I saw this interesting article last night discussing dream celebrity couplings. It’s a celeb writer’s pic for the couples that have been talked about but who aren’t actually together.

And while the article is somewhat fun, sort of like fantasy football, but with romance, it got me thinking about why we’re so obsessed with celebrities. While they’re people, just like the rest of us, they’re bigger than life movie personas and the Hollywood money they earn makes them seem of interest. And of course, Hollywood studios spend lots of money trying to convince us these people are awesome and to be admired. While the studio systems of the 40s, 50s and 60s ( one that had studio heads working hard to perfect the image of stars and sell them as the coolest version of the people we know; people we’d love to hang out with and might aspire to be) is gone, the idea persists that these are people we know and love and would connect with personally.

And if we know and love someone, we want to see them happy. And what better way to see them happy than in love?  So, I think we see love with our favorite celebs and just want it to work. We constantly want to know if they’re happy in love, so we can enjoy the feeling of our friends in love.  And when their love life goes kaput, our gossip urge takes over.  Not necessarily our urge to spread gossip, our urge to know gossip.  We can commiserate with their misery, and know that yeah, they are just like us. They can have as wicked a love lives as anyone else’s. But, of course we secretly want their love lives to succeed. Because it means that there are real people out there who do have it all.

I don’t subscribe to any celebrity gossip sites, but I do follow the celebrity news that makes headlines. I love John Legend & Chrissy Tiegan. And as a Buffy lover, it makes me happy every time I see Sarah Michelle Gellar and Freddie Prinze together looking happy. Like so many others, I was so sad to see Jennifer Garner & Ben Affleck break up. Mostly because she seemed so nice and down-to-earth.  As an All My Children fan from childhood, I was disappointed recently to hear Josh Duhamel (who played Leo Dupres on AMC) and Fergie were separating.  Again, it made me sad. I adored Josh on AMC and he seemed like such a nice guy on the show that I felt like he’d be a nice guy in person, so I just want him to have a nice happy love life.

Alas, the love lives of celebrities mirror the love lives of real people, because celebrities are real people. If we want happily ever after, we have to watch movies or read romance novels. It’s a good thing I like both. 🙂