Celebrity

Something I've been ruminating over lately is the idea of "celebrity". It's always been a topic of interest, but I'm pretty sure the average citizen in the 1940's had better things to do with their time than obsess over their favorite black-and-white film star. Especially without the ability to follow their Tweets.

Now it seems celebrities have permeated every aspect of life. They're ubiquitous, they're entitled and we can't get enough of them. Yes, we. I would be lying if I didn't include myself as part of the fan club. I read Perez Hilton's blog daily, I watch late night TMZ whenever I can, and I know Zac Efron's middle name. For the record, I am not proud of any of these statements but they're all true.
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So I write this from a torn perspective - someone who, while feeding the celebrity-obsessed fire, also recognizes its absurdity. Here now, I present a schizophrenic conversation between the two:

LogicalCynic: Just because a person was ballsy enough to attempt a career in acting / singing and attractive enough to actually make money doing it... does that mean we should all put posters of him/her on our walls, have paparazzi follow their every movement, subscribe to their personal websites, and make faces like these when we meet them?

BSB_FAN_4EVA: Yes! My pre-adolescent walls were a shrine to the Backstreet Boys and these Boys were absolutely worthy of a higher status. They were gods among men. [And the present-day pin ups of Zac Efron would have been removed and tucked away a while ago had I had anything else to replace them with on my blank canvas eggshell-colored walls.]

LogicalCynic: Acting, singing, sports... they're just like any other career. The only difference is their annual salary is more money than you'll ever see in your lifetime and the final product is broadcast out to the world. Doesn't mean they're any better or more special than you, even if they'd like to think so. And our incessant screaming and fan-clubbing and Facebook following is not making them appear any more "average".

BSB_FAN_4EVA: You can't put your image out into the world and expect a normal reaction when you're out in public pretending to lead a normal life. If I've just finished watching Forrest Gump on FX, then bump into Tom Hanks in the produce section of ACME, you can't fault me if my brain explodes just a little. I will abandon my shopping cart and follow him through the store until he compares life to a box of chocolates.

LogicalCynic: They're just people. And even worse, celebrities are genuinely becoming just average people. You don't even have to star in a movie or release a hit single to be famous now. You just have to have eight kids and get a reality show. Or be born a hotel heiress, make a sex tape and retire at 18 to spend your life shopping on Sunset Blvd. Let's face the facts: the average U.S. citizen has no idea what the three branches of government are, but can name all of the Kardashians in alphabetical order.

BSB_FAN_4EVA: The lives of celebrities are like some movie with thousands of characters, an endless plot, and constant sources of entertainment. Can you blame people for wanting an excuse to pause reality and put their responsibilities aside for a few minutes? The newest issue of US Weekly lets them do that.

LogicalCynic: And in order to fill those weekly tabloids with something, there are hundreds of paparazzi photographers with dollar signs for pupils chasing celebrities through Los Angeles to "get the shot". And you just know all that effort is worth it... what with all the awards and accolades these publications are earning for their groundbreaking journalism. I don't give a shit that McDreamy asks for paper and plastic when he's buying groceries.
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While I've always been aware of celebrities' effect on modern day culture, this blog was mostly inspired by one random person: Mara Wilson. She was this impossibly adorable girl with a lisp, and she happened to star in a handful of my favorite childhood movies. Then she stopped acting, disappeared from the public eye, went to college, and re-emerged on my radar as completely different. Obviously she's the same person she's always been, but somehow my brain couldn't reconcile this person with the little girl I watched on my TV years ago.

So I started reading her blog and Twitter in an attempt to see what she'd done with her life and what kind of person she's become. Turns out, in a refreshingly mature move, she decided acting wasn't for her and moved on to be a normal person and do things that made her happy and fulfilled. She recently wrote a blog post about what she's been doing, just to satisfy curiosity, and then tried to seamlessly sink back into real life. [Read the blog post. It's interesting, well-written and relates to what I'm saying perfectly.]

The humanistic part of me totally respects what she's doing and recognizes her as a real 20-something human being. The reality is she hasn't acted in over a decade. If people started asking me about that play I did when I was eight, I'd probably be confused why anyone cared too.

As for the childlike celeb-crazed part of me, I found myself totally relating to the millions of Matilda fans that came out of the woodwork to take a trip down memory lane. Yes, she's just another person but her movies are memorable for a lot of people. Her fans are all 20-somethings now too, and they're using Twitter and Facebook and blogs to bombard Mara with questions. Some people are asking about her life as a child actress ("What was it like in the Chokey?" Apparently, the steam smelled weird.). Others are going the bullying route and offering unwarranted, negative criticisms about what she looks like now and what an awful person she seems to have become.

We've come back full circle to the concept of "celebrity". And now for some some closing thoughts: How bizarre that so many people, including myself, care so much about this person who played a part in a movie that one time. How ridiculous that, because she was a famous kid, people feel like they can pick apart her life choices and appearance. How strange that, years from now, when she's picking up her kids from school, someone will walk up and ask her if the Trunchbull was mean in real life.

Oh, and if I'm being honest - there are a handful of celebrities that I would vow to marry before ever having met them. That's unnatural.