How Would You Classify Brooke Shields? B-List or C?

What letter would give Brooke Shields in terms of career? Is she C list? She was never big but well known and always just there. So what do you say?

I’d classify her as A-List, and if I were her, I’d sue the National Enquirer for the unflattering picture they put on their cover this week.

Personally? She’s no lower than B list. I would have considered her an A-list celebrity myself, but what do I know?

I clicked on that to see!!

He’s not doing himself any favors no matter how he dresses.

I would say she was A-list once upon a time, but not any more. These sorts of evaluations are pretty meaningless, however. They are in no way objective, and, when someone is designated as anything other than A-list, it is most often just a way of being snarky about them.

Retired A-list.

I think we need to identify what an A-list is.

To me, an A-lister; you know the name, you know the face.

A B-lister, sometimes you can recognize the name but you can’t put a face to it. Or sometimes you recognize the face on TV, but you have a difficult time remembering their name. (Sometimes you remember, sometimes you don’t)
A C-lister is someone who looks vaguely familiar on the TV and you don’t even bother to try to remember their name because you know you can’t. (Or never knew it in the first place.)

I was going to say A-list retired, but decided eventually not to post at all. Now that someone else has put it just that way though, I’ll second the motion. I should specify that this is the “celebrity” A list and not any other kind.

You have to remember that A, B, C… N lists are informal internal Hollywood ratings. You may know who she is and what she looks like, but is Brooke Shields anyone who’s anyone’s first choice to invite to a Hollywood party or cast in a Hollywood movie? That means she’s not A-list. She’s still a recognizable name and face, which means she isn’t on the C-list, so I’d say that puts her solidly on the B-list. She’s who you call if you can’t get six or seven other, bigger actresses.

I’d say B-List but that’s because I associate her with eyelash medicine these days before thinking “Oh yeah, actress…”

B-Cup.

Now she’s pushing Lay-Z-Boy furniture.

Not trying to be snarky I actually like Ms. Shields, I’d date her even though she is 20 plus years my senior. Just wondering though seems her peak occurred when she was a teen way before I born. “Blue Lagoon” from 1980 is a case in point. She has never been in notable films in my life time it seems. She starred in “Lipstick Jungle”, which stayed for a year and was compared to “Sex and the. City”. I also recall a decade ago she made an appearance on a television show for a few episodes. Anyways she’s a big name though in terms of recognition. Beautiful woman too. Don’t understand why she did not get more film gigs.

She also had a sitcom, Suddenly Susan, for four years (plus syndication).

I got a bit of a chuckle a couple of years ago to find that she was playing the “Frau Blucher” part in a Nickelodeon movie. Time indeed marches on, although she is still very attractive when not made up as a crone.

I always assumed she was a C cup, but the statistical mean of my totally scientific survey of measurements (five samples) posted online indicates that you are correct. I personally never found her attractive, as she has a Julia Roberts-type smile, i.e. she looks like she’s muttering something offensive through her teeth.

Oh, you mean her status? Didn’t she headline some disposable sitcom a decade ago or so? So, that would put her in the same list tier as, say, David Spade or Ray Romano, right?

Still more famous than anyone here including myself, though I have plans to change that with my Space Weather Dynagitatifyer. They will all tremble in fear of my name, hah! Except you guys, of course. You’re okay. Only light cosmic showers in your neighborhood, I promise.

Stranger

Career wise, she was the “Flavor of the month” for quite a while. Then Phoebe Cates sort of stole the torch from her. Her star further dimmed when she married that tennis player. She did have that series for a while that made Kathy Griffin a name. I guess she’s a B lister now. She could probably get all the work she wanted but she’s way past her prime as an ingenue, so she’s have to settle for mom roles.

Except she had an earlier career as a model and slightly controversial ingenue ( slightly controversial model as well, come to think of it ). As noted her career peaked when she was young, the films she did were mostly not high art ( the very controversial Pretty Baby by Louis Malle possibly excepted ) and she was never really regarded as a top-of-the-line actress. But for those of a certain age she was pretty much instantly recognizable.

I’d say former A-lister just based on her previous high visibility. These days not so much.

But does today’s younger generation recognize her though? I always assumed they did. But you are right, I’m just the right age to remember her in her younger days. So maybe that’s why she seems like an A-lister to me. She’s an icon of my teenaged youth.

Am I correct in assuming you were a teenager in the late 70s and early 80s? If so, I was wondering if among your peers, Brooke seemed to appeal much more to adolescent girls as a style and fashion icon than to adolescent boys as a sex symbol. Granted, YMMV, but in the early 80s if you asked any of the teenaged boys where I lived what female celebrity they lusted after the most, they would’ve said Bo Derek, Christie Brinkley (or some another model from the SI Swimsuit Issue), the POTM from that particular month, and maybe a couple others before mentioning Brooke Shields. She was considered too tall, too flat, and a bit too stuck up by a lot of boys.