Categories: The Column

28/01/2015 – Cumberbatch, Emma Watson and Chris Brown

By Charlotte Hope, Lifestyle Editor @TLE_Lifestyle

Benedict Cumberbatch shows off his posh credentials

 Whilst discussing the lack of opportunities for non-white actors in Hollywood, recently, Benedict Cumberbatch referred to black actors as ‘coloured’. It couldn’t have come at a more inopportune moment, given the context of the discussion, but it happened. Obviously he apologised post haste and rightly referred to himself as an ‘idiot’and that he ‘hopes this incident will highlight the need for correct usage of terminology that is accurate and inoffensive’. It’s just all too much – imagine if he’d done it on purpose? I mean, obviously he didn’t.

Those upset by it are tremendously conflicted, because on the one hand Cumberbatch is highlighting an important issue that is very real today, and on the other he’s using extremely outdated terminology that has, since its inception, taken on a different meaning. It seems to prove that ol’Benedict, while his heart might be in the sort of vague right place, isn’t really in touch with what’s going on. I wonder if he’s lost any ‘Cumberbitches’over this? Only time will tell.

Emma Watson is going to be a live action Disney princess

 In my periphery I noticed people getting excited about Emma Watson playing Beauty in a live-action version of Beauty and the Beast, and absently wondered why on earth she wanted to do something like Disney on Ice when she’s obviously got a lot of other things on her plate (see: GoodWill Ambassador for the United Nations). Obviously I am a moron, which is news to no-one, and what they’re actually doing is making a live-action movie of Beauty and the Beast. In which she is going to play Belle.

Well that’s all very exciting and girly, isn’t it? Can Emma Watson sing? I suppose that’s neither here nor there. She’s got the part now so she can very well learn. OH I’ve just had a look and she’s said she’s going to start some singing lessons. Great minds, Watson. I can’t really remember Beauty and the Beast, except a rose in a glass thing and a woman trapped in a castle with a man-beast and singing crockery? Who will play the teapot? Miriam Margolyes would be fantastic.

Chris Brown is still a cretin

 Chris Brown and his ludicrous diamond nose stud have been forced to postpone their US tour as a judge has ruled that Brown can’t travel out of California until he’s finished his 100 hours of community service. Instead of doing that, Brown just went ahead and booked a 26 date tour and assumed it would all be fine and dandy.

Hey Chris Brown – stop doing idiotic things. Who is advising this man? Surely someone has a say in booking his tours. Surely his well publicised convictions factor into a decision like a tour? Why are people still paying him? Don’t they have lawyers involved? I don’t know. It’s all very unclear and doesn’t sit right with me. Brown, for his part, wrote on his Instagram page: ‘This is the most disappointing news I’ve gotten in a while. Everything happens for a reason so I wanted to personally inform my fans’. Presumably it’s the most disappointing news since 2009 when he was given the sentence that he seems to have forgotten? I can’t tell from up here on my high horse. Brown will eventually be allowed to tour in America, presumably, but for now he’s got to get this pesky punishment out of the way.

Joe Mellor

Head of Content

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