Those who know me personally know that I’m often philosophizing or analyzing to some degree “what is really going on” in any number of areas. I could make a great conspiracy theorist wackadoo one day if I ever totally lose it.
Anyhow, the idea of “Fame” is my most recent adversary. Previously I considered Fame to be an untouchable topic for debate (at least for my own mind) due to the fact that I wasn’t sure I could trust myself to be objective and not just biased relative to how I felt my own entertainment career was faring.
This changed yesterday as I was working on some emails in my living room with the TV on. I looked up, noticing that Celebrity Rehab had come on… Ugh. I mean, good for them, and I know it is actually Dr. Drew’s point that we are supposed to understand what is truly going on for these people instead of judging them superficially, but I just… don’t think this is television. And I don’t think this show would even be arguably “necessary” if we weren’t putting these people on all the other shows… reality… or entertainment news.
I changed the channel… ugh. Some “housewives” from somewhere, dressed up and complaining yet somehow simultaneously glamorizing this concept of a stay-at-home wife. I don’t know if this makes me old-fashioned or conservative or what, but I would really rather feel inspired by seeing a stay-at-home wife who was great at taking care of the home and being a good mother OR a career girl making things happen.
If we consider classic character archetypes, we now have so many wannabes, villains, and clowns… I just want more heros to look up to, root for, emulate, that sort of thing… Someone to make life seem like a puzzle with a pretty picture at the end, is that so boring?
I turned the TV off, and went to the piano where I could at least work on inventing my own interpretation of life. This is when it finally hit me that any idea of Fame I’d had as a child was officially irrelevant. It’s at least a decade into the reign of reality TV stars redefining the word. Fame no longer is a piece of my dream. Not because I gave up wanting it, but because the complete meaning of it has changed under my feet.
I started making a list of other descriptions (formerly classified in the Fame category) that I should now use to describe what I aspire to including the following: Recognition for excellence in my craft as an entertainer and contribution to the arts, either by the public or by esteemed critics.
Not by the tabloid media, not recognition for controversial behavior, not notorious, not envied for my “luck”. Not the winner of a contest produced for ratings, not a soundbite catchphrase, not a train that wrecks just to stay relevant. To put it in politest terms, that is all baloney. And that baloney has completely overwhelmed the same term that used to describe people who had accomplished extraordinary things, great artists and craftsmen, and model citizens.
So the last thing I’ll say from my high horse before I return it for my pony at the valet, is that I’m not saying this as an attack of any kind, but just to clarify it for myself, and anyone else who would ask me whether my goal is to be “famous”. I suppose by today’s standards, it is not.
