Celebrities

How was your Super Bowl party? I spent mine investing all my money in crypto and then blowing it on Peacock subscriptions. For once it was the commercials that were the most memorable part of the game — not Matthew Stafford's lightning arm, not even 50 Cent entering the halftime show upside-down like a bat. And that was because every ad was a broadside of celebrities. Not a fan of Bud Light Seltzer? Wait until it's pitched to you by Guy Fieri and a race of Eloi-like doppelgangers (spoiler: you still won't be a fan of Bud Light Seltzer). And how can I not order Uber Eats after watching Gwyneth Paltrow smell her own vagina candle while Trevor Noah eats deodorant? I'm old enough to remember when movie stars starred in movies; now they're hawking Doritos and cheap flights to Istanbul.

There is a classic Simpsons episode in which young Bart falls down a well. Local celebrities, with the aid of guest star Sting, decide to band together to do something about it. Their magnificently useless contribution is to band together to perform a song in which they ‘send their love down the well’. ‘We can’t get him out, so we’ll do the next best thing, go on TV and sing, sing, sing.’I am surely not the only person who thought of this scene when Gal Gadot, Will Ferrell, Sarah Silverman and others performed a rendition of John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’.

You would have to be quite odd not to approve of the sudden surge of solidarity amongst Hollywood stars of the female persuasion. (Though I did wonder, when Frances McDormand called so movingly during her Oscar-winner speech ‘Meryl, if you do it everyone else will!’ whether she meant ‘Suck up to Weinstein for years’ or ‘Give Polanski a standing ovation’ - because Streep certainly led the liberal sheep in those fields.) But still - Ancient Mariner on the oceans of objectionability that I am - I do miss the days when ‘actress’ was shorthand not for ‘whore’ but for ‘bitch.’ These days, female actors want to be seen to be building each other up rather than tearing each other down.