• Trouble a-brewin in Los Angeles! Apparently Nicole Richie is thrilled that Paris Hilton and Benji Madden broke up, because Nicole "never thought Paris was ever really into" Benji. Nicole also told her boyfriend's identical twin brother that he "deserves better." Burn! [Star]
• Speaking of Paris! She wants to take her breathy baby voice and use it to play Tinkerbell in a Disney live action movie based on the famous sprite. According to a source, "Paris has worked on her acting chops lately and showed some comedy prowess in her YouTube spoof of running for president. Disney suits saw it and think she may be developing some comedic-actress potential." But people were laughing at her, not with her. [Daily Express]

• Britney's husband of two minutes, Jason Alexander, was arrested for ditching his court appointed trips to the morgue. According to TMZ, "After Alexander was busted for DUI back in 2006, the judge ordered the 27-year-old to go to an alcohol education program, which required him to visit the local morgue. When the judge learned Alexander had ditched his first 2 appointments, he refused to give him a third chance and promptly chucked him in the slammer." [TMZ]
• Jada Pinkett insists that she and Will Smith are totes normal. "We are not perfect. We have bad days, just like any other couple. I tell Will all the time what makes you perfect are your imperfections." Yawn. [Daily Express]
• Olympic beach volleyball champ Kerri Walsh is expecting her first baby. Sayeth People: "What could be better than winning an Olympic gold medal? Becoming a mom, of course!" [People]
• Iggy Pop is so over New York and L.A., and thus picked up and moved to Miami. "I was fed up after 25 years in huge, dark, media-centric cities. I decided to find a house and move here. I was looking for something in a kind of elegant coma with a lot of peace and convenience," the Popster says. [CNN]
• Twilight hottie Robert Pattinson is overwhelmed by the screaming tweens who stalk him. "I didn't know anything about the hype when I was making it so now I just turn up and literally I used to get so stressed out because people are screaming at you. And you just think 'What do I have to do? I cant give anything back to you at all.'" [Daily Express]
• File under things that make you go hmmm: Gossip queen Ted Casablancas is wondering why no one ever followed up on the story about Diane Lane calling 911 on her volatile husband, Josh Brolin. He says he pressed Lane's PR folks on the matter more than once and has come up empty. [E! Online]
• Sources say that Johnny Depp will play Dante in a forthcoming film based on the Fourteenth Century scribe. The biopic will be about Dante's struggle to write the Divine Comedy.[Daily Express]
• What does Emma Thompson admire most in a person? "The ability to laugh in the face of disaster. Every joke is a form of rebellion. Mark Twain said that only laughter can blow nonsense 'to rags and atoms at a blast.'" [Reader's Digest]
• Why did Details think it would be cool to make Keri Russell look like an OD-ing heroin addict in this photoshoot? [Egotastic]
• Is A-Rod already cheating on her Madgesty? Sources say the Rod is obsessed with model Melissa Britos. [Perez]
• Though there were rumors that NeNe from Real Housewives of Atlanta was evicted, she is denying all that noise. "Everybody knows that I like to be honest, real and upfront. If something was wrong, I would tell you… please know that my family continues to be abundantly blessed, and that Miss NeNe has not skipped a beat!” [People]

In addition, there's some diversity in Tinker Bell's world: While the most popular Disney Princesses are white (okay, okay, Jasmine's either Saudi Arabian or Iraqi; Mulan's Chinese), Tinker Bell totally has a black friend! Her name is Iridessa and she's organized and stubborn. Blogger Michelle Schwartz writes for Shameless, "A lot of little girls don’t want to sit around and wait for Prince Charming to marry them; they want to lead the adventure themselves, and fairies are nothing if not adventurous." And young girls seem to be ready for a more active, less passive Disney characters.

American Public Media Marketplace interviewed 9-year-old Bennet Flemmingwood, who used to like Princesses and now is getting into fairies. She says of Princesses: "They weren't doing things for themselves, other people were doing it for them. Like Snow White, she wasn't as smart. You don't take food from strangers." As for fairies? "They're in nature and you don't have to be, like, watching a movie or like wear a fancy dress, they can be more personality and smart."

Of course, Tinker Bell and her friends are still part of a corporate machine; their stories have little to do with the pre-Christian pixie myths from the UK areas of Devon and Cornwall. Michelle Schwartz of Shameless hopes that girls will also discover non-Disney "magical" female characters in books like Holly Black’s Ironside series and Susanna Clarke’s The Ladies of Grace Adieu. But in terms of role models, is Tinker Bell any better than the Disney Princesses? And how come there's no hugely popular female version of Harry Potter — a boy who is "magic" while having glasses and shaggy hair, like a real kid? Isn't Tinker Bell basically a blonde pin-up they've turned into a Bratz character?

Fairies And Princesses And Pixies, Oh My! [Shameless]
Tinker Bell Breaks Out On Her Own [American Public Media Marketplace]

• So that's what Naomi Campbell was doing in Venezuela: interviewing Hugo Chavez for British GQ. Now they're sending her to talk to Fidel Castro. Is this a fucking joke? And if not, does she realize the whole Latin American socialist alliance thing is like, kinda last season? [Vogue UK]
  
• Selling real fur as "faux": clever move, Neiman and Saks! [Consumerist]
  
• On the heels of an ELLE redesign, Vogue is undergoing some design "tweaking" of its own. [WWD, 1st item]
  
• Agyness Deyn is the face of — well, the whole entire fucking universe, including the Armani cell phone. [Sassybella]

• Marketing ploy we just can't avoid: Blackberry has asked Karl Lagerfeld, Dita von Teese, Henry Holland and others to share their favorite secret spots for the masses on their new website The B List. Karl: likes eating tacos at La Esquina in NYC. Where they put crickets in the tacos! [Vogue UK]
• Signing bottles of Armani perfume in Milan, Beyonce shared how excited she was to go to her "mum's" for Christmas. Oh god. [WWD, sub req'd]
• Whoah: Over-the-knee Uggs. [FabSugar]
• Coach: still doing meh. [Portfolio]
• Lanvin Spring 2008 ads: you know, they said the giant tent-dress trend was over, but not really getting that vibe with this one... [Sassybella]
• Valentino Spring 2008 ads: who needs plastic surgery when you've got a giant handbag to shield your face? [Sassybella]