So Jennifer Aniston spent £40,000 on a haircut. More accurately, Fox paid for it. These celebrity extravagances makes the Hollywood ecosystem run, but with the economy crumbling, they are beginning to ask why.

So very, very much of the entertainment industry's money has been spent on appeasing stars—actors, producers, directors, to a lesser extent writers—because, you know, that's the way it's always been and once someone reaches the pinnacle of success, they must deserve it. But the recession makes for a handy excuse to say no to things like a star's demand that their favoritest hairdresser fly first class to London and stay for a week in top-flight hotels. With even superdirector, ultraproducer Steven Spielberg tin-cupping through Hollywood, all the other ants marching beneath him ought to brace themselves for a wicked belt tightening.

Mainstay trades Variety and The Hollywood Reporter have already felt the early gut-punch of showbiz's fiscal spring cleaning, as the studios' usually long, protracted, and ad-lucrative Oscar campaigns were a pale imitation of years past. And you know, the entire awards season is used as simply a really, really expensive way of keeping stars happy and in line.

It's a part of a large celebrity rewards system that has, in recent years, ballooned monstrously out of control. As all of us, stars and civilians alike, head closer and closer toward Mt. Doom, the celebrities are starting to seem more like the civilians. And so a story about Jennifer Aniston ferrying her expensive hairstylist to and fro London for a premiere, almost certainly on the studio's dime—that would have once been met with "Oh my, those movie stars! So fancy!"—is now greeted with a "That's fucking disgusting."

We for one welcome our new fiscal responsibility overlords, and hope a new era of penny-pinching studio execs slapping entitled stars upside the head can be ushered in swiftly and mercilessly. Unless, you know, we get invited to the gifting suites. Then it's see you in hell, civilians.

Image via AP