Did the Kardashians Destroy the Movie Star?

I was stuck in line at the grocery store yesterday, waiting behind a woman who insisted that the paper towels that she was buying were on-sale even though they clearly weren't, but the hapless cashier didn't know what to do (advice to grocery stores-don't put new employees on the express checkout, it just makes people angry).  Like I typically do in such situations, I was flipping through the tabloids, and noticed something: the covers of all of the gossip rags were once again the Kardashians.  Every single one of them.  This is not a surprising phenomenon, of course.  The Kardashians, Teen Moms, Bachelor contestants, and Real Housewives have dominated the tabloids for years now.  It's actually a relief when the royals have a baby or some actual singer or actor gets married or divorced, if only to breakup the monotony of it all.  However, it got me to thinking about how the tabloid industry feeds into Hollywood, and perhaps Tinseltown is throwing itself under the bus by forgetting how important the tabloid industry is.

To test this theory, I'm going to do something I NEVER do, and visit TMZ and Perez Hilton right now to see who is on the front pages.  Looking at the front-page, you see almost entirely reality TV stars over at TMZ: Farrah Abraham, Scott Disick, and Mama June all show up on the front page, along with several athletes.  About the only traditional celebrities are Rosie O'Donnell and two recent deaths (RIP Anne Meara and John Nash), and the former hasn't really been anything substantive in years and the latter two had to die to get press.  Technically Kelly Rutherford would also count, but unless you spend all of your time at Constance Billard in the Aughts you probably have no clue who that is.  Perez Hilton actually is less reality obsessed on his front page, with stories about Olivia Munn, Blake Lively, and Lena Headey mixed in with the requisite Kardashian post.  People.com is actually the worst, with constant stories about the Kardashians (I counted three on the front page alone) and at least half dedicated to reality stars of some sort.

Why am I bringing this up?  Because it seems to weirdly juxtapose with the death of the movie star, or at least in major media publications.  So frequently I hear about how there are no movie stars left or that someone like George Clooney or Sandra Bullock are the last movie star and I frequently call hogwash on this.  In recent years we've seen people like Jennifer Lawrence, Melissa McCarthy, and Chris Pratt graduate to that title, and there are new ones every year (Alicia Vikander, I'm looking at you!).  The fascinating thing, though, is that movie stars aren't quite as omnipresent as they were even a decade ago, and I feel like that what's driving this, and if the age of the movie star is dead, it is perhaps because the tabloid press has become monopolized by celebrities who are willing to give up their story regularly.

Look at the beginning of the Aughts.  At the time, we were dominated by major celebrity stories involving Brad and Jen, Tom and Nic, Ben and J Lo.  The entire Aniston/Jolie/Pitt thing had us literally wearing posters saying Team Jen or Team Angelina (though, let's be honest, at the time none of us were really Team Angelina...Jen ended up with Justin Theroux and Brad/Angelina had like eighty kids-we can let this one go as it seems like everyone ended up winning).  We watched as Lindsey Lohan and Britney Spears went from precocious and innocent to drug-addled and head-shaving.  But it's worth noting that we were talking about actual entertainer-celebrities (at least they were at the time).  These people starred in major movie blockbusters or released hugely successful albums.  Every new movie franchise success made us obsessed with a particular celebrity pairing.  Look at something like Twilight when it launched, and how Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson became household names and the talk of every celebrity gossip outlet in the world.

However, we have seen since then a weird decline in movie star coverage, and I think it's partially to do with Paris Hilton.  Before Hilton you basically had to hunt to get coverage-you had to scout the clubs, idle through the gossip, but Hilton actually made it easy.  She had shows with Nicole Richie that were tailor-made for headlines.  She frequently told the paparazzi where she was going to be.  While other celebrities did this, they did it in pursuit of good press for a movie, but Hilton was non-discriminatory about what headlines she pursued-she just wanted fame.  This was followed by the women of The Hills (remember Speidi...no?...sorry for bringing it up), the Jersey Shore, and eventually the sisters that turned it into an art-form, the Kardashians.  We now live in a world where tabloid press basically serves as advertising for their shows and products.  Every person in America knows who Kim Kardashian and her sisters are (and anyone who protests they don't needs to realize that ignorance of trash is still ignorance...though you still shouldn't watch or celebrate this garbage), and it's because they offer easy access to the tabloids.  They have to sell, of course (why else would they still cover the magazine covers), but this lack of press is killing public interest in major new stars in a way that could eventually hurt their viability as they leave their tent-pole franchises.

Look at, say, the stars of Fifty Shades of Grey.  He's a hot Irish actor who recently had a baby and she's the beautiful daughter of Hollywood royalty.  They're in a massive hit about sex and they reportedly can't stand each other.  Ten years ago the paps wouldn't have gotten enough of Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson, and we'd be inundated with photos of them, perhaps wondering if they were going to have a relationship or any number of idle gossips.  I'm not necessarily wishing this upon either of them (neither seem like particularly bad people), but this would have helped their franchise tremendously, and also would have helped other projects they are working on: Dornan has a prestige drama coming up with Bradley Cooper and Sienna Miller, while Johnson has Oscar buzz for A Bigger Splash.  The press that results from this would certainly help them gain more exposure and get to do more interesting projects like this.  Angelina Jolie, for example, didn't have the kind of Box Office track record in the Aughts that normally would have allowed her to sustain such a long career, but the press she attracted kept the public interested even when her films failed (the same could be said for Pitt), which resulted in fascinating work from her later and an Oscar eventually for Pitt.  So while this tabloid press concession may seem like a blessing, it could cost movie stars in the long run.  Particularly since the public seems more interested in them, they who actually have a talent and a craft, then on the Kardashians, who feel more like something we're stuck with until Kate Middleton has another baby.