celebrity gossip, academic style

The Gossip Facts:

1.) On last week’s cover, Us Weekly explained “WHY HE CHOSE RENEE.” For those not in the know, we’re talking about Bradley Cooper — suddenly someone to talk about following his turns in He’s Just Not That Into You and The Hangover — and his supposed romances with Jennifer Aniston and Renee Zellweger.

2.) Zellweger and Cooper were indeed on vacation together in Spain last week — as evidenced by the hand-on-butt pictures below.

3.) Bradley Cooper has been quoted saying he likes ‘authentic’ women. Zellweger is supposedly into ‘appearing natural’ with no makeup and a ponytail. Aniston, on the other hand, is well-known for calculating her appearances. For more, see Lainey’s recent post here.

4.) Despite her marriage to Brad Pitt, Anison regularly plays the ‘role’ (both in films and in ‘real life’) of the eternal bridesmaid. As Us Weekly has declared on multiple covers, she is UNABLE TO FIND LOVE, whether with models, John Mayer, Vince Vaughn, or Pitt. Everytime one of her exes appears in public with a new love, SHE DIES A LITTLE INSIDE.

5.) Last month, Jennifer Aniston told Elle that she was “the emblem for ‘This is what it looks like to be the lonely girl getting on with her life’”

6.) Renee Zellweger’s most notable past romances were with Jack White and country star Kenny Chesney. Zellweger and Chesney were married Julia-Roberts/Lyle-Lovett style, only this time on his private Caribbean beach — completely to the surprise of most. Yet their marriage was annulled just months later. According to my sources, she sued for annulment due to ‘fraud ‘ — e.g., Chesney is gay; reportedly ‘the biggest bottom in Nashville.’ Who knows whether or not this is true — what matters is its circulation, and the fact that it has labeled Zellweger as a practiced ‘beard.’

7.) Jennifer Aniston is 40; Renee Zellweger is 40; Bradley Cooper is 34 .

The Industrial Facts:

1.) US Weekly hates Jennifer Aniston. Hates her. As Lainey points out, they dedicated an entire issue to documenting ‘Jen’s lies.’ They hate her because she refuses to cooperate, and because they can. They’re the anti-People, and People loves some Jennifer Aniston. Thus the barely masked vitriol for Aniston, citing unnamed sources who claim “Jennifer won’t date a normal guy. She goes after the hottest thing of the moment, what she knows will get her the most time in the spotlight.” Interestingly, the cover positions ‘Jen’ as an object of pity — but once inside, she becomes the joke.

2.) Renee Zellweger is FIGHTING LIKE CRAZY to salvage her rapidly sinking career.

Have you seen a good Zellweger film lately? Scratch that, have you seen New in Town? Because if you have (like me) then you realize how far her career has fallen. She’s pushing really hard for THIS WEEK’S film, My One and Only, to succeed: it’s currently on FOUR screens, but needs to do ridiculously well to go wider and avoid what would amount to a straight-to-DVD release. Anne Thompson has a surprisingly good break-down of her star, the state of her career, and what she needs to do to cover — I recommend giving it a glance here. I love that she points to the fact that she’s ‘wrecked her face and never eats anymore.’ Importantly, her worth has sank to the degree that both New in Town and My One and Only had to seek foreign funding, and the latter has independent distribution. BAD BAD SIGN. What I am suggesting, then, is that the public nature of this romance — along with Us Weekly‘s convenient coverage of it — was orchestrated by Zellweger’s people.

3.) Jen probably dislikes the tone of the press, but she has little to worry about.

She’s been filming with Gerald Butler and doing little to quash rumors of a possible romance. That’s Aniston’s game: let people get pictures of her being romantic on-set; let them speculate. As Lainey Gossip points out, Butler has stake in such rumors as well, as his new film The Gamer opens next weekend. Marley & Me and She’s Not That Into You were huge hits; she’s up for an Emmy nomination for her guest appearance on 30 Rock. If anything, the press is a good thing, as it keeps the sympathy of the minivan majority on her side, while Zellweger looks like a smarmy snot.

4.) Bradley Cooper is just a place holder.

I mean seriously. What’s interesting about this guy? He’s certainly no Brad Pitt, who made Jennifer Aniston look like a place holder. He and Zellweger have a small movie coming out sometime this Fall — Case 39, looks to be a melodramatic stinker; they met on the set — and he surely realizes the sort of buzz that this romance will generate. Dude is psyched with his post-Hangover success, but his agent probably realizes that he needs a romance — both to neutralize swirling rumors that he’s maybe-gaybe (hmmmm…..see Zellweger’s past romance) and to cultivate interest in his personal life, which, as we know, is what will make him into a true star, as opposed to the guy from The Hangover.

The Concluding Facts:

1.) Zellweger’s film is going to tank, despite the press. I dare you to take a look at the trailer and tell me otherwise.

2.) US Weekly‘s manufactured feud is yet another example of what Angela McRobbie terms ‘romantic individualism’ — the way that media (and female-addressed media in particular) pits women against one another (usually in the pursuit of a man) as a means of dividing an otherwise powerful (political, cultural) group.

3.) It really does suck to be 40 in Hollywood. Because whether you’re Aniston and succeeding and Zellweger and flailing, every move you make is attributed either to a.) a desire to land a man and have children (both of which are cited in the US Weekly article) or b.) efforts to prove that you’re still ’40 and fabulous,’ either through plastic surgery (Lainey calls Zellweger ‘snapface’), obsessive dieting regimes, or perpetual exercise.

Neither one of these stars are bad actresses. But they’re both attempting to keep themselves relevant. And in today’s celebrity gossip culture, relevance is generally linked to dating, feuding, and scandal. Unfortunately, relevance is only sporadically linked to box office success, as the careers of Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, and, now, Renee Zellweger make abundantly clear.