MovieChat Forums > James Dean Discussion > Coasted on three movies for half a centu...

Coasted on three movies for half a century but his time as an icon is over now.

posted a year ago by whynotwriteme (7720)
3 replies | jump to latest

He's going to be all but forgotten soon. I don't see James Dean posters or other memorabilia in the shops anymore since maybe the 1990s. No new Dean biopics have been made in a long, long, time. His fellow '50s icons, Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley are still very relevant to pop culture, but not this guy.

I would bet the majority of people under 50 have no idea who James Dean was. If young audiences saw his hammy acting in "Rebel Without a Cause" they would just think of Tommy Wiseau imitating Dean when he quotes "YOU'RE TEARING ME APART!" in The Room.

[–] PaladinNJ (21509) a month ago

Don’t try to tell his fans that. I’ve even seen teenage girls going nuts over him.

[–] parkerbot (8993) a month ago

Are you jealous of a dead guy?

Cause that what it sounds like.

[–] MartyDeniro (4171) a month ago

He was never as iconic as those two, but if he's coming behind them, he's still in the upper crust of actors as a whole -- and certainly more impactful than all those "next James Dean" actors who never actually became the next James Dean. Do you think those young people know who Paul Newman was? Do you think they know Brando from anything other than The Godfather, if that? Dean crossed over where scant few have. And the fact that you've been keeping tabs on his memorabilia presence for 30 yrs says it all.