Famous For Being Famous: The Postmodern Celebrity

Fame used to be a result of some sort of human achievement. Achilles was famous for his god-like ability in battle and his decision to choose everlasting glory over old age. Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar were famous for conquering more of the known world than anyone before them. Jesus and Mohammed were famous for the philosophies they preached and the religions their teachings spawned. Francis Drake was famous for circumnavigating the glove; Charles Lindberg for flying across the Atlantic. Clarke Gable for saying “Frankly my dear I don’t give a damn,” Brando for putting cotton balls in his cheeks muttering “It was Barzini all along,” and Marilyn Monroe for, well, being her. Joe Dimaggio was famous for hitting safe for 56 straight games, Jordan for hitting “the shot,” Montana for throwing the pass that was “the catch” and Elway for leading “the drive.” And Tommy Lee, Lindsey Lohan and Paris Hilton…well, they are famous for being famous.

In the post modern world (that is a world in which most art is product and conscious of the fact that it is product) celebrity status no longer relies on acts of accomplishments, achievements or creations. It is in fact possible to become famous without doing anything at all, including hitting a game winning shot, winning an Oscar (or even appearing in a movie) or contributing to the progress of human existence. All one needs to do to be famous is to be. The contradiction to this is that it is harder than ever to achieve true celebrity status and yet anybody can become famous. The difference is that fame and celebrity are no longer interchangeable. Although all celebrities are famous, not all famous people receive celebrity status. In order to become a celebrity one must draw deep human interest beyond the individual’s accomplishments or what they do for a living, but through how they are perceived by the public and how they behave as a famous person.

Take Tommy Lee for instance. Everybody knows who he is, but what has he accomplished? He’s a rock star, right? Nope. The last album he played on that was popular was Dr. Feelgood nearly twenty years ago and nobody (in their right mind) listens to it anymore. He is famous because his personality and his personal life have become spotlighted by the media, most famously through his marriage to mega-celeb Pamela Anderson and their subsequent homemade porn film. I know what you’re thinking, his fame as a rock star endured throughout the years and remains still. This is not true. The only thing being a rock star ever earned Tommy Lee was, perhaps, a marriage to Pamela Anderson, which led to his reemergence as a celebrity. But let’s face it; he is more famous as a celebrity than he ever was as a “rock star.”

How about Lindsey Lohan? Lindsey Lohan is repeatedly voted one of the most beautiful women in the world (by tabloids and magazines) even though there is nothing uniquely appealing about her physically. She has repeatedly been considered one of the biggest “stars” in the world even though she has never made a good movie (I will give a slight nod to Mean Girls but with little thanks to her), her musical ability is zero and she has contributed nothing, artistic or otherwise, to the betterment of society. Granted she has been in a number of movies that have put her in the public eye but she is more famous for the way in which she distracts from her art and industry than for how she contributes to it. She was never so famous until she began having drug problems, disputes with movie studios and drunken binges on the sunset strip.

Paris Hilton is perhaps the most obvious example of how a person can be made famous out of absolutely nothing but being born into wealth and perhaps in the right place at the right time. She is a true mega-celebrity, bigger than most movie stars, rock stars and sports heroes because her fame does not spawn from her accomplishments but from the fame itself, fueled by her exploits as a dysfunctional human being or rather as a dysfunctional celebrity. She was simply a wealthy name that a good publicist was able to spin into celebrity status not because of her philanthropy or contribution to the art or entertainment spheres but because the lifestyle she chose to live and that she allowed it to be exploited. This has led to parts in bad films and even a record deal, but these accomplishments (if you can call them that) have, if anything, detracted from her celebrity status because they don’t represent the kind of life style that Paris Hilton and other mega-celebrities have made fashionable, hedonistic and frivolous living and a care-free attitude.

So, what causes people of postmodern America to anoint such a high status to such unaccomplished people? Is it the car wreck phenomenon? Slowing down to see other’s misfortunes, enhanced by the fact that we truly enjoy seeing the rich and successful suffer? Perhaps. This would explain why shows like Hollywood Insider and magazines like Star are so successful; they exploit the weaknesses and failures of the people we aspire to be and ultimately look up to but in reality despise. Because do any of us actually look up to these people? We are fascinated by them, but who in their right mind wants to be Paris Hilton or even Britney Spears? Is it the money and fame we want? Or just the lifestyle? But doesn’t this senseless coverage of these individuals’ failures illustrate how worthless a life of fame really is? Maybe, but the problems with human psychology and particularly the American mentality is that we never believe that that can happen to us. We use the repeated failures of Lindsey Lohan (and most other celebrities) to rise above her typecast role as a failed actress/pop star turned drug addict to reassure ourselves that we are better than we really are. Because absolutely no one knows how they would succeed under similar circumstances until they have experienced them fully. It’s like being robbed at gunpoint. We like to think that we’ll either be brave and heroic (punching out the thief and turning his gun on him) or witty and cool (handing the money over but being unfazed, even making a joke in the process), but the fact is that most of us would freeze up; we wouldn’t know what to do; we’d cry like a baby and be emotionally traumatized for some time after.

I blame the entire new celebrity phenomenon on reality television and the postmodern mentality. The inherent problem with the postmodernism is that we think we know everything, think we have all the information we need at all times and think that this is enough, an ample substitute for real life experience. This ultimately bleeds into our perceptions of accomplishments, art and fame. Reality programming is the perfect example of postmodern art because it is keenly aware (it is in its nature to be so) of what it is and why it is and even what it will become. Reality television has bled into the way we lead our lives. We live our lives like characters in The Real World, Big Brother, Project Runway or whatever show suits you best, looking at ourselves from without, as if through the lens of a camera, instead of from within. Thinking we can create who we are on the inside because we can manipulate how we are perceived on the outside is our biggest mistake in the reality tv era.

Meanwhile, our younger, more perceptible children are being indoctrinated by the idea that fame is the most important ambition you can strive for and that individuals like Lohan and Hilton are the best kind of celebrity because they get the most media exposure and are therefore considered the most popular. Popularity doesn’t equal fame (anyone with a fully developed frontal lobe knows that), but this is the notion that is taught and absorbed by our youth and what’s more, the failures and subversive acts that enhance these celebrities' fame are attributed as qualities, not flaws, by the naivety of our society (not just our youth). If fame is so noble and important to human existence (I for one think it is inherently evil), then we should take care to and make the effort to endorse and expose people of accomplishment, people who have great human values and people who contribute positively to the human condition. I would say eliminate fame altogether but it has always been here and seems it always will.

This isn’t to say that many celebrities don’t use their fame for good, because more and more that is becoming a trend. Look at Leonardo Dicaprio's work with the environment (The 11th Hour) or most famously, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s work in Africa. But these positive aspects of modern celebrity are glazed over and lost in the pregnancies, divorces, drug problems, DUIs, and amateur porn films. It’s hard to find meaningful coverage in the media of the positive ways celebrities use their fame and influence. Look at Sean Penn’s work in the aftermath of Katrina. The man was physically pulling people from the flood but this got little attention from the press. The news cameras were too busy getting a close up on the one little white girl in a city of suffering black people. But that’s beside the point. The racism of the media is another issue for another article some other time (just foreshadowing its imminent arrival).

If fame is to ever become a human virtue, something worth teaching our children to aspire to, we must find a way to separate it from the simplistic idea that being famous is important for no other reason than to be famous. Virtues, values and accomplishments must be attached to the people we cover in our media, this includes books, television, movies, magazine, newspapers and most importantly, the Internet.