People Are Absolutely Dragging James Corden’s Performance In ‘The Prom’

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The Prom made its grand debut on Netflix over the weekend. Meryl Streep and Nicole Kidman joining forces for a movie-musical sounds like a goddamn dream, right? Right?! Wrong.

I tried to watch the musical adaption, and I honestly couldn’t get through the first 15 minutes. The movie follows a group of out-of-work Broadway actors, as they travel to a small town to rally around a teen girl who wants to take her girlfriend to the prom. Oh, and they sing — a lot.

While the film itself has received mixed reviews (people either love it or hate it), one thing that many viewers agree on is that James Corden is arguably the worst part of the movie. Corden plays a gay Broadway star and, as the talk show host identifies as straight, viewers are wondering why a queer actor wasn’t cast in his place.

Names like Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt’s Titus Burgess or Nathan Lane have been floated as more appropriate actors for such a part. Of course, this isn’t the first time a straight actor has played a queer character. In this instance, criticism is being directed at Corden’s performance, which was full of harmful gay stereotypes that felt outdated and culturally insensitive — especially coming from a heterosexual man in 2020.

For what it’s worth, Corden’s gay co-star — Girls actor Andrew Rannells — has defended director Ryan Murphy’s casting choice. “It’s the best person for the job, quite frankly. In the same way that James can play the gay character, he’s also given me an opportunity to play a straight character, which is not something I do all the time,” he told Attitude UK.

Whether you enjoyed Corden’s portrayal or not, these tweets taking the piss out of him are still extremely funny.

People on Twitter are absolutely dragging James Corden’s performance on The Prom:

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