Eliza's Cave

So, I’m a bit pissed about the brouhaha that’s been happening lately in the Twitter Sphere and Intertubes about Ian Somerhalder’s interest in playing Christian Grey in the adaptation of run-away hit Fifty Shades of Grey. 

Here’s what Damon thinks of the whole business:

Here’s some background:

Ian tweeted his interest in the role and spoke about it on a couple of shows. He exchanged tweets with Bret Easton Ellis about it. Period.

We, his fans, have been involved in various campaigns on Twitter or on websites to support him getting the role. There have been other actors who have expressed an interest, such as Alexander Skarsgard and many fans of other actors have launched fan campaigns to support their own choices.

Some celebrity gossip sites took this grassroots fan interest and blew it up into sensationalized headlines claiming that Ian was “begging” for the role and now has created a “monster” that he’s had to kill.

Keep this in mind. These websites rely on clicks/page views/visits for their advertising dollars. The more clicks they get on their websites, the more they can charge for advertising. That’s the business model for many websites.

What this means is that like in war, truth is the first casualty. These websites want you to click on them and so they lure the unsuspecting fan into visiting with lurid headlines like “Ian Somerhalder Begging for S&M Role” and other trashtalk. Ian’s real fans know that it wasn’t begging. He expressed an interest. Any hot young actor would be nuts not to be interested in such an epic role in what will surely be a hit film if and when it is made. There are millions of women out there who are DYING to see it on the big screen and millions of Ian’s fans want to see him in the role. 

But it is up to E. L. James and the folks involved in producing, casting and directing the film to choose the right actor for the role. We fans can mount a campaign to push Ian for the role but we may not be listened to. 

What shouldn’t happen is for fans to start getting all upset about it. That will do nothing except provide these vultures with fodder for their trashtalk and obviously upset Ian for seeing things get “out of control” as he said in his tweets.

I feel bad if I’ve contributed to that silliness. I have tweeted very often about it and have advocated for Ian to get the role, but I’ve never done so in a hateful way. I will be disappointed if he doesn’t get the role, but I have no idea how Hollywood works or how films are cast so what do I know? It may be very unlikely that he’d get the role despite the buzz his fans are generating. It may help him get the role for those involved to know how much support he has. 

I guess in the end, we have to be aware of how our actions affect others. Our exuberance about Ian getting the role is latched onto by the celebrity buzz machine and used to get eyes on websites and ultimately advertising dollars. It’s led to misleading headlines about Ian “begging” for the role, which he isn’t doing. Today I read a headline that claimed this:

Ian Somerhalder has whipped his own fan base into a frenzy by lobbying for the role of Christian in Fifty Shades of Grey. Having created a monster, he’s now …

I refused to click on the link even for this article, because I don’t want to be part of that lying buzz machine.

Ian hasn’t whipped his fan base into a frenzy. We’ve whipped ourselves into a frenzy because of our love for Ian and our desire to see him in the role. He didn’t create a monster. We tweeted and blogged and otherwise expressed our desire for him to play the part after he expressed an interest.

It was the celebrity gossip machine that portrayed this deceitfully in order to lure readers to their websites.

Period.

Anyhoo, at least Ian is on the radar for the role and at least E. L. James and others involved in the film know he has a huge fan base of support. I hope our enthusiasm helps him, not hurts him. Almost every poll I’ve seen on this shows him way out front in terms of support.

Just keep this in mind when you read headlines on these internet celebrity gossip sites. Don’t click on the headlines! Don’t give them the revenue.

If you’re a fan of Ian, save your efforts for the Ian Somerhalder Foundation  and something worthwhile – like saving the environment, animals and green energy.

Dominion is up at Amazon.com as of June 15, 2012:

So, this blog is primarily my fandom blog where I write about my current fandom and obsession, The Vampire Diaries, Damon, Delena, Fifty Shades of Grey and Ian Somehalder for Christian Grey. It’s my silly side, my girl side, my romantic erotica writing writer side. It’s my not-a-professional, not-a-mother, not-a-wife side. It’s my blowing off steam side.

I have a few other sides, as we all do. Today, I want to post this one non-fandom post because I really feel that I have to say something about this. I promise I won’t write about it again.

I am part of a group of about forty+ climate scientists / climate science journalists and bloggers who communicate via a private group about climate science. In my real life I am a researcher / policy type of person and I have a science blog about climate science in which I examine the science and politics of climate change. I try to keep my two lives separate because of the sensitivity of my job (in project management for government and so I could lose my job if I were seen to be too political). But through my climate science blog, I’ve been blessed with getting to know many of the prominent climate scientists and climate science journalists out there writing for big media and have readers from NASA, NOAA, several prominent university research orgs, and activists around the world. This is not to brag, but to say that the information I am getting is not from some anonymous bloggers who don’t know their asses from a hole in the ground but actual scientists doing the research and writers doing the writing you read in the mainstream media outlets.

Some of them are just about ready to call the game. They’re afraid to, because they don’t want to discourage people or be seen as alarmists. But they are very concerned.

When they’re concerned, I get concerned.

Their pessimism scares me. They are just about ready, some of them, to say that we are in for serious trouble far sooner than people realize. We tend to have this view that we have 50 – 100 years to act on climate change, clean energy, and a low-carbon economy but they are not so optimistic. Many of the ones I respect the most feel that we have a decade and no more. Some even think we are already past the point of no return while others think that if we don’t act now, as in this decade, it will be really bad for us and our children — and all the other life forms on the planet.

That’s what concerns me. I’m a conservationist and environmentalist, an animal rights supporter, but all of these things ultimately rest on the persistence of our temperate climate and the ecosystems that have been in place for the past 10,000 years since the last ice age and beyond. We are changing those ecosystems, we are changing microclimates that animals are exquisitely adapted to. We are sending animals off to extinction that have been around for millions and tens of millions of years through our burning of fossil fuels and land use practices. As our climate changes to a hotter one, we will face droughts where it is already dry, floods where it is already too wet, and our food system will be increasingly out of whack, putting the most vulnerable among us into even more danger of starvation and famine.

I’ve become increasingly concerned that no one is doing what is necessary to address this and I count the big players — the US, China, India and the EU as the big players who must lead the way, with the US as perhaps the most important leader. We can’t get by on feel-good posing and posturing. We need people to man the picket lines, put up tent cities, and get pepper sprayed, arrested and speak truth to power. We need people with influence to use it to save the freaking planet.

I’m just a small potato among real scientists but have been privileged to have been invited in to their circle and have been privileged to be able to listen in to their discussions and hear their words, see their concerns, their worries, and their research and the things they say in private scare me.

I don’t know what the answers are, but I know that we have to work together to find them and soon.

So, if you read this, please look around you and try to think what you can do to speak up about this. I do know that until politicians feel pressure from the electorate, they won’t act. They are too tied into the funding from big corporations that have too much money to make through the sale of fossil fuels and development of oil sands, tar sands, and other sources of fossil fuel energy. Only you, as a voter, and you as a consumer, can convince those with power to act.

So look around at your local politicians to see what their position is on climate change and tell them that if they don’t accept the climate science consensus you will not vote for them. Look at your regional and federal politicians and do the same. Look at the organizations you are a part of and see whether they support action on climate change and a low-carbon economy, development of alternative energy, and other actions to mitigate global warming.

They will only act when they become afraid that you’ll kick them out of their jobs so make them afraid.

Anyway, thanks for letting me vent. This conversation I was part of today really upset me. Usually, we’re focused on strategy and tactics, responses to this or that topical issue and we don’t really talk about what’s coming and how soon, so this conversation really upset me.

Because a girl’s gotta laugh, right?

Here’s some Ian eye candy for those who partake of the stuff. Look at him — is he or is he not our Fifty?

You’re very welcome!