I will never understand a desire for fame. Don't get me wrong... i would like to be well-known (and well-respected) for my writing. But this is not the same as "fame". Santana on the television show "Glee" summed it up... "I want to be famous. I don't care for what. I just want everyone to know my name." This seems like a plague in our culture right now. And worse, we cater to it. We make utterly talentless, useless people absolutely famous (I'm looking at you Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie).
Howard Zinn i think it was said "We have devolved from "Did you see me being (brave, smart, honored) on television?" to "Did you see me on television?" As much as i hate to give Andy Warhol credit for anything (another, in my opinion, talentless hack) he was right on the money with his comment about everyone being famous in the future for fifteen minutes.
And worse... fame is a drug. It's apparently highly addictive, and people will do anything to get it and, once they have it, keep it. The female wrestler Chynna, after her wrestling career was over, started a career in porn to keep that fame fix coming (pardon the pun). She's an exception, however... i've seen one of her adult movies and she really does seem to have some talent in that particular field. John Ramsey came out with a new book this month to commemorate the anniversary of the death of his daughter. His jones for fame is so bad that he'll use his dead six-year-old's corpse to perpetuate it. This is made worse by the fact that i seem to be the only person who thinks that he murdered her! I recently saw an ad for some show promising to reunite Amy Fischer (who has also turned to porn to perpetuate her fame) and Joey Buttafuco.
Worse still, it seems that infamy is every bit as good as fame these days. Look at the appropriately named John Wayne Bobbit, who had his "it" "bobbed" by his wife. He also turned to a brief career in porn, and, when that didn't perpetuate his infamy well enough, became a televangelist. Or Charlie Sheen. This is a genuinely talented guy who tried his hardest to turn his career into a grease stain on the sheets, and yet we just won't let him go away. He's on Directv ads. Somehow he has also become a spokesman for Fiat, a brand known for it's class and style. How the heck they managed to cast a guy as their spokesman who has absolutely NO class or style is beyond me.
Another aspect of this, for me anyway, is money. When do you have enough money to have someone approach you to do a commercial and be able to say "No thanks"? When i saw a Macy's commercial featuring Donald Trump and Martha Stewart and a Pepsi ad featuring P. Diddy, i was just amazed that they would do this. I think that this is like the fame thing. Enough is never enough in our society. I have some level of respect for Jim Carrey because he seems satisfied to not do anything but act. He's only done (to my recollection) one sequel. He DID appear on American Idol some seasons back in a Horton the Elephant outfit, but to his credit, he didn't look happy to be doing it. I think that's a case of the studio holding him to some contractual obligation, though, and not because he wanted the attention.
And then there are the fame and money junkies for whom i have some respect, like Gene Simmons. If you read his autobiography, he's pretty clear about the fact that everything that he does has one of two goals: to make more money for him or to increase his fame. And the amazing thing is that everything that he does (including the Diet Dr. Pepper commercials), such as his books and his Kiss merchandising and his TV Show "Family Jewels" are all VERY entertaining.
So i wonder if it's possible for us to take some talentless hack like Paris Hilton or Sarah Palin, or someone who has ruined their career and has no interest in straightening themselves out like Charlie Sheen and simply stop paying attention to them. Robert Downey Jr. is a prime example of someone being rewarded for behaving well instead of badly. He was years ago almost exactly where Charlie Sheen is now. The difference is that he straightened out and salvaged his career, and he's now one of the most sought-after actors in Hollywood.
Peace.
Randal
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