For a couple of years now, I’ve been reading article after article — in Time magazine, on the Internet, in GQ, most recently — declaring that the era of the movie-and-music superstar archetype is dead.

The adage has proven itself true: We’re in the future, and everyone can be famous for 15 minutes. Anyone can be a YouTube sensation, put an album on MySpace or start a blog from their living room that gets more eyeballs than The New York Times. Today, the market is more saturated with content than ever.

Finding broad appeal is next to impossible these days, that’s for sure. But I disagree that the Cary Grant-esque figure is no longer an archetype of our society.

Like those before us, our generation loves the superstar icon. We’re fascinated by the glamorous celebrity that everyone knows and admires. It looks like Justin Timberlake is going to be the next major figure to fit this description.

It seems a little strange that people are calling Timberlake’s release of his new album “The 20/20 Experience” a “comeback.” After all, JT was never really irrelevant enough to the point where any comparisons to Rocky Balboa make sense.

But his latest album and hit single demonstrate that Timberlake is attempting to accomplish one of our celebrity culture’s toughest feats: Make the transition from teen idol to timeless individual in our society, and cement his influence as one of our generation’s great stars.

Many have tried and failed – what’s Zac Efron up to these days? How about Aaron Carter? Becoming an overnight “American Bandstand”-type sensation is hard enough, but developing permanent staying power is even harder.

But “20/20” and Timberlake’s collaboration with Jay-Z signal that as JT moves into his 30s, he’s becoming more and more the embodiment of a modern-day Frank Sinatra, despite the fact Jay-Z has compared himself to the classic artist in the past. In the early 1950s, Sinatra’s career experienced a dramatic downturn once his appeal to the bobby-soxers faded.

I know this because I was there, obviously.

After several film flops and failed records, Sinatra was let go from his label and left almost broke when he hit it big in the Academy Award-winning film “From Here To Eternity.” After that, he signed with Capitol Records and cranked out nearly a decade of timeless hits.

Sinatra is not a societal footnote remembered only by your grandmother. He is a titan in film, music, business, style and hats. Timberlake seems to want the same out of his career, to be a movie and music star who transcends the era in which he reigned.

You can see this desire in the music video for “Suit and Tie.” The whole thing is one monster visual reference to Sinatra’s Rat Pack days. He’s going for it, and it seems like he’ll be successful, given the positive response “The 20/20 Experience” has produced so far.

Even though Timberlake hasn’t released an album since 2006, he’s enjoyed a healthy film career, starring in the commercially successful “Friends with Benefits” and the instant classic “The Social Network.”

He left N*Sync as an adolescent 90s heartthrob and established himself as a competent and successful solo artist. He has terrified the Federal Communications Commission back to the age of the Puritans with a wardrobe malfunction at the 2004 Super Bowl and has made a lot of people – including me – laugh on “Saturday Night Live.”

The parallels between Timberlake and Sinatra are unmistakable, and JT’s got the appeal that will keep him around for a long time. The rumors of the death of a celebrity are greatly exaggerated. We still adore the glitz and glamour of an artistic giant.

It looks like Timberlake is going to be the next big thing, but who’s coming after that?

Kevin Slack is a senior television, radio and film major. His column appears weekly. He can be reached at khslack@syr.edu and followed on Twitter at @kevinhslack. 

Published on March 26, 2013 at 2:02 am