Ashton Kutcher's Pop Fiction

Pop Fiction is the latest show produced by Ashton Kutcher and this time instead of pranking the celebrities, he's having the celebrities prank the paparrazzi and the press and ultimately the segment of the public who eats this kind of stuff up with a spoon.

It's a bemusing concept, partly because there is something so intensely meta about it. So much of what we see of the public face of celebrities is constructed in the first place, this is just taking it all a step further. Aren't we already being pranked by their fakery most of the time anyway?

One thing that constantly amazes me is that celebrities and the media have one major blindspot when it comes to the public's consumption of "celebrity news". Much of the interest is fueled by schadenfreude. You'd think the utter loathing for celebs on display at most celebrity blogs would provide a clue, but I guess most of them would prefer to believe that we read about them because we care. Hell, Ashton himself, is at the top of the hate parade. He's completely irritating and his pranks aren't nearly as interesting as they could be. Fortunatley for him, he's a bit of a hottie so he can coast on his looks. According to Star magazine, “He’s only semi-interesting, he doesn’t sell a lot of mags.”

Since Pop Fiction debuted on March 10th with the celebrity many people love to hate -- Paris Hilton -- I'm guessing we won't be seeing the A-list crowd participating. Of course, the A-list celebs like Tom Cruise don't need Ashton Kutcher to come up with pranks for them to participate in. Their publicists already perform that task.

You should be able to catch the rest of the show -- 8 episodes in total -- on the E! Network. It'll be in repeats ad nauseum for months, I would imagine. Unless of course it gets cancelled due to the plagiarism claims by Howard Stern. Apparently, he and Anna NIcole Smith had pitched an idea similiar to this to the E! Network ages ago.