White House correspondents' dinner: where have all the A-listers gone?
With the Jonases and Johanssons of years past replaced by the likes of a ‘Snapchat star’, this year’s gathering of the press is short on red-carpet appeal
Obama Jokes About Killing Jonas Brothers With Predator Drones
Zip through the guest list of this year’s White House Correspondents Association dinner – the annual, awkward bear hug between the president and the press, which takes place on Saturday night – and you might find yourself wistful for the time President Barack Obama threatened to drone strike the Jonas Brothers.
Wistful, because the attendance at the 2010 event by all three Jonas Brothers, then near the height of their powers, was a signal that politics had gone wonderfully pop. Democracy, an invitation to the masses to participate in their own governance, desires mass appeal. In this sense, 2010 was a historic smash. Kim Kardashian was also there that year, as was Justin Bieber.
Five years later, the quality of celebrity is showing signs of strain. Gone from the event, which has been running since 1920, are Scarlett Johansson and Mila Kunis (class of 2011) and George Clooney (2012). The Huffington Post is bringing a “Snapchat star”. MSNBC is bringing the people it puts on TV every day. Instead of Kim Kardashian, Fox News has invited Brody Jenner, one of the minor satellites orbiting Kim’s star.
Donald Trump is coming.
Is Washington falling off the red carpet circuit?
Some of the news outlets hosting tables in 2015 appear not even to be trying. The Washington Post, for example, has not invited a single guest identifiable as a celebrity, unless you count secretary of labor Tom Perez. Atlantic Media has made the rather literal decision to host Samantha Power, the US ambassador to the United Nations, and her husband Cass Sunstein, a scholar and former administration official. The couple does have a star quality, and would have been solid invites to the event in any year, pre-Jonas. But this is 2015.
_______________________
Well, for the belt-way boffins, I guess this is essential gossip.
Where have all the glitterati gone - long time passing?
But, thank the fame gods - the DONALD be there with his rug.
= new reply since forum marked as read
