I know this particular bias is probably indefensible. I know how I’m supposed to feel. I just don’t. A little help here?
Remember Shannon Elizabeth? I’d place her in the same category as Andrea Dromm, Michelle Johnson and Pam Austin, three earlier sexy, attractive starlets who had brief moments of B-level film success before they were pushed into obscurity by younger Hollywood “It” girls. It’s a cruel business, and especially cruel for young women whose main assets are their assets and not the potential to play Medea.
Shannon Elizabeth gained 10 minutes of stardom playing the sex kitten in the raunchy hit “American Pie”: that was her peak. “America Pie II” is where that photo above comes from, and professionally it was all downhill after that…a few forgettable flops, a TV series that was cancelled in its first season, nothing since 2006. Her Wikipedia page describes her as an “activist,” a professional poker player, and an actress. Her major recent accomplishment seems to be being named “one of the leading celebrity poker players”20 years ago.
I find all this ineffably sad, but that’s not the topic today. It is this: at the age of 52, Shannon just filed for divorce and announced that she was opening an Only Fans account, where horny middle-aged men can pay to see her ta-tas, and presumably other things.
“I’ve spent my entire career working in Hollywood, where other people controlled the narrative and the outcome of my career. This new chapter is about changing that, showing off a more sexy side no one has seen, and being closer to my fans,” Elizabeth told PEOPLE . “I’m choosing OnlyFans because it allows me to connect directly with my audience, create on my own terms, and just be free. I really do think this is the future.”
Fans can subscribe to her page starting today. Let me translate what her statement says to me.
“I have never developed any special skills and have the intellectual life of a salmon. My career was based entirely on my looks, my marriage went to hell, and I couldn’t write a book or host a podcast on a bet. Yeah, I’ve got some money saved up, but I’m addicted to being looked at. I’ve slid all the way down the usual greased poll of fading B-level celebrity: reality shows, Dancing with the Stars, so now it’s come to this. I know forty and fifty year-old men will pay to see me naked because they liked ‘American Pie.’ At least that’s something.”
Ethics Alarms 
Did she slide because she was a B rate celebrity or did she slide because she portrayed herself in a soft raunch role?
I’ve noticed a lot of 90s and 00s starlets whose careers vanished or nose dived because of or shortly after their raunch role. I do not recall many starlets who survived such a role. Do you?
Or is it that they were always B actresses and the raunch role was their attempt at being seen for greater roles?
Her first and biggest success was a raunch role in a raunch movie. Her subsequent roles were less raunchy, and she was cast in them because she briefly was “a name.”
“and just be free.” (bold mine)
Major credit cards accepted…
PWS
Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back was not a forgettable flop.
it was the necessary bridge between Dogma and Clerks II
-Jut
I forgot it! (Dogma is brilliant.)
Off topic, I know, but why is/was Dogma regarded so highly? I saw it. I thought it was above average. Alanis Morrissette as God was amusing but, over all, to me it was just ok.
jvb
I don’t know why Dogma is so highly regarded (unless it is the fun of poking at Catholics, who allegedly opened a loophole that would destroy the entire universe). However, I’ll defer to a speaker who came to the University of Wyoming back in 2001, who said he went to a protest against Dogma carrying a sign that read “Dogma is Dogshit!”
I think that speaker’s name was Kevin Smith, if I recall correctly…
The same reason “The Life of Brian” is regarded as a classic: it was a gutsy but good natured satire on a subject that is rich fodder for comedy but seldom accessed. The Chris Rock character and his story of being cut out of the Bible is clever, and the plot anticipated “The DaVinci Code” without taking itself seriously. The hip Jesus promotion brought me back to horrible hippie church services of my youth.
My father-in-law, a Methodist minister and theologian, nearly laughed himself sick when I had him watch “Dogma.”
sorry to be so late. We’ve been at sea. Dogma is one of my favorites. Actually quite reverent.
I think you’re being too hard on salmon.
I don’t know who she is. Looking at her credits, the only one I’ve seen is “Love Actually” and she only had a small part in that.
The medium income for an OnlyFans creator is about $150-180 per month. Top earners may rake millions, the vast majority of creators earn very little, with roughly 33% of all revenue going to the top 1% of creators. Income is heavily skewed toward a few high earners, often referred to as “whales” in the adult industry. These “whales” are often people who build on their success in the porn industry or social media, and have very good marketing and business skills.
This means that for most women choosing OnlyFans as a side hustle is not worth the effort and cost; hereby I include reputational costs, impact on relations, and moral issues. Seeing starlets who had big dreams about Hollywood or Broadway end up as OnlyFans creator, camgirl or stripper is just sad.
This falls squarely into Kaufman territory for me.
By the way, I truly detest the page break feature. Makes it harder to read your posts, and – if you didn’t know – comments from the FIRST page don’t carry over to the second.
I didn’t know because I don’t get comments that way: they come to me in order of posting with the post listed next to each. What would be your suggested max length for a post without breaks? I have been trying to break ant over 500 words.
And of course it’s a Kaufman, but that’s not what the post is about. It’s about my tendency to look at anyone stooping to OnlyFans as a sign of bad character.
My suggestion would be to never break; scrolling through a long post is easier and more standard than looking for a tiny next-page link.
Seconded.
I would suggest that if a post is longer than 500 words, you could do them as Part 1 and Part 2. You’ve done it in the past, and it worked pretty well.
My problem with that: It means a reader may read Part 2 before Part 1….
That’s not how I’m seeing the comments. All comments appear below both pages for me.
Arthur is completely right and I have the actual solution, Jack: Confounded migrate to a different blog platform entirely!!!
I daresay there’s an ethical value here: RESOURCEFULNESS. I think of this almost every time I see another one of those customer service sob stories you post here. Yes there are problems in this field now, but why is there never a thought of doing something differently?
Jack, this WordPress “1 2” business is absolutely ridiculous, and if some NEW reader – imagine that! – came here they couldn’t possibly know what to do, or even see it. Besides, the comment format is, er, suboptimal on its face and totally unreadable the moment one of those sealioning incidents as you guys call it occur. Don’t you realize this, man?
Yes, you might have to pay someone to migrate safely including all of your archives, and/or take down the blog for a couple of days, but so what, that’s happened before. Send me an email, I’ll send you a couple of resources, pick one, and get it done. Come on!
I had no idea about the comments being that way — I typically don’t look at comments until after I read page 2.
But, looking at this post, there were 22 comments after page 1, but when you switch to page 2 there are only 10.
Porn and OnlyFans and all the rest are a great temptation for many. Charlie Kirk was open about his struggles.
This all just makes me really sad. Human beings are better than this. We all are.
I don’t think we are. And that’s the reason that this stuff is so pervasive.
I can look back now and say I was an awful human being the last ten years of my previous marriage, especially the last two. I was hurtful for hurtful’s sake. And only to one person, but, I’m sure being hurtful to everyone was next. Or becoming physically violent, given a bit more time.
The heart is wicked above all else, who can know it? Given enough time in the right (or, wrong) circumstance, you’ll know it, and what’s frightening is you won’t recognize it right away. There’ll be lots of damage done before you do.
In this case, she’s obviously looking for something she needs, and not having found it thus far, figures she’ll give in to what she’s likely disapproved of in the past. When you’re at wits end, and/or desperate, you’re susceptible doing things you know (or would normally know) are wrong.
And there will be plenty of people who I profit from it, use it for their own ends, etc.
We’re actually a pretty rotten group, all things considered.
I don’t disagree with you. I generally take the long view of people since it’s very easy for someone to lose their way. You don’t always know if someone is remorseful just by the outside.
What I mean by better is not giving into the wolf inside of us, no matter how long the fight rages.
Josh: If someone knows they are killing someone and says so at the time, is regretting it later after they have derived the benefit of the murder good enough for you to give them a pass as having “lost their way”? I don’t think it is “very easy” to lose one’s way so that you kill your child. We’re not talking about adultery or shoplifting here.