First, in late January, O’Donnell was a guest on “Will & Grace,” playing a lesbian mother. Then Monday’s MediaWeek announced that Warner Books had “confirmed in published reports” that “O’Donnell’s sexual orientation will be discussed” in her memoir. And in the same article, Dan Brewster, president and CEO of Rosie magazine’s publisher G+J USA, declared, “Let’s face it — this is not the first magazine that has had a gay editor.”

In an era in which celebrities routinely share their most intimate kinks and private bodily functions, O’Donnell’s prior history of circumspection can be interpreted as a maddeningly taciturn testing of the waters. But perhaps it was something else entirely. What may previously have looked like reluctance may simply have been restraint. Her forthcoming book promises to touch upon her love life, while emphatically not devoting itself entirely to it.

You could hardly blame anyone for not wanting to risk having her professional life eclipsed by her private one, especially someone like O’Donnell, one of the few really big-time celebrities who seems to understand the distinction between the stage and the home. She may just be finally answering the question so nobody has to ask it anymore, and we can all just shut up and move on.

On the other hand, it’s not that simple. No matter how casually she may try to do it, this is a big deal. Having an open secret, a winking, don’t ask, don’t tell, personal life is one thing. Being officially out of the closet is another. It’s public. It’s permanent. Once you come out, you can’t go back, unless you’re Anne Heche, and nobody in their right mind wants to be that anyway. O’Donnell will easily become the biggest celebrity to ever cop to being gay, an entertainer at the height of her fame whose target audience is composed largely not of Pride Fest flag wavers but bake sale cupcake makers. Are the ordinary housewives who thumb her magazine for craft projects ready to accept their icon as an openly homosexual woman? What, like dykes can’t scrapbook?

The notion of celebrity coming out is still a relatively new one, spurred in large part by the early AIDS crisis years of the ’80s. AIDS gave coming out a noble veneer that audiences could grasp — solidarity in sickness. Yet it still left gay women, far less affected by the disease, lagging behind. But in the early ’90s, artists like k.d. lang and Melissa Etheridge (who titled an album “Yes I Am” for anyone who missed the point) came out and reaped their biggest career successes, igniting a phenomenon quickly and unfortunately referred to as “lesbian chic.” Saphhism! It’s the new black!

Lesbian chic reached its apex in 1997, when Ellen DeGeneres came out both off-screen and on her otherwise unremarkable ABC sitcom “Ellen.” But just five years ago, coming out still meant being willing to become a full-time professional homosexual. Melissa, k.d., Ellen and others, despite their undeniable talents and audiences that extended far beyond gay communities, were and still largely are known for their orientations. And lesbian chic, with its faddish implications, shone the spotlight so brightly on one side of its chic lesbians’ lives that there seemed no room for anything else in there.

Now, however, it’s a different world. Films like “Mulholland Drive” and TV series like “Queer as Folk” prove that orientation can be pivotal to the story without being a substitute for one. Even DeGeneres, whose first series nose-dived as she floundered to find a raison d’être beyond the title character’s gayness, emerged this year as the relaxed, funny host of the Emmys and star of a show about a woman whose orientation was just one aspect of her situation-comedy life. The subject of homosexuality, thankfully, has lost much of its novelty effect.

O’Donnell is already well established as the sort of multihyphenate that one more hyphen — queer — couldn’t hurt. She’s been Entertainment Weekly’s Entertainer of the Year and been dubbed the Queen of Nice by Newsweek. She took the venerable McCall’s magazine off life support, renamed it after herself and had a spectacularly successful print launch in one of the industry’s most dismal years. She’s a big enough star that, what the hell, she’s leaving her own show in June to devote more time to her magazine, her family and the adoption agency she founded.

As part of the holy trinity of multitentacled female celebrity moguls, she’s the most regular gal. Martha and Oprah exasperate and impress with their boundless workaholism, their well-manicured confidence, their unflagging certainty in their own dominance over all they survey.

Rosie, despite being a tireless advocate for a number of worthy causes and a no-nonsense businesswoman with a bank account that would make Argentina envious, is still the most fully rounded. She’s the harried mom who can speak with authority on what it’s like when a kid pukes into your mouth. She’s a collector with a dubious penchant for Happy Meal prizes. She’s large and a little tacky, generous, genial and eccentric. America, she’s us.

If someone that accessible and brazenly mainstream, so normal and regular, can publicly acknowledge who she is and who she loves, it’s time to call Jerry Falwell and tell him it’s over, because to marginalize gay people at this point in the game is going to be absurd. Rosie’s disclosure will be revolutionary by virtue of its ordinariness. Because for all of us, sexual identity is integral to who we are but it’s not the sum of who we are. We can be ourselves — gay, straight or anywhere in between — in the context of being parents and professionals and even goofballs who hoard action figures. It’s everything. It’s nothing. Rosie knows. And she knows we know too. Her autobiography, still two months away from hitting bookshelves, is currently ranked on Amazon at No. 68. Her continued acceptance, it would appear, is all but assured.

The issues here are complicated ones, and Singleton ambitiously tries to avoid trite explanations and solutions. How can Jody ever hope to be a real man — and a real father — when he’s clearly never had any decent role models? He’s browbeaten regularly about his lack of a job, his pathological philandering and his stubborn reluctance to move out of his mama’s house, but the ladies in his life still grudgingly support him. And his cronies are in the same boat — they all talk big about “their” cars and “their” homes, but in reality, they have nothing of their own, nothing that they’ve earned.

Jody atrophies in his own self-satisfaction. So what if he cheats on his loyal girlfriend Yvette (Taraji P. Henson), the mother of his young son? He tells her he lies to her because he loves her, that he’ll probably even marry her someday. He brags to his mother about how he drives Yvette to work and picks her up, as if these humble acts alone were the essence of a committed family dynamic. For a little extra cash he hustles a bit of stolen clothing here and there, despite a prior stint in jail. In his social sphere of lowered expectations, Jody’s a big success. The irony is that in many ways he really is, first and foremost because he’s alive, a survivor of a world of random violence and pointed vengeance.

But when complacence is the heart of his story, it’s difficult to work up any enthusiasm for him either. Jody is supposed to be a complicated, morally ambiguous urban Everyman. Instead he mostly seems emotionally indifferent — a laconic figure with some preferences but few strong opinions. He loves Yvette, but not so much he’s going to stop stepping out. He loves his mother enough to be wary of her gruff, ex-con boyfriend Melvin (Ving Rhames), but not as much as he fears Melvin will talk her into evicting him from Hotel Mom.

Things are never black and white in Singleton’s films, and a nobler Jody would not necessarily be truer or more interesting. What would be more effective, however, would be to spend a little less time on variations on the same confrontational “Be a man already” scenes and a little more time exploring Jody’s psyche. He has troubling dreams of death and loss, but who is he? Is he trying so hard to not be his wife-beating father that he’s paralyzed from being anything at all? Is he so haunted by the violent death of his brother that he can’t bear to leave his mother? Or does he just not know what to do with his life because none of his friends do either?

The why of Jody is puzzling enough; it isn’t helped by the awkward performance of newcomer Tyrese. Other actors around him gamely convey their characters’ frustrations and aspirations with depth and soulfulness. Rhames, his biceps so big his arms can’t lay flat against his sides, his voice so forbidding that every word sounds like a growl, reveals the edgy essence of Melvin while keeping you guessing about his motives. And Omar Gooding, as an Augustinian homebody who wants salvation — but not quite yet — is a fascinating bundle of contradictions. Both men, in fact, are the kind of flawed, complex individuals who could have made an intriguing hero of a movie.

Tyrese, in contrast, looks like he’s been busy learning to memorize lines instead of focusing on how to say them. Singleton’s frequently awkward dialogue never sounds less credible than when it’s coming from the actor’s uncomfortable-looking mouth.

A movie that’s just plain bad is a giveaway; you can chalk it up as a loss and forget about it the next day. A movie that, with more mindfulness and care, could have been fresh and provocative and smart sticks in your head even as it exasperates.

Singleton is unquestionably a gifted filmmaker. His directing, especially in simple, quiet scenes of characters doing things as mundane as driving and vacuuming, have a warm, invitingly intimate glow. But in his quest to do it all, he’s lost something along the way. His words are no fitting match for his visuals, and his metaphors are so heavy-handed — a game of solitaire after a breakup, a blossoming garden with a few stray weeds — they undermine the smart subtlety of the direction.

Jody may wrestle with conflicting desires like most of us, but his lessons on growing up and moving on never ring more than halfhearted and false. And for all he endures, Jody never seems to grasp that doing a few things right isn’t the same as doing the right thing. Unfortunately, neither does Singleton.

Melvin Kaminsky was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., in 1926, on, he has proudly noted, the 12th anniversary of the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand. His father died when he was 2. He was a poor, picked-on Jewish kid who, like so many great clowns, learned early to use comedy as a defense against bullies. By the time he was 14 he was already working his way up the comic ranks in the Catskills, pratfalling by the pools and lobbing barbs from the stage whenever a sympathetic hotel manager would let him.

He joined the Army at age 17 and became a combat engineer, fighting at the Battle of the Bulge. After the war, he went to work for his old Catskills buddy, Sid Caesar, and spent nine years writing for a string of his television series. It would prove a rich and ruthless training ground — each week, Brooks was competing to get his gags on the air alongside those from youthful contenders like Neil Simon and Woody Allen. He couldn’t just be funny, he had to be funnier than anybody else. It made him fearless to the point of frantic, and it solidified the “Bombard them with jokes till they cry ‘Uncle’” style that would become his trademark.

It was during his apprenticeship with Caesar that he became friends with fellow comedic upstart Carl Reiner. When Reiner one day jokingly asked his pal if it was true he’d been present at the Crucifixion, Brooks took off with the bit and ran with it. Eventually Reiner’s droll inquisitor and Brooks’ aged observer made their way onto a series of comedy albums. To their surprise, the 2,000-Year-Old Man routine became a bestseller, and gave Brooks his first taste of fame.

Brooks followed his albums by co-creating, with Buck Henry, the spoof series “Get Smart.” A goofy blend of spy shtick and gimmickry, it lacked the brilliance of “Your Show of Shows,” but it further established its creator’s comedy pedigree. It genially mocked the notion of U.S. intelligence as intelligent, thumbing its nose at Cold War paranoia. But Brooks wanted more. He wanted, among other things, a real war to make fun of. And what better than the one he’d actually fought?

There was once a period when the name Hitler was not automatically associated with the word “springtime.” The 1968 movie “The Producers” changed all that. The fractured tale followed two losers who conspire to make a million bucks by mounting Broadway’s most spectacular flop. The production turns out to be “a gay romp with Adolf and Eva at Berchtesgaden” — and an unlikely smash.

Today, it may be flying off the shelves at Blockbuster faster than “Gladiator,” but in its initial release, “The Producers” was anything but a critical or box office success. Though the screenplay won an Oscar, critics scratched their heads, and moviegoers outside the Five Boroughs largely ignored it. Brooks’ second film, “The Twelve Chairs,” provoked even less reaction. His next career move, however, put him firmly at the forefront of American comedy.

Collaborating with Andrew Bergman, Brooks came up with an idea as offbeat as a singing, dancing Führer — a jive-talking, thoroughly modern black man who becomes the sheriff of a frontier town. The notion, as Brooks explained in 1975, was simple: “He’d say ‘Right on, baby.’ And they’d say, ‘Consarnit!’” The result was “Blazing Saddles,” a ferocious sendup of that venerable American institution, the western. With a writing team that included a young Richard Pryor, Brooks managed to make a movie that was both flagrantly shocking and utterly embraceable.

“Blazing Saddles” was Brooks at the top of his game, doing what his many imitators have never been able to match. Everyone from the Zuckers to the Farrellys knows that rapid-fire jokes, especially the cheap kind, always go over well. Ditto for anything involving sex or bodily functions. But what distinguished Brooks was his gift for sneaking bold social comment in the mix. “I think most of my movies are serious,” he has said. “They have their roots in some terrible things.” He just put those things in there in a way that was so good-natured, so unaccusatory or nonangry, that they went down as cool and sweet as ice cream.

“The Producers” had been the story of two Jews and an affable German war criminal who mount a play featuring storm troopers singing, “Look out, here comes the master race.” No wonder not everybody got it the first time. But a great Brooks production isn’t insensitive or cavalier. On the contrary, Brooks does care, enough to go off to fight Nazis while still a teenager, to humbly thank “an avalanche of Jews” as he accepts a Tony. It’s just that he isn’t afraid to shrug and blow a big raspberry in the face of things that would otherwise scare the crap out of us.

“The greatest comedy plays against the greatest tragedy,” he has said. “Comedy is a red rubber ball and if you throw it against a soft, funny wall, it will not come back. But if you throw it against the hard will of ultimate reality, it will bounce back and be very lively.”

“Blazing Saddles” similarly bounced the ball against concepts that normally make people squirm, and did it with persuasive aplomb. It’s a movie that unblinkingly bats around the word “nigger” and famously makes sport of white anxiety about black sexuality. Cleavon Little’s “Excuse me while I whip this out” isn’t just funny, it’s disarmingly so, a moment so loose and silly the tensions it springs from are cleverly reconfigured.

The movie was a winner, and Brooks followed with the lesser but still appealing “Young Frankenstein.” A straightforward parody rather than social satire (co-written with its star Gene Wilder), “Young Frankenstein” nevertheless turned classic movie convention on its head — and even managed to slip in a few barbs at the expense of academia and authority. Brooks had another hit.

But after a string of successes, Brooks seemed to lose his way, or at least to rest on his laurels. Subsequent films, from “Silent Movie” to 1995′s unforgivable “Dracula: Dead and Loving It,” lampooned cinematic formulas without the sweet affection for the originals of Brooks’ earlier works. The later films overflowed with gags, but rarely found the smart, sharp underpinnings that had made his first few films such treasures. (There were momentary exceptions — notably “History of the World Part I’s” showstopping ode to the Inquisition.)

Redeemingly, all the while he was directing less and less entertaining works Brooks was also producing. Under the aegis of the dignified-sounding Brooksfilms, he was quietly bringing high-quality films like “The Elephant Man” and “Frances” to the screen.

It wasn’t a bad way to wind up — a respected businessman and beloved creator of a handful of classic comedies. Sure, his shtick might be out of touch with contemporary audiences, but so what? Who doesn’t expect to have their best work behind them by their 70s? Who even plans to still be working at all then?

But Mel Brooks isn’t like the rest of us. So the love of the stage that drove him to do Catskills stand-up as a teenager and infused his first film with its lighthearted center eventually and inevitably led Brooks to Broadway. Collaborating with an enviable theatrical team including director Susan Stroman and stars Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick, Brooks finally brought his Broadway valentine to Broadway. “The Producers” opened in April and the response was enthusiastic, to say the least. If you’re lucky, you might be able to get tickets for April 2002.

Sizing up the competition at this year’s Tonys, including the Masterpiece Theatre bombast of “Jane Eyre” and the dated schmaltz of “A Class Act,” it’s a no-brainer why “The Producers” steamrolled over the rest. It’s energetic. It’s irreverent. It marks a return to Brooks’ intelligent brand of absurdity — no other writer could sum up Hitler’s rise to power with “I was just a paperhanger, no one more obscurer. Got a phone call from the Reichstag, told me I was Führer.” In short, thank God, the show’s as funny as hell.

But there’s something else behind its success. Along with the pleasure of a show that’s bright and tuneful and casts the most notorious figure of the 20th century as a dimwitted drag queen, there’s the Mel factor — the relief in seeing that talent doesn’t have to be an exhaustible resource, and that youthful exuberance isn’t always wasted on the young.

The day after the Tonys, the New York papers featured photos of the triumphant “Producers” creator holding his award and mugging for the cameras. Brooks will never be a paragon of dignity, but he sure looks like he’s having a good time, and it’s infectious. There’s a moment in the play, after “Springtime for Hitler” becomes a hit, when Max Bialystock exasperatedly wails, “NOW they like me!”

The same could never be said of his offstage counterpart. We’ve always loved Brooks, no matter how checkered his career. We’ve just been waiting for this moment to see what we’ve always hoped — that he’s still got it, and, baby, he still knows how to flaunt it.

But what, for all its trouble, has the porn industry received in return? Bupkis.

Order up the Spice channel sometime and you’ll see the diligent men and women of adult entertainment humping valiantly away to the lamest music ever recorded — chilly, A Flock of Seagulls-era synth beats and festive, Spanish game show-worthy jingles. But now, at last, someone is giving a little something back.

It took rapper Snoop Dogg to finally ask not what porn can do for him, but what he can do for pornography.

When Snoop announced a few weeks ago that he was teaming with Hustler magazine and hip-hop video director Michael Martin to release a series of X-rated titles, the enterprise seemed at once inevitable and surprising. Snoop, a man for whom the Parental Advisory sticker was invented, has never made a secret of his appreciation of “bomb-ass pussy.”

But it’s still a bold leap from a little rump-shaking in your videos to full-Monty money shots.

His first submission bears the what-you-see-is-what-you-get title of “Doggystyle.” (This is a name with considerably more marquee value than say, “Up the Snoop Chute.”) Volume 1 of the rap star’s proposed multi-episode flesh opus is a hardcore contradiction — at once a reminder of how clichéd both music and adult videos have become, and yet at the same time a ballsy, original reinterpretation of both. Other artists toy with safely PG-13-level salaciousness; Snoop, bless his smut-loving heart, warmly welcomes us into his Dogghouse for some genuine, honest-to-god freakiness.

The vice isn’t limited to sex, either. “Doggystyle” opens with a disclaimer from Hustler about the video’s “alleged use of marijuana,” which is a bit like pointing out its alleged use of naked people. Never before have so many mellow, smiling faces been recorded blissfully puffing away in a film that didn’t involve Cheech, Chong or the Grateful Dead. And none of their movies ever featured a sex scene involving a girl wearing nothing but a leafy green lei.

The premise of “Doggystyle,” as Snoop explains it, is simple — “making a party for the homey on his birthday.” Maxing and relaxing in his easy chair like a hip-hop Hef, Snoop cheerfully promises the viewer some “bad, bad bitches.” And he doesn’t tease with “Temptation Island” nymphs; he delivers actual adult stars like India and Anna Malle writhing around Snoop’s own home — in the fake waterfall, on the pool table, in the recording studio, on the staircase. Snoop, meanwhile, casually strolls around the party, unconcerned about the stains his guests may be depositing on his fine leather furniture.

The action alternates between performance clips and hardcore sex, all to the persistent, expletive-peppered beat of Snoop’s own raps. Interspersed at random are the video’s most original segments — plugs for Snoop’s “Freak Line” phone sex service and a little fashion show for his new K-Nine clothing line. Clearly, the entrepreneurial Snoop is aiming to go large, Puff Daddy-style.

Well, except in one key area. You’ve probably seen this or that rock or rap “performance video.” How strange that the ostensible star here refuses to perform himself — the guy works the room without ever working his mojo. How uncharacteristically modest of him.

Snoop keeps his fly perpetually zipped, and doesn’t even engage in any ass-grabbing, despite the abundant buffet of booty right there in his face. Snoop is a genial Mr. Roarke, more interested in his guests’ pleasure than his own. He provides so many amenities his crew has to multitask — they play Game Boy while they get blowjobs.

Despite the novelty of its hybridism, however, most of “Doggystyle” resembles either a typical “Total Request Live” clip taken a little too far or a rather standard adult flick with a fresher beat. The standard templates of both forms come heavily into play — the music segments feature baggy-shirted rappers in mansion splendor, surrounded by acolytes who nod sagely and make the “what he said about the bitches” face. The only difference is that here the rump-shaking hos who surround them are nude, cavorting with degrees of enthusiasm ranging from happily uninhibited to aggressively self-fondling to just-about-to-pass-out languor.

The hardcore scenes, meanwhile, follow the formula written in stone in the porn bible — girl-boy, girl-girl, threesome, yadda yadda yadda. All commit the cardinal sin of adult video — going on and on longer than a Florida recount.

Only the soundtrack moves apace, even if it does present a challenge to the mood. Appalling as most porn scores are, they’re at least not terribly distracting. Snoop and company’s raps, however, demand attention. And while he may be a master of rhymes, Snoop’s not exactly Barry White. “Doggystyle” has the jovial air of a pot-fogged weekend party, but that doesn’t make it erotic. Just because the guests are getting it on to the strains of “Wash my clothes, you ho, clean up the kitchen, suck me dry, let’s get high, and do the dishes,” it doesn’t mean the viewer might want to do likewise.

“Doggystyle” isn’t particularly clever or artistic or even sexy. What it is, however, is undeniably dirty, which is really the whole point anyway. Smug, clean-cut little bastards like N’Sync may rule the charts, but Snoop’s still got all the pot and the pussy. He’s a bad boy in a sanitary, Making the Band world, a guy who chooses the outlaw allure of sex and drugs over Pepsi sponsorship or duets with Elton John.

“How about that? Snoop Dogg went porno,” he declares with satisfaction as the festivities wind down, adding generously, “You know you’re all welcome inside the Dogghouse any time you want.”

The effort may win neither MTV nor AVN awards, but it’s the nicest offer nastiness-deprived music fans have had in a dogg’s age.

There are movie stars whom audiences dream of bumping into icebergs with, and there are others whom they fantasize about tearing into a bucket of wings with. In the long run, most would prefer the latter. And that’s where Prinze comes in. When you capture their hearts and stomachs, the opening-weekend grosses will follow. No wonder he’s the reigning king of cinema boyfriends.

Prinze was only 10 months old when his sitcom-star dad died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound at age 22. His mother and grandmother raised him in New Mexico, out of the spotlight and away from the lifestyle that took Prinze Sr. at the height of his fame. It certainly seems as though the result of this sheltered upbringing is that Junior was given by nature his father’s camera-ready charisma and by nurture a courtly, female-friendly earnestness.

To a generation that wouldn’t know “Chico and the Man” from the Captain & Tennille, Prinze is enigmatically vulnerable, just sad-eyed enough to appear soulful and sympathetic. His acting ability may scream summer stock, but the guileless, eager-to-please vibe that radiates in every performance wins in a way that flawless technique can’t.

His persona seems custom-tailored to foster the notion of approachability, of the guy a girl can be her imperfect self with. In his leading-man breakthrough, “She’s All That,” he plays an athlete and academic superstar who transforms the class nerd into Cinderella but falls for her when she’s still in full dork drag. And in “Head Over Heels,” he’s a suave man of mystery who lives across the street from a gaggle of supermodels, but is smitten with a klutzy art restorer.

His films are perfect wish fulfillment, even if his plain Janes are still ravishing starlets, because they represent the fantasy that the really good-looking, popular guy could be totally enraptured by the awkward girl that nobody else notices. What’s more, Prinze makes it convincing. His forte is exuding something his young audience craves even more than infatuation — acceptance.

In that vein, the No. 1 weapon in his charm arsenal turns out to be a very public romance with food. Ask any starry-eyed fan for a factoid about Prinze, and his enthusiasm for dining is invariably cited. It turns up in just about every interview he’s ever done.

“I love food, man!” he gushed, in a typical snippet, to People. “If it doesn’t eat me first, I’ll pretty much eat it.” And not only does the guy like to eat, he likes a girl who likes to eat — he’s been quoted more than once bragging about the allegedly prodigious appetite of his girlfriend, Sarah Michelle Gellar. While Gellar may not be picking up any work for the Lane Bryant catalog anytime soon, “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” watchers across the land breathed a belt-loosening sign of relief this season when the once rail-thin actress returned to TV with a few more feminine curves on her frame.

“I love taking a woman to dinner, and I love watching her enjoy her food. It’s just a very sexy thing to me, and I’ve always liked it,” Prinze confessed to Cosmopolitan. It’s a crowd-pleasing statement if ever there was one, yet exactly the sort of thing few other Hollywood himbos would have the wherewithal to make.

And movie Prinze is just as gustatorily passionate. In “Down to You,” he’s the son of a cooking show host and — ooh, baby — an aspiring chef. In “Head Over Heels,” he praises a date for making yummy noises through a meal, then orders every dessert on the menu.

Who needs Mel Gibson to answer the question of what women want? Prinze already knows — they want someone they don’t have to hide their Ben & Jerry’s from. Never mind that his girlfriend is still undeniably diminutive, or that he himself possesses a midsection that’s more six-pack than beer gut. In a waif-worshiping world, he embraces the sensuality of dining — and even its booty-expanding consequences.

Prinze’s sexy, finger-licking-good appeal has buoyed him through a career that already contains more turkeys than a Butterball farm in November. Like Keanu Reeves, even when he’s giving a leaden reading of preposterously awful dialogue, he almost gets away with it. There’s something devoid of pretension about the guy, something sweetly unstudied and unguarded. He emerges immaculate no matter how much crap he’s in. It’s a niche no other actor seems able to fill.

Leo DiCaprio blew it with his relentless off-screen club trolling and icy untouchability. Seth Green is adorable and talented, but too eccentric to cross over into true star territory. (But if Philip Seymour Hoffman can make the cover of GQ, anything is possible.) Joaquin Phoenix and Christian Bale are attractive and fine actors, but they’re busily cornering the market on sociopath roles, something that doesn’t necessarily translate into summer blockbuster status.

And after those guys, the pickings for the under-30 crowd start to get mighty slim. Only Heath Ledger (“The Patriot”) and Chris Klein (“Election”) give Prinze a real run for the leading-man money, and even they show signs already of becoming slick Hollywood packages, too glammed up for the goofy, down-to-earth roles that Prinze fills so amiably. Prinze, if he plays his cards right, could eventually go down the Will Smith and John Cusack path — the star everybody loves for the entirely legitimate reason that he just seems so darn lovable.

Prinze’s stature as official boyfriend of Gen Y has served him admirably ever since the “I Know What You Did Last Summer” screamers, but at the tender of age of almost 25, he’s at a career crossroads.

He’s only made one film with any real testosterone appeal — “Wing Commander” — a space adventure that quickly disappeared in the “Phantom Menace” shuffle two years ago. Meanwhile he’s racked up a lifetime’s worth of forgettable, date-movie treacle, in lackluster fare like “Boys and Girls” and “Head Over Heels.” His next film, “Summer Catch,” is yet another romantic comedy.

His movie after that may actually draw a few guys into the theater, but it doesn’t portend altogether favorably, quality-wise. Prinze once again teams with his frequent costar, Matthew Lillard (the manic Jerry Lewis to Prinze’s handsome, slightly ridiculous Dino), in the big-screen version of “Scooby-Doo.”

The only question now is where Freddie Prinze Jr. can go from here, as his fans mature and take their Backstreet Boys posters down from their walls. His thespian skills aren’t giving Anthony Hopkins sleepless nights, and he harbors no Ben and Matt-like aspirations to write, produce or otherwise strain himself creatively.

That may be just as well — Prinze lacks the chops and inherent weirdness of a Johnny Depp, whose talent enabled him to make the transition gracefully from teen heartthrob to respected indie fixture. And unlike comedian’s son turned big star Ben Stiller, Prinze simply isn’t very funny.

But talent always takes a back seat to personality, and the intangible gift of real connection with the fans. If he can grow into more adult roles while maintaining his self-effacing allure, doing the “guy you’d bring home to Mom” routine he’s so good at and doing it in a few decent films for a change, Prinze may become the first actor to bring an old-fashioned romantic flair to the audience raised on gross-out comedies and big-budget excuses for blowing stuff up.

And hey, Cary Grant never looked like he was working too hard either. Like Grant, Prinze’s magnetism doesn’t rest simply in the way he looks on the screen; it rests in how he fares in the imagination of his audience. And to Prinze’s fans, he’s best envisioned across a sumptuously appointed dinner table — exactly where the best love affairs so often get their start.