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Before Hollywood actors became free agents in the 1950s, the major studios controlled the occasions on which they were seen, orchestrating photo-ops that ensured that company property appeared in the best light. Contemporary celebrities, by contrast, cannot control the contexts in which they are seen nor stage manage the events that photographers are most eager to document, not only the premieres and the award ceremonies, but ill-considered excursions to the Seven-Eleven at midnight in stained sweat pants and flip flops or dog walks in scrubs and pink Crocs, a soggy brown baggy dangling arm's-length as they make their way unphotogenically to the nearest trash can. We are fascinated by photographs that show celebrities' unscripted moments, their downtime, occasions captured on the fly when they've lowered their professional guard to give us an intimate glimpse into their daily lives off of the red carpet. In the 1940s, neither the studios nor members of the press itself, in deference to the scruples of their readers, would have allowed an actress to be photographed as Mischa Barton recently was, picking her nose on a park bench wearing flower print culottes that had inched up her thighs to reveal the paparazzi's holy grail, cellulite. In a famous photograph that led many to question her health , Madonna was recently ambushed outside of the Kabbalah Centre wearing a t-shirt and no makeup, her distastefully sinewy arms on macabre display, her face an exhausted skull disfigured by cheek implants and Botox. We ourselves are free to go wherever we please in whatever sweat shirt and track suit we tossed over a chair the night before, but celebrities are held to a double standard, monitored by a harsh dress code that punishes those who, out for an innocent stroll, their hair in curlers, their faces white makeup-less masks, walk unknowingly into a dragnet of frenzied cameramen. Celebrities are not allowed, like office workers, to enjoy "casual days." They do not have our permission to dress "down." Their unscripted moments are never entirely scriptless. We insist that, even for play dates with their children or clandestine visits to their plastic surgeons , our kings and queens appear regal , equipped at all times with their crowns, scepters, ermine capes, and obsequious retinues of...