Editor’s Note, 3/5

On Sunday night before bed (as I do most Sunday nights before bed), I watched the Internet’s consensus on what the best sketches were from the previous evening’s Saturday Night Live. The host was Fifty Shades of Grey star and Melanie Griffith/Don Johnson progeny Dakota Johnson, who I had never seen in anything prior to the episode. For someone currently headlining one of the biggest movies of the year thus far, Johnson seems curiously averse to the spotlight. Her monologue was jittery—not uncommon for hosts who are not familiar with the rhythm of live sketch comedy and understandable given the barrage of hacky Fifty Shades jokes she had to make—and her cadence throughout the night was a curiously embarrassed mumble. All in all, Johnson gave the impression that she would rather be anywhere than Studio 40H. Strangely, I loved it all.

Even though she acted like she was being forced to host at gunpoint, I found Dakota Johnson utterly charming. The more sketches I watched, the more and more I tuned into her wavelength. She is a very adept comedic actress; her nervous energy is less of an affectation or tic than a product of her genuine self. This, combined with her hilariously uncomfortable, yet identifiable red carpet spat with her mother at the Oscars, has led me to view Johnson as more genuine, in a sense, than many other celebrities. Johnson has been accused in many publications of lacking charisma. I would argue that she has more and a better kind of charisma than the Julia Robertses and Brad Pitts of the world.

“Charisma” is a popular yet nebulous buzzword we associate with celebrities. Julia Roberts, Jennifer Lawrence and Ryan Gosling have attained mega-stardom with their “boy/girl next door” personas. Brad Pitt, Liam Neeson and Denzel Washington have parlayed their inherent gruffness and action hero endeavors into status as beloved cultural figures. Possibly the best (and most intense) example of “charisma” is Beyoncé, whose universal proclamations of awesomeness has spawned a horde of cultish followers devoted to Queen Bey. All of these people promote what I will henceforth refer to as “aspirational celebrity.”

Aspirational celebrity is a phenomenon as old as pop culture itself, in which fans of a cultural figure gravitate toward said figure as a role model. This primarily manifests itself in two ways—physical aspiration and internal aspiration. Physical aspiration is exactly what it sounds like: the desire to emulate a celebrity by changing their appearance, such as the popularity of the “Rachel cut” during Jennifer Aniston’s tenure on Friends. Internal aspiration centers itself around the emulation of a celebrity’s public personality, like Chris Pratt’s affable goofiness being set as a paragon of masculine ideality. Most celebrities could be categorized into either of these categories, and many blur the lines between the two.

However, there remains a problem with aspirational celebrity in that it is an inherently shallow exercise in vainly projecting ourselves onto false idols. We are lucky to live in an age where most of our venerated pop culture icons project a benevolent image, chock full of empowerment and outward friendliness (a far cry from the Paris Hiltons and K-Feds of yore). The issue lies with the word “image.” Most celebrities play a character for the public eye, one that plays up their salient traits to craft themselves into an easily digestible package. When we think of Chris Pratt, for example, we immediately associate him with “funny,” “charming" and “relatable.” When we think of Taylor Swift, we think of “assertive,” “feminist” and “kind.” This is an excellent way to package a celebrity’s brand—what better than to be instantly connected with such positive adjectives?—but it gets a little stale after a while.

To me, the most interesting and relatable celebrities are the completely idiosyncratic or the more obviously fallible. Kanye West, for all of his public rudeness and crudeness, is quite possibly the most unique and interesting celebrity on the planet. He is ambition embodied, with a fascinating array of successes and failures that encapsulate the enterprising human spirit. West is not afraid to take risks, whether it be in music, fashion or in his personal life, and everything he does can be scrutinized endlessly. Another fascinating subject is Emma Watson, who takes the “girl-next-door” persona, combines it with the “do-gooder” persona, and backs it up substantially with concrete commitments to raising awareness on human rights and participating in philanthropic causes. No other celebrity in our recent lifetime has done as much to promote these agendas, and her eloquence in articulating her aims has led to skyrocketing levels of interest in the United Nation’s outreach programs. They both have unique charisma in spades.

And then we come back to Johnson, who outwardly lacks West’s ambition or Watson’s precociousness. What she has is normality. The impression one gets from Johnson is that she is not afraid to show her entirely human insecurities, even with her own profession. Her shyness and nerves are endearing. For, as much as we love celebrities who we would want to be like, we would do a great service to ourselves if we appreciate the celebrities who are already just like us.