Celebrity Status

I've decided not to spend a great deal of time writing about the nature of celebrity status. It isn't as appealing a topic as I first thought it might be. In fact, I think I've distilled the entire concept down to a few defining thoughts:

1) People become known or acclaimed through their actions.

2) These actions can be categorized by specific talents (graphic art, literature, philosophy, architecture, film, politics, etc.).

3) There seems to be a break point at which the public focus shifts from the actual work of the individual to the individual him/herself.

4) Having achieved escape velocity, the newly crowned celebrity is certain to have celebrity-meaning attached to every banal activity of his/her life, whether the activity has anything at all to do with the medium by which they achieved public notice in the first place. This is the point where it becomes style over substance.

5) The celebrity MUST choose to participate in this process or they rapidly fade from public view.

6) The end point is that the celebrity is famous for being famous.

This is not to say that celebrities don't do good things - they all have their causes and substantial resources to contribute to those causes. Yet, a great many citizens contribute to causes as well, without the glare of the public lime-light.

I happen to be old enough to remember the call for designs for a memorial to be placed on the Mall in D.C., by the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial committee. You can read about the entire process here. A 21-year old Yale University architecture student, Maya Ying Lin, was selected based on her design submission. There was a significant voice that arose against the design itself, and racism against the designer. And yet the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial was built and is arguably one of the most moving memorials/monuments in D.C.

Maya Lin was thrust into public scrutiny in the early 1980's - but she didn't participate - where is she now? She lives in New York and owns and operates Maya Lin Studios.

This story, for me at least, depicts the delta between the art or object itself holding public interest rather than the individual superceding the object.

In each instance that the public focuses on an individual for reasons other than the talent and/or object itself - that individual has achieved acclaim or notoriety for merely being famous.

I can't really say if this is good, bad or indifferent - it just is. But what I can assert is that there does seem to be a burgeoning move toward celebrity status purely for the status - untethered from any work of substance - and that certainly can't be considered a positive contribution to any social structure.

Mel Gibson, if he is an artist (I don't have a judgment about that), is still an artist. Perhaps those interested in his case should be asking "What has he done artistically for us lately?" rather than being interested in anything that is taking place with him personally. I don't know - but that's all I really have to say on the topic.

Perhaps there is one last thought to be had regarding this. We seem to be living in a time in which virtue has taken a backseat to rights. It is very rare in public discourse to hear an underlying deontological ethics system at work - i.e. "It is my duty...." (categorical imperative, Kant - all that stuff). Certainly the rhetoric of it is there, but it is unattached to anything of substance. What we hear continuously, though, is the cacophony of "rights" issues - in particular when an individual or group feels their rights have been violated or they aren't granted fundamental rights that others have.

There is a reason to be concerned about this shift of priority from duty to rights. A virtue (embodied within a duty) cannot be violated or oppressed - If I have a duty to be honest, no one can deprive me of that. On the other hand, I have a legal right to drive in my lane unimpeded by those that would make illegal lane changes or want to drive in my lane in the space I currently occupy. These other drivers, in fact, can violate my rights. If you drive as often as I do - this is a daily occurrence - my rights are violated on a daily basis.

Rights are violated and denied to people on a daily basis - and in many instances we should act vigorously to correct those instances. However - to make "rights" the sole focus of social discourse does all of us a huge disservice - we eventually lose our grounding in the substrate that supports those rights - and that substrate is virtue - regardless of how you choose to define the orgin of virtue - theologically or humanistically.

Celebrities, famous for being famous, will eventually violate someone's rights, somehow - then it's "Katy, bar the door."

That really is all I have to say about that.