Typecast? The reinvention of me

“I don't feel particularly typecast because I think I do so many different kinds of things. Whether they're seen or not is another issue.”

— Actor Jodie Foster

“But I got smarter, I got harder in the nick of time. Honey, I rose up from the dead, I do it all the time…”

– Taylor Swift in her song “Look What You Made Me Do.”

Did I just have another Rachel Green moment?

Recently, my heart sank again when I learned that I was a topic of discussions — yes, with a plural —throughout a journalism school, one that I had attended for four years after graduating high school. 

According to this author, who was taking a Masters in Journalism at the time, there was a “disdain’ for me (or my writing) because I was a "very successful female writer” slightly older than the students, and that I somehow — it must have been dumb luck! —“made it” and had a column in a national newspaper, doing, as this author says, “all those things we were only just dreaming of doing — having a platform, being fabulous and a little bit famous.”

The “disdain” was that I wasn't a real journalist, that I could only write about myself, not “like us, real soon-to-be-journalists,” she shared. “Those were the sorts of real discussions that went on in classrooms.” 

This was not the first time, or even third, I have heard that I had been a topic of discussion in “real” journalism classes.  

Apparently, I was the victim of…typecasting! 

I had been typecast by REAL journalists and soon-to-be-REAL-journalists as “not a real journalist,” who put me in a pigeon hole before I could blink. 

To which I thought, “Well, if all these real discussions" that went on in real journalism classes, with “real soon-to-be journalists” taking their Masters in journalism, why did not one — not one — of these "real soon-to-be-journalists” (or their real journalism instructors) bother to pick up the fucking phone, or email me, and ask me if I thought I was a “real journalist.” 

Here's a “real” journalist’s question: Why not invite me into their classes to discuss whether I thought I was a “real” journalist, instead of snickering with disdain talking behind my back.

After all, I could, and will, argue that a real journalist would go straight to the source me. But what do I know? Apparently I'm not a real journalist! 

Most likely, I would have probably asked all these real soon-to-be-journalists who had typecast me as “not a real journalist” — because I mostly wrote about my friends, my relationships, and motherhood, was dubbed as part of the “bad girls club of Canadian newspapers” whatever the fuck that means and my musings in the lifestyle and lighthearted columns I wrote lead practically every “real” journalist to roll their eyes force themselves to admit that, “Love her or hate her. At least you read her.”

Looking back, I’m not sure being a victim of typecasting as “not a real journalist” was, or is, actually a bad thing; whether you loved me or hated me, well, at least you read me. And because people did read me, I became the third most read columnist at the National Post. 

A survey said so!

So do you think I thought what I wrote, even if I was typecast as not a “real” journalist, was a bad thing?

Not one fucking bit.

This apparent “disdain” for my so-called-not-real-journalistic articles and columns made it rain! (Not in the form of literal water falling from the sky, but my columns “made it rain” in the form of money!) Not being a "real journalist” led to my first book deal and nine more. (You can read about the fascinating ways I got each book deal here.)

So what if I was the victim of typecasting as not a real journalist? I enjoyed sharing my life, and writing about universal thoughts and feelings most women do have, or experiences they, too, go through. The one and only difference being that I wrote about it. (You can read the perils of personal journalism here and why you should think before you ink!) 

Also, you can’t be typecast until you’ve been…cast. This “disdain” from real soon-to-be-journalists didn’t factor this factor in; that I couldn’t be typecast if I wasn't already cast. To nail this point, you can’t…be…typecast…until…you’ve…been...cast. 

Meaning, I got the role!

So I'd been typecast as not a “real” journalist. Was this a problem? If I didn’t think it was a problem, why did others, to the point I was a what? A cautionary tale for soon-to-be real journalists — “real” journalists who again, never once thought, to maybe, you know, to interview me? (Hey, if you don’t have the guts to clarify your “facts” to my face, why discuss them behind my back as if it's the only truth, when it's actually just gossip?)

I am delightfully aware that people talk(ed) behind my back, and how it seems that the people who know the least about me seemed to talk the most about me.

When I sit down to write, I was and am just as serious as any “real” journalist. I never, that I can recall, missed a deadline, and I was doing exactly what a journalist is supposed to do: get people chatting and engaged in a conversation. (Just like a book, if no one knows about your columns, do they even exist?)

Again, I was delightfully aware that others talked behind my back, so I made sure to give them an interesting topic — me.

So, my breakout role — if I can brag a little — is that I almost created a new type of journalism in Canada. Here’s a little tip if you don’t want to be a “real” journalist for all aspiring not “real" journalists: Google Search your name, and then go under, “People Also Searched For…:

Under my name? It looks like this:

*rebecca eckler husband

*rebecca eckler ex husband

*rebecca eckler books

*rebecca eckler modern love

*rebecca eckler Instagram

But the best?

rebecca eckler publishing house

Woot! It finally comes up when people search my name! 

I am hoping to create a new type of publishing house in Canada, one where I am no longer seen as an author but as a publisher. And it looks, based on google searches, people are allowing me to get out of being typecast as only a writer and author and not a real journalist.

If we look at this another more fun way, every actor in La-la-land wants that breakout role that will propel them into the mainstream stratosphere, which is what my not “real” journalism did.

When they do land that one perfect role, it can be a blessing or a curse. 

Many actors fall victim to typecasting, asked to play similar characters for the rest of their careers, usually after becoming ironic characters, never finding the next level of success after they have become so memorable after becoming an iconic character — like Rachel Green, the character played by Jennifer Aniston on the massively popular hit show Friends. (Which still airs today!)

I imagine that poor Jennifer Aniston -- the most typecast actor of my generation — may as well go into auditions saying something like, "I know I'm a possum, but will you give me a chance at a different kind of animal that doesn't require me, you know, to play dead?” 

I’m guilty too of typecasting Aniston. I'm still on “TEAM JEN!” and yes a small part of me wants her and Brad Pitt to rekindle their romance, even though Aniston and Brad Pitt split on January 7th, 18 years ago — 18 years ago!

Aniston has bemoaned playing Rachel Green on Friends, confessing that the role left her feeling typecast in Hollywood. “I could not get Rachel Green off of my back for the life of me. I could not escape ‘Rachel from Friends,’ and it's on all the time and you're like, ‘Stop playing that f***ing show!’” she told Hollywood Reporter, with laughter. 

She too is delightfully aware she had been the victim of typecasting, playing the role of Rachel Green on Friends from 1994 to 2004.

Even in 2002, when she starred in the independent movie The Good Girl, she says it was 'the first time I got to really shed whatever the Rachel character was, and to be able to disappear into someone who wasn't' adding that the edgy role was 'such a relief' to her. 

That being said…

She remembers the panic that set over her, as she thought, “Oh God, I don't know if I can do this. Maybe they're right. Maybe everybody else is seeing something I'm not seeing, which is you are only that girl in the New York apartment with the purple walls…”

She also has said of her starring role in The Good Girl, “So, I was almost doing it for myself just to see if I could do something other than that. And it was terrifying because you're doing it in front of the world.”

Aniston added how she has “fought with herself” in the industry “forever” and that her career has been “constantly about trying to prove that she was more than that person” saying: “But there is such a freedom in getting older because you just stop giving a crap.”

The problem is not Aniston’s acting, it seems, but that people don’t feel sorry for her, for trying to break out of her typecast as a rom-com star (and typecast as unlucky in love in real life.)

Near the end of the series, Aniston was paid $1 million dollars an episode to play Rachel Green. And people have a hard time wrapping their minds around that, it seems. based on the comments posted after admitting she’d like to take on more serious roles:

“Oh, boo hoo, poor Jen. Starred in one of the worst TV shows of all time and made enough money for 1000 lifetimes. POOR JEN!!!” wrote one.

“Which 'Green' would that be? Rachel ... or the millions of 'greenbucks' that luckily came her way! The grass is always 'greener' on the other side ...! Some folk are indeed luckier than most. Be grateful.” wrote another.

“Of all the parts she's played, that was her only great one. Stop complaining and be happy Rachel Green made you rich and famous,” wrote another.

She’s not the only female movie star to feel typecast.

“Please, please, please — I would love to do some comedy. Once you have a reputation for one thing -- in my case, crying and dying - you are typecast.” — Emily Watson has said.

“I hope I will not be typecast as a Bond girl for the rest of my life. I’m very proud of being a part of the Bond family, but I don't want to be the sexy girl forever. I'm not meaning to complain, but I just want to be taken seriously,” said French actor Eva Green.

So, in fact, I hope I am typecast as a publisher. It means I’m good at it, and I'll work for that. I plan to change people’s perception of me as just an author, or not a “real” journalist, even if people want me to remain an author and not a “real” journalist.

Many actors, after all, do escape the stereotyping trap and manage to become versatile, pleasantly surprising fans with different roles and performances.

Whatever I was typecast in my 20s and 30s didn't matter then and it doesn't matter now. By working very hard, being very professional, I’ll change “roles,” and shatter that image, just like every professional actor who has been forced to ask themselves: What part have I not played that I would be passionate about playing?

Well, I’m passionate about playing or starring in the role of Publisher. In actor’s lingo, I’ll be “casting against type,” a fancy way of saying The old Rebecca has reinvented herself is dead.

Until next time,

Flip your hair and flip the page (of a book not written by yours truly!)

P.S. As re:book’s continues to re:invent itself, we will be back in your inboxes in 2023! Happy New Year!