I remember seeing an ABC report with John Stossel a while back that looked at America’s growing obsession with fame. They were interviewing people in a wintry Times Square who had stripped down to bathing suits and body-painted themselves in various colors for an audition to play, of all things, M&M’s candies.
“Everybody wants to show who they are,” one yellow-colored guy told Stossel. “Me, I just wanna be me.” “But …” the reporter retorted, “you’re not you, you’re an M&M!” And that’s when a woman coated in green poked her candy-coated nose into the conversation. “You’re here to cover us though, so obviously we’re important. It’s better than going to a shrink.”
While that last point may be debatable, the woman certainly isn’t alone in her thinking. According to a new Marist poll, more Americans (some 32%) would rather be a Hollywood movie star over any other job out there (followed by the No. 2 dream-gig, pro athlete, at 29%). And if you’re still harboring one of those old dreams of being a doctor, a lawyer, or perhaps a future president, well, get with it. Those bores are way down the list.
Now don’t get me wrong, fascination with fame and celebrity is nothing new. In fact, one could argue that the glamorous movie stars pushed by the old Hollywood studio system were a bigger part of the American psyche way back in the ’40s and ’50s. But I think this new obsession is something different.
There’s a more frenzied media hype at play here. The classy matinee idol side is gone, replaced by a kind of “let’s look at the beautiful people as they do crazy stuff” focus that, for some reason, appeals to the populous. And that cockeyed sensibility has certainly spilled over into the reality TV star craze that we Americans just can’t seem to shake. We’ll watch endless hours of spray-tanned partiers strutting in Jersey or try to interpret the yammerings of vapid Washington gate crashers and keep coming back for more.
Odder still, according to the above mentioned poll, we even kind of like the idea of being the beautiful person who throws out lines for the camera by day and tosses their cookies for the paparazzi by night.
OK, I’ll fess up, the poll didn’t really mention the vomiting part. But still, how far can this go before everyone ends up doing moronic things in a YouTube video in hopes of getting their 15 minutes worth?
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