We Wanna-Be's
Back in my college psychology class
I remember reading about "eccentricity credits," the extra break we are
willing to give certain people because we do not want to have to condemn
them. The example in the textbook was that of an eccentric First Lady (I
think) who arrived at some high society function wearing blue jeans. When
the Society Page reporter asked the hostess about this gross breach of
etiquette (can't you just see Aunt Pittypat reaching
for her smelling salts?), she replied cooly, "Mrs. So-&-So feels more
comfortable in dungarees." As if anyone else who showed up similarly
attired would not have been bound hand and foot and cast into the outer
darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth! But the
President's wife? She can get away with it. We wouldn't mind if she showed
up stark naked as long as we could say she appeared at our soiree, would
we?
Religious demagogues like Jim Jones
and Jimmy Swaggart have as many eccentricity credits stashed away as they
do dollars in a Swiss bank account. One Jones cultist rationalized Jones'
sexcapades on the grounds that as a special man of
God, operating in higher gear, I guess, he had special needs. Ordinary
morality didn't apply. Morals are for mortals. The history of religions
(e.g., Sabbatai Sevi the 17th century messiah) presents us with other
examples of "prophetic blasphemy," messianic libertinism. And don't forget
Nietzsche and his Ubermensch's "transvaluation of values."
But I am thinking rather of
American pop celebrities and their considerable eccentricity credits.
Specifically, the tragic cases of three athletes. A few years ago, a
promising but apparently not-too-bright college
basketball player named Len Bias cut short a stellar career with an
overdose of cocaine. Immediately the media lionized a tragically foolish
youth into an atoning savior. We were told with all the network
sentimentality of an after school "disease of the week" special that poor
Bias had not died in vain, since his abrupt death now served as a sign to
other youths. "Just say no" writ large in the hell-fire hues of "Abandon
all hope, ye who enter here." In fact it was a dignifying
of the old joke "He's not good for nothing; at least he's a great bad
example."
More recently Magic Johnson
contracted HIV from his irresponsible habits of
promiscuous sex, as he himself admitted. Now he is a pious media
spokesman, a seven-foot-tall poster child. Football player Lyle Alzado,
once a lying user of steroids, now a doddering wreck because of steroids,
a Bruce Banner who had turned into the Incredible Hulk once too often, is
now the Mother Theresa of the steroid freaks. Good for him. Its the least
he and Magic Johnson can do, as when Leopold (or was it Loeb?) tried to
atone for the perfect crime by volunteering for prison medical
experiments.
But what puzzles me is how in the
public fancy Bias, Johnson, and Alzado instantly became transfigured into
Bodhisattvas of Compassion. It was as if they had volunteered to take
these afflictions upon themselves for the good of mankind, heavenly
Christs who conceived the notion of taking on the thousand natural
shocks of the flesh in order to demonstrate their divine solidarity with
mere mortals. Like Father Damien among the lepers.
Again, once Gilda Radner died of
ovarian cancer, the public was galvanized as to the seriousness of the
situation, as if uncountable women had not died of it before. Anita Hill
gained notoriety by accusing a Supreme Court nominee of tawdry behavior,
and the media decided that she had done the public the favor of bringing
the dangers of sexual harassment to light -- as if no one had heard of it
before.
In all these cases the unspoken
idea is that "Once it happens to a celebrity, then things are
serious! Let's do something about it!"
Why are people like Len Bias
treated like saints? Because the public idolizes celebrities and will go
the second mile rationalizing and excusing their behavior in a way we
usually reserve only for our own conduct! We feel we have something
at stake in their foibles, that there is some shame for us in their
scandals. How have we come to merge our identities with theirs?
It is because our own lives are so
impoverished, so empty of meaning, that we must fill the void by living
vicariously the "lifestyles of the rich and famous." Oh that we could be
Donald Trump, Ivana, Marla! We can't be, but why not pretend? The result
is an addiction no less fatal than that which killed young Bias: celebrity
worship is the opiate of the people. It keeps those who wallow in it from
realizing that their own lives could be made significant. This escapes
them because they confuse significance with glamour. And whence this
confusion?
It is media propaganda. People must
be made to think that what they see on TV is the truest and most desirable
reality, a Platonic Realm of Forms. If a woman does not look like a TV
star let, she is not quite real as a woman. If a romance does not bloom as
in a TV soap, then one ought to question whether one is really in love.
The media have generated a false consciousness, an insidious idea
internalized like an orthodox religious catechism, whereby we yearn for
what we can never get in reality but can vicariously experience on the
boob-tube. As we worship at that altar we will find the bogus fulfillment
life denies us (and which life never promised us anyway).
Isn't this paranoia on my part?
What motivation could Big Brother possibly have for mounting such a
scheme? Well, of course it's all to fatten you up for when the collection
plate comes around, when the commercial comes up. By sponsoring the TV
shows you watch, advertisers are simply bribing you to watch their ads.
For you the commercials interrupt the shows. For them the shows interrupt
the commercials. What each relishes, the other sees as a necessary evil.
As James Fowler and others point
out, every human life is an attempt, conscious or not, to live out some
particular story. The advertising media have succeeded in getting people
to choose for their own the stories they see on TV, at first to emulate,
then, because it is easier, just to watch. And I am urging you to snap out
of it.
Now you are expecting me to urge
you instead to internalize the story of some great figure, some saint or
philanthopist. I will not. You may indeed learn important things from such
people's epics, but your life must be your own. One dear friend of mine, I
am convinced, sought to model his life on that of Kierkegaard, another on
characters from a Bergman movie. The results were not pleasant to see, and
all the more so since the imitations were so close to the originals! You
must find out what your own life is about and then try your best to live
it. Your mistakes might as well be your own.
Robert M. Price