Track 6

Track 5

Celebrity Crushes from High School

Elisha Cuthbert

Profile: Played Jack Bauer's semi-virginal* daughter on 24 which debuted my senior year of high school.  Got kidnapped in the first episode which required her to wear the same outfit (see picutre) until she changed into a white tank top somehow.

Jumped the Shark: by continuing to act.  Her true calling was to end up the heroine of a Joss show.  Never saw seasons 3 and 4 and when I watched 5, she had been written off.

Pluses: Canadian

Minuses: Blonde, seems to only date/marry Hockey players (see pluses section) - never a good sign when players start describing you as "sloppy seconds."

Scarlett Johansson

Profile: First saw her Ghost World, then in a string of date movies - Lost in Translation, Girl with the Pearl Earing (also starring Colin Firth), and The Other Boleyn Girl where she played the other Boleyn girl.  Was basically every indie kid's dream girl.

Jumped the Shark: by starting to believe her own hype that she was a more high art actress.  Made an ill-advised album of Tom Waits covers (see track 2).  Started to do a bunch of Woody Allen movies.  (And I even like Woody Allen movies.)  Also, can't really do a British accent.  Finally, just sort of seemed to give and do movies like Nanny Diaries and Avengers movies.  Went mainstream when she could have made mainstream come to her.

Pluses: Her voice (especially when contrasted with Natalie Portman), her original hair color, was in a movie with Bill Murray, seems like she's been in movies forever but not yet 30, one of the all time great SNL hosting jobs (Fly High Duluth, Chandelier, Existentialist Swedish cooking with Seth Meyers.) Debuted in the movie North starring Elijah Wood.  Roger Ebert may have hated hated hated that movie, but I weirdly liked it.

Minuses: Was married to Ryan Reynolds (not that Ryan Reynolds is unlikable - he is Canadian).  Went blonde.  (I mean look look at that picture!  Why would you change that!  At least The Avengers made her change that...)  Position as beloved indie redhead usurped by Emma Stone circa Zombieland.

Kylie Minogue

Profile: Came to American audiences with Can't Get You Outta My Head "wearing" the outfit pictured - which got her banned from Malaysia or something.  First heard the song on 88.3 WAIF community radio station - the one that played Indian and German music.  We got released from school early because of a snow day and the high school kids running the station at that time of the day played the song.  Her first hit was abroad goes all the way back an 80's cover of the Locomotion.  She was basically the Australian Robin Sparkles.  Also, was in a pretty cool Michel Gondry directed music video for her single Come Into My World.  Became hipster approved when the Flaming Lips started covering Can't Get You Outta My Head in concert.

Jumped the Shark: ...um.  maybe she never did.  I went through a phase where I actively sought out female artists to like to show that I was open minded.  Most old picks don't hold up (Gwen Stefani, Nikka Costa) but Kylie Minogue does.  Also, an appearance on Dr. Who makes her comic-con approved too!

Pluses: Australian, makes catchy music, doesn't seem to mind being half naked, appeared on Dr. Who, doesn't seem like a bad actress (probably better than Elisha Cuthbert), got famous really young and didn't seem to go crazy because of it, doesn't seem to take herself too seriously, looks just as attractive wearing jeans and a normal shirt in the Michel Gondry video, Snickle's enjoy singer her songs at Karaoke with Darji.

Minuses: Kinda scrawny.  (The fact the she is 45 isn't so much of a con because she is who she is at this point and isn't going to go crazy or start disappointing fans.  Age appropriateness is overrated.)

*I have a screed that doesn't fit in anywhere about the sexual morality of 24 and also in Taken.  In 24 Kim sneaks off with a friend to go meet some guys who, unbeknownst to her, were hired to kidnap her so Jack Bauer could be blackmailed.  The slutty friend has sex with one of the kidnappers, while Kim is uncomfortable with that so she befriends the other kidnapper who later helps her escape.  The slutty friend of course is killed by the kidnapper she had sex with when Kim is kidnapped.  In Taken the daughter's promiscuous friend dies of a drug overdose from the traffickers, while Liam Neeson's daughter survives long enough to be rescued because she is a virgin.  First, even though Liam Neeson kicks ass, the human trafficking as a basis for an action movie was always a little unsettling for me.  But I also can't help feel that there is subtext that the value of the characters as people is inversely proportional to their promiscuity.  There is barely a pause in 24 or Taken for the death of the slutty friend as if they somehow had that coming to them or at the very least are worth less.  While it is effective at reinforcing the ruthlessness of the bad guys, it feels extra icky.  It could be similarly compared to the horror movie tropes of the black guy always being the first to die, or the people having sex in the car were dead the second the bra came off, but the latter device is usually simply a way to make a gratuitous movie a little more gratuitous in a silly way, and at this point, there's always a wink and a nod to audience about what's going on and at this point, it is often subverted with a self-parodying joke.   No the black guy always says, "Hell no man, I'm getting out here!"  He's seen the movie before.  At the same time, its just a TV show and a movie and can't we do anything without worrying about it being sexist or discriminatory?