If you aren’t aware, Chris Pratt is under fire for a recent Instagram post he made about his wife, Katherine Schwarzenegger. However, this isn’t the first time that Pratt has seemingly fallen out of the public’s graces. A man who was once beloved in Hollywood is now practically hated, or has at least become a meme.
TikTok user @superkeara coined this phenomenon as the “Chris Pratt Pipeline”. This phenomenon occurs when actors that were generally considered to be liked among the public go down a trail that leads to public hate. She describes this fall from grace as having multiple key components. An actor that she used as an example of someone falling down this same slope is John Krasinski.
The Glow Up
The first component that lets you know an actor might fall down the Chris Pratt Pipeline is a sudden glow up. Chris Pratt went from having a lovable dad-bod on the sitcom Parks and Recreation to being a muscular stud of a man for his Guardians of the Galaxy era. This glow up threw him on a lot of people’s radars. The public also noticed that John Krasinski became hot in the later seasons of The Office and afterwards.
Switching Genres and Rebranding
The second component of the Chris Pratt Pipeline is that the actor will often switch the genre of content they appear in. Chris went from comedy to action. Krasinski went from comedy to drama or thrillers. Both of these men have ‘reinvented’ their persona in entertainment, shedding their comedic shell for something more serious.
Combined with this genre switch, the actors will also be seen in magazine publications focusing on their glow up and these changes in their career.
Why Does This Happen?
So why do actors that were so loved fall down the “Chris Pratt Pipeline,” or suddenly become hated in general? Well, one of the issues that is currently occurring in Hollywood is the oversaturation of actors that see an increase in popularity in a short time period. Chris Pratt became a generally liked actor in the public eye, and was therefore put into movie after movie after movie: Jurassic World, The Lego Movie, Guardians of the Galaxy. Suddenly he was everywhere, and as a general rule of supply and demand, a surplus of supply drastically cuts the need for demand.
A great example of this is James Cordon. Audiences fell in love with the late night host from his Carpool Karaoke series with celebrity guests. He was relatable and relevant and charming. So Hollywood put him in everything from Into the Woods to Cats to the new Cinderella movie. And thus, James Cordon went stale. Now it’s trendy to hate him, all because we’ve seen too much of him.
What’s The Solution?
In a perfect world, the film industry would see how their sweethearts are becoming hated as their career progresses. A solution to this problem would be to cast “unknowns”: individuals who haven’t seen many major roles, or indie actors. While this is a risk, it would help create a fresh atmosphere, something that the industry is currently lacking.