Template talk:Hilary Duff

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Layout[edit]

XL XR2 (talk · contribs) recently overhauled the layout of the template, citing (in his/her edit summary) better organisation and removal of bias towards Duff's music career. The first reason is debatable, given that XL's edits have brought the template out of line not only with other, similar templates, but with Wikipedia:Navigational templates and Template:NavigationBox. Surely Wikipedia would look unprofessional if there was little to no stylistic consistency between pages because editors are allowed to format articles and templates as they please. Perhaps more importantly, the addition of the red and pink colours goes against the Manual of Style — and why should it be red and pink out of every colour in existence? Is it because they are feminine colours, that Duff's representation in the media is similar to the dominant (feminine) representations of women, or that a large proportion of Duff's fans are teenage girls and young women who are (supposedly) into "girly" things such as bubblegum pop music and Lizzie McGuire? I'm sure some may think I'm overanalysing this, but these colours have certain connotations and express a point of view of Duff to the reader, albeit very subtly.

Now, the second reason — removing bias towards Duff's music career — certainly has merit, but with the current size of the template, I feel we shouldn't counter bias by adding to the template more weight (film and television credits) to the "other side" of Duff's career (acting), but by removing material related to her music career. Also, it's easy to make a case for saying that "Someone's Watching over Me" is "her" song, or that Metamorphosis is "her" album — but you can't do the same for films in which she has appeared, given that they could be credited primarily to the director, the writer, or even the studio/production company; including them in the Duff template in the way they have been included implies to the reader that they are "hers". So, I'm restoring the previous layout but am removing the list of the singles that didn't chart and the list of music DVDs. Extraordinary Machine 02:38, 28 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]