celebrity gossip, academic style

So Jennifer Lopez and Marc Antony broke up. So People makes it clear that it’s not amicable with a cover story. So “her side of the story” is on the cover of this week’s Us. So there seem to be a lot of down-and-dirty details, including an email from Lopez’s mom to Ben Affleck. You can find a great recap of the recent hoopla on Lainey.

This is, as Lainey makes clear, good for gossip. But what people aren’t talking about — at least not explicitly — is how good this is for Lopez.

A year ago, Lopez was nearing irrelevancy. When she was suggested for judge position on American Idol, people scoffed. Her collaborations with Marc Antony had tanked (at least stateside) and she seemed a relic of an earlier era — the celebrity antecedent to the Kim Kardashians and Beyonces of the world. (I mean, doesn’t Maid in Manhattan seem like a relic? And Jenny from the Block? AND THAT WEIRD SURVEILLANCY ‘IF YOU HAD MY LOVE’ VIDEO, which I totally watched on repeat as a senior in high school in the basement of my best friend’s house while trying to replicate dance moves? And Selena, GOD, Selena!)

But then there was Affleck, and then there was Gigli, and then there was the break-up and then there was massive overexposure, and then there was Marc Anthony and all sorts of speculation over why she would marry Hispanic Skeletor. (One of the best theories: he told her to move the F away from Miami, and then the paps would stop hassling her. She did, and her life became less of a circus). But as her life became less of a circus, she also became less interesting.

She tried to have babies to make herself interesting. Twins, even! (She might have also wanted to have babies for other reasons, but trust me, readers, she also wanted to have babies to respark interest in her. Just look at Posh. Sometimes I think the baby-making (or baby-adoption; I’m talking to you, Denise Richards) can signify as the most desperate of publicity moves. (TO BE CLEAR: I do not think that celebrities don’t want their babies, or do it simply for publicity. But it is a convenient and strategic by-product). But the twins didn’t work — at least not publicity wise; I’m sure they work as children just fine — and Lopez was left with more failed projects and nickname that just wouldn’t go away, no matter how much she insisted on being called Jennifer Lopez.

But then J. Lo’s fortunes turned. Despite rumors that she would not be hired on American Idol due to “outrageous demands” (her bottled water preferences are very specific), audiences like her, People named her the world’s most beautiful woman, and she’s become highly visible to a broad swath of America once again.

Which might explain how her new album, featuring the single “Up on the Floor” has also done well.

In the video for “On the Floor,” she not only proves that she still has a ridiculous body (I mean seriously, this woman is 41, that’s amazing) but also hails two generations of listeners at once: by allowing Pitbull to call her “J.Lo,” she’s re-embracing the image (and fandom) that made her famous in late ’90s/early 2000s; by having the song feature Pitbull himself, she bolsters her appeal to the Latin market and to the teen market. (Unlike Marc Antony, Pitbull’s recent music has crossed over into the Top 40 mainstream market). The song peaked at #3 on the American charts, giving Lopez her first hit since 2003.

In other words, the music — aka the talent, or the thing that undergirds celebrity — is back. So is the visibility. What was missing, then, was the intrigue — because to be a big-time celebrity in America, you need all three.

Lopez solved that problem last week with the unexpected break-up from Marc Antony…..which then snowballed into the the accusations and the People cover and the tell-all with Us. Which completes the celebrity triangle: talent, visibility, and extra-textual intrigue. She’s back in the gossip mags — which, combined with a hit single and a continuing gig on Idol (plus rumors of a stint on Glee next year) means she’s back in the game.

Obviously, broken marriages suck. But gossip is always the inverse of real life: things that are bad in real life are good gossip; things that are good in real life are bad gossip. And, at least for the time being, things couldn’t be going better — gossip-wise, career-wise, image-wise — for J. Lo, Pt. 2.

But the reason I wrote this wasn’t necessarily to point out that Lopez is a bonafide celebrity again. it’s to point out the ways in which celebrities (with the help of their agents) wield personal developments to their personal benefit. I don’t think it’s necessarily cynical to believe this — it’s just the way that image-making works. It worked like this in classic Hollywood (if not more so) and it continues to work that way today. The timing of this break-up was no mistake, falling, as it did, during a lull in publicity for Lopez, Idol, and her music. The goal for celebrities, whether big time like Angelina Jolie or small time like Jennifer Love Hewitt, is to always have something to keep your name on people’s lips, whether in the form of a hit song, a new movie, “25 Things You Don’t Know About Me,” a new baby, or a break-up.

Jennifer Lopez, the living-breathing-person, probably doesn’t love exploiting her personal life. But Jennifer Lopez, the image, the celebrity, the concept that lives in people’s minds, demands it.