Jen Tries So Very, Very Hard to Get Dirty
Biggest post-Oscar celebrity news: the long-anticipated Jen/Gerry W Cover. Here’s the sneak preview that went viral earlier today, prompting blog posts from both Lainey Gossip (here) and Jezebel (there). And while Lainey did a nice job of pointing out how posed and awkward Gerald Butler looks, she failed to touch on the real juice of the story, passed along by Jezebel — the entire thing was shot by Steven Klein, the man responsible for the (in)famous W Magazine shoot for Brad Pitt and Angelina, pictured (in part) in all its ridiculous glory below.
Recall, please, that this particular spread was published when Aniston and Pitt were still together, way back in 2005. Jolie and Pitt were purportedly posing in simple publicity for the forthcoming Mr. and Mrs. Smith. (It’s widely believed that this particular photo shoot was part of what prompted Jennifer Aniston, in her post-break-up interview with Vanity Fair, to declare that Pitt lacked “a sensitivity chip.” What’s more, as Jezebel points out, Klein is a good friend of Pitt. And so the plot thickens.
So here’s what we know:
1.) Jennifer Aniston is attempting to add much-needed life to her image following the abject failure of Love Happens.
2.) The Bounty Hunter, starring, of course, Aniston and Butler, opens NEXT WEEK. Aniston has been cultivating — but not actually confessing to — the suggestion of a romance for months, through formal appearances (Golden Globes gross-out posing, see below) and ‘gotcha!’ paparazzi photos that effectively suggest that she and Butler have been privately vacationing (read: her publicist and his publicist agreed he should be photographed with her in Mexico).
2.) In that film to succeed, Aniston understands that she needs a viable romance, preferably, but necessarily, with her co-star (See, for example, the hoopla over the ‘supposed engagement’ leading up to the release of The Break-Up). No matter how much John Mayer emphasizes his respect for her, she still doesn’t have a cute relationship to flaunt for the gossip mags and thus keep herself visible. It’s simple old Hollywood logic, and she (and her publicists) knows it well: the more she insinuates the possibility of a relationship with Butler, the more curious people will be to see their chemistry, and more the film will gross.
3.) Aniston is also attempting to diversify her image ever so slightly. To my mind, this is the most transparent attempt to ‘Angelina’ herself that we’ve seen. First off, the film they’re promoting is basically a vanilla version of Mr. and Mrs. Smith (just check out the trailer — it’s like Brangelina Lite… far less sexual gravitas and far more stilted attempts at bad humor).
Secondly, there’s the shoot itself. Oh, look, Jen’s such a bad girl! She’s stealing money! Getting arrested! Role playing, how dirty! (Side note: all images below are screen shots from the W website, as images from the actual spread have yet to be put online — thus the blue lines, which allow you to see how and where to buy the clothes she’s wearing).
Even look at the specific articles of clothing depicted below, all of which she’s wearing in the cover shot. We’re used to thinking of Jennifer Aniston naked and wrapped in the American flag, as she appeared last year on the cover of GQ. But Aniston in quasi-burlesque lingerie? What’s going on here?
The most fascinating attempt to associate Aniston with dirt is, well, quite literal. The ‘Behind the Scenes’ tell-all, Chris McMillan, Aniston’s long-time stylist, ‘best friend,’ and the man behind ‘The Rachel,’ highlights the dirty details of the shoot, both figurative and literal:
This is not exactly Jennifer as we know her.
We got there and the storyboards were kind of Kim Basinger in9 1/2 Weeks. Which is even better, because then it started getting good.
How did you arrive at this particular look for Jennifer’s hair?
Well, Steven [Klein] was talking to Jennifer for about an hour and a half while she was doing fittings and her hair dried into this naturally curly head of hair. So we just refined it from there. But it’s not her typical blown-out hairstyle. It’s a little rougher, we liked seeing the flyaways.
What about day two of the shoot?
At the end of the first day Steven came up to me and goes, “Could you please ask her if she could not wash her hair tonight and just show up tomorrow?” I mean, she was rolling in the dirt, it was windy and she had hairspray in her hair.
She said yes to that? Dirty hair?
Yeah, we left her hair dirty. It just created a nice chunky texture. The key to Jennifer’s hair is no matter what you do with it — straight, frizzy, dirty — it looks like it actually grows out of her head. She’s someone for whom her hair doesn’t wearher, she wears it.
This is a rhetorical gold mine. Main points: Jen conflated with sex star; Jen with a ‘new look’; Jen ‘spends all day rolling in the dirt’; Jen ‘game’ for dirty hair. Adds up to: Jen, crazy, dirty, up for anything girl! In other words, not the staid, always-the-same-blown-out-hair, sartorially and stylistically conservative girl, dumped by Brad for exotic sexpot.
I’m also struck by the visual similarities to another Brangelina photoshoot, also in the Arizona desert, only for Vanity Fair, that was published after the pair came out publicly as a couple -
Now, you might sense an abundance of vitriol directed towards Aniston, and you would be correct. Long time readers (read: those who have read for the 9 months that I’ve maintained this blog) will know that I harbor general disdain for her. Part of disaffection is certainly subjective — there’s just something about her, and about the stock character that she plays, that grates against me. (Note, however, that I really love her in both The Good Girl and Friends with Money — in part because those characters are so different from the recurring-Rachelness of her mainstream fare, but also her role in Friends with Money seems so much more honest about what it feels like to be a woman in her late 30s surrounded by other women with marriages, money, and oscillating levels of happiness).
It’s not that I dislike Aniston for playing the publicity game. Obviously, judging from my general admiration and fascination with The Brange, I don’t dislike those who manipulate their images. Rather, it’s that Aniston is so transparent about that manipulation — but not on purpose. She’s not ridiculously bad at it, like, say, Lindsay Lohan, or ridiculously obvious about it, like Heidi and Spencer. She’s trying play at the level of Pitt and Jolie, and she fails. The efforts of her — and her team — are derivative (again, see the photoshoot….five years too late). A for effort, but a solid B overall.
And here’s where I make a big inflammatory claim and piss people off: I think they’re B level because she’s actually a B level star posing as A-level. Once a television star, always a television star. Not only has her beginning on Friends limited the extent to which she can successfully stretch her star persona (Rachel-like character = success; un-Rachel-like; no-go), but also the limits to which she can successfully manipulate her image. She’s beautiful, yes; she has an incredible body, of course. But is she special? Can she use specialness — that uniqueness that distinguishes the most enduring of movie stars- to elevate her above and help us forget the way she plays the game? I don’t think so. In the end, we see her manipulations so vividly because her star shines so dimly. She’s not a bad star, or an unsuccessful one. But she’s not one for the ages, no matter how dirty she gets her hair.
Brangelina: Only Over When They Say So.
See this PR machine? It'll only break when it's good and ready.
Maybe you didn’t hear the news on Saturday night. Maybe you weren’t like me, at home, preparing a journal article at 7 pm, and were thus out of reach of all internet gossip. But if you were online or in any way attached to social media, chances are you heard or saw the tsunami-like progress of the Brangelina Break-Up through the internet. Of course, it was false. But for a few hours, for many, it felt very true.
Lainey Gossip does a superb job of laying out the very specific reasons why this rumor could not have been true. As she underlines,
These two are manipulative and obsessively controlling. Especially HIM. And they’re not lazy. They’re not Tiger Woods. They are experienced. They lock their sh-t down tight. And for something like this, if they really are prepared to call it off, it would have been engineered and masterminded months ago. They would have had a game plan in mind to run the message the way they want to run the message. Just like Pitt made the announcement of his split from Jennifer Aniston strategically on a Friday afternoon, after everyone had gone home, while he was away on holiday, as the least opportune time for the media.
In other words, they’re the best. I’m not saying this because I like them or I’m fascinated by them; I’m saying this because they have a tested and true record of brilliant and immaculate publicity manipulation. Please recall: Angelina Jolie, whose image had theretofore been characterized by brother-kissing, amulet-wearing, and associations with the likes of Billy Bob Thorton, “steals” Brad Pitt from all-American Jennifer Aniston. They don’t get married. They adopt many, many non-white children; they have three children out of wedlock. And they got away with it! Not only that, they are beloved. Indeed, they are, without a doubt, the biggest stars in America. Their auras are the largest; they may not be able to open a film like, say, oh, John Travolta in Wild Hogs, but trust me, their brands are much, much more valuable.
This wasn’t some magic trick or intrinsic quality; it was the product of impeccable and incredibly savvy P.R. Just see Nikki Finke on Jolie’s manager, Guyer Kosinski, who was recently hired by Nicole Kidman to revamp her struggling career. He may be referred to as “Guyer the Liar” and have a general reputation in Hollywood for sleaziness, but the guy is so effective that Jolie does not even have an agent. Many of you already know this about Pitt and Jolie. But for those of you who don’t, the lesson is: when, and if, they ever separate, it will be a masterpiece of P.R. manipulation.
And it will most certainly not come from the likes of The News of the World, whose story, published on Saturday afternoon, was the source of the rumor. Now, as Lainey again points out, U.S. tabloids have been trumpeting the demise of Brange for the last four years. Life and Style is especially keen on declaring the various reasons for their tragic break-up: Angelina cheats on Brad with tutor, Brad’s secret rendezvous with Jen, etc. etc. But when you read it in Life and Style in the supermarket aisle, the vast majority of us, even those who love gossip, put absolutely zero stock in such a claim. Why? We’ve been trained. We’ve seen so many false claims on the tabs — and I’m not necessarily talking about The National Enquirer, which, as the John Edwards and Tiger Woods cases prove, are actually oftentimes ahead of the curve — but the truly unresearched, sensational, and derivative tabs like L&S, The Sun, and The Star.
Why, then, did so many believe it? Let’s be a bit more specific. Why did so many Americans believe it? The answer is pretty simple: lack of international media literacy. In other words, they didn’t realize that News of the World was a British tabloid. Doesn’t it kind of sound like, oh, I dunno, The Globe and Mail? Or something else super official? It’s promising to offer the News of the World! Not Life and Style!
And many people believed this story — including reputable people — which only facilitated the spread of the rumor. Even Roger Ebert, who’s developed quite the devoted Twitter following, retweeted the news. When it first broke, I was in Twitter “conversation” (oh god, supernerdtastic) with fellow media scholars Christine Becker and Alisa Perren, and all of us were looking for TMZ to break the news. And if you ever hear news of such a split again — or of any major celebrity news — that’s where I’d absolutely advise going to confirm. As I argue in my recent article on TMZ, which just came out in print in Television & New Media, TMZ has a rock-solid network of informants, inside-men/women in the legal system, and immaculate fact checking. They’re basically lawsuit proof, in part because they don’t publish rumor. They publish confirmed facts. When they broke news of Michael Jackson’s death hours before anyone else, it wasn’t because they were jumping the gun. He was dead on arrival, and they had the sources within the ambulance/EMT network to confirm it. But they’re more than just libel-proof — they’re also right. No matter your feelings about their garish and intrusive style, they get the dirt, and they publish it first, and if it’s not there, it’s not true.
Of course, when Pitt and Jolie (and their publicists) realized they needed to counter this unexpected rumor, they didn’t call TMZ. TMZ rarely trucks in publicists. Instead, they called People, which relayed an official statement as to the continuing integrity of their relationship. And while official statements are often bunk, this one rings true. Again, if they were going to break up, it most certainly would not be leaked, scooped, or scandalous. It would be handled with kid-gloves, it would sustain the auras of both Pitt and Jolie, and it would make all involved parties look saintly.
So let this be our lesson: don’t trust British tabloids, don’t trust sources just because they have “news” in the title, and don’t believe a Brangelina break-up tale until it involves an official statement, TMZ confirmation, and a dramatic surge of damage control pictures featuring beautiful children.
Why George Clooney Makes Me Donate: Haiti, Celebrities, and Philanthropy
I was recently asked to review Andrew F. Cooper’s Celebrity Diplomacy for the online journal e3w Literature, published out of the English Department at UT-Austin. (Kinda like Flow — but replete with book reviews). I received the book just this week, and, considering the horrific disaster that befell Haiti last week, it couldn’t have happened at more ‘appropriate’ time. As I work my way through the book, I’m struck by the ways in which ‘official’ diplomacy — the work of UNICEF Goodwill Ambassadors, etc. — bleeds into the work of more unofficial action, which would include general philanthropy and fundraising.
According to Cooper, diplomacy is action, on the part of celebrities, that actually works within established political frameworks to advocate, agitate, or assist in change. In other words, people who are “official.” The most obvious example would be Audrey Hepburn (especially her work in hunger in Ethiopia in the 1980s) but many, many others have taken on official roles within the United Nations, from Angelina Jolie to Richard Gere. (The use of high profile celebrities has increased exponentially under Kofi Annan, who believes strongly in the P.R. potential of their association with various causes). You also have those not officially tied to the United Nations, but still working within the system a quasi-diplomats. Bono is the exemplar here, but Bob Geldof, the outspoken and oftentimes gauche British musician behind Live Aid and Live 8, also fits the bill. (So, in a weird way, does someone like Bill Gates, who becomes a celebrity first through his innovations and capitalist skill, and second (and now, primarily) through his work with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation)
And then you have celebrities who are not engaging in diplomacy, per se. Instead, they have philanthropies, and they encourage you to give to them, e.g. Not On Our Watch, dedicated to preventing mass atrocities, founded by George Clooney, Don Cheadle, Matt Damon, Brad Pitt, and producer Jerry Weintraub.
Alternately, celebrities encourage you to give to OTHER philanthropies. In other words, they attempt to use their clout and aura as a famous person to induce you to give to a specific cause, whether that be Operation Smile (Jessica Simpson) or PETA (Pam Anderson).
In the aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti, we’ve seen both of these approaches mobilized. Perhaps most prominently, Haiti-native Wyclef Jean called immediate attention to the cause (most prominently on Twitter) and encouraged his fans and followers to donate (using text message) to his foundation, Yéle Haiti. (Interestingly, according to the all-knowing Wikipedia, the foundation itself has been under investigation for non-reportage of funds, and has paid a rather low percentage of its funds towards actual projects. Just a caution.)
In the days since, UNICEF Goodwill ambassadors, including Alyssa Milano and Joel Madden, have helped to raise money for aid to victims of the quake, appearing on Larry King, hosting benefit concerts, and asking for ‘matching donations‘ from corporations and encouraging donations through Twitter feeds and fan websites. Ben Stiller, John Mayer, Big Boi (from Outkast), Ryan Seacrest, Jennifer Lopez, Oprah, Rihanna, Nicole Richie, and dozens of others have participated in fundraising efforts; Rihanna, for example, just recorded a version of “Redemption Song” to benefit the effort, and John Travolta had one of his fleet of planes fly to Haiti stocked full of aid. Madonna gave 250,000 dollars, Sandra Bullock donated a million, The Jolie-Pitt Foundation put up another million, and Gisele donated 1.5. And those are just the biggest, most reported donations.
And I haven’t even mentioned George Clooney’s telethon, slated for January 22nd, which will air on all of the MTV networks (MTV, VH1, CMT, Comedy Central) plus NBC, ABC, CBS, The CW, CNN, and HBO. The guestlist includes String, Alicia Keys, Justin Timberlake, Bono….and promises many, many more.
So celebrities encourage us to donate money — and many of us do it. But what does this tell us about ourselves — and about the celebrities behind this diplomacy and philanthropy?
There are two major currents at work here.
1.) Celebrity Aura
Celebrities are used to sell all sorts of things — Kim Kardashian sells salads, Tiger Woods (used to) sell everything from watches to consulting services. The idea is that your stored up appreciation, admiration, or affection for that celebrity will (subconsciously or consciously) lead you to purchase the product they endorse. In most cases, you don’t go buy a salad at Carl’s Jr. because Kim Kardashian tells you to — but if you’re in the market for a salad, or for Carl’s Jr., then her endorsement might stick in your head. The same goes for philanthropy. You don’t hear Ryan Seacrest tell you to donate and suddenly realize “oh, yes, I SHOULD TOTALLY DO THAT!” Rather, you’re already disposed towards donation — you’ve heard the stories on the news, you’ve seen images of the destruction — and their plea, and your trust in their specific celebrity, puts you over the edge. Bear in mind, though, that different celebrities cater to different populations. I don’t donate when Jennifer Lopez tells me to — but George Clooney, boy, I’m listening. Why? It’s a matter of respect and adulation. George Clooney is a celebrity who I forget is trying to pitch me something. His image resonates with me. Nicole Richie might resonate with you, or John Mayer or Bill Clinton or Bono might. Clooney, as much as Bono, resonates with a broad and diverse swath of people — the exact reason he’s perfect to spearhead the telethon. (Also like Bono, he’s popular within his particular community — in other words, people, and not just fans, will do what he asks. Which means that he can compel other actors and celebrities to appear and promote a cause. Indeed, part of his stated reason for attending the Golden Globes, despite being deep in planning for the telethon, was to buttonhole his Hollywood friends and compel them to participate).
2.) Celebrity Construction.
To put it bluntly, celebrities participate in philanthropy and charity causes because it helps their images. Now, by no means am I proposing that celebrities hate those in need or don’t, in fact, care for the causes they champion. I am, however, suggesting that visible work in the philanthropic or diplomatic sphere can be used as very handy and very effective tool in shaping a celebrity’s image. Whether to neutralize rumor or scandal or to generally foster good will, there’s little you can argue with about helping others. The case of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie is perhaps most instructive here, but there have been dozens of sports figures whose images have been tarnished by various foibles — drug use, dog fighting, whatever — and have cultivating relationships with philanthropies or created philanthropies to counter criticism.
It can also flesh out a pre-exisiting star image: Clooney, for example, wasn’t exactly lacking in public affection, but once he develops a philanthropy and explicit cause, and then backs up that dedication not only financially, but with his time, voice, and connections, he further ingratiates himself to his fans and, perhaps, develops new ones. Since the end of 2008, Clooney has been an “ambassador of peace” for the UN. What does that mean, exactly? Your guess is as good as mine. It means he travels places and has pictures taken, draws attention to otherwise neglected causes, and puts his name alongside good causes. Again, I’m not saying that Clooney doesn’t care about these people or these causes — but you cannot deny the fact that his participation in these causes helps him, and his image, accrue no small amount of good will.
When it comes down to it, celebrities don’t make us give when we don’t want to. But they do help motivate us to give when we’re too lazy to. Which is part of the magic of the text message gift, right? It’s painless giving. Which, in and of itself, is a phenomenon of which we should be very, very wary. Faced with what happened in Haiti — or, for that matter, with what has been happening in Haiti for over 200 years — we should feel a constant need to do something. It shouldn’t take a celebrity to activate that desire, and it shouldn’t be limited to pocket change. As is, however, a celebrity plea is often what it takes. And if that’s how things are, then I’m thankful celebrities are willing to lend their names to causes in order to spur us into donation, even if that donation is never enough.
The Golden Globes: Feast During Celebrity Famine
It’s a dry time of year for gossip. There’s no place in North America for stars to frolic in bikinis or minidresses; the more flesh covered, the less interesting the paparazzi photos. Brangelina have been obliging us with several pictures of their brood in NYC, but the kids look like they’re clothed for an apocalyptic blizzard. People‘s biggest news = THE WEDDING OF THE BORINGEST JONAS BROTHER. In a fake castle. In New York. To a non-celebrity. There is absolutely nothing to interest me in that story, save the fact that the bride walked down the aisle to the music from Lady and the Tramp, which is just vomitous.
In other gossip news? Renee Zelwegger GOES ON A WALK. With Bradley Cooper’s parents. Taylor Swift is at home Tweeting about her Christmas Tree, not the fact that she and the other Taylor apparently broke up their non-relationship. And Jude Law and Sienna Miller, now back together for weeks, go on vacation with his kids. They’re so no-longer-scandalous that they don’t even try to hide. All the Oscar movies have been released, even if only in limited run, and the stars are finished with their exhaustive promotional tours. The water is calm, but it’s about to be stirred and shaken by MY MOST FAVORITE NIGHT IN ALL OF TELEVISION. Namely, The Golden Globes.
As as award show, The Golden Globes are superior to The Oscars in every way, and here’s why:
1.) There’s no host.
2.) There are no musical numbers.
3.) Everyone sits at tables, sometimes grouped like BFFs, sometimes awkwardly. (You can decide for yourself which category Scorsese + Spielberg + Coppola would fall into).
4.) It requires television stars to mingle with movie stars. Tiny Fey has to chat with Scarlett Johansson, etc. etc.
5.) The “Miss Golden Globe” introduction is the single most awesomely awkward and lecherous moment in live television.
6.) EVERYONE IS DRUNK AS SKUNKS. This is key. They’re ostensibly served dinner, but no one wants to be caught stuffing lettuce into her mouth on camera, so basically they just drink. And then end up presenting, or accepting awards, or whispering to each other when someone else wins an award, has Brangelina has been particularly wont to do. The awards themselves matter little; as Anne Thompson and Nikki Finke point out, if anything, they provide a red herring for ‘laymen’ who think they’re predictive of Oscar nominees/winners. The “Best Drama” and “Best Musical/Comedy” divide makes it so that they can invite more people and give out more statues, but it also divides the categories and renders them somewhat meaningless. (Which isn’t to say that I don’t like Musicals/Comedies — indeed, I agree with the thought that they’re too often given short shrift at the ‘serious minded’ Oscars, but dividing the categories just renders those awards into consolatory prizes, like the “Best Animated Feature” award at the Oscars, created almost exclusively to honor Pixar movies). The nominations are also somewhat shamelessly influenced by studio wine-and-dining, and unlike the Oscars, they’re not the tabulated desires of those actually working in the field.
BUT THE STARS ARE THERE, AND THEY’RE DRUNK. And oftentimes visibly, purposely so. Which, from a star studies perspective, is fascinating. They stars are ostensibly offering up their ‘authentic’ selves — in an awards ceremony to honor their performative work. We’re to take their actions, emotions, facial expressions, groupings, etc. as indicative of their unmediated selves, when, in reality, this is just as much of a performance of ‘being a star’ as any other highly orchestrated appearance. Unlike The Oscars, however, the pomp and circumstance is mostly removed at the Globes, rendering the ‘ceremony’ more believably ‘natural.’ And the knowledge of the alcohol does it as well. We see the wine, the whiskey, the near-hiccups. If they’re drunk, it’s the real them. Right?
So here’s what you have to look forward to this year:
*First, here’s a link to the full list of nominations, in case you weren’t up at 5 a.m. on the day they were released like “some people.”
*Scorsese’s getting the “Cecil B. DeMille Award,” which means that his old cronies will be there to present it to him, much as they did when he finally won the Oscar for The Departed. Hopefully Coppola will say something like “I wish I still made good movies like you, Marty” or Cameron Diaz will say “Remember that one time when I played a whore in your movie? Write me another role! Now I’m stuck in movies like My Sister’s Keeper, pretending I’m bald!”
Awkward or not awkward?
*Inglourious Basterds is up for Best Picture, which means the Weinsteins will be there. And as Nine continues to bomb, so do their hopes of salvaging their company. By the time of the awards, we’ll probably know if they’re secured financing to back up their failed financing to back up their previous failed financing. AWKWARD.
*Meryl Streep is up against herself in the Best Actress in a Comedy category. If she wins, which she will (for Julia and Julia) I’m sure there will be a brilliant self-deprecating quip, and probably some snide remark about Alec Baldwin and/or Steve Martin.
*When, and if, Carey Mulligan wins for An Education, I hope to god they show her boyfriend (Shia LaBeouf) looking ashamed that he can only act with giant robots.
*Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who you’d never get to see at the Oscars, will be there, nominated for being, along with Zooey Deschanel’s wardrobe, the most redeeming part of (500) Days of Summer. And he’ll be there in some variation of a suit. The picture below will testify as to why this is important.
*The ENTIRE CAST OF MAD MEN. I love it when you get to see who makes the big table who and who doesn’t, and be surprised when they’re not all dressed from the ’60s, especially Joan and Peggy, er, Christina Hendricks and Elizabeth Moss. And maybe Pete will have a gross beard again?
*They probably nominated Julia Roberts (for Duplicity) just so they could get her there, which means….
*…You can play a drinking game where you have to chug everytime they show Julia Roberts presumably making a dirty joke to George Clooney (nominated for Up in the Air) and/or Brad Pitt (there to support Inglourious Basterds) and/or Matt Damon (nominated TWICE — once for The Informant! and once for Invictus). Bonus points if one of the above at some point makes fun of Damon getting a.) fat or b.) doing a South African accent. (They give Matt Damon a bad time! JUST LIKE THEY DO IN Ocean’s 11!)
Oh, we’re such good friends!
*Of course, it’s exactly that Hollywood good-ol’-boys club atmosphere that’s at once so seemingly authentic and incredibly performative. It’s not like this is the award banquet at the company Christmas party — there are cameras at every table, zoomed in, hoping they’ll do something off-the-cuff, guffaw at the wrong moment, sneer when someone gestures to an overpraised actor. But that spontaneity, guffaws and sneers and all, is supremely self-aware. I love to think that it isn’t — that we’re getting the “authentic” Clooney, with his authentic Italian arm candy, not at all acquired to make him seem more lovable, living the sequel to Up in the Air, emotionally redeemed and happy, hanging out with his best pals. .
See, he can hold hands in public now, which means he, like his character in Up in the Air, is obviously past his commitment issues. (Photo via Just Jared)
*Bigelow and Cameron, head-to-head. If you haven’t been following the lead up to awards season, you might not know that James Cameron and Katherine Bigelow, directors of Avatar and The Hurt Locker, respectively, are the favorites for Best Director. AND THEY USED TO BE MARRIED. They’re now cordial — even though Cameron ruined the marriage by, oh, you know, having sex with Linda Hamilton while filming Terminator. I personally am absolutely rooting for Bigelow, and not only because The Hurt Locker is in my top three of the year, but James Cameron’s gorilla-sized ego might eat up everything in sight. Whichever one wins, I can’t wait to see what he/she says to the other, especially on-stage. It’ll be mightily calculated and ridiculously good.
*MAYBE JANE LYNCH WILL WEAR A ZOOT SUIT. One can only dream.
There’s also word that Jennifer Aniston will be presenting, which means there will be lots of speculation over whether or not Angelina Jolie will go to the bathroom when she’s onstage. Drew Barrymore is nominated for Grey Gardens, and she always gets wasted. Quentin Tarantino will probably be sweaty and manic. And, just for my good friend KW, True Blood is hilariously nominated for Best Drama, which means that The Swede himself, Alexander Skaarsgard, will be in attendance.
It’s a star studies feast amidst the celebrity gossip famine of mid-winter. Sunday, January 17th. There are few better ways to start the semester.
Quick Post: Brad Pitt on the cover of Wired
Just want to point you in the direction of Anne Thompson’s recent blog post on Brad Pitt’s recent appearance on the cover of Wired -
Brad Pitt on the cover of Wired
To summarize, Thompson points out that apart from Vanity Fair, there are few ‘homes’ for celebrity faces in the magazine industry — and fewer still that allow stars demands. Thus Pitt turns to Wired — with nary a mention of the film he’s promoting — in order to up HIS visibility and hence the film’s. In Thompson’s words,
Truth is, with Premiere gone, there aren’t many classy monthly magazine covers left for male stars of Pitt’s stature. And he’s already done the good ones. Tabloids like People, Us and In Touch have taken over the supermarket racks. Old media moguls like Tina Brown and Bonnie Fuller are jumping into the online fray. (Tabloid queen Fuller is joining Mail.com owner Jay Penske’s HollywoodLife.com.) Gone are the days when uber-press agents like Pat Kingsley batted off cover requests like flies while demanding deal terms like photographer and writer approval. Pitt doesn’t even pay a PR rep anymore.
The post is brief and definitely worth a read — plus it confirms/supports much of what I’ve been pondering in my blog posts on the fate of industry journalism, Tom Cruise, and the current state of stardom.
