy. I mean OK Jude Law's been nominated for two Oscars and some Golden Globes but he never won anything. Meanwhile you have Annette Bening who was nominated for 4 Oscars and won two Golden Globes and she's a woman but she's only a WITH? Again it's like saying, "This accomplished woman is important BUT not as important as a man who's accomplished less." Again, it's just bad optics.
Anyway, if you're watching a movie with friends, maybe bet each other on who will get the AND credit. You might be pleasantly (or unpleasantly) surprised.
3 comments:
That's true, I think I never gave much thought to the and / with of credits, but I agree with what you said about the movies, especially Black Panther
The odds of me noticing something like this is like zero %.
I was involved in a huge debate over this same topic a while ago vis a vis the Star Trek: Discovery credits. The "and" is typically used by TV and films to denote an actor in the production who is generally "known" or in some way plays a "significant" role. For TV shows, it's usually reserved for an actor who is not part of the main cast, but still part of the show, or it could be an actor on the main cast who has achieved popularity or acclaim on the show. It's often used as a reward or recognition.
"With" is also used in a similar way, but I think it's used more when there's multiple special recognitions to make. There could even be "with" and "and". There's also "introducing" which is usually used to honor a child or young actor in their first significant role.
As to Pratt being the "and"...I guess he probably got that being recognized as a sort of "rising star" thing? Or S&G...who knows lol
The reason for the "debate" in the first place was that people were saying "and" always means the person will die or be written off or they are in some way only slightly above a guest star. Obviously those people were wrong and I set them straight, which meant they were unhappy lol.
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