Fascinating! It can also be the other way around, where an actor miraculously interpreted an unactable script well. E.g. Joaquin Phoenix delivered "It vexes me. I am vexed." in Gladiator quite well.
I watched a video recently that touched on this subject when talking about the TV show House. If you read the script for a regular House episode, there's no conclusion to be had besides House being an insufferable, racist prick. Instead, Hugh Laurie delivers the obviously racist lines so sarcastically that it makes them work very well (which is obviously what the writers were going on).
I've recently watched House and I found this more uncomfy than I did the first time.
House (the character) is often being plainly racist and sexist. The fact that he presents it as sarcasm is a vehicle for him, used to make his racism more difficult to challenge.
But can’t shows be about racist people? I mean there’s shows about murderers all day. Do people critique shows (think Dexter) as “uncomfy”? You can laugh at, and even find endearing, racists characters. It’s part of being a grown up I believe.
If there are more shows with racist people as the endearing title character than there are with black people as the endearing title character, is that not a problem?
Nitpick, but I think it was "It vexes me. I'm terribly vexed." Otherwise agree with you though. It's not something you imagine someone saying in the course of normal, or even quite abnormal, conversation, but Joaquin Phoenix pulled it off in spades - sounded totally natural, and entirely fit with the character of Commodus.
I feel like Seinfeld has a ton of those. Jason Alexander, Julia Louise-Dreyfus, and Michael Richards had a lot of moments where their acting ability carried what would otherwise be a mundane script.
FYI, English "to vex" is actually from the Latin vēxāre, meaning "to disturb, agitate, or annoy." I find it believable that Commodus would say "Hoc me vexat. Tantum hoc me vexat."
