End of this year commemorations will include George Michael, Carrie Fischer and Fischer’s mother Debbie Reynolds. Many will profess that their deaths, even though they didn’t have a face to face relationship with these individuals will be significant mostly because they feel they had a relationship with these people’s art.
The dynamic of “celebrity” is an interesting one. I don’t think there can be a human culture without celebrity. Nearly anyplace you find human civilization you will find celebrities. The ancient myths from Gilgamesh or Homer had celebrities, people or demigods whose stories invade our lives to shape our ideals, our morals, our definitions of what is good. These people, real or fictitious inhabit and may even dominate our lives and imaginations, shaping our decisions and desires.
George Michael
We would have never known George Michael if it had not been for Andrew Ridgeley (left of him in the picture) and his mom who taught in their school. She suggested Andrew take the young shy, overweight, awkward George under his wing. They discovered they both loved music and so with Andrew’s guidance they started their first band “The Executive” which failed and then the second “Wham” with a fresh new sound and their hit “Wake Me Up Before You Go Go” put them on the map. George, however, had the talent for song writing and performance so eventually left Andrew behind, and now mostly forgotten.
George because the celebrity. Andrew met and married a women from another flash-in-the-pan band, settled down, founded an advocacy outfit for cleaner ocean water and has lived quietly off of the money that his few hits with Wham continued to generate. George had a famously celebrity, rocky life only to die at 53.
Last week we noted that the “American Dream” (even though George Michael is British) involves a dual belief in equal opportunity and rewarded meritocracy. George Michael’s life as a celebrity embodies that story. He begins from little and through hard work and talent becomes wealthy, famous, beautiful, desirable and celebrated. Our story telling naturally edits out the comparison with Andrew Ridgeley who is forgotten.
We might wonder who we’d rather be, however, Michael who lived a famously unsettled life of greater fame, power, wealth and cultural significance or Ridgeley whose story is perhaps one of failure but whose rewards were more modest and settled.
Carrie Fischer
Carrie Fisher’s story is different from George Michael’s. Fisher was born to celebrities Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fischer. Chaos had been with her right from the start.
In her 60 years she produced three successful memoirs but her celebrity seemed almost a function of luck than talent.
Cringe-worthy truth about being a onetime A-list Hollywood star: “What would I be if I weren’t princess Leia? A great big nothing without one piece of fan mail to call my own.” Later in life, when a family brings its daughter to meet Fisher, the child wails: “No! . . . I want the other Leia, not the old one.” Washington Post
If we check Carrie Fischer’s life against the values of the American Dream it contradicts it. The connection between her celebrity and her birth seemed more like birthright than equality. While she had considerable talent as a writer she is best remembered for being a young adult in a space western donning a golden bikini. Part of her contribution is actually highlighting the ironies of her own life. Being both born into wealth and fame and falling into it she proceeded to drink it away dying young, her mother outliving her, probably because of the wear and tear she put on her body.
Our Culture of Celebrity and Wanting to Have it All
The reason human civilization naturally creates celebrities is because as Ecclesiastes 3:11 says “he has placed ‘eternity’ in our hearts”. What does that mean?
What sets human beings apart from any other living thing we know?
Legends, myths, gods and religions appeared for the first time with the Cognitive Revolution. Many animals could previously say, ‘Careful! A lion!’ Thanks to the Cognitive Revolution, Homo sapiens acquired the ability to say, ‘The lion is the guardian spirit of our tribe.’ This ability to speak about fictions is the most unique feature of Sapiens language.
Harari, Yuval Noah. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (Kindle Locations 413-415). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.
The Greeks had their gods and demi-gods. The Sumarians had Gilgamesh and Enkidu. As a culture we have created a torrent of stories with heroes and celebrities, demi-gods in our midst who live in ways that we ordinary folks aspire to. We don’t know it only in entertainment. We do it in politics, Trump and Obama were elected because they represent as much as they can possibly fulfill. We do it in sports, in business, in every area of human endeavor. By the stories of these people we live vicariously and aspirationally.
By these celebrities humanity attempts to push its boundaries. Celebrities show “how high” we can climb, live, ascend, aspire to. They are our pioneers. We endow people with celebrity status so that we can live vicariously through them. We naturally inhabit stories and so we furnish our stories with villians, heroes and celebrities. Continue reading →
The Lost Beauty if its time, The Haunting of eternity in our hearts, and the anticipation of glory reclaimed, renewed and restored
Celebrity Deaths in a Celebrity Species
End of this year commemorations will include George Michael, Carrie Fischer and Fischer’s mother Debbie Reynolds. Many will profess that their deaths, even though they didn’t have a face to face relationship with these individuals will be significant mostly because they feel they had a relationship with these people’s art.
The dynamic of “celebrity” is an interesting one. I don’t think there can be a human culture without celebrity. Nearly anyplace you find human civilization you will find celebrities. The ancient myths from Gilgamesh or Homer had celebrities, people or demigods whose stories invade our lives to shape our ideals, our morals, our definitions of what is good. These people, real or fictitious inhabit and may even dominate our lives and imaginations, shaping our decisions and desires.
George Michael
We would have never known George Michael if it had not been for Andrew Ridgeley (left of him in the picture) and his mom who taught in their school. She suggested Andrew take the young shy, overweight, awkward George under his wing. They discovered they both loved music and so with Andrew’s guidance they started their first band “The Executive” which failed and then the second “Wham” with a fresh new sound and their hit “Wake Me Up Before You Go Go” put them on the map. George, however, had the talent for song writing and performance so eventually left Andrew behind, and now mostly forgotten.
George because the celebrity. Andrew met and married a women from another flash-in-the-pan band, settled down, founded an advocacy outfit for cleaner ocean water and has lived quietly off of the money that his few hits with Wham continued to generate. George had a famously celebrity, rocky life only to die at 53.
Last week we noted that the “American Dream” (even though George Michael is British) involves a dual belief in equal opportunity and rewarded meritocracy. George Michael’s life as a celebrity embodies that story. He begins from little and through hard work and talent becomes wealthy, famous, beautiful, desirable and celebrated. Our story telling naturally edits out the comparison with Andrew Ridgeley who is forgotten.
We might wonder who we’d rather be, however, Michael who lived a famously unsettled life of greater fame, power, wealth and cultural significance or Ridgeley whose story is perhaps one of failure but whose rewards were more modest and settled.
Carrie Fischer
Carrie Fisher’s story is different from George Michael’s. Fisher was born to celebrities Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fischer. Chaos had been with her right from the start.
In her 60 years she produced three successful memoirs but her celebrity seemed almost a function of luck than talent.
If we check Carrie Fischer’s life against the values of the American Dream it contradicts it. The connection between her celebrity and her birth seemed more like birthright than equality. While she had considerable talent as a writer she is best remembered for being a young adult in a space western donning a golden bikini. Part of her contribution is actually highlighting the ironies of her own life. Being both born into wealth and fame and falling into it she proceeded to drink it away dying young, her mother outliving her, probably because of the wear and tear she put on her body.
Our Culture of Celebrity and Wanting to Have it All
The reason human civilization naturally creates celebrities is because as Ecclesiastes 3:11 says “he has placed ‘eternity’ in our hearts”. What does that mean?
What sets human beings apart from any other living thing we know?
The Greeks had their gods and demi-gods. The Sumarians had Gilgamesh and Enkidu. As a culture we have created a torrent of stories with heroes and celebrities, demi-gods in our midst who live in ways that we ordinary folks aspire to. We don’t know it only in entertainment. We do it in politics, Trump and Obama were elected because they represent as much as they can possibly fulfill. We do it in sports, in business, in every area of human endeavor. By the stories of these people we live vicariously and aspirationally.
By these celebrities humanity attempts to push its boundaries. Celebrities show “how high” we can climb, live, ascend, aspire to. They are our pioneers. We endow people with celebrity status so that we can live vicariously through them. We naturally inhabit stories and so we furnish our stories with villians, heroes and celebrities. Continue reading →