There was a fluff piece on the Today show last week that I watched while eating toast before work. It was about the culture of celebrity worship, and attempted to explain why some people care so much about celebrities, some people imagine that celebrities are close to them somehow, some people become stalkers, and so on.
Fame is an inherent part of a culture, and has existed for thousands of years. It is a way to acheive false immortality, and in this high-tech culture, famous people have become more accessible than ever, and it seems that the more accessible someone is, the more the public wants to know about them. It has gotten absurd, which is one reason that I mock all this worshipping with my Gossip Roundup. I mean, is it not kind of crazy that an actress who happens to be on a television show cannot leave her house to walk her dog or something without being followed by photographers? I mean, who cares? Is there a need for this? Is that what the public really wants, or do they consume it simply because it is there, and there really isn’t thinking involved?
It seems like we live in a culture that is so intellectually bored and empty that some people find worth in the mundane activities of celebrities. I dunno, I just find that fascinating. People are strange. There are magazines full of photos of famous people sitting on the beach, eating at restaurants, as though to say, look, celebrities are just like you! Going shopping, driving cars, let’s bring them down to our level where they belong, and god forbid they should go outside not looking their best…
Anyway, what I said above was a lot more than what was said in the rather ironic NBC fluff piece. It suddenly came back to me this morning while I was riding the 22 Fillmore bus and noticed that the woman sitting next to me was the lady Brian and I had seen a couple months ago, the mildly autistic woman obsessed with pro wrestlers.
Her comments earlier in the summer on the bus seemed to be about how her “boyfriend” the Rock had slept with her at her house recently, and how he would soon be visiting her when he came back to town. Her speech and appearance led us to believe that this story existed completely in her mind.
This morning she sat down next to me and another guy, wearing her Steve Austin ballcap and carrying a bag of wresting magazines and posters. She showed us a poster of a bald guy, saying it was her uncle, “the Undertaker’s brother.” Then came the poster of Stone Cold Steve Austin, who would be marrying her soon. She had a cheap yellow metal ring on her left ring finger, which she said he gave to her. The guy she was talking to got off the bus, so she settled down to reading one of her magazines and muttering to herself.
It just made me wonder how many other people live in a fantasy like that, and at what point it becomes dangerous, which as we know it often does. Why do people latch on to celebrities? I suppose because society makes it so easy, by making them so accessible. And it seems to just happen to those whose faces get in magazines and on TV. Most writers and artists and so on can walk around unbothered.
Furthermore, why do so many regular people give up their normal lives and their anonymity just for a chance to become wealthy and gain universal acclaim? Is it all ego?
The most interesting stories of all are the ones of famous actors and actresses who walk away from it all, not just because they can’t get movie roles, but because they don’t care about being famous and they want a normal life. Like the lead actor in “Weird Science,” Ilan Mitchell-Smith. He could have easily gone on to bigger things, stayed in Hollywood, and gotten all the attention and fame and recognition. He was talented enough, good-looking enough.
He is now a history professor at Texas A&M University. The kid who played “Oliver” in the musical of the same name is now an osteopathic surgeon in England. Do they have a better life than a person like Corey Feldman, who was forced into acting by his family, soon outgrew his marginal talent, and still to this very day devotes his life to grasping at publicity and fame, as though that is the only option his life holds? I think they probably do.
Will Oldham started out as an actor, too, and based on his biggest role (as the preacher in “Matewan”), I imagine he’d have had a pretty decent career, but he walked away from it because he hated the whole Hollywood scene so much. Of course, he went on to become an indie music cult star, which attracts a whole different class of obsessive stalker types.
You know, you might want to read “Remote” by David Shields, Ginger. It’s a really interesting book about how people relate to ‘celebrity’ and the way people see themselves in relationship to famous people.
from ert
I read the Daily Dish every day on sfgate.com. The cult of personality is what it is – modern quasi-religion. Famous people are made by publicity machines, journalists and public opinion. They are at once our deities, influencing culture and politics, and our pets, fish in a bowl. We think they are cute or funny or interesting, and we love to watch them, but we don’t regard them as like us – they have money. They are small gods and goddesses who we watch through lenses, yet we form hostile/indifferent/fawning opinions about them without ever meeting them. Because we can. Because even the very very best most pure of us engages in a little gossip and schadenfreude now and then, and it’s oh so much easier when we objectify those who we envy.
p.s. that lady on the bus doesn’t sound autistic, she sounds schizophrenic.
Re: from ert
I read it too, and that is what “Lila” bases the Gossip Roundup on. Mainly because it is some of the most poorly written and unintentionally hilarious gossip column in existence. Who knew that the British tabloids were so hip to everything that happens in the U.S.?
What you said here is a much more articulate expression of what I was trying to say. You’re such a good writer 🙂
And as for the lady on the bus, I was actually torn between autistic and mildly retarded, but it was so hard to tell. Her speech was not unlike that of someone who is hearing-impaired. Who knows. You may be right.
sigh.
This is so sad, and I know my boyfriend Kevin & I have had long conversations about it over breakfast in our secluded bungalo in Aspen.
I guess the answer is, some people are just fucking nuts, and you have to do whatever you can to ignore them, even when they’re stalking you and following you around begging for your autograph. Or at least, that’s how I like to handle it.
Rosey, better watch out, because soon, you will be deluged under a HURRICANE OF FAN MAIL!!!!