01-Jul-2007
Iron Filings - 12
Celebriholics
We hear so much these days about our worship of celebrity, that virus that leads us to heap honors on second rate performers and vapid heiresses, or to perform various, and occasionally dangerous, tricks that will lead our YouTube audience to fall all over us and, hopefully, give us money. What gets forgotten, though, unless you live out here in Scandinavia west, are all those people who worship anonymity, who wouldn’t attach their name to an opinion on the weather or the color of grass. Most of them are my neighbors; some of them are my relatives.
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There’s hardly anything funnier in the newspaper than seeing some letter-to-the-editor written with verve and wit and a perky style on some totally non-controversial, innocuous subject, and then to see it signed off with Name Withheld.
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Speaking of celebrities, I think every generation has its Paris Hilton. For all of those who work so hard to make even the smallest of marks in the world, it’s devilishly intriguing to think about those who have become rich and famous by doing nothing more rigorous than being born. My generation had Pia Zadora. Every time her name would come up I would say something like, “Now what does she do?” At that point the conversation would usually shift to something else. George Hamilton is a similar case, a man famous because of his tan.
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Yet another celebrity note. I used to live in Roscoe, Illinois, the hometown of Indy car driver, Danica Patrick. It’s a lovely small town slowly being developed away from any resemblance of its former self. Anyway, she’s become a hometown hero and, away from her hometown, a national advertising icon. Of course, while she inarguably shows a great deal of potential, she has yet to win a major race. Achievement, as should be clear by now, has little bearing on whether or not the celebrity maw decides to gobble you up.
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On this matter of achievement, I see a similar thing in the situation of Cindy Crawford, who was born in my hometown. A hugely intelligent young woman, she decided that being pretty paid more than being smart. Of course it did, but we’ll never know what might have happened had she decided to lead with her brain instead of her body.
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I’ve had my own taste of fame, albeit a very modest one, enough to give a warning to those who seek it (and, judging by the activities of bloggers, MySpacers, and YouTubers those numbers are huge). That is, I’ve been on national book tours, National Public Radio, Chicago radio, television. I’ve been in the New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, and the San Francisco Chronicle. I’ve won national and state awards and even a few literary contests. Modest, indeed, but it’s a hoot the first time a limousine (paid for by your publisher) picks you up early in the morning to take you to the airport. Anyway, what I’ve learned from this humble dose of celebrity is that a) it’s fun; b) it never ever, ever lasts, and c) fame is not something people give you, it is something they take out of you.
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Still, I find it quite understandable how, with six billion people on the planet, some of us would be driven, if not desperate, if not frantic to show that we are more than just a grain of sand on this endless beach. For some, the drive is religious. How will we get God to notice us unless we do good works? If those works, in turn, are not known, then how can we receive our just reward. For others, the drive is sheer ego. No one on earth is more special than me, and here is why. Frankly, I’m not sure that such motivation is all that bad.
G. K. Wuori © 2007
Photoillustration by the author
