Wednesday 15 April 2009

Hollywood Babble On & On #269: Miscellaneous Musings...

1. Actor Jamie Foxx apologized for making some tasteless comments about teenage Disney starlet Miley Cyrus. And while it's fine that he apologized and all that, but what I started thinking about, is exactly why he made the comments in the first place, and I can only think that it comes from a deep sense of insecurity.

I mean Miley Cyrus is a perfect target for the sort of self-aggrandizing ridicule Foxx seems to need to justify his existence. She's a teenager, she's rich, she's got a bit of a "hick" image, an audience of children, she's practically property of the Disney conglomerate, and her music is the sort of bland, mindless pop pap that will ensure that she'll be lucky to find a gig doing birthday parties after the age of 20.

She's more to be pitied than scorned because she will be spat out by those who made her as soon as they finish chewing her up. One can only hope that she does a good job holding onto her money before it's stripped away by the vicissitudes of bad, or corrupt, management, and shady media business practices, because she'll stop selling as soon as her fan base hit their sullen pubescent phase. Once that happens the only people who will still care are the tabloid media running the ghoulish countdown to profit from the schadenfreude generated by what they hope to be her inevitable downfall.

Foxx's stunt tells me a lot about him. It tells that he feels that desperately needs a certain amount of "street cred" as an "artist" and a "rebel" without actually doing anything that really rebels against his Hollywood clique, because that might really endanger his career. So he goes after an easy target, gets a little press, both for the words, and the apology, and then gets a pat on the back for "daring" to stand up to Disney who probably forgot the comments around 5 minutes after he made them, because they don't cost them a damn cent, and that's all they care about.

It's like that whole Russell Brand bruhaha where he made phone calls to an elderly actor about the sexual habits of his granddaughter. It got him fired from the BBC, but I suspect that he did so he could get fired, and then use that cachet as a "rebel" who got himself fired to get better gigs at better places.

2. The new web incarnation of Movieline is now online. I'd like to wish the folks there good luck, and hope they have a good run.

3. I forgot to do the shameless book whoring last post... sorry about that.... buy the damn book anyway....


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