A few years ago I read an article in People or Entertainment Weekly or some such magazine proclaiming that George Clooney was the last real movie star. "Preposterous!" you might proclaim if you're melodramatic or a time-traveler from before the 1940's, but they have a point. Clooney has even stopped being a movie star at this point. Some time in the last five years movie stars have died off and celebrities have taken their place. While the golden age of film had Ginger Rodgers, Fred Astaire, and Humphrey Bogart, we've got Angelina Jolie, Johnny Depp, and Dwayne Johnson. I'm not saying that our current celebrities don't make entertaining films, because they do. But a movie star was a force on screen and off-screen. They had to be malleable for any role, but they also had to be full of movie star swagger, confidence, and sometimes lovable-yet-despicable qualities like alcoholism that they could get away with because they were a freaking MOVIE STAR!
Celebrities are now individual brands. They strive to be positive role models; they develop clothing/jewelry/other product lines; they whore themselves out to other brands as spokespeople; they create charities so they can plaster their names over starving children, AIDS, and any other project that gets them good publicity; the list goes on but you get the point. There's whole market for learning about celebrities as "people"; E! is the perfect example of this. I for one love behind the scenes footage and commentaries, but I don't care if Jessica Alba started a new diet or if her kid took its (I have no idea of the gender) first steps. Charlie Sheen has recently come close to movie star status, except he's stepped across the line from lavish to douchebag. Plus he hasn't done a movie of any note in forever. But he isn't trying to mold himself into what people want; instead he's doing him, whether people like him or not.
Johnny Depp, as fantastic an actor as he is (see Benny and Joon, Finding Neverland, Rango, and so many others; no really, SEE them), doesn't fit the movie star profile either. He's a recluse, which would be good for a real movie star, but he takes it too far. He lives in France, so that's on strike against him, and he's so much of a recluse that he's just a regular guy with a crap load of money who's kind of a weirdo and can't groom himself well. That doesn't make a movie star.
Even as our ability to create amazing movies increases, the star power in those films is decreasing. It's unfortunate but inevitable as political correctness insinuates itself into EVERYTHING. Celebrities aren't allowed to have adorably destructive cocaine addictions or affairs. Celebrities of all ages are getting into trouble with addictions, are shipped off to rehab, relapse because they miss the attention, and the cycle starts all over again. At least movie stars of old accepted their addictions and controlled them, or they killed themselves quickly. Either way they tended to keep out of the headlines unless something huge happened, most of them stayed out of political brambles, and all in all they simply were. If we chose to find out what was happening in their lives then we could, otherwise screw it. They were going to live their lives the consequences be damned. There's no way celebrities will be successful if they try to fit into the mold of movie stars. Now they can no longer be considered movie stars, or even people; they're brands now. Buy their products, get their hair cuts, subscribe to their diets, but don't expect them to awe you like they've done in the past.
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