I'm looking to rack up posts today, so what the hey. (Someday I may even get to check them on page 2 of the most frequent users list, which still only shows me page 1 -- I've noted this and other occasional limitations, perhaps specifically for my server, in the Site Issues board.)
I don't know so much about "deification," especially as that term tends to get brought out when it seems fair game to criticize the talent and worth of some specific stars. To me the whole thing is simple and not even that diabolical -- namely, we really appreciate things which engage our personal enthusiasm. I will never understand the appeal of a NASCAR race, or an Eminem concert, or a cycozombie episode, but there's no denying that these are engaging someone's enthusiasm. (Certainly cycozombie himself must be enthusiastic, to generate over a thousand episodes so monomaniacally.)
I personally like to relax with the music of Sade, pronounced Shar-day. Catch me in a weak moment and I'll refer to her as an angel incarnate or some such. I've no shrine to her, and 99.95% of my life sails on just fine without thinking about her, but I'm still very thankful for the 00.05% when I do think about her.
The fact is that it's arare and good thing to find something worthy of unreserved enthusiasm. For me, the original Outer Limits and the original Star Trek engage that enthusiasm, even though I know full well that a third of the episodes were crap and another third mere time-killers. So (to finally address the question) when the culture fails to provide something quite that surefire, we miss that feeling, and we opt for any number of also-rans.
Take Alias. It's a relentless onrushing tumble of tricks and twists, a little too well tailored to the generation of the brief attention span, but it's the best fun I've seen in a while, so I'm a fan -- and I probably wouldn't think of Jennifer Garner as much more than a talent and a nice face without Alias, but within the context of Alias she becomes, she is made, all the more fascinating.
In Garner's case, I like to think that many of us men are responding to how great the character of Sydeny Bristow is. A bit unfortunately, however, we may be too macho to admit that a woman is our new hero -- presumably only the more pathetic male geeks are permitted to love Xena -- and so, instead of saying "She's talented" or "What a character," we prefer to say "Garner is HOT!"
As a general rule, audiences refuse to understand that much of their fascination with a star lies not so much with the star as with the ingenuity of the scriptwriter. People seem to honestly believe that movie stars are IMPROVISING their lines and their stories all the time, and so the stars inherit a glory which could easily have been passed along to someone else by the casting director.
We crave the engagement of enthusiam, and we settle for the also-rans perhaps because, in a way, we must. I worry about the alternative, a tendency I've been sensing to try to trash pretty much anyone and anything automatically. I'd rather be naive enough to love a few things than love nothing at all.
I recommend the Neal Gabler book Life: The Movie. Even life stories are becoming formulaic entertainments, in this age of the Biography Channel and the E! True Hollywood Story. A pattern emerges: the star must rise, then grapple with hubris, then "earn" his or her way back into our good graces with a proper show of humility.
Around here, I think we're just happy to be horny and to find any common ground for that. "She makes you horny?" "Yeah!" "Yeah, she makes me horny too!" "Damn, she's making us all so HORNY!" Something like that. I prefer to hold back till something really catches my eye -- but very luckily for the Princesses here, the average member is not so reserved. Princesses need the love.
Anyhow, it can be fun to treat Tea Leoni as the goddess she's not, or LSG as stripper-sized when she isn't. I see no harm in hype, provided you don't believe in it too much and keep it in a spirit of fun. When you don't have the real deal, when the next Sophia Loren isn't coming any day now, then you keep hope alive. I'm pro-Anekee myself, but even though she's probably just some vain and bratty messed-up kid, it's way too easy to write her off, and a little more interesting to keep a margin of hope open for her. Reality gyps us all the time, but we can always go on hoping.