Does Falling In Love Make You Basic?

Celebrities star in movies based on our lives and TV shows that simulate reality, but we’re meant to imagine that offscreen they’re swimming laps in vodka filled infinity pools, while all the women from Maxim’s latest issue serve them toffee popcorn. Stars: They’re just like, only pretending to be us!

But Kanye West’s proposal to Kim Kardashian threw a wrench in the whole machine. And not even a gold-plated wrench, just some totally normal ass wrench from Home Depot or something. Renting out a baseball stadium, getting a symphony to play Lana Del Rey and then removing your girlfriend’s blindfold so she can read the following text on a Jumbotron: “PLEEEASE MARRY MEEE!!!” This is the scene from the currently-in-production-film Can You Here, Me Now right after Reese Witherspoon quits her telemarketing job at a thinly-disguised Verizon Wireless and the company’s CEO, played by Josh Duhamel in maybe a hairpiece, tricks her into coming to a stadium and proposes. This is not Kim Kardashian’s real life. This is, like, basic.

Kanye claimed in a recent radio interview that, “It was very much a DONDA exercise. I sit with my team of creatives and we’ll say, ‘What’s the best version of this? How can we get this?’” I love the idea that Kanye West requires the DONDA creative team to help him achieve normalcy, and yet it’s clear that no matter how high the level of orchestration, it was all done in the name of catering to Kim’s undeniable basic-ness. Because, try as he might to dress her up in Givenchy and Celine, and blather as he may about what a worthy Vogue cover girl she is, Kanye knows that Kim is capital-B "Basic," and if he wants to be with her, he’s got to go Basic too. Just like how you sometimes have to go to T.G.I.Friday’s earnestly because your girlfriend likes their nachos, or how you’ll wear a totally lamezo sweater she bought you from Banana Republic, or give up smoking even though it means nobody wants to take your fashionz picture now.

And it all raises the terrible, heartbreaking, day-ruining question: When famous people fall in love, do they become...Basic? Are stars in love just like us?

Above, let's review some other stars who, once in love, became totally basic.

Rachel Seville is a writer living in New York who believes in miracles. Read her blog, Pizza Rulez, here and follow her on Twitter here.

Brad and Angelina

Brad used to date every hot thing that moved and Angelina used to stunt around with Billy-Bob Thornton when not making out with her brother. True eccentrics, these people! Just as they started their dalliance, they did that racy “Domestic Bliss” shoot for W. But as soon as it was clear they were playing for keeps, Angelina started, like, volunteering and Brad cut his hair and got into zombie movies. Zzz!

Tom and Katie

Tom has been crazy forever, and Katie was starting to get kinda cool. (She and Michelle Williams really did well there, as opposed to Joshua Jackson and what’s-his-hair. The little rowboat on Dawson’s Creek really was women and children first!) But Scientology’s Christ figure wasn’t willing to compromise on Katie’s utter basicness, actually, and that’s why they had to get divorced. Remember that, if you ever get divorced and your kid asks you why: “Because mommy was basic.”

Jay and Beyonce

SUPERSTARS who went to CLUBS and DAZZLED the world with sequin outfits and jerseys! (To my knowledge, never the twain did meet, unless there was a Destiny’s Child spangly Houston Rockets ensemble I’m forgetting about.) Admittedly, still pretty glam, but sometimes I read things about them going out to brunch.

Tom and Gisele

The world’s biggest supermodel! The world’s biggest football thing! (I’m a girl; what’s a sports?) Apparently, they met on a blind date, so we really should’ve known. The only girl I know who met her guy on a blind date thought her Miley Cyrus Halloween costume was edgy. Anyways, now Tom and Gisele have the same hair.

Ben and Jen

Remember when he was 1/2 (eh, 1/3) of Bennifer and bought his better 2/3r a pink sparkly? Who comes up with that? No one, but the most famous. Too bad he was like, “Oh, too much pressure for me, this Katie Holmes body double will let me go make films for dads who have a maniacal organizational system for their Talking Heads b-sides.”

Barack and Michelle

All of Barry’s friends are like, “He hasn’t made time for our fantasy football team in, like, years and it’s all her fault.”

Kurt and Courtney

Didn't he die?

Freddie and Sarah Michelle

They were the king and queen of pretending to be normal in films. We modeled our high school existence after them and then they go ahead and just...like...live it out IRL?

Will and Jada

I wish they would just publicly be Scientologists already so that we could all accept that they get their sustenance from eating toilet paper a la Coneheads.

Will and Kate

He used to fly planes and have hair. She used to wear sequins. (Does love = no sequins, for the ladies?) All their friends have secretly selected “Hide all posts from Kate Middleton” because she posts, like, a hundred status updates a day about her lame kid on Facebook.

That Guy and Celine

OK, I guess they’ve been dating since she was 12, so perhaps she was always as she is. But who knows what might have been? It’s all coming back to her now!

Ozzy and Sharon

When Jack Kerouac tweeted, “The only 1s 4 me r the mad 1s,” he was totally anticipating Sharon and Ozzy. Now, well, that episode of The Osbournes where Ozzy wanders around asking, “Does anyone want a burrito?” and goes to Chipotle five times sort of sums up their entire domestic experience.

John and Yoko

Her name is a synecdoche for the destruction of all decent human enjoyment.