Daddy Dearest / Daddy Warbucks

Willow Smith: Daughter of WILL SMITH in case you forgot!You guys... 

I was going to talk about this last week but decided against it under the umbrella "if you don't have anything nice to say..." But now Willow Smith had to go and remind me by wearing her dad when she hit the red carpet for the BET Awards. Just in case you forgot why you should care about her!

It wasn't enough for Will Smith to foist his son upon the world by way of co-starring roles when he was 9 (Pursuit of Happyness) and a leading gig (The Karate Kid) by the time he was 11. Now, he wants his daughter to be equally famous: cue record deals and movie contracts; she's 10. 

You've heard by now -- though some of you may have blocked it out --  that Smith is hiring Emma Thompson to adapt the musical "Annie" for his daughter to whip her hair back and forth in in the starring role.

♫ The fame'll come out tomorrow
Bet Will's billion dollars,
that tomorrow
there'll be fame. ♪

How long before we start hearing disturbing things about this family? His kids just seem awfully young to be pushed so aggressively towards global fame. There are many famous Hollywood dynasties of course -- nothing wrong with following in your parents footsteps -- but how often does the second generation get this big a push this early? 

Okay, maybe I did just spend way too much time watching Ryan O'Neal talk up Tatum O'Crazy the other day. But believe me when I say that if Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie suddenly decided that they needed to produce movies to star each of their children before they hit puberty, I'd worry about that family, too.

Carol Burnett as Miss Hannigan in "Annie" (1982)Or maybe I'm just annoyed that one of the great actresses of the past century -- that'd be Emma -- has been relegated to behind the scenes scripting duties for the vanity projects of another star's offspring. Vulture suggested last week that Emma would make an awesome Miss Hannigan (played by Carol Burnett in the last movie version and Kathy Bates in a telefilm) and we concede that if that happened, we'd totally be interested. I hope Will Smith is going to pay Emma very very well but the thing is ...I'm starting to think that we should get compensation pay from someone for every year that we don't have Emma Thompson on our movie screens (sans Nanny McPhee makeup, I mean). 

Hopefully Emma's "Oh" character in next summer's Men in Black III is a fun one.