Is Celebrity Going Stale?

Inevitably there comes a point when any market gets over-supplied. Cheap goods flood in, and buyers gradually disappear. Is that what's happening to Hollywood stars?

According to a story in The New York Times, the fees that Hollywood stars are receiving are way down: "Most of the three-dozen or so top-billed actors in the 10 films up for best picture in this Sunday's Academy Awards ceremony . . . appear to have received relatively minuscule upfront payments for their work."

The underlying problem, of course, is that earnings in the movie industry are generally down. Moreover, in a depressed economy, they're unreliable. But Peter Dekom, a film industry lawyer, linked "the general devaluation of movie stars to a lack of interest among younger viewers." As he put it: "Stars don't resonate with the ‘what's next' crowd." (See, "For Movie Stars, the Big Money Is Now Deferred.")

There is a psychological dimension to this. The consumer has to cooperate in creating the magic of stardom. The object of fascination has to be veiled with an allure denied to most of us, set apart, idealized. If we do not allow ourselves to be awestruck, it doesn't work.