Everyone knows the stereotype we tend to lump Disney Channel actors into: clean-looking, fun-loving, child-friendly poster children for harmony. This isn’t the fault of the actor. Disney likes their talent having that image because their TV shows are primarily oriented towards children. What better way to attract the support of children and parents alike than putting smiling, charismatic figures on their television set? Ross Lynch was one such figure. I don’t know Lynch’s screen acting career all too well, but I do know he was in a Disney Channel show called “Austin and Ally,” and has acted in a few Disney Channel original movies (He also does music in a band called R5). I have seen his performances on the screen as well as the publicity surrounding Lynch on Disney Channel. From these, I can fairly say that Disney made him in the image of their “faultless” standard. As a side note, I’m not condemning Disney for doing this to their television actors. They can find their success and appeal to their market however they choose. Additionally, it’s great that they take a chance on fresh, young actors with a short or non-existent filmography and expose them to show business. ANYWAY, Ross Lynch is known best as a Disney Channel Star who has been made in their squeaky clean image. I can think of a couple people in history who don’t match that mold. One of them is Jeffrey Dahmer. Just follow this Wikipedia link if you don’t know of Dahmer: http://ift.tt/LC4O4M
The performance that Lynch delivered in My Friend Dahmer gutted my view of him... in he very best way (Sorry it took me this long to get to the point). From the moment I saw the dead gaze and emotionless expression of Lynch’s Dahmer, I got an uneasy feeling. His posture and his walk were haunting. His twitching eyes and otherwise calm demeanor were certainly off putting. However, initially I couldn’t fully buy into it. Needless to say, Disney has never projected a real character of this type on Lynch, let alone any actors on Disney Channel. The person I knew Jeffrey Dahmer to be was too dissimilar to Ross Lynch. But, with every second of screen time that Lynch was captured in, my impression of him changed. I still can’t get the image of his many close-ups out of my head. Through shots like these, the viewers become firsthand witnesses of what Lynch is able to do — and it’s remarkable. He portrays Dahmer as a human. By this I mean that Jeffrey Dahmer has been historically portrayed as a heartless, emotionless monster whereas Lynch does the opposite. For those that have never read John “Derf” Backderf’s graphic novel of the same name (the source material for this piece), it has a unique take on the pre-serial killer high school years of Jeffrey Dahmer (shamefully, I myself have never read the graphic novel so I got this impression from a friend who has). Since I never knew Backderf’s angle on Dahmer, I never had the impression that he was anything other than a serial killer. Therefore, the pressure was on Lynch and the director (Marc Meyers) to a greater degree to deliver the same character Backderf created. Despite the issues that adapting a piece to a different medium may pose, the character of Jeffery Dahmer is played by Ross Lynch so beautifully.
When I think of Ross Lynch, I no longer think of the quirky, talented and attractive character, Austin Moon, from Austin and Ally. To me, Ross Lynch has become Backderf’s Jeffrey Dahmer. To me, he becomes an actor capable of portraying the sublime uneasy nature of a soon-to-be serial killer. He does this while still seeming like a person that existed as surely as Jeffrey Dahmer himself. That’s the point of acting right? To portray a version of life that is believable. The choice to take this role was ballsy and unexpected, so dissimilar to his other well know acting jobs, but in the end I believe that Ross Lynch has shown Hollywood he is a serious actor. I hope the best for his career. I hope he gets more heavily involved roles like Jeffrey Dahmer. Clearly the range of this young actor has the potential to be expansive, so I can’t wait to see more.
Sorry for making this post so long. Thank you for reading the whole thing if you actually made it to this point. Let me know if you agree or disagree with my sentiments. God bless you even if you are a serial killer.
Submitted September 30, 2017 at 10:29AM by DrFabioMD http://ift.tt/2x5Agqt
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