THINQon : Cult of celebrity

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Andy Ollove, TBD

Cult of celebrity

Latest Post: March 8, 2011 at 1:00 AM

11 followers

Alan Cumming lives in my neighborhood. I've seen him a handful of times doing neighborhood things, walking his dog, reading the newspaper, chatting with friends. Last night I saw him walk into San Loco, a pretty much bottom-of-the-barrel taco joint.

I was probably 10 when Mr. Cumming entered my consciousness for the first time. First in Cabaret then in Annie. Later in X-men and Titus Andronicus. Others I'm sure. At now point in the trajectory of this awareness did I stop to wonder where this man lives, where he eats, what kind of dog does he own, what kind of life does he lead. ANd yet I'm cognizant of his existence and have been for some time now. I have an entire history of Alan Cumming awareness. And yet I don't know him, nor does he know me. Still though, this shadow relationship between myself and him the celebrity is not altogether intangible. There are certain things I know about him which constitute a factual place in reality. I know what he looks like, sounds like, acts like, is regarded as. All of these things and others form the basis by which I am able to recognize the physical and real Alan Cumming my neighbor.

If not a cliché then it's at least quite obvious, but I have to say nonetheless that there is nothing inherently different between celebrities and the rest of us. What makes the famous different is that there is a wider population of people who are aware of their existence. More people can attest to Alan Cumming being a real and actual person than can attest to my being. Should this make me envious? Do I Andy Ollove become any realer the more people utter my name? Hardly. But neither do I become less real.

Imagine the process of celebrity generating like a photocopier. An original is copied and distributed. The copies pass to and fro until they reach new machines. Copies of the copies are made and they too travel the world. All the while there is still only one original, intrinsically different from the others. But how can those who only experience the copies know that? Thus the celebrity travels through the world amongst pre-existing perceptions of himself which he did not make. How does he convince the world then that he isn't static, that he is a living document and that which photocopied yesterday isn't necessarily the same as that which will be photocopied today? A celebrity does not become more or less real as he achieves more fame, rather, the gulf between perceived reality and real reality increases as his image and not his actual person is passed around.

I think celebrity becomes bastardized when the birth of fame and the distribution of perceptions exists outside the hands of the individual, when celebrity is mass-produced for the sake of celebrity. This is epitomized by Snooki of the Jersey shore who has become famous for being the exact opposite of what has traditionally made a person famous. People watch her and her idiot friends because they do not want to know of her existence. Her fame then is not a result of her own personal distribution and control of image, rather, it is based on the distribution process itself. In this way Lady Gaga exemplifies a very real consciousness of the new system of fame-generation. Lady Gaga understands that her fame is based on a multiplier effect whereby she achieves celebrity the faster her image spreads from one mode of distribution to another. Thus she confounds the system by daily inserting a brand new image of herself to be copied. When one of these images bumps head with a contradictory image the system aches for a new image by which it can understand and make sense of the other two. Lady Gaga represents a loophole to the process of celebrity-generating because she never attempts to insert into it her actuality. She does not need to prove to her fans that she is real because she knowingly is not speaking directly to individuals, she is speaking directly to the masses.

I think then it's time for us to reconstitute celebrity. We need to put the mode of celebrity production back into the hands of the individual so that the individual's place in the consciousness of many is a deserved position. I don't want any more Snookis or Paris Hiltons or Justin Biebers. I want people I can speak to directly, in person, without technology. I want a resurgence of local celebrities. People who walk through my neighborhood and stop to chat and introduce themselves. People who don't want to be known beyond their city and beyond their lives because the people whose opinions they care about are the ones who live next door. It makes me Happy that Rahm Emanuel left Obama's cabinet to run for Mayor in Chicago. Those are real people he wants to be famous amongst, not congressmen that generate false perceptions of him and countrymen that will never shake his hand.

Go out and earn celebrity among the people you want to generate your image. People who are convinced of your value because they've seen it first hand. This is how fame should work, as a measure of devotion and individual worth. Make your own fliers by hand and distribute them the same way.

It's time we reject the notion that anyone can be a celebrity because I don't want just anyone to be a celebrity, I want them to have earned it firsthand.

steve Nostradome tagged this post as Insightful and Very enjoyable.

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Andy Ollove, TBD

December 1, 2010 at 7:05 PM

11 followers

What happens to a person when he becomes a celebrity? What happens to his life? What happens to his privacy?

There are plenty of reasons to hate Kanye West. But why is it that he has to go on to talk show after talk show and justify his past actions? How can a daytime television host have the gaul to ask a stranger about the emotional response to his mother's death? Kanye isn't devoid of agency of course. Being that he is the undeniable titan of the entire rap industry Kanye can easily just say no to all interviews and still be wildly successful. But for him to say no to interviews is akin to rejecting the public that made him successful in the first place. I sense a paradox.

The world hates Kanye West because of his loudmouth but it is the world that gave him the loud mouth in the first place. What's worse is in our very criticism of his loudmouth we justify his very right to speak from that mouth. That we buy his albums is to him proof that we want to hear his voice. His success is dependent on our voyeurism and fetishization of celebrity. But we are a villainous audience. With every hyperlink to his name we open our ears wider to his voice and then when arbitrarily we decide we don't like what he says we turn on him. We pay for the ticket and then proceed to heckle the performer.

Kanye receives two contradictory signals from us his public. At once we validate his artistic integrity and give him the necessary power to perform but at the same time we villify him for using that self-same power. We tell him "say what you want" and then when he does we scream that he has forsaken our trust. We tell him the plane he exists on his boundless, and then when he goes on to say that George Bush hates black people we say he has overstepped his bounds. What does this do except fracture his person? He is obviously entitled to the opinion, but apparently he is not entitled to share that opinion.

I think in his latest album Kanye recognizes that the voyeuristic public that made him are not invested him. They just as easily can consume him. The world they've created for him is a fantasy, the plane of celebrity is a fantasy. What he aims to achieve then in his music is to create a fantasy plane of his own making. One where the power is his own as artist.

Got treasures in my mind but couldn’t open up my own vault
My childlike creativity, purity and honesty
Is honestly being prodded by these grown thoughts
Reality is catchin’ up with me
Takin’ my inner child, I’m fighting for it, custody

In this struggle to create identity in the midst of a constantly surveillant public, Kanye knowingly alludes to Michael Jackson who entrusted himself over to his public only to be torn ruthlessly apart by them. I sense a lot of anger underlying Kanye's latest album entitled My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and I think it entirely justified. The album tells the story of a hedonistic excessive celebrity life drug and alcohol and sex fueled. Is it the fantasy life Kanye must have dreamt of from the studio booth tracking up for Jay Z in 2000? No. Is it what he got? Probably not exactly, but at least he is starting to realize the fantasy is of his own making and not ours.

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Andy Ollove, TBD

March 8, 2011 at 1:00 AM

11 followers

Charlie Sheen is losing his shit and America is helping.

Screw Jersey Shore. This version of reality television seems all the more genuine. We're watching it in real time and all the time. And believe me, people are watching. They're eating it up as quickly as it's dished. In one week Sheen has become all a sudden a mythical figurehead for American consumption. And why? For "banging 7 gram rocks" with his two live in model/pornstar girlfriends?

Whatever. I don't give a shit about that. I'm not here to judge his lifestyle choices. If that's what it means to do him, fine. I don't know him except behind a glass screen. But what I do care about is all those people in jail right now who've done way less than Sheen and faced much more severe punishments. He has a history of domestic violence against women and I don't think I've once seen any media outlet suggest dude should be put in jail. Why? He's the most paid actor on television and that sort of ranking doesn't exist in a vacuum. If Charlie Sheen is making $1.5 million for every episode of Two and a Half Men it's only because he's generating way more than that for hella people.

He's a criminal. He's manic. He's an addict. He's an egomaniac. But whatever. We're fueling it. We're making it worse. It's us whose to blame here. Just turn off your television sets. He beats up women! Why support that?

It's all such a ridiculous and obvious double standard. That our society can stare directly at someone who by law is a criminal and just laugh encouragingly. Sheen is just like every other abusive person in jail, worse, he's rich which is to say invincible, which is to say to his victims that they are wrong, it's okay they've been abused.

There's also the point to consider that guy is in the middle of a manic episode caused by psychiatric illness. They say he needs help and medical/psychiatric attention. And that's probably right. But why can't we offer that insight into all the many drug users in jail who we should think of as victims also? Why aren't they given the benefit of doubt that their actions are the result of trauma and can be alleviated in a setting more in tune with the causes of their addiction?

And why is it continuing to such levels? Escalating even? Because people are making money. Our collective notion of justice is corrupt and hypocritical and celebrity/money is at the heart of the issue.

Our country has always been in the tubes.