Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Hugh Grant/archive1

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted 04:16, 23 October 2007.

Hugh Grant[edit]

Self-nomination. I found this article as a pedestrian, minimal, and very inadequate summary of the subject. I wrote the article in its entirety as it appears today on October 6, 2007. This includes a detailed overview of Grant's movies and screen personae (with accompanying images), his attitude towards acting and movie stardom, views of his peers, tense relationships with British media, and personal details about his early life, education, interests, scandals, etc. Having thoroughly researched all available public information about Grant, the biography is heavily sourced (with no citations of tabloid or gossipy magazines, except when documenting their attitude towards the star), documents a popular cultural figure intelligently, and is the most complete overview of his life available online. Given that Grant has been one of the foremost movie stars of his time (and is venturing on a new phase of writing and directing) and because this article is well-written, cogent and informative, I'm nominating it to be a featured article. It is one of my first major contributions to wikipedia and the article has not been reviewed earlier, but I still believe it is worth the nomination. I will be glad to make recommended edits. Thanks! Busillis 02:48, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comments. You've put a lot of work into this, well done. It is a very solid article, however I have a few major concerns and some minor.
Thanks for the comments. I have revised the article a lot - removing unnecessary quotes, paraphrasing many others and making it a more balanced and smoother read. Let me know what you think.Busillis
    • POV concern. I'll focus on the intro but my comments apply overall. There's too much complimentary information without the counterweight of some criticism. e.g. the attributes charisma, roguish charm, sharp tongue, and quick wit seem very arbitrary. The only criticism in the intro is "His infamous grumpiness,[14] political incorrectness, and unwillingness to be a prototype genial celebrity..." a sentence which ends by partially negating them "...have done little to diminish his worldwide popularity" Even the "Media hostility" section, which could be classified as criticism spends most of its time justifying Grant's stance. Also no examples of criticism of his acting as far as I can see and I have no doubt at least one prominent movie critic has issues - I'm not judging him here, I'm saying it would be remarkable for an actor to have universal praise from every major critic for everything they've ever done.
      • Very important point. Three major changes: I have added a lot of critical statements to go with the praise in the section called "Movies". Plus, there's now a "critical review" section with issues raised against his acting. I've also edited the Media hostility section (which is now combined with the small section on celebrity) so that now it is mainly about Grant's own hostile attitude toward the media. All his defensive quotes have been removed, with just one statement at the bottom. The section is now pretty critical of Grant, imo. I disagree about the intro though. When Grant is introduced on talk shows, written about in profiles or generally talked about, the three thing that always come up are his charisma, charm and wit. It was so on Oprah. And his latest Vogue profile started as such: "Hugh Grant, he of the debonair wit and raffish charm." When these characteristics are associated as much with a person as they are with Grant, they cease to be arbitrary and become part of his image esp. because movie stars are personality-driven public figures. Anyone who has read or seen his interviews would find it impossible to argue that he isn't witty, plus his performances too are famous for the dry, wry British wit he brings to them. Same goes with charm - he has been known for so long to be a charming leading man that it is sort of a conventionally held notion. So, I think it is fair to say that he is known for these traits. I have rephrased the end of the intro though, removing the clause you mentioned. Busillis
    • Sport section - sports are emboldened.
    • Too much of the article is made up of quotes. e.g. the paragraph beginning "According to him, he "fell into being a successful actor truly by mistake."[59]" is 296 words, of which 203 are in quotations. Using quotations in this way is perfectly acceptable, however in my opinion when a paragraph is 69% quotes and not original text, that's too far. There's also readability issues. Many are not required, e.g. the sentence "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno had him booked for the same week and "despite his arrest, Hugh Grant kept his appointment to appear on Jay's show."[145] -- No reason you could not say "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno had him booked for the same week and despite his arrest, Grant went ahead with the interview." [or the equivalent of]. Also "fine and funny (Amazon) turn" is not a great citation.
      •  Done I have removed a lot of unnecessary quotes and added more original text. The Tonight show quote is used because it is from a former employee's book and thereby confirms that Grant was booked for his appearance before the arrest. I have specified the employee's name now. The only sections with heavy emphasis on quotes are Light comedy, work ethic and personality sections. And that's because we know mostly about his personality and working style mostly from people around him. Since he is a living celebrity with no objective biographies published about him, it is hard to write about these areas of his life with authoritative original statements. When it comes to his early life, ancestry, and some others sections, I have used a minimal amount of quotes. Anyway, I've still paraphrased as much as I could - have a look. Busillis
    • Some cquote's, some blockquotes and some large quote boxes. Try standardising a bit. Overuse also perhaps? e.g. 2 in one short section ("Notoriously selective actor").
      •  Done All large quote boxes are now removed. For consistency, all cquotes are Grant's words whereas blockquotes represent others' opinions and observations. Busillis
    • Libel lawsuits section. Undue emphasis given to quotations. e.g. bold "highly defamatory".
    • Uses of dashes as punctuation with no requirement for them.
    • No such position as Prime Minister of Great Britain, it's PM of GB and NI. British Prime Minister would be better if you were just avoiding the long title. No need for The Rt Hon. in front of Tony Blair.
    • Ext. links - why are the two BBC stories especially noteworthy?
      • One is an interview where Grant answers some FAQ about him. The second was about his involvement in a high-profile charity event - I have removed this one as it seems unnecessary. Busillis
    • Something I learned from a recent FAC I was working on - don't link unnecessary terms. Some examples: editor, publication titles (unless somehow significant to the incident), London, UK, US. 2nd paragraph of "Distinguished ancestry" is a sea of blue. And try to trim "Grant was born at Hammersmith Hospital in Hammersmith, London, Middlesex, England.!!"
    • Also overlinking (i.e. one term linked multiple times) e.g. Four Weddings and a Funeral (6) Julia Roberts (2) Sense and Sensibility (2) Elizabeth Hurley (3). Just a few examples, you might need to check for others.
    • General writing cleanup. e.g. isn't > is not. Mark83 14:27, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Overall I think this is very very good. Something that you may want to work in, he was cast as Gilderoy Lockhart in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets but had to drop out due to a scheduling conflict. [1] Gran2 10:28, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I left that out (along with other projects he has turned down) because of length issues. The one thing I do think the article could do more of with are pictures, especially since I have now even removed the blue quote boxes. Let me know what you think of the revised article as it stands now! Busillis
  • Oppose. This reads more like a magazine article than an encyclopedia to me. Other issues:
    • There are still POV issues.
      • The intro sentence in the lead focuses more on his personal characteristics than his acting.
      • The heading titles are a little too descriptive, making them seem POV (i.e., "formidable" work ethic
      • "beguiling" FWAAF
  • The lead does not appear to summarize the article
  • Do not include external links in the body of the article; they should be in the External links section or not at all.
  • Is it necessary to include so much information on his ancestry? I think it might be a little distracting, and should be trimmed and merged with the next section.
    • Need a citation for Jamie Grant's occupation, especially since he is described as "successful"
    • I think some words are wikilinked that don't need to be -- pub, revue, thespian
    • I think you should mention his movies and then include the sections on light comedy and mystique
    • Need a citation after the quote of "professionally misanthropic mystique" in the first sentence of the section with the same name.
    • Need citations for first paragraph of europuddings phase
    • I think there are too many long quotations. Some of them could be paraphrased and incorporated into the article better. The methods for the quotation display is also not consistent
    • Don't bold words like "Europuddings"
    • Need a citation for the quote about "Determindely offbeat film"
    • Since you have the references for the quotes, you don't need to include the newspaper that they came from in paranetheses
    • Need a citation for the quote by Philip French about Grant's range
    • Don't start a section (Filmmaker) with a quotation.
    • Make sure all full dates are wikilinked, as well as month/date pairs without a year.
    • The section titled Athlete seems more trivia-y, and should probably be pared.
    • Summarize the Awards article in text in that section. At least talk about the main awards he had won, including the Golden Globe. I've never seen the Awards section as you have put it here (but I don't read a lot of actor articles), and I think it is highly distracting. Just mention the awards and leave off the Preceded by/succeeded by
    • Newspaper names in the citations should be italicized -- you can use {{citation|newspaper=}}

Karanacs 17:53, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.
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