‘I met the well connected, the powerful and the rich; I saw little to envy or, indeed, much to admire; we were being lionised by a class of society with which we had little in common’ — Edmund Hillary
I recently read Ian Bone’s blog (a good place to go for some fresh ideas) entry on Edmund Hillary and space exploration. I was particularly taken with the quote above, and wondered about how many ordinary people have been given a glimpse into the inside of the celebrity world and recoiled with the kind of exclamation that might pop out when you lift a foot for inspection to realise that you’ve trodden in something from the bowels of a particularly unwell dog and that it is busy climbing up your jeans towards your knee.
Note that I am not talking about those who have dived head-first into the trough of the celebrity world only to discover that there are disadvantages in being a celebrity … such as a constant ‘tail’ of paparazzi busy taking photos of you when you would rather they were taking photos of someone else. Such people almost deserve their treatment although the existence of paparazzi is a symptom of some sort of disease.
I don’t particularly begrudge those with genuine talent being rewarded for doing what they do, although one does tend to worry about a society that values someone who makes people laugh greater than someone who saves their life. But these days the celebrity world seems to be populated not only by those with some level of talent, but also by those who are famous for no real reason I can figure out. I am not talking about those whose talents run in directions I don’t like … such as business or architecture, but those who really lack any form of talent whatsoever except possibly the “talent” of picking the right people to sleep with.
Mind you the world of celebrity does seem to be heavily loaded in favour of those who are good at proclaiming how important they are, rather than with those who genuinely deserve the respect of the rest of society. Some of those in the celebrity world are there because they work in industries that thrive on publicity … I am thinking specifically of actors. Perhaps those who end up being celebrities because they are actors or musicians should try to bring more normal people into the celebrity world … those who deserve to be honoured but who are unlikely to trumpet their own worthiness.