The New IT Girl

I doubt I'm telling you anything new when I say that clearly Rachel McAdams is supposed to be the next "It" girl. The signs are unmistakable. Praised in last year's MEAN GIRLS and especially THE NOTEBOOK, appearing in this summer's breakout comedy WEDDING CRASHERS, and now doing the requisite thriller (RED-EYE) before going on to bigger and better things.

What disturbs me is how I know this. Contrary to public opinion, I don't spend my time keeping track of female teenage celebrities. (Or single-mother strippers, for that matter, but I digress.) And yet it's as clear as a bell what's happenning here, just as it was with the arrival of Lindsay Lohan, and Jessica Simpson the year before that, and on and on and on all the back to Mary Pickford for all I know. (Or hell, Sarah Bernhardt and even Jenny Lind.)

The question remains how do we know these girls are now "It" in the game of Fame Tag that is Pop Culture? The answer: we're told this by whatever spin-meister puppeteer decides such things.

Now, if you don't buy my premise, fine. Assuming you've actually lived in the world and you do buy the premise, my real question then becomes: why are these particular girls chosen? I mean, no disrespect against any of them (except for Jessica Simpson), but there is nothing all that special about any of them that 10,000 other Hollywood girls couldn't do just as well. So what is it? It's not the look; they can plaster us with blondes, brunettes, red heads until we're sated. It's not talent, I think we'd agree.

So what is it?