The forgettable Hilary Swank

So the big conclusion I'm drawing from last nights Academy Awards is that there are currently no actual female movie stars, under 40, in all of Hollywood. The exception to this being, of course, Julia Roberts who's on a Hollywood time out, and perhaps Nicole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon, though the former is probably too icy, the latter probably too Debbie Reynolds, to stand the test of time. Basically, in 25 or 50 years none of these people are going to be remembered any more than, say, Ava Gardner and probably a few even less than Teresa Wright (Hilary Swank?), who hardly anyone recognized when she kicked off this year's dead people montage.
In trying to understand this phenomenon, so I put together a list of some of the qualifications one should have to be considered a movie star:
1) You are an actress
2) You not only act in films, you occasionally star in them
3) You sometimes/usually/at least once have displayed acting talent
4) You sometimes/usually/at least once have displayed popularity (which, conservative as it may be, does actually mean being in a movie that made some money. Or proving that millions and millions of people scammed their way into your movie for free)
5) You are attractive.
On these grounds Jennifer Garner, Jennifer Lopez, Jennifer Aniston, Hillary Swank, Charlize Theron, Keira Knightley should all count. Only Jessica Alba (see 3 and 4) is tossed from consideration. But they don't. You can feel it.
So there should be something else:
6) You have had some kind of career longevity. I.e. you have been an attractive film actress, who is sometimes good and sometimes popular, for an extended period of time.
Which would be why Nicky Kid and Reese count, but JGarns and Keira, total newbies, JLO, who has given up movies for her troll-faced husband, and Swank, who surfaces every 3 years or so, definitively do not. Theron has potential, but needs to be good for a little longer. And then there's Aniston, who actually fails on the grounds of 4, except that Friends proved she's popular, despite her having no box-office. More damning is that she's only ever been good in one movie and it was a long time ago. (Also on Aniston, the whole Oscar thing, from the pre-show to the lonely pictures at the after-parties, just looked so damn painful for her. She seemed bitter and depressed, and proved once again that Brangelina are having way more fun than her. She should have stayed home)
Not that this matters in any concrete way. All it means is that at the Oscars in 50 years when they show really boring montages all the kids at home just won't recognize anyone. And that basically happens now. Less concretely, the fun of watching the Academy Awards is seeing Hugely Famous people speak, in a way that, though semi-scripted, isn't quite acting, and so kind of, maybe, gives us a glimpse at who they are. My like for Jennifer Garner increased when she ad-libbed the admittedly lame "I do my own stunts" after almost falling on her face, because it proved she's quick witted enough to come up with at least a little funny in an embarrassing situation. But she's still just Jennifer Garner, a woman who's been in, basically, two movies.
I think this boils down to me longing for a return to "Old Hollywood Glamour," and I'm opposed to that conclusion. So I will stop.