B-list

Via Ross Douthat, thoughts on B-list Hollywood actors, wanting to join the A-list.

Our fictional case is Vincent Chase, of Entourage. Touré (that's the guy's whole name?) asks the meta-question: can a mediocre actor (Adrian Grenier) portray a mediocre actor? I have lost track of Entourage, so I'm not sure I can answer. The show had its moments, but not enough utility to compensate for the opportunity cost of my time, and the episodes sometimes exhibit a misogyny that is quite creepy (yes, I do know the difference between misogynist characters and a misogynist program, but, to take just one example, try to tell me that episode 45 doesn't cross the line from the former to the latter).

But - the purpose of this post - RD provides a link to this New Yorker article on Jaime Pressly: the link is simply to the abstract of the 2003 article, but really, the 90 seconds it takes to read the abstract probably tells you as much about Hollywood as some entire books on the subject.