Sep 20 2009 02:09 PM ET

Why Megan Fox may not be a movie star yet. Why Megan Fox is definitely a TV star.

The disappointing box office returns for Jennifer’s Body over the weekend was a contrast to the success with which its star, Megan Fox, commanded every TV show she chose to slink onto while promoting the movie last week. On Live With Regis and Kelly, she shimmied up on one of the hosts’ high stools in a tight dress and beige pumps and let Kelly Ripa talk about how she, Kelly, had spotted stardom in Fox way back when Megan played a ditzy teen on Ripa’s short-lived sitcom Hope and Faith.

On The Tonight Show — the one Conan O’Brien hosts, not the one Jay Leno does — Fox came out in a tight dress and black pumps to say that she loves to eat at chain restaurants like The Olive Garden and Red Lobster, reserving particular praise for the latter restaurant’s cheese biscuits:

“You’re the perfect woman!” joked Conan, meaning the perfect geek-fantasy woman: she’s hot-looking, and a cheap date!

Megan Fox sells sex and provocation with a knowing gleam. On TV and in magazines, it’s fun for an array of people — young and old straight men, girls who detect a dash of riot grrrl in her demeanor, gay men and women who recognize a present-and-future camp idol, if she lasts long enough to attract female impersonators — to relish her wanton kitty-in-stilettos image. She is, in short, great in interviews.

But actually paying a ticket to see her is another, ah, proposition. Fox attracted a big following in the Transformers movies because moviegoers were paying for the big shiny robot toys and also got a human Barbie doll as an extra added bonus. But it took TV and print interviews for the Barbie doll to establish that she was smart, funny, and self-aware. Well, aware enough to recognize that Diablo Cody had written her a terrific script in Jennifer’s Body. But (along with all the movie people who green-lit this project) not aware enough to foresee that asking citizens to utter the phrase, “I want to see Jennifer’s Body, please” was going to be sufficiently embarrassing to force a lot of them to opt with the more family-friendly sounding, “I want to see Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs, please.”

For millions of people, I’m guessing, Megan Fox is the very definition of a guilty pleasure. And a guilty pleasure is something you enjoy in the privacy of your own home. You don’t go out, drive to a theater, and ask for a ticket to see Jennifer’s Body if you think the person behind the ticket window knows you’re asking for a ticket to see Megan Fox’s body.

Comments (1-15) of 207 Add your comment

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  • Jordan

    She isn’t a movie star because she lacks talent. I just want her to go away.

    • lori

      She cant act and her skin is awful. She’s gonna look worse than Courtney Love when shes 30 too.

    • Angel

      Yes, I completely agree. I am tired of hearing about Megan Fox.

      • jerry

        i think all you girls are jealous because she is hot and maybe you guys just arent tne best

    • elr

      Oh Yeah! I completely agree with you. the Big question is will EW let her go away??????

      • EricSF

        I couldn’t agree more. Someone at EW must love her because they keep shoving her and her crappy attitude in our faces. Please just let her shrivel up and slither off into an open drainpipe.

    • Michelle

      I get a kick out of Megan Fox. I never understood why people hate her so much. She needs to work on her acting, but she has the charisma to last a while if she gets it together. She just has to pick the right projects.

  • fancypants

    first of all, eeww. i don’t need to hear a grown man drool over megan fox.
    secondly, no one ever said fox was a movie star, other than publications like EW. however, movie audiences determine movie stars, not press.
    any other actress could’ve played fox’s role in the transformers film, and she likely would’ve been hyped. megan fox got an extremely lucky break, but she’ll need talent to sustain her if she ever intends to be a movie star.
    IMO, she’s the next sean young. who you ask? yea, that’s the point.
    katherine heigl has more talent than fox (which isn’t saying much) and she’s not a movie star either.

    • lori

      I know!! This geezer is old enuff to be her father and he’s practically salivating over a young womans breasts. Disgusting

    • Michka

      Same here! All Megan Fow related reviews need to be written by women. Men are possessed by her so-called powerful vag*na.

    • ChargedFan

      “…any other actress could’ve played fox’s role in the transformers film, and she likely would’ve been hyped. megan fox got an extremely lucky break, but she’ll need talent to sustain her if she ever intends to be a movie star.”

      A truer statement has never been made–she just happened to get extremely lucky with the Transformers role! But from what I’ve seen, she doesn’t begin to have the talent nor personality that many of her young counterparts do. And, no, I don’t hold it against her that she’s a fairly attractive young woman, but there are a lot of more attractive young women I’d much rather watch and support! I just personally can’t see what all the hype is about.

      • Russ Burlingame

        I think Jessica Biel is thanking her lucky stars that Megan Fox came along. It freed her (Biel) up to do some more arthouse fare and prove that she can actually act in a script like that one she just did with Colin Firth, while all the “skinny hot girl” parts she was taking five years ago descend to Fox. Ol’ Megan, on the other hand, doesn’t have the chops to do that when the next, younger, hotter kid comes along in two years.

    • Jackie

      Try telling that to Katherine Heigl. She definitely thinks she’s a “movie star”.

  • cRAIG

    Megan Fox is smart and funny?

    • Tom Brazelton

      I was going to say the same thing. Google “Megan Fox dumb quotes” and you’ll see exactly how unintelligent and humorless this porn-star wannabe actually is.

  • LK

    I thought she was good in the movie. I think younger audiences (17-20 year olds) were expecting this movie to be more horror-defined and have Megan Fox as the central character and so people were confused when they realized that its not a genre specific film. Have you seen the comments on twitter? The movie soared over the heads of people expecting a movie like Sorority Row. From what I can conclude: there was nothing benign about the movie – its an 80s cliche made in 2009, its about the underlying rivalry between the average girl (btw Seyfried was awesome) and the one who is popular, its suggesting that those feminine heroes in Halloween, etc., aren’t really heroes. with a line like “There’s no such thing as PMS. It’s a lie cooked up by the boy-run media to make girls seem crazy,” clearly this movie is geared mostly towards the thinking teenager/young 20-somethings

  • crispy

    Gay men, really? You need to talk to more gay men. I don’t know a single gay man who likes her. The gays typically like women who have overcome some drama in their lives (Liza, Judy, Cher, Whitney, etc), not some talentless bimbo with a big mouth and an annoying personality.

    • XSE Drake

      Right. Because the gays just can’t stand Kathy Griffin.

      • jtan

        Hey i just wanted to compliment your comeback, very good.

      • digit

        Kathy would be complimented by the bimbo comment.

    • Drew

      Gay, and love her!

      • Luis

        So do I!!!

      • Alex

        Same here! Love herr & gay. What up.

    • lori

      Liza, Judy and Cher? Are you a time traveler from the year 1970?

    • Diego Sierra

      I’m gay and I L-O-V-E Megan Fox!

    • reese

      well gay men like britney spears. she has had “life issues”, and is a talentless bimbo and has an annoying personality…so…yea.

  • pop

    “smart, funny, and self-aware” are you reading the same interviews i am?

    • Erin

      Exactly – she is an idiot.
      I think Ken just has a thing for her.

  • topazbean

    Am I missing something with this girl, because I have never seen one of her movies, know almost nothing about her, and would be hard pressed to recall what she looks like most of the time. Then again, I’m a straight female, and apparently (and slightly depressingly) not among the many target audiences of this fellow straight female.

    • Sally in Chicago

      Me too. I only see her on magazine covers. But she’s got a good publicist.

    • lori

      She “kneeled” her way to fame in many a casting directors back room.

      • Jackie

        That’s a little uncalled for.

  • Kline

    you think people are embarrassed to buy a ticket to “jennifer’s body” because the ticket clerk might suspect they really want to “ogle” Megan Fox’s body? what the h*** are you even talking about? what has happened to EW?

    • seesaw

      and besides, i can’t remember the last time i asked an actual human for a movie ticket :)

    • lori

      They started hiring hacks who werent up to snuff to land a job at the Enquirer

      • Natalie

        Back off of Ken T! He’s been with EW since the beginning.

  • t3hdow

    I think it’s the over promotion of Megan Fox in various media outlets (including this one) that’s causing this double edged sword effect. For one, it overrates the work she’s done so far (i.e., two Transformers films and a horror movie), and that doesn’t really signify great acting at all. Calling her the next Angelina Jolie is also digging her into a deeper hole. Maybe her publicists are to blame, but it’s not doing Megan Fox any favors if she wants to be respected as an actress.
    On the other hand, her interviews are pretty entertaining, and without the attention, she wouldn’t conduct those interviews. Still, if Megan Fox is built up on nothing but media fueled hype, it’s only going to be used as ammo against her credibility, even if she does perform some knockout roles in the future.

    • Anon

      There will never be another angelina jolie.

      • t3hdow

        That’s part of the problem behind the promotion machine. Let Megan Fox be herself, for better or worse. Otherwise, even if she succeeds, most people will think of her as a wannabe Jolie, even if that was completely unintentional.

      • Kate

        No, because Angelina can’t act either.

  • Lorrie

    I had a good time watching Jennifer’s Body. I’m not a fan of horror films, but this wasn’t really one. There was nothing objectionable about Megan Fox’s performance. But the real star of the movie is Amanda Seyfried. She’s great and was the reason I wanted to see the movie in the first place.

  • Chuck

    Phirt.

  • Denise

    I know who Sean Young is….

    • Muffy

      I also know who Sean Young is! I guess Fox is going to stalk Zac Efron! lol

  • Snarf

    I think a lot of people don’t “get” Megan Fox. Don’t forget she’s only 23. People dismiss her to readily as a talentless bimbo, yet, lets face it, Michael Bay films aren’t about acting.

    • T

      “Don’t forget she’s only 23″ – there’s people in Med school at 23 – so what does that mean?

      • t3hdow

        Err, those same 23 year old med students aren’t head surgeons, let alone had their first surgery. Sure, their tenacity shouldn’t be compared to Megan Fox, but Snarf’s point still stands for both: they’re/she’s only getting started, and won’t show their/her true potential until later (hopefully).

      • snoopy

        23 yo med students perform more difficult tasks on an hour to hour basis than I assume Fox will ever perform in her entire life. Plus, do you know how hard it is to get into medical school in the first place? I’m not saying being famous is easy (which, at this point, is her “talent”, not acting)–but it does not require much skill or intellect.

      • t3hdow

        Reading comprehension, much? I never said that med students DON’T deserve to be in school. On the contrary, they’re only getting warmed up. Most revered surgeons and doctors stay in school for 8-10 years before they even start working. As great as they are to get into med school, they’re not going to be phenomenal until they reach their late 20s and 30s. No matter what you do in life, it’s rare to peak before reaching your 30s or later, whether it’s acting, going to med school, or whatever. That’s the point I made earlier.

    • kate

      Scarlett Johannson is only 24. Evan Rachel Wood is only 21.
      Both of these women are far better actresses than Megan “I’m only 23″ Fox has proven herself to be.
      That’s not to say she couldn’t break out – many do later in their careers.
      I, for one, am a straight female, and don’t particularly hate her.

    • lori

      In 5 years she’ll be lucky to get a guest starring spot as a CSI corpse. Though that might require more acting than shes capable of.

      • Linda

        lmao oh lori thats hilarious.

    • alexkziel

      There are actors and singers younger, smart, dedicated and TALENTED.
      Don´t make excuses.

  • craig

    Sean Young? Why slam her. Megan Fox is not the next anything except Megan Fox, and if she is simply high heels and a tight dress on a sofa or chair then she is really nothing at all except evidently an object for Ken to mastogle over at home in the dark.

    • James

      Megan Fox is the new Denise Richards.

    • fancypants

      b/c she was considered the ubiquitous ‘it’ girl, until her terrible reputation condemned her to obscurity.

  • oneeyedblog.net

    Really the media has been oversaturated with Megan Fox, from magazine covers, articles, radio, and TV show interviews. If her PR team was smarter they would have been more selective with who she talked to and when. Because it’s only a matter of time before we have seen too much of Megan Fox…or has that happened already?

    • elr

      Yes it has already happened.

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