“20 Most Entertaining Celebrity Thesis Statements”
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If you think about it, there’s no reason why we should short-change celebrities and underestimate their intelligence. After all, they have the determination, work ethic and street savvy to take on Hollywood and win us over. But becoming a rock star or famous actor isn’t enough for some celebs: they’ve decided to conquer the academic world, too. Here are 20 entertaining celebrity thesis statements to prove it. Some are bizarre, some are too ironic, and some are just completely unexpected.
A few highlights:
“Hypothalamic Secretions and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder in adolescents with Prader-Willi Syndrome,” Mayim Bialik: The former Blossom trendsetter has proved herself to be a serious smartie. She’s got a B.S. in Neuroscience, and a degree in Hebrew and Jewish Studies from UCLA, plus a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from the same school, which she earned in 2007. Bialik is today a leader in the holistic moms movement, practicing natural family living and parenting. We hope that psychoneuroendocrinology thesis, “Hypothalamic Secretions and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder in adolescents with Prader-Willi Syndrome,” allows her to help other families dealing with those issues.
“Literary Progeria in the Works of Flannery O’Connor and William Faulkner,” Conan O’Brien: You may know that goofy late-night talk show host/renegade entertainer Conan O’Brien went to Harvard: his entertaining commencement speech at his alma mater is a big hit on YouTube. But you may not have known that O’Brien was a serious student of English and history and graduated magnum cum laude. His senior thesis explored literary progeria (that’s premature aging if you didn’t go to Harvard) in works by O’Connor and Faulkner. Take that, Leno!
Personal identity and memory, Natalie Portman: Another famous celebrity who’s also a Harvard grad is Natalie Portman, who filmed Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones during a summer break from school. Portman once stated, “I’d rather be smart than a movie star,” and proved it when she wrote her psychology thesis on personal identity, and how she believes it is shaped by “how he constructs his memories into his life story,” according to the Huffington Post.
The male genitalia film, James Franco: James Franco has been everywhere the past few years, from stoner comedies to UCLA to NYU to Columbia to TV soap operas. Graduating with and pursuing degrees in creative writing, filmmaking, fiction writing and poetry, Franco’s been simultaneously impressing and baffling the public with his work on and off screen. His thesis for NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts was actually a film that got mostly confused reviews, the most famous coming from a Life & Style article: “”It pretty much had no plot and featured men in clown masks, men in dog masks, and shots of male genitalia urinating.”
Racial conflict in China, Mira Sorvino: From Mighty Aphrodite to Romy and Michelle’s High School Reunion, Mira Sorvino — daughter of Law and Order actor Paul Sorvino — has had a stable but sometimes under-the-radar career in Hollywood since the 1990s. Also a Darfur activist, Sorvino studied at Harvard and spent time in Beijing, working on her thesis about racial conflict in China.
“Only Victims: A Study of Show Business Blacklisting,” Robert Vaughn: This would make a great film, too. Famed stage and TV actor Robert Vaughn attended several colleges including the University of Minnesota, Los Angeles City College, Los Angeles State College of Applied Arts and Sciences (from which he earned a Master’s in theatre) and USC, where he earned his PhD in communications and explored blacklisting in show business in his 1972 dissertation.
All these damn Harvard grads! I want my Yale celebrity theses!
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