Tales from a Hollywood outsider

We’re not LA girls.  We didn’t grow up here, she can’t parallel park, she gets lost on the 405, and neither of us could find San Diego on a map to save our lives.  We’re from Arizona, that forgotten desert to our south, where, at least in my book, it’s acceptable to go to the grocery store in your pjs, and it takes 15 minutes to go anywhere.  Plus we have great parking lots.

I don’t watch a lot of TV, and I can’t tell you who the celebrities are that are featured in the magazines by the checkout stand.  We’re both Hollywood outsiders, and I’m pretty ok with that.  I used to live in Malibu and friends would go gaga over the stars we’d see on the beach or be intrigued by the paparazzi swarms that flocked to Cross Creek.  I’d be standing clueless, not recognizing anyone and even if I knew who I was looking for, I didn’t know why he or she was famous in the first place.  This kind of ignorance isn’t really acceptable for a current LA girl. Well maybe I can get away with it, if I wag my tail and look especially cute but not my mom.   Especially my mom who writes for Hollywood Jew. 

But she’s learning.  She now has the TMZ app on her iphone and we’re becoming acquainted with reality TV.  She peruses Huffington Post Entertainment and has bookmarked the Hollywood Reporter website.  It’s a crash course in the Hollywood scene, and we’re cramming.  Why should we care? What is it about these actors and musicians and producers that make them worthy of our time, worthy of taking up space in her already crowded brain? Why should it matter who married whom, who’s getting divorced, who’s wearing a red dress to yet another awards show? Does it matter?

And the answer is of course it does.  It matters not because of the red dress, but because of the influence these people have.  It matters because they help shape the culture where we live, contribute to the atmosphere of creativity, set the standards that so many try to live up to.  It matters because they are living the dream of so many Hollywood hopefuls, and they need to be more than two-dimensional, need to have a human face tacked on to their red carpet images.  It matters because there seem to be a whole lot of people who care a whole lot about what these celebrities eat for breakfast and what kind of pets they tote in their purse.  We don’t happen to care, we like dogs of all sizes, but we aim to please!

 

It matters because we all matter, whether we are the leading lady or the girl who takes 15 minutes to fit into the parallel parking spot.  

So we’re studying hard and taking notes from celebrity gossipers. And slowly we’re learning how to put our finger or paw on the pulse of the Hollywood scene.  In her pjs.