Sandra Bullock and Her Female Forever Fans
“I just love that Sandra Bullock.”
“Oh, I know! She’s so natural and perky and down to earth!”
“She was great in that one movie — oh, you know the one I’m talking about, that one with the guy, and they’re from the South, and oh, it’s just adorable. She’s just adorable.”
“Oh I know, I watch that one every year. She’s just great. I just love her.”
This is not an actual transcription of a conversation, but an approximation of one I’ve heard numerous times — at church potlucks, on airplanes, in the waiting room at the doctor’s office. Because WOMEN LOVE SANDRA BULLOCK. More specifically, middle-aged women, many of them members of the ever powerful minivan majority, love Sandra Bullock. They love her for her inoffensive humor; they love her natural, unexotic beauty. They love the fact that she ends up with normal looking, wholly likable white bread men in the movies (Bill Pullman, Harry Connick Jr., Hugh Grant, Benjamin Bratt, Ryan Reynolds) but they most especially love the consistency of her roles.
Normal looking nice guy makes normal looking nice girl happy!
Of course, these women are victims of selective amnesia: Bullock has attempted to complicate her star image with risky roles, including parts in Crash, Murder by Numbers, and the second of the two Capote films, Infamous. (She played the Harper Lee character.) But such roles have done little to alter her overarching image as likable, slightly madcap, and always the recipient of pure and genuine love.
For Bullock is no sex object. She’s a girls’ star — a Julia Roberts, a Meg Ryan. Men do not generally find her attractive, but girls want to be her best friend. The director of The Proposal explained “After I met Sandy for the first time, I remember thinking, This woman has been my friend for 100 years.” She has a beautiful body, skin, and hair, but such attributes are generally revealed through the course of a narrative — she starts out an ugly, somewhat masculine, awkward duckling, only to be transformed through the quiet yet strong love of a good, honest man. Indeed, she is often nearly asexual at the beginning of a film — see her business-minded superboss in The Proposal or her scorned, weepy break-up victim in Hope Floats.
You can tell she loves her career too much by the suit and the unmussed hair.
Bullock’s picture personalities is infused with promises and possibilities: you, too, fair viewer, can be transformed by the power of love. Not all of her films are makeover fantasies — indeed, only Miss Congeniality features an explicit makeover — but the most popular of films repeatedly position a non-glamorous protagonist as a site for transformation, both emotional and physical. Bullock’s presence in the lead encourages identification; she’s an awkward Jennifer Aniston, Julia Roberts with her makeup off and hair flat. She’s the supporting actor/best friend made central, and women love her for it.
Her extra-textual persona supports this image. In Glamour, she is described as follows:
Sandy loves her job but is not defined by it. And she knows how to have a life outside of Hollywood: She splits her time between L.A. and Austin, Texas, where she owns a popular bistro, Bess. She has a barn. She’s done a ton of good work for charities, like giving money to a New Orleans high school impacted by Hurricane Katrina. Hello, she even does her own home renovations, like tearing down walls with her bare hands! (OK, I might be exaggerating a bit.) But if I had to pinpoint what sets her apart, it’d be this: She’s humble. She’s real. It’s easy to lose yourself in this business, but Sandy hasn’t gotten swept up in any of it.
See! She likes people! She’d be friends with you! “She’s humble. She’s real.” She’s not a diva. She probably makes her own food and drives her own car and goes to the grocery store. Or so we are led to believe.
The other day, my friends and I were attempting to make a list of stars that our parents just love: stars who make them feel comfortable. Stars whose movies they’ll rent without any foreknowledge of plot; stars who will entice them to go to the movie theater for one of their 2-4 yearly trips. Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts made the cut. But Sandra Bullock was the most unanimous nominee: there’s something so wholly inoffensive and uniquely attractive about her, something that Julia Roberts has lost and Jennifer Aniston never really had. She makes 50 year-olds go see her fall in love with Ryan Reynolds. Her films make big bucks overseas. Her style and charisma translate. She appears virtually ageless, but not in an envy-inducing manner (Demi More) or as a grotesque (Nicole Kidman, Sharon Stone). She’s not stuck up (Renee Zelwegger/Aniston/Courtney Cox), she’s not intimidating (Jolie), she’s not perfect (Halle Berry) and she’s not too madcap (Roseanne).
Indeed, the only thing potentially controversial about Bullock is her choice of husband: motorcycle producer and heavily-tateooed Jesse James.
Bullock and Her Teddy Bear
Discursively, James has been constructed as the culmination of Bullock’s domestic fairytale. After being chased by many a prince (Tate Donovan, Troy Aikman, Ryan Gosling, Matthew McConaughey, Keanu Reeves) she settled with the least moviestarsish, least expected of the bunch — a man who simply made her happy. (And, coincidentally, recreated a narrative conclusion manifested in her most successful films).
In recent weeks, Bullock has been in the gossip weeklies — not to promote her upcoming The Blind Side or to apologize for the train wreck that was All About Steve, but because of her attempts to adopt James’ daughter from a previous marriage. In US Weekly, the article’s title declares her “Battle for Her Stepdaughter.” Bullock and James are attempting to receive full custody of James five-year-old daughter, whose mother, Janine Lindemulder, is a former drug addict, porn star, and general ne’er-do-well. The article is smattered with pictures of a dressed-down, casual Bullock carrying and holding hands with the young girl. Bullock’s image is placed in sharp contrast with the girl’s porn star birth mother: she is everything this blonde bimbo is not. Bullock is quoted declaring “My greatest joy is…being a good wife, a good stepmom.” She loves this child - and that’s what she’ll fight for. (Again, sounds mysteriously similar to the storyline of one of her films — only The Blind Side involves a black male high school student, not a cherubic blond girl).
Bullock says she doesn’t want to do rom-coms anymore — in fact, with something like The Proposal, she’s attempting to forge a path for the ‘female Judd Apatow film.’ Whether or not this is true is beside the point. For while The Blind Side is certainly not a rom-com, as evidenced by the trailer, it most certainly is a family melodrama. As such, the film caters to virtually the same demographic as the rom-com: females, both single and married, between the ages of 20 and 60. (Did you hear The Fray in the background? Yep, they’re talking to you, Grey’s Anatomy fans. Selfsame demo).
With that said, Bullock does not pull in the lower echelons of that demo. She’s got what I’ve termed her Forever Fans — the 30-60-year-olds who will always see her films, like our mothers — but she has failed to attract a younger demographic. Part of this is merely a matter of age — Sandra Bullock portrays 30-somethings and mothers, not teens and post-grads — but I’d also posit that it has something to do with her star image and its particular resonance. Her particular brand of spunk, quirk, Southernness, and romance seems very 1990s to me. Just as The Blind Side appears to be a remake of every film that’s ever told the story of white people saving black people, so too does Bullock’s star image seem to function as a reactivation and deradicalization of a certain type of female star: she’s Bette Davis without the teeth, Joan Crawford without the snarl. Davis and Crawford often ended their films happily coupled, but just as often they ended them alone — sometimes in tears, but nonetheless triumphant. Bullock’s characters never end unhappy; they rarely weather a storm without a silver lining already firmly in view. Bullock is soft, quick to weep, and quicker to give in, where Davis, Crawford, and even Stanwyk (especially in Stella Dallas) are steely, with a fierceness belied by their porcelain faces. These women were also points of identification, but the women in the theaters at the time were hard-bitten by the times — hungry, over-worked, exhausted, and oftentimes, due to the demands of The Depression and World War II, without even the dream of the help of a man or romance. The endings provided by the ’30s and ’40s melodramas emphasized a female independence that wasn’t simply a madcap act, neutralized by film’s end: it was a way of survival, a way of life.
Joan Crawford might eat Sandra Bullock alive…
Indeed, the ‘softness’ and heteronormatively-coupled endings of Bullock’s films have everything to do with 1990s in general: I could describe most of Julia Roberts’ films using the same language I’ve employed to describe Bullock. These films’ tone and conclusion likewise speaks to what women — and 30-40 year-old women in particular - imagine for themselves: how far they can reach, and what that place, and its potential splendors, might resemble.
Judging from Bullock’s recent films, happiness and fulfillment can come in the shape of a younger man, a retreat from strict professionalism, or venturing out of suburbia to participate in first-hand philanthropy. To me, all of these choices seem to present female self-reliance and independence as a hollow promise; that those women who sacrificed marriage and family for professional development will realize, sooner or later, that they too need a man, a cause, something greater than themselves. We can view this as selfless and a form of sacrifice…or as a troubling message that cultivating oneself, and one’s own desires, will never truly provide fulfillment.
I don’t dislike Sandra Bullock. I like her (early) films. But I do think that those who fail to understand her and her tremendous draw — as most clearly evidenced in Richard Rushfield’s perceptive yet reductive answer to “Why is Sandra Bullock Still a Star?” over at Gawker — they also demonstrate their lack of understanding of a key, if sometimes quiet, demographic. Middle aged women may not ‘open’ a film at number one, but they certainly can keep a film going strong when everyone else is off Megan Fox getting chased by giant robots. Media observers often express surprise when a film like The Proposal goes on to grosses $300 million international (on a budget of $40 million, no less). Those very same observers — oftentimes male — simply forget the tremendous power, however ‘unglamorous’ it may be, of neglected demographics.
This post explicitly concerns Sandra Bullock, but I’m also writing it as hundreds of thousands of girls and women head to the theaters to screen New Moon, which is now headed for a ridiculously huge international opening gross. Industry critics keep patting Summit Entertainment on the back for their luck in optioning the teen text, yet to attribute it to luck is to miss the point: someone at Summit realized that the text wouldn’t just exploit the teen girl demographic, but the adult female one as well. For The Proposal opened big ($33 million), but New Moon will open with $80 million domestic, if not more. Why? Women. Some of them already Forever Fans.
To answer Rushfield’s question, Sandra Bullock is still a star — and will remain a star — so long as her forever fans keep consuming. Her movies cost relatively little to make; even a bomb like All About Steve will not compromise her consistent palatablity. And with small costs and a built-in audience, she’s a much more reliable bet than Angelina Jolie or the over-priced Julia Roberts. The challenge for execs is how to cultivate new stars, equally inoffensive and socio-temporally resonant, to take her place in the years to come. Who will be our Sandra Bullock? Is it Jennifer Aniston? Gennifer Goodwin? Isla Fischer? Kate Hudson? Regardless, it’ll most likely be someone who men disdain, hot cultural critics ignore, and studios relegate to counter-programming.
Sandra Bullock matters, and is still a star, because women and their pocketbooks do, in fact, matter — and no number of billion dollar grossing smashfests will alter that fact.
Major League Baseball, meet the Minivan Majority.
Today’s excellent post comes courtesy of fellow UT media studies grad student Mabel Rosenheck, whose undying passion for the Phillies has *almost* convinced me to put away my Minnesota Twins Homer Hankie.
(Or maybe it’s just Chase Utley, who can really say).
Wholesome and Hardworking Chase Utley
And specifically, Chase Utley meet the minivan majority and minivan majority meet Chase Utley. Chase Utley is the Philadelphia Phillies 30 year old second baseman. Since getting the call up to the big leagues in 2003, Utley has been named an all-star 4 times, the best offensive player at his position three times and to Team USA at the World Baseball Classic twice. He hits for average (career .295) and power (20+ home runs and close to 100 RBI in his 5 full seasons as an everyday player). He has speed (stealing 23 bases this year, a career high). He has defense. He catches balls that should be hits in right field and throws to first to complete the double play. He is what baseball people call a five-tool player, a Mickey Mantle, a Hank Aaron.
He is also adorable. Not only does he have all-American good lucks replete with deep blue eyes that can send a 95 mile an hour fastball into the stands, but he has also been voted People magazine’s sexiest man in the World Series. Sexier than Derek Jeter. Sexier than Alex Rodriguez. Chase Utley is sexier than Kate Hudson’s boyfriend (or if you prefer a brunette on television, sexier than Minka Kelly’s boyfriend).
He’s also worried about the environment. And he loves puppies. Every athlete has a pet charity, Utley’s comes courtesy of his wife’s dedication to the PSPCA. And the reason she got so involved with the PSPCA? Because she wanted a life of her own when her husband is on the road.
Chase and Jennifer Utley Support the Puppies
But there’s more.
In 2007, Utley signed a 7-year, $85 million contract, foregoing arbitration and opting not to test the free agent market when his initial contract would have expired in 2012. In other words, he is loyal. And though 11 million is nothing to scoff at, with top players like Alex Rodriguez making close to $30 million, and Utley’s worth undoubtedly closer to 20 million than 10… It’s hard to call the guy greedy.
And the list goes on. He hates the spotlight. He just wants to be left alone so he can play the game he loves. He doesn’t want to be a hero. He just wants to help his team and win the World Series. He’s incredibly wholesome, but he’s also just crazy enough to drop the F-bomb on live television.
What Phillies fans have known for years, the rest of the country, and perhaps the minivan majority in particular have discovered this postseason. Chase Utley is not only the man, he just might be their man. The Yankees may have won but Utley may have been the one to make the impression.
There are two linked star systems which must be explored in order to better understand where Utley’s stardom is, where it is not and why. First we should return to a few key points in Annie’s initial blog posting on the minivan majority and second we should examine the construction of sports stardom generally and baseball specifically.
The idea that “people of any race, color, creed or background can make something of themselves with hard work” is of course, the foundation of the American dream of success and affluence. It is also the idea that, perhaps more than any other, underpins the ideology of sport. Fundamental to Utley’s stardom is his dedication to the team and the game. Stories on him often refer to his aggressive workouts, playing injured and incessant game tape viewing. There are a few interesting contrasts to Utley here. One is the perceived laziness of a player like Manny Ramirez who, particularly when playing in Boston in 2008 was criticized for not running out grounders or hustling to fly balls. Another is the undisciplined bodies of big players like Yankees pitcher C.C. Sabathia who is 6’7” and 290 pounds whose size was somewhat inexplicably remarked upon repeatedly in game 4 of this year’s World Series. The point here is that hard work and the disciplined body are linked to a series of discourses which are vital to the game as America’s game, and both the game and the minivan majority as embodiments of America and the American dream.
The Utleys are the Best of Philadelphia
Yet also important to note is that Utley’s body is not too disciplined. He is a model of moderation in every way. In his Phillies uniform we never see flexed biceps or rippling abs. The most we are treated to is a sly glance at his cute butt in tight baseball pants if the camera happens to be cooperating. Though some players conduct shirtless interviews in the clubhouse, never Utley. In endorsements, if not in his uniform, he wears baggy (but not too baggy) athletic shorts and a t-shirt tucked in to the waistband. Though drafted out of high school, he opted instead to attend UCLA where he met his future wife. They dated for 6 years, most of those years long distance, before marrying. Yet they do not embody strict gender roles. Though only now beginning to get press coverage, she is always portrayed as his equal and her confidence in front of the camera is in stark contrast to Chase’s shyness. She is a twenty-first century woman and he a twenty-first century man. They are conservative, as in “those who would like to conserve the current state of things.” She is not a radical feminist, but neither is she Victoria Beckham (or Kate Hudson).
This issue of moderation further speaks to stardom as a dialectic between the ordinary and the extraordinary. One of the brilliant things about sports stardom is how it upholds beauty standards in this dialectic. Utley doesn’t wear makeup on the field, he really looks like that. But we don’t love him for the way he looks (which after all is in part only extraordinary compared to his competition), rather we love him for the way he plays (which has its own aesthetics). And this dialectic is worth highlighting. His athleticism in concert with his good looks provides a powerful moment for awestruck gazes of both women and men, which I would argue is an important function of sports stardom for the minivan majority. Among the recent publicized examples of the male love affair with Utley are Mac’s love letter on a recent episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Joe Posnaski’s ode to Utley’s swing on espn.com. There has also been coverage in People and elsewhere of this team’s sex appeal for women. It is noteworthy here that minivan majority celebrity gossip outlets like People and Access Hollywood have developed an investment in Utley’s stardom and his start text in the past week or so. Though I’m sure they regularly follow Alex Rodriguez and Kate Hudson, there are never interviews with Jimmy Rollins’ fiancé, or C.C. Sabathia’s wife but there are with Jennifer Utley.
That Chase Utley swing.
Though I could further explore the fascinating gender politics at stake in the Utleys, instead I wish to use this as a segue to another of Annie’s points about members of the minivan majority and the Utleys, they are white. Contemporary sports are generally dominated by blacks (and in baseball’s case, latinos). The NBA is 76% black, the NFL, 66%, Major League Baseball? 60% white (about 8% black, and %30 Latino). MLB, with a star like Chase Utley would seem primed for the minivan majority to launch him into superstardom. But the problem with Utley, I think, is that the sports media doesn’t know what to do with him. Because of his intense privacy (and being a legendarily terrible interviewee and never having any soundbites worth airing again and again and again), they can do nothing but watch him play, watch his white, male body in motion and watch that swing. and I think there is a discomfort there that prevents Utley from becoming a more conventional sports star. This is also however, what makes him potentially the perfect embodiment of the star. As Orin Starn related for the New York Times “we want these athletes to astonish us, but we also want to imagine them as someone like us.” With no fixed identity, Utley’s authentic, white masculinity allows the minivan majority- both male and female- to imagine away. He embodies (and brings forth) the anxiety of both the male gaze and the active female gaze up on the white male body. Thus far, People and Access Hollywood (though also It’s Always Sunny) seem to have been more successful in capitalizing on that anxiety which he embodies. It remains to be seen whether the sports media, ESPN or Major League Baseball will find a way to parlay Chase Utley into the minivan majority icon that he clearly could be.
The Minivan Majority
Where (some of, but not all) of the minivan majority sleeps
I first read the term ‘minivan majority’ on LaineyGossip. I can’t recall if she explained it in that particular post, or if it was just a bit of vernacular whose meaning I quickly came to understand, but it’s stuck — both with me and with the blog in general.
Its immediate connotation is pretty clear: mindless suburbanites with minivans who may not be the statistical majority in this country but compose a ‘ruling majority’ when it comes to media and taste. But I don’t think that’s quite it.
Lainey generally uses the term pejoratively — but beneath her scorn lies a rather astute analysis of the morals, beliefs, and desires that drive media production, whether within the gossip industry or the entertainment industry more broadly.
It’s hard to define the minivan majority in a sentence, so I’ll start with some descriptors. Not all of these are necessary true of everyone in the minivan majority — and if some of them describe you, that doesn’t necessary mean you’re in the minivan majority (and I want to make it clear that I don’t dislike or disdain the minivan majority — but it’s important to know the identity of those quietly driving taste and entertainment in the country.)
Some traits of the minivan majority:
- You probably live in a non-urban space — either suburban or rural, but most likely suburban.
- You are probably white.
- You have no radical convictions. You are neither an arch conservative nor strong liberal. In other words, you are probably a self-described ‘moderate.’
- You love pictures of babies. Especially celebrity babies.
- You believe things that appear in print in the gossip magazines.
- You are not overtly racist, sexist, or homophobic, but you might subconsciously discriminate against people who are different than you or the people that you know and see on an everyday basis.
- You don’t like things that are too much: too gross, too sexual, too outrageously expensive.
- You might own something from Ikea. You almost definitely own things from Target or Wal-Mart.
- You style is a combination of Gap, Banana Republic, Ann Taylor Loft, Talbots, Coldwater Creek.
- You are a parent.
- You probably battle your weight, even if it’s just those pesky ten pounds.
- You may (duh) own a minivan — or a similar SUV type vehicle.
- You believe that people of any race, color, creed or background can make something of themselves with hard work.
- You believe in a higher power — most likely God — even if you don’t necessarily go to church every week.
- You are not generally an early adopter — of a technology, a political candidate, a new fad, etc.
- You enjoy the reliability of chain restaurants and all-inclusive vacations.
- You have a subscription to Cooking Light and/or contribute recipes regularly to allrecipes.com
Good clean fun in Gap khakis.
Now, some media products favored by the minivan majority:
- Jennifer Aniston
- Julia Roberts
- Tom Cruise
- Michelle Obama
- Celebrities who hit their career pinnacle about 10-15 years ago
- National Treasure (and other Nicholas Cage movies)
- Marley and Me
- Reese Witherspoon
- Jennifer Garner
- Michael Buble/Josh Groban
- Norah Jones
- Dave Matthews Band
- Two and a Half Men
- Desperate Housewives
- Sex and the City (latecomers — started watching Season 3 or later)
- Network television in general
- Jay Leno
- Martha Stewart and/or Rachel Ray
- Oprah. Oprah’s Bookclub, Oprah’s magazine, things recommended by Oprah.
- Entertainment Tonight
- People especially, maybe Us.
- Nicholas Sparks novels and film adaptations
- American Idol, Dancing with the Stars, The Bachelor/Bachelorette
Minivan Fav Michael Buble
Again, just because one or more of these describes you does not necessarily mean that you’re in the minivan majority. What’s key to observe here is how unoffensive each and every trait listed above truly is. (Sex and the City might be the exception — but it’s a dirty minivan majority pleasure, and it can be watched without the dirt on TBS)
Because when you get down to it, the best way to describe the minivan majority is conservative. And when I say that, I don’t mean conservative in its political Fox News connotation — although some most definitely fit that moniker — but in its more literal interpretation as those who would like to conserve the current state of things. (Whereas the ‘liberal,’ at times referred to as the ‘progressive,’ wants to MESS SHIT UP…and change the way things are.) (Another note: Lainey may have taken the alliteration of the minivan majority from the famous ‘moral majority,’ but they are not so much siblings as cousins….maybe the minivan majority is the slightly more morally liberal moral majority?)
Thus the late-adopter status: the minivan majority will adopt something new, but only after it becomes safe. The minivan majority of the ’50s, for example, was probably not okay with interracial marriage and most definitely not okay with homosexuality or sex outside of marriage…but as it became more and more commonplace, and more and more represented in the media, it became more acceptable. If you look to the minivan majority media diet, it’s almost entirely things that rehash familiar genres and formulas — whether that be the romance (Nicholas Sparks), the soft jazz singer (Norah Jones…oh, and I forgot to add Diana Krall), the man-loves-dog story (Marley and Me) or the American-history caper with tried-and-true star (National Treasure).
The minivan majority is attracted to and endorses stars who uphold beauty standards — not people who introduce new standards of beauty. Thus Jennifer Aniston — who has an amazing body and great hair…but is in no way remarkable, either as an actress or in beauty. (She certainly doesn’t try to form a mini United Nations family, steal husbands, get tatoos, or speak out about genital mutilation…)
I could go on and on about the different characteristics and media consumption patterns….and please do so yourself in the comments….but I want to close with a bit on why the minivan majority is such an important entity in the gossip world.
To put it bluntly, the minivan majority controls the gossip market. While the movie market is controlled by the tastes of 17-year-old boys (and I’m not kidding here — it’s the target demographic: make something teenage boys will love and everyone else will come) the minivan majority drives a secondary, equally lucrative market — the market defined by rom-coms that generally come in 3rd place but cost far less money). In fact, those teenage boys are by and large the sons of the minivan majority — and will grow up to be part of the minivan majority itself. (For more on how the blockbusters since JAWS have catered to an audience far more conservative then the counter-cultural generation on the late ’60s, see Jon Lewis’ incredible article “The Perfect Money Machines.”)
With the help of Oprah, the moral majority can and does change consumption patterns — such as when she prompted millions of women to buy Pearl S. Buck, Faulkner, and Toni Morrison - but they generally reinforce established patterns. They can be relied upon to make the Sex and the City movie, however lackluster in relation to its source material, into the #1 R-rated opening weekend…EVER. (Last weekend’s The Hangover comes in at #3….after American Pie 2. Go figure.) The women at the head of these minivan families also hold the purse strings, and are thus an enormously lucrative market. And lucrative market = powerful market.
And they also drive the tone, tenor, and subject of gossip. In my last post I outlined the ways in which gossip is used as a policing mechanism — a way to bring offensive, ‘progressive’, or different elements back into the fold. The gossip mags, taking their cue from their number one consuming public, enact this process. While Vanity Fair and The New Yorker‘s own brand of high fallutin gossip focuses on taking down bigotry, harlotry, and those brazen enough to cross the New York upper crust, these mags, like any other smart publication, aim to please their readership.
They do so by affirming the illusion.
You think Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston were a match made in heaven? That Tom Cruise is the most romantic man in the world? That ‘Sully’ from the Miracle on the Hudson is a modern day American hero? That Kirstie Alley really is going to take that weight off? That it’s wrong to criticize Tyra’s weight? This magazine will support and feed that belief.
But they also do so positively. This is where People and Entertainment Tonight figure so prominently. Unlike their ugly stepsister (Us Weekly) and stepbrother (TMZ) these two make you feel good about yourself, what you’re reading/watching, and the world around you. You’re not reading smut — you’re just reading about humans! That’s why People still publishes human interest stories (and, during a dry gossip week, will put them on the cover — see “Sully”) and Entertainment Tonight has Mary Hart as its host. Why their fonts are bubbly, their pages are draped in warm, soft colors and their address is inviting. Why neither stoop to lambasting stars so much as elevating those in the minivan majority’s favor.
Lainey Gossip blames the conservative tastes of the minivan majority for the failure of Friday Night Lights (they’d rather watch Dancing with the Stars). I like to think of it somewhat differently — NBC never figured out how to market their show to the minivan majority. I mean, Kyle Chandler is a minivan heartthrob waiting to happen. Anything that’s not too crazy can become a minivan mainstay — and a People darling. It’s just a matter of marketing.
Appealing to the minivan majority doesn’t necessarily mean dumbing something down or making it blandly palatable. Angelina Jolie has done an ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT JOB of turning the majority (and People) on her side — mostly by having beautiful babies, encouraging the affection for Pitt to extend to her, and allowing stunning pictures of the family to be published in its pages (and then donating the millions of dollars paid for those photoshoots to charity. Nicely played, indeed.)
In other words, it’s a matter of knowing your audience, understanding their quiet yet persuasive power, and playing to it. The Obama family on the cover of People? Absolutley brilliant. They don’t say he’s the smartest president in decades for nothing.
Want to add your own thoughts on the minivan majority and its quiet yet persuasive power? Comment away.
