![]() Of course, any system that generates power through popular appeal will eventually result in a loss of power as that appeal wanes, which is why famous people and their handlers are so desperate to maintain control over the ways in which they are viewed by the people whose approval they depend on. When a film like American Dreamz makes a half-hearted attempt to satirize this process by which we crown kings and queens - to expose the connections between fame, power, and politics - it’s met with a yawn, because it’s not telling us anything we don’t already know. We’re not just talking about manipulative agents and publicists pulling the wool over a guileless populace’s eyes, here even as we take in every detail about Jessica and Nick that People sees fit to print, we are fully aware that we’re not reading a magazine so much as a catalog, one in which we select from an array of potential heroes, villains, and gods with which to populate our collective consciousness. Celebrity culture has come to permeate every part of popular culture, adding an extra layer of significance onto everything that pop produces: the cut of a dress is not half as important as who’s wearing it, and the only models that matter are the super kind an album doesn’t just sound good or bad, it signifies the next step in a singer’s career and acts mostly as a soundtrack for her new look a game-winning jump shot can only do so much to mend a basketball player’s strained relationship with the press. What they’re wearing, what their latest projects are, who their latest lovers are, what they’re naming their babies - there isn’t a facet of celebrity life that doesn’t fascinate us, even if it often veers into fascination of the car-wreck variety. Admit it: you can’t wait for Angelina and Brad to have their perfect baby, or to see how the Charlie Sheen-Denise Richards-Richie Sambora-Heather Locklear love quadrangle plays out, or to find out what Lindsey Lohan’s current hair color is and what this says about her state of mind.
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