The announcement came this morning that sultry screen siren Jessica Alba, 26, is expecting her first child with on again/off again/hopefully on again boyfriend, Cash Warren. They met when she was starring as "The Invisible Woman" and he was a Director's Assistant on THE FANTASTIC FOUR. Nice to know something good came out of that franchise besides merchandising opportunities for Marvel Comics.
It's fascinating to observe the knee-jerk reaction around Hollywood. Guys seem to be crushed for two reasons...now she'll be officially "off the market" (like any of them ever had a chance with her! But hey, men like their fantasies!) and, more worrisome for her long term career prospects, she could lose her "hot" factor. Seems to me that yummy mummies like Heidi Klum, Cindy Crawford, Reese Witherspoon, Jennifer Garner and Julianne Moore didn't suffer any loss of sex appeal after giving birth. The female reaction surprised me. I heard one young working woman in Tinseltown actually exclaim, "Oh, good! I hope she blows up like a big fat pig!" Wow! Tell us what you really think! It just goes to show you that the burden of living up to the ideal image presented by Hollywood's beautiful people is always simmering just beneath the surface for most.
For male celebrities, fatherhood seems like a win/win situation. If it's due to a case of adultery and/or questionable paternity (Eddie Murphy and Jack Nicholson spring immediately to mind), they come off looking like Casanovas. If it's within a loving relationship, suddenly any "bad boy" tendencies they may have had give way to being seen as cuddly and sensitive "DILFs." Fatherhood has done wonders for Colin Farrell, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck.
In this era of politically correct adoptions, thoughtfully planned parenthood, surrogate mothers, fertility-driven multiple births, so-called "test tube babies" and the other "great-lengths" people go to for the sake of creating the family unit of their dreams, it's still nice to know that sometimes pregnancies just HAPPEN. So to Jessica & Cash, and all the other folks out there who find themselves anticipating a visit from the stork, Uncle Nelson says, "Congratulations!" What do you think? Will a bambino jeopardize Alba's movie career?
