Stars: They’re just like us!
I love Hollywood gossip.
I like to think I’m fairly intellectual. I can have meaningful conversations about important books, indie movies, good music. I appreciate art and food and wine. But I love going to the dentist and catching up on back issues of US Weekly. And I gobble my Entertainment Weekly as soon as it arrives in my mailbox (thanks, Katie-did, for the subscription!). I watch E! News Live a couple of times a week and read Page Six online at least that often.
But I have my limits. For instance, this whole Jessica and Nick thing? Puh-leeze. Who cares? Didn’t everyone see this coming? I LOVED Newlyweds, but everytime I saw the two of them interact, I saw traces of my first live-in boyfriend and knew the Lachey/Simpson home was doomed. So now that it’s over, I’m totally ready to accept the idea of Jess humping Johnny Knoxville. In fact, I think that’s kinda hot. And Nick can watch as much football and screw as many college girls as he likes. It’s no skin off my nose. THAT they are getting a divorce is news. The aftermath of it is not. Leave them alone.
And just yesterday, I was reading an issue of US Weekly (thanks again to Katie-did) that had a two-page spread on whether Gwen Stefani is copying Maddona or if it’s the other way around. “They both like track suits!” “They both wear funny hats!” I’m sorry, but this reeks of high school gossip. Haven’t we evolved at all as a society? Are we all still stuck in this kind of sophomoric bantering?
But then I turned to the page that compared Jennifer Aniston and Angelina Jolie. “Who looks better lately?” Jennifer won each of the votes pretty handily. Upon seeing so, I felt a strange sense of smugness. “Take that, Angelina!” was the thought that came to mind, right before I remembered that Jen and I are not actually friends.
For some reason, I take the Brangelina-Vaughniston thing personally. Maybe it’s because I’ve totally bought into the whole Jennifer-as-“America’s Sweetheart” thing. Or maybe it’s because Angelina is exactly the kind of woman with whom I want to be friends but would always be too intimidated to even attempt it. Or maybe it’s because I wholeheartedly believe in the sanctity of marriage and you will NEVER convince me that Brad and Angelina weren’t fucking around when he was still with Jen. I’ve had conversations with my sister-in-law that ended in us saying things like, “Yeah, well, Jen will be the one who is better off in the end.” And then, again, I step back and remember that I have no personal vestment in how Jen turns out. I’m not even that big a fan.
This, of course, brings me back to that lovely little place in my mind where I start to overanalyze why I’m overanalyzing things. Why do I care about these people at all? Is it a larger societal issue that I’ve succumbed to? Am I no better (or worse) than the millions of other people who read these rags? How can I be this smart and this petty at the same time?
So then I stop reading Page Six and watching E! at all for a while. Eventually though, I know I’m going to get curious about whether Gwenyth’s baby is a boy or a girl. This may well be my only addiction, but it’s pretty severe.
December 13th, 2005 at 8:21 pm
[…] Top Model I’m not going to comment on the finale because a week later it doesn’t seem particularly urgent. I still believe that Bre should have packed her bags at the end of the first half hour and I still believe that based on the runway performances, Nicole should have won. Nik was gorgeous as always, but continued to hold back too much of her personality. However, thanks to one of my BFEs (I’m stealing this acronym from the girl at Hickopolis!) in NY, I was alerted to a photo spread with Bre, Nik, and Nicole in an issue of US Weekly (btw, the girl at Hickopolis posts about this very issue and I must talk to her about it—we had so many of the same reactions!) and purchased it for my NY to Nashville flight. I must report that Nicole’s photos were the least appealing. The same holds true for a pic of her in the current issue of People (purchased for my Nashville to Salt Lake City flight—I read Jennifer Weiner from SLC to Seattle). I love Nicole’s Top Model portfolio, but these newer pics just aren’t doing it for me. Nik is by far the loveliest, but if she can’t scowl on the runway, what good is she?! […]
December 14th, 2005 at 12:51 pm
Hey! Don’t bring me into this. It cracks me up! “stars..they’re just like us” they have to drink water to live…” WOW!
December 14th, 2005 at 12:53 pm
Yes, but if you didn’t leave copies of US Weekly in my apartment, Katie-did, how would I alleviate my insatiable thirst?