Once America's most misbehaving celebrities were over-sexed young men. From the Rat Pack of Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin to the Brat Pack of Robert Downey Jr and Rob Lowe, the emphasis was on male stars who liked to drink and party hard.
Now the tabloid headlines are dominated by the out-of-control antics of young women. After a week in which Lindsay Lohan was arrested (again) and Britney Spears suffered another public meltdown, the Bad Boys of Hollywood have turned into Bad Girls; the Brat Pack has become the Britney Pack.
That there has been a huge gender shift is in little doubt. There is simply no male star in America who can compete with the hard-partying and jail-hopping activities of the young women who now dominate US tabloid press and cable television. It is all women, all the time.
From genuine Hollywood stars such as Lohan and once-fine singers like Spears to fame-seeking missiles such as heiress Paris Hilton and her sidekick Nicole Richie, the emphasis is on sex, booze, drugs, arrests and stints in jail.
"It seems like there has been a explosion of this sort of behaviour with our younger women stars,' said Gayl Murphy, a celebrity interviewer who has written a book on how stars should deal with the press.
The roll call of misbehaviour is staggering.
Last week alone witnessed Lohan's dramatic high arrest in the small hours for allegedly drink-driving at high speeds. Apparently she was chasing another car through the streets of Los Angeles. Police found cocaine in her trouser pocket, and a mugshot of a bleary-eyed Lohan then made front pages around the world, she could now face some serious jail time.
But she was far from alone in the headlines. Spears's antics actually dumped Lohan off the front pages by the weekend after OK! magazine published lurid details of a photo-shoot they had conducted with the singer. Spears, apparently under the influence of drugs, ruined the expensive clothes she was wearing for the shoot when she wiped her hands on them after eating a meal, then her dog relieved itself on a $6,700 gown.
OK!s description of the experience contained several sentences that no PR handler would ever want to see, including: "Britney... used the restroom repeatedly without bothering to close the door." Finally, the session collapsed in chaos as Spears and her staff fled still wearing thousands of dollars' worth of clothing and jewelery.
"What we experienced was a young girl who is desperately in need of help," the magazine wrote.
Though last week was a low point in terms of Hollywood bad girls' misbehaving, it has hardly been uncommon. There was the tragic recent death of Anna Nicole Smith after an apparent drugs overdose.
There was the trial and conviction of Paris Hilton, whose time in jail for drink-driving became a national obsession. She emerged from the experience vowing a changed life but has gone right back to being a regular feature of the partying circuit.
And there was Hilton's friend Richie, who is pregnant, also appeared in court last week and on Friday was sentenced to four days in jail and a hefty fine on drink-driving charges.
The trend towards female debauchery has sociologists and fame-watchers alike wondering what is going on. One possible explanation is that the rise of the Bad Girls is simply a reflection of the generally increasing power and visibility of women in all fields of entertainment.
Women have started playing roles in movies usually associated with men (such as action stars).
On US television the number of programs based around strong female roles has jumped massively. Perhaps it is no surprise that some women are also following the paths blazed by the more notorious past male stars and behaving badly too.
At the same time there is a wider social acceptance of bad behaviour by young American girls. The nation is confronting social angst over millions of young women's drinking habits, with the antics of Lohan and Spears reflecting the behaviour patterns of wider US society.
China Daily
