zooey deschanel - damn, damn, damn does this woman look good

Why everyone’s infatuated with Zooey Deschanel

By SARA STEWART

Posted: 12:44 AM, July 4, 2010

In the late ’90s, there was “Something About Mary.” These days, there’s something about Zooey.

“She’s adorable and quirky, but also seems to possess an endearing intelligence and approachability,” says fan Adam S., 33, who didn’t want his full name printed. “She (Zooey Deschanel) really encapsulates what the ideal girlfriend would be.”

Plus, says the New York-based entertainment lawyer, “She’s got that Billie Holiday chanteuse thing going on.”

The 30-year-old actress and singer has become the standard-bearer for glamorous, old-timey, don’t-try-too-hard stardom. Her style, which the actress has described as “whimsical and feminine,” regularly includes vintage pieces and unique pairings — “I’ve always enjoyed wearing old-fashioned clothes,” the actress told The Guardian newspaper, and “I try to stick to classic pieces. I don’t go to fashion shows or pay attention to what other people are wearing.”

In an era in which the red carpet can seem as if it’s been styled by a single person (One-shoulder dresses are in! Everyone wear red!), Deschanel’s independent sartorial spirit makes her a Hollywood anomaly.

Deschanel, an actress whose film career was launched with a breakout role in 2000’s “Almost Famous,” is also a celebrated singer-songwriter. After a 2001 gig singing with a cabaret outfit, she paired up with indie guitarist M. Ward in 2008 to form the band She and Him. Their two albums — succinctly titled Volume One and Volume Two — are throwbacks to sunny ’60s and ’70s pop, and have attracted a sizeable following largely thanks to Deschanel’s jazz-singer vocals. She’s also married to a musician: Ben Gibbard, lead singer of the band Death Cab for Cutie.

Today, when She and Him plays a free show on Governors Island, Zooey’s devoted fans will be there in droves — many of the female members styled in the manner of the chic Deschanel herself.

When the band played Bowery Ballroom last year, the crowd was dotted with girls in bangs or wearing cute retro-style outfits.

“People were really into the show. They were singing along to all the songs, super-enthusiastic,” says Cheryl Abramson, an ad-agency employee, who was there.

Deschanel’s fans seem equally distributed between genders, but she certainly seems to evoke ardent crushes in men. When She and Him played the Bonnaroo festival in Tennessee earlier this month, Deschanel’s closing-number rendition of Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ “I Put a Spell on You” “prompted several indie boys to loudly proclaim their love for the indie songstress,” Rolling Stone magazine wrote.

“I would give anything just to get a glimpse of her,” says 19-year-old Texan Tyler Busby, who recently created a Deschanel fan page on Facebook that instantly generated heat. “I just made it for a couple of my friends,” Busby says, “and then I saw that 700 people had added it!”

Even her “(500) Days of Summer” co-star and longtime friend Joseph Gordon-Levitt sounded a little infatuated when he did interviews about their romantic comedy last year. “Every morning on my way to work I (would) listen to She and Him to hear her singing; her voice and her songs and her beautiful melodies. It made it very easy to play smitten, to have those songs in your head,” he told Film.com.

She’s even inspired a Web page devoted to artistic renderings of her: at the Zooey Deschanel DeviantArt page, you can find her image depicted in every style from pencil-drawn portrait to impressionist to . . . cat. Yes, someone drew Deschanel as a house cat.

Inevitably, there are also Deschanel detractors. Her film roles often fall into the category of the “MPDG” (manic pixie dreamgirl), a cinematic trope defined by the Onion AV Club as “that bubbly, shallow cinematic creature that exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures.”

This certainly applies to many recent Deschanel roles: the mysterious Summer in “(500) Days of Summer”; the quirky singer Jovie in “Elf”; Jim Carrey’s free-spirited girlfriend in “Yes Man.” But somehow Deschanel makes it work; even at her quirkiest, she’s way less annoying than, say, the Natalie Portman character in “Garden State” (the most widely reviled of the MPDGs).

Off-screen, Deschanel is indisputably influencing the fashion choices of a generation of hipster girls. “She’s definitely got a downtown vibe,” says a salesperson at Daha Vintage on Orchard Street. “She’s very, very cool. Whenever I see her in a magazine or at a premiere, she always looks really great.”

American Apparel employee Eve Chien agrees. “I definitely see girls coming in here who look like that sort of quirky style.”

Even Deschanel’s ad for cotton last spring was a big hit. Yes, cotton. As in “the fabric of our lives.” She wrote and sang the song in the commercial, and it stuck in people’s heads. “Excuse me, but I’m going to go buy something made out of cotton now,” wrote Lindsay, a blogger for Videogum.com. “Downloading a song about cotton might be pushing it . . . but just a tad. She’s Zooey Deschanel, darling. She can do anything.”

definitely the kind of story that needed an anonymous source

http://i48.tinypic.com/tvnq.jpg

She and Him
by ~bd5000

On a stage
lit like the gloaming
crowded with instruments
players
ghosts
vibing on an earlier time
songs sung
sweetly She keys
electric piano
black guitar for Him
melodiously puts forth
emotion
to feed
the gathered

“She’s adorable and quirky, but also seems to possess an endearing intelligence and approachability,” says fan Adam S., 33, [who didn’t want his full name printed.

who didn’t want his full name printed.

who didn’t want his full name printed.

zooey is fit but seems like an awful person

or 'has an awful persona', w/e

yeah i guess it's kinda irksome but i've nothing against her really. plus, you know, she fine.

i will admit that she & him is sonic diarrhea

I thought we already decided that Lizzy Zaplan was the newer, better Zooey.

well, yeah

but i don't want her to be the new zooey

in 'hot tub time machine' she plays basically the exact same role as zooey in 'yes man': the hott young alt girl who teaches the older, sadsack dude how to live. actually think zooey pulled it off in that film whereas 'hot tub time machine' is a p.o.s not worthy of lizzy caplan. but the point sort of stands. an indie pin-up is no thing to be.

zaplan

woops.

Saw She & Him in Chicago, and I kept quizzing people to see if they can name three movies she's been in. Most knew "Elf" (seven years ago!) and many knew "500 Days," but few got a third. For the life of me I couldn't figure out why she was suddenly very famous*. Very weird.

*One person remembered she was in "Almost Famous!"

from facebook:

T***** ***** got his fill of hipster bangs and folk music at the She and Him concert last night. Now it's off to GaGa!
on Friday · Comment · Like

Her film roles often fall into the category of the “MPDG” (manic pixie dreamgirl), a cinematic trope defined by the Onion AV Club as “that bubbly, shallow cinematic creature that exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures.”

that listicle was some real OTM stuff (ie, Bringing Up Baby) and a bunch of other movies they kind of wrote around when they couldn't find enough to fill a list (ie, Annie Hall)

greenberg sends this whole phenomenon up imo

around "almost famous" + "all the real girls" era i found zooey deschanel really charming and an enjoyable actress, but after the third person told me that she's their 'celebrity crush' i've started to find her much more annoying. it seems kinda unfair, because it's not her fault, but an actress wonderful in small doses can quickly become really tedious on centerstage. she's cute, i guess, but i don't find her particularly compelling.

It's her eyes.

I don't know anything about her, haven't really seen any of her movies I don't think (except for Elf?), haven't heard her sing. I just thing she's purdy is all.

also, she has a doppleganger who once kissed a girl + liked it.

i think there's something inherently annoying about her beauty, but she is undoubtedly beautiful.

… haven't heard her sing.

Oh, except in Elf, I guess. That film was really a gamechanger for me

I decided to be more pragmatic and have an interest in her sister, instead. I mean, she's no pixie but she has some acting chops, a major network tv series, and can sing.

Love her sister!

her best role to date was in The Good Girl. I forgot she was even in Almost Famous. She needs to make a horror film or something.

Wouldn't Hot Tub Time Machine qualify as a horror show?

^That's Lizzy Caplan

Thank god!

also, she has a doppleganger who once kissed a girl + liked it.

― Mordy, Monday, July 5, 2010 4:24 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

ugh so not the same

Slideshow: Katy Perry & Zooey Deschanel - Twins?

ugh

I kno, it's a heartbreaker to find out teh indie chick u love looks exactly like the popular girl u hate

actually, she doesn't, even tho there is a strong resemblance. perry's face is all sorts of fucked with regard to proportion, it's like her eyes are 2 close together or her features are scrunched or something. not cute, and her style is even stupider

i dunno if zooey gets to be indie in a meaningful way after starring in 'the happening'

she is prettier than katy perry tho

some serious narcissism of small differences to say that Perry is substantively different in either looks or style from zooey

bigger boobs

Russell Brand v. the guy from that indie band

some serious narcissism of small differences to say that Perry is substantively different in either looks or style from zooey

― Mordy, Monday, July 5, 2010 7:03 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

not really. zooey's fey and trendy shtick strikes me as quite different from perry's over-effort in the vein of bold fashion, and the proportion of perry's features is much more out of whack than zooey's.

and i don't even like zooey deschanel, just sayin!

the true doppelganger:

http://thepittfamily.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/alexis-bledel-gg02.jpg

how had I not noticed that our Zooey looks scarily similar to Sean Young in Blade Runner, when Sean Young in Blade Runner was my #1 girl when I was about 15 and Zooey is there or thereabouts now?

http://www.hotflick.net/flicks/1982_Blade_Runner/982BLR_Sean_Young_013.jpg

I prefer Selma Blair's face over Zooey's
http://img219.imageshack.us/img219/6703/selmablairselmablair201.jpg
I think it comes down to fox eyes vs. doe eyes

Selma Blair is incredible looking. Zooey is alright.

i watched tinman this week and zooey look like a muppet the whole time

Selma Blair looks like a young Kris Kardashian in that pic, ha.

she looks like an old selma blair in most everything else tbh

ey take it to the Selma Blair thread you lot. Oh that's right, there isn't one becuz she's no Zooey.

That's the worst photo of her I've ever seen.
― milo z (mlp), Friday, September 15, 2006 12:03 AM (4 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

SRSLY, she looks like Margot Kidder or something there.
― Marmot (marmotwolof), Friday, September 15, 2006 12:04 AM (4 years ago) Bookmark

I must admit, the crush was so on after first seeing her as the counter girl in the Good Girl. Great role.