Sunday, May 18, 2003

Hollywood

The Hollywood ladder

An ad for a God-awful lowbrow "comedy" starring Rob Schneider leads to this conversation:
Me: I guess Rob Schneider is the new Adam Sandler, now that Adam Sandler is...

J.: The new Jim Carrey.

Me: Who is the new Tom Hanks. Who is...who is he, anyway?

J.: An elder statesman, at this point.
The name game

Beyoncé has dropped the "Knowles" from her name, thus signalling her hopes of ascending to the ranks of the one-named, instantly-recognizable star: Cher, Madonna, Prince, Secretariat. I guess she doesn't have to worry about being confused with all the other Beyoncés out there, anyway.



The label game

Rebecca Romijn-Stamos was introduced on the Tonight Show as an "actress." Not an "actress/model" or a "model/actress" or a "model turned actress"; a plain, unqualified, honest-to-God actress. (It occurs to me that "unqualified" can have more than one meaning in that sentence...)



Name recognition

Flipping through the movie section of TV Guide; I glance at a listing for a movie starring Julia Ormond, and the immediate image that comes to mind is of Julia Stiles. Clearly, Julia Ormond's impression-making days are behind her. (What the heck happened to Julia Ormond, anyway? A couple of high-profile movies, a lot of "Hollywood's newest star" publicity, and then nothing. You'd think she'd won an Oscar or something.)

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