DISPATCHES FROM THE INTERSECTION OF HOLLYWOOD INTERRUPTED AND THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: A Nation of Felicity Huffmans.
The latest elite-college admissions scandal rests on a foundation of pure silliness; as Jim Geraghty writes, people with rich, famous, well-connected parents are the ones who least need the imprimatur of a famous college to speed them through life. Yet these same people are the ones with the means to indulge the status obsession that plagues most of us. Let’s not think of Felicity Huffman et al. as unusual: Everybody with the means to steer their kids into top-drawer colleges is thinking about how to game the system. This is because an elite-college degree isn’t an instrument or a tool; it doesn’t have to lead to anything. It’s a status symbol in itself. Yale is Louis Vuitton is Piaget is Mercedes.
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Somehow those of us who don’t own an Audemars watch or a Birkin handbag manage to muck on without them, and we don’t fret about whether our children will someday own one. Few of us have a hole in our soul because we don’t own the fanciest car in town. Because we realize worship of material goods is beneath us. Diploma worship ought to be equally so.
Meanwhile, Hollywood is about to toss another star down the memory hole: Let’s face it — Lori Loughlin has committed career suicide.
Make no mistake: however this turns out, it’s an enormous blow — on the public relations front, emotionally and (bottom-line) financially — to Hallmark, a network that prides itself on fluffy, family-friendly programming, which it sells (very successfully) to advertisers buying onto their bland, greeting-card world of handsome architects, city women fleeing back to their hometowns and finding true love or innumerable sappy Christmas movies. (Loughlin starred in “Homegrown Christmas” in 2018). It’s a world in which crime hardly exists, or if it does, is never very serious — as in Loughlin’s “Garage Sale Mystery” movies, in which she plays antiques-dealer-turned-sleuth Jennifer Shannon. She’s made 15 of these “Murder, She Wrote”-type movies so far (they air on Hallmark Movies & Mystery) and several are in pre-production.
All of Loughlin’s movies have proven very popular and generated hefty cable viewership (on both networks) for Hallmark Channel. That, in turn, translates to advertising dollars. And when any business feels its financial health threatened, it takes action and cuts bait.
Loughlin’s career is sunk. Deal with it.
Ed Morrissey spots “Fellow celebrities, late-night comics tee[ing] off on Huffman, Loughlin college-admission corruption.” It’s bipartisan scorn:
Earlier this morning, I guest-hosted for Hugh Hewitt — and for three hours, this was the story listeners wanted to discuss. We had callers in almost every segment, even if we couldn’t get to them. The disgust and scorn for everyone involved in this scheme, but especially for the celebrities, was palpable. This crosses partisan lines, regions, and all other demographics in its bald affront to fair play. These families had all of the advantages possible and still committed fraud to game the system. It’s a story practically built for ridicule and satire.
Between Harvey Weinstein, #MeToo, Michael Jackon, Jussie Smollett and now this, our “Progressive” betters in Hollywood have sure been covering themselves in glory over the past years.