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"I don't just play someone brainy on TV. I am an actual neuroscientist." ---Mayim Bialik, on Neuriva TV commercial
Who could forget Mayim as the child Bette Midler in "Beaches," doing that wonderful dance and dub to "The Glory Of Love," with stage Mom Lainie Kazan, watching from the theater aisle?????????? Then she became TV's "Blossom," and she was a star.
But when she went and got herself an education--and in neuroscience, no less--too many people thought her a bit uppity. I mean, you know this girl took Advanced Placement Biology!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Between her hosting "Jeopardy!" and her Neuriva commercial, some are getting up in arms about Mayim all over again!!!!!!!!!!! What the hell???????????
To the naysayers, I say--Mayim is talented and smart! Those who are lashing out were obviously in their school's lowest reading or math group, and took a Secretarial Slut course in high school!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It is your faults you are dumb; you never worked at it. But Mayim did. And not just one, but two of the most difficult professions to break into!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So, quit knocking Mayim Bialik. I think she grew into an attractive woman. And her delivery is charming.
Beat it, detractors! Your mothers wear combat boots!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Well, she IS one of the seemingly few child actors who turned out
ReplyDeleteWell-adjusted and successful!!
She did stir up some controversy with her anti vaccine statements.
But she does NOT deserve the hate!!!
Trace the sources of the vitriol, and its understandable (if unwarranted).
ReplyDeleteStrike One, she was the most hated element of the "female invasion" storyline shift in the smash hit sitcom "Big Bang Theory". Having zero interest in that series, RQ, this would have passed unnoticed by you. "Bang" spent the first half of its remarkable 11 year run centered exclusively around (and rabidly attracting a hardcore fanbase of) adult child-men and incels. Many have made good arguments it should have stayed that way, but producer Chuck Lorre claimed the show was running out of gas and needed to add cliche romantic entanglements for fresh storylines. Since Lorre is a complete putz, I think it far more probable CBS brass told him the network wanted to attract more female viewers to the biggest sitcom juggernaut since Seinfeld, and Lorre merely complied.
Either way, the result was a mixed bag. The added female characters had zero appeal to the fanbase: Melissa Rauch played a tiny but big-breasted one-note shrew and Mayim was nothing short of repulsive at first until they toned her down a bit. The writing for Mayim was all over the place the first couple years, veering from prim asexual psychopath to hormonally charged pansexual child-woman and back again. For myself, I thought she was hysterical and a great foil for Jim Parsons and Kaley Cuoco, but most fans of the show simply loathed her.
That loathing led to Strike Two: Jeopardy. The male fanbase of "Big Bang" has a huge amount of crossover with "Jeopardy" fans, so the hatred of Mayim followed her when she became the preferred guest host after Alex Trebek passed away. The loathing is partly for her persona but mostly superficial: these guys cannot abide what they view as a "smug dogface cow" hosting their precious cult game show.
A more minor Strike Three is her recent sitcom Call Me Kat, which she headlines with Swoosie Kurtz and Leslie Jordan. The series, an American remake of a British hit, had a very rocky start last year (with just about everyone in it seeming woefully miscast). Mayim seemed hopelessly off her game compared to her sharp steady work in "Big Bang Theory" (so even those who loved her in that found "Kat" quite a jarring change). The show improved noticeably in its second season (just ended), but Mayim's character remains a very off-putting a(nd weirdly non-funny) derp. "Big Bang" Mayim and "Jeopary" Mayim at least feel like they come from the same universe, while "Kat" Mayim is from another, less appealing galaxy altogether. Some actors can be accepted in widely varying roles, Mayim's fans (and detractors) would rather she stick to the lane she excels at.
Victoria,
ReplyDeleteThere is a lot I do not know
about Mayim. And the anitvax thing
was one. Strange, since she Is an
"actual neuroscientist."
My Dear,
ReplyDeleteI knew Mayin was on BBT by catching
some glimpses. You are correct. I was
never interested int the show, and I
could not stand the male lead. Still can't.
There was some fuss made over her antivax
statements, which shocked me, coming from
someone in the sciences. And, to be honest,
I had never seen her on "Jeopardy." I go back
to the days of Art Fleming, when I would play
along, and the show had integrity, then.
Now, everything is haywire. Sure, people
may have issues with Mayim; everyone has issues
with someone, but I just don't see why she is so
intensely disliked.
She's "intensely disliked" by shallow twits who feel threatened by an "unattractive" woman who is assertive, intelligent, and clearly proud she has those traits.
ReplyDeleteAs I noted above, she's also "intesnely disliked" because she "invaded and ruined" two TV hits that were perceived by many as "boys-only" clubs.
The anti-vax thing is a decade-old issue that has recently been revived and re-deployed against Mayim after gaining more "cancel culture" currency during the COVID era, esp to slam her success as host of Jeopardy.
There are nuances to her anti-vax controversy that aren't openly discussed but are definite factors amping up her pariah status. A lot of it is pure anti-Semitism: she primarily took up the anti-vax stance during her Orthodox marriage to the father of her children. However, she dropped that firm stance almost immediately after her divorce, which then made her seem like she'd been under the thumb of her husbands family. She was also perceived as a panicked hypocrite during COVIDs peak, at which point she and her children caught up on every vax invented since Jonas Salk. I'm sure she had legit personal reasons for her evolving stance on various vaccines, but media figures in our current culture are forbidden to have individual opinions: they must conform to whatever politically-derived Twitter mentality is imposed from above.
Sidebar but related: some opinions Mayim expressed re the #metoo frenzy sent the Gen-Z Twitterati mob into a mouth-foaming rampage. She made the vastly unpopular mistake of openly stating what many privately felt: that some cases entailed some (otherwise street savvy) women behaving in a ridiculously, almost deliberately naive manner. Mayim also questioned the hypocrisy of some stars who had quite obviously and proudly made it to the top by exploiting their appearance and submitting to harassment, but only began complaining about it once #metoo became the dominant Twitter topic for weeks and months.
So in a sense, you could say Mayim is squeezed between dislike from two opposing groups with no possible exit: she's despised by misogynistic males on the right and dogmatic no-grey-areas-allowed loudmouth extremists on the left. Cuz, you know, all moderate independent thinkers in this polarized era need to be silenced under threat of career assassination. In a nutshell, the answer to "why is she so disliked" is "she has her own opinions, insists on participating in the public square, and reserves the right to evolve or change those opinions".
My Dear,
ReplyDeleteI always liked Mayim. As a child,
she was..unconventional looking. I
never thought she would make it to
adulthood in this biz. Nor that
she would be scientific.
She has a realness that most other
actors lack.