Celebrity Culture's Hiatus Proved Far Too Short a Break. (Commentary).ONE of the nice things to come out of Sept. 11 was a breakup in America's love affair with celebrities. For a few reasonable weeks, in the aftermath of the attacks, the thought of who some movie star was dating seemed beyond silly. It seemed insulting. Even the late-night talk-show hosts -- including Jay Leno Jay Leno (born April 28, 1950) is an Emmy-winning American comedian, writer who is best known as the current host of NBC television's long-running variety and talk program The Tonight Show. Biography Leno was born in New Rochelle, New York. and David Letterman David Michael Letterman (born April 12, 1947, in Indianapolis, Indiana, U.S.) is an award-winning American comedian, late night talk show host, television producer, philanthropist, and IRL IndyCar Series car owner. -- saved their couches for firefighters, mayors, pundits and military heroes. We didn't see Pamela Anderson
Pamela Denise Anderson (born July 1, 1967) is a Canadian-born actress, sex symbol, glamour model, producer, TV personality, and author. jiggle. We didn't watch Richard Simmons For other persons named Richard Simmons, see Richard Simmons (disambiguation). Richard Simmons (born Milton Teagle Richard Simmons July 12, 1948) is a fitness expert who promotes weight-loss programs, most famously through a line of aerobics videos and act like an idiot. We paid no attention to Cruise versus Kidman or Kidman versus Cruz. It was -- how can I put this? -- pleasant. Quiet. Somewhat dignified. Oh, the good old days. Guess who's back in the middle of our radar screen? Julia. Tom. Brad. Penelope. With recent military success in Afghanistan and a whopping three months since anyone has flown a plane into a building, many Americans and media types are returning happily to the culture of the inane. "Shoes can affect my acting in a powerful way," said Penelope Cruz in a USA Today USA Today National U.S. daily general-interest newspaper, the first of its kind. Launched in 1982 by Allen Neuharth, head of the Gannett newspaper chain, it reached a circulation of one million within a year and surpassed two million in the 1990s. cover story last week. Her new boyfriend, Tom Cruise, was characterized in that same newspaper as having suffered "an emotional year, mostly because of the painful and high-profile parting from Nicole Kidman. ... On top of all that, there were the terrible terrorist attacks that shook him and his family." Silly us. We forgot that what al Qaida wanted was to disrupt the happiness of Tom Cruise. This sycophantic syc·o·phant n. A servile self-seeker who attempts to win favor by flattering influential people. [Latin s dribble has turned bathtub-sized recently, with the opening of the movie "Ocean's Eleven" -- a movie that has a lot of stars who have been all over the TV and newspapers lately, showing people how lucky they are to be, well, them. There's Julia Roberts. There's George Clooney. There's Brad Pitt. There's Matt Damon. And right alongside are the panting panting rapid, shallow breathing, a characteristic heat-losing reaction in dogs; represents an increase in dead-space ventilation resulting in heat loss without necessarily increasing oxygen uptake or carbon dioxide loss. celebrity "reporters." "Brad!" one gushed. "Gotta ask you the question -- although I already know the answer! -- how much fun was making this film?" "A lot," Pitt said. Why do I bother with this topic? Because part of our pre-Sept. 11 problem, we all agree, is that we didn't take certain serious things seriously. We ignored threats of terrorism. We ignored international affairs. We flipped channels when there was news from the Middle East -- yet stared endlessly at Chandra Levy and Gary Condit. We hung on the only question that seemed to matter in any story in the world: "Did she sleep with him?" Well, part of that disconnect with the real world -- real problems, real poverty, real enemies -- comes from our infatuation with celebrities. We worship them, their love affairs, their hairstyles, while others around the world are worshiping men who preach our destruction. Sept. 11 was a clanging clang n. 1. A loud, resonant, metallic sound. 2. The strident call of a crane or goose. intr. & tr.v. clanged, clang·ing, clangs To make or cause to make a clang. bell, a deafening reminder that the world isn't about Julia's hair, Oprah's weight or Tom's sexual preference. Weren't these folks, just a few months ago, walking onstage in grief-stricken New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of , telling people in a serious tone, "We're not important. What we do isn't important." Let's take them at their word. Mitch Albom is the author of the best-seller "Tuesdays With Morrie. |
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