Sunday, August 26, 2001

Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back

Remember that Denise Richards was every guy’s obsession for a little while after Wild Things came out, but between her lack of a hit film since then and her announcing that she was done working nude in films, her memory is starting to fade fast. And on hearing that Shannon Elizabeth, too, was done flashing her doctor’s handiwork for the camera, I was already counting the months before she, Denise, and Uma Thurman had to split the rent in Hollywood obscurity.

However, I failed to take into account the awesome power of American Pie, that movie that even now continues to get work for nearly everyone in it. And with the relative success of American Pie 2, it looks like Shannon will be able to keep her career and her clothes on for a while yet.

But as I sat in the theater today watching Jay and Silent Bob — a funny (if very silly) movie made specifically, it seems, for Kevin Smith fans — I began to wonder if there wasn’t something else at work that would keep Shannon in demand even with her clothes on — even with that horrible Latka-like accent she does in the American Pie movies. That something else is her characters’ availability to the common man. In both Jay and Silent Bob and the American Pie movies, Shannon, like Marilyn Monroe in The Seven Year Itch, is the Beautiful Woman with a geek fetish. And since geeks and losers like me are a large part of any actress’ fan base, feeding that particular fantasy might be all she needs to do to stay employed and fully clothed.

I guess we’ll see what happens after a few years have passed and people get the American Pie thing out of their systems.