If I Wasn’t a Celebrity, I’d Just Be Screwed Up

“I’m never gonna dance again, ’cause guilty feet ain’t got no rhythm.” -Wham, Careless Whisper

When I heard that George Michael had fallen out of a car going 70 miles an hour on the freeway, I wondered what it is about celebrity that screws people up. Or maybe I have it backwards, and celebrity merely gives access to money and privilege and unlimited license to be stupid. It’s like putting a daredevil on the top of the Empire State Building and telling him he can’t jump. He’s going to jump, because he can. Give someone access to something they never even knew they wanted, and suddenly they want it. Give someone a microphone and he’ll use it to make fart noises. Oh, the horror. That’s celebrity.

“I am not a role model.” -Charles Barkley

It all begins with the idea of a celebrity as a role model, and the answer is pretty clear. Charles Barkley was wrong. The nature of celebrity means there are millions of people looking up to you, whether you like it or not. You hear that, Kim Kardashian? You follow me there, Nikki Minaj? And if people are looking up to you, that makes you a role model. Ask Bobby Knight or Dennis Rodman or Bill Clinton. They’ll tell you that Charley Barkley was wrong, but they’ll also tell you that they wish he was right. You see, celebrities are, as the magazines put it, just like us. They have the same issues, the same dreams, the same hopes and fears, except those are magnified when they’re in the public eye.

“Whatever you are, be a good one.” -Abraham Lincoln

It always comes down to perspective, after all. Someone who values his or her privacy will not do well as a celebrity. Sad stories like Kurt Kobain and Michael Jackson bear this out. But as a celebrity there is no private life, especially in the era of Twitter, Facebook, and cameras on every cell phone out there. If it’s not recorded, think again. Everything in our lives now are recorded, and that’s just for regular people like you and me. Imagine what it’s like to be a celebrity and have people not only know everything about your life, but to judge you based on it.

“You never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them.” -Atticus Finch

But do we as a public have a right to judge? We often talk about rights, and people don’t just give away those rights in order to be celebrities. It just seems that way. In our selfish rush as a society to know everything about everyone, we often doom our celebrities to lives of depression and second-guessing. Look at poor Amanda Bynes, or other child stars. Or even recently all of the over-exposure that Paris Jackson has gotten and what it’s doing to her. It’s sad, really. I honestly wish that Charles Barkley had been right when I see things like that. If celebrities weren’t seen as role models, if our real role models were the people who actually have made a difference in our lives, things would be so much different, and so much better.

“We’re all capable of mistakes, but I do not care to enlighten you on the mistakes we may or may not have made.” -Dan Quayle

The former vice-president is right here, that we’re all capable of mistakes. None of us are perfect, which was made dramatically clear by the rather public apology of Jimmy Swaggart twenty-five years ago this Friday, when he was revealed to be as human as the rest of us. “I have sinned,” came the public confession through wracking sobs. That’s the nature of celebrity. A man who is human has to apologize for being human, because he was in the public eye, and he has a commitment to that public, right? Perhaps when you’re leading a flock of people who believe every word you say that’s true, but should that translate to people like Dennis Rodman or George Michael? I don’t think so, but it won’t change.

Just ask Michael Phelps, arguably the greatest swimmer of all time, and he’ll probably tell you it’s not all it’s cracked up to be: celebrity. He’ll probably tell you that he’d like a Leonard Cohen afterworld now that he’s done with swimming. So he can sigh eternally. Oh, and George, thanks for just getting nicked up. We need new music from you.

Sam