Friday, July 11, 2008

Would the Real Hayden P. Please Stand Up?

She is...you just will see different versions depending on which magazine you read.



I still don't know how to say "Hayden Panettiere" aloud and I must be the only person who's never watched Heroes but I found this Jezebel analysis of her magazine cover appearances interesting. The 18-year-old starlet appears on three recent Hearst titles: Cosmo, Seventeen and Seventeen Prom. Basically, it's what you'd expect...the mags targeted to a younger demographic feature more demure covers and sugary-sweet lingo. Cosmopolitan is all va-va-va-voom in looks and subject matter.

It's reasonable for a young adult to have many facets of her personality and life. It's reasonable for a magazine to write features geared toward what their audiences want. (Granted, I haven't read the articles but even stick with the cover photos, but obviously a teen mag won't be vamping it up the way a publication with a lot of adult, sex-related content does.) But I wonder if Hayden's personality is driving the different stories or the magazines are the ones crafting these different personas.

It'd be very smart as an actress to make your appeal as wide as possible, of course. Is that something someone this age calculates? Sure the entertainment industry ages kids fast, but 18 (almost 19) seems pretty young to worry about crafting yourself as a brand. And if you are...well, I think that must be pretty stressful to live up to, especially under all the public scrutiny. Like, erm, bloggers dissecting the aspects of your public personas.

Really makes me appreciate the perks of relative anonymity.

1 comment:

Sara Bartlett said...

I have no idea how to say her name, either. So I usually just call her The Cheerleader from Heroes. :)