Michael Douglas Says American Actors Are Too Asexual And Not Enough Like Channing Tatum

Michael-Douglas-Tatum-Gimp
Getty/Sony Pictures

Everyone knows C-Tates can transform the aisles at your local multiplex into a slip and slide with just a twerk and grind when the audience is 96 percent female, but now comes an even stronger testament to his raw sexuality. In a recent interview, Michael Douglas used Channing Tatum as an example of who “asexual” American actors should emulate. And you know you’ve arrived as a sexual icon when you’re getting the male gaze from the P*ssy Eater In Chief.

Douglas was full of advice in a new interview with the Independent:

…the Brits and Australians are taking many of the best American roles.

“Clearly, it breaks down on two fronts. In Britain they take their training seriously while in the States we’re going through a sort of social-media image-conscious thing rather than formal training. Many actors are getting caught up in this image thing which is going on to affect their range.

“With the Aussies, particularly with the males, it’s the masculinity. In the U.S. we have this relatively asexual or unisex area with sensitive young men and we don’t have many Channing Tatums or Chris Pratts, while the Aussies do. It’s a phenomena.”

It’s easy to jump on the older guys as out of touch for saying stuff like this, but Douglas is dead on the money here. And there’s a reason for it: the Disney Channel. In the U.S., we’re recruiting most of our young acting talent from the Disney Channel and related crap, and the Disney Channel’s target audience is tween girls, who have pretty much always gone for androgynous, Tiger Beat-cover boy types. Worse, it has execs who are grown men trying to recruit the most androgynous, Bieber-banged heartthrobs, so the actors all start to get that too-wholesome, scrubbed-clean look that you normally only see on mannequins and porn DVD covers. Premature sexualization justified with sweater vests.

You get the occasional Ryan Gosling coming out of it, but far more actors who look stunted from trying to appeal to 12-year-olds for years, with their acting chops honed in an environment of lame slapstick and canned laughter that rewards sh*tty mugging for the camera. Seriously, the Disney Channel is terrible. And you know it’s bad when the go-to example of an American actor who isn’t asexual is a slinky, hairless breakdancer who spent his formative years as a male stripper.

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