Headline: The Guardian:
"British Royal Family: Harry and Meghan invited to Charles' coronation, report suggests."
Who cares?
Apparently, we do.
There is something about humans that make us curious about celebrities. I saw the headline about the British royal family and it triggered an observation.
I was going to write, "curious about leaders" and if that were true it would make obvious evolutionary sense, both for in-group success and for competition between tribes and nations. Leadership is serious and important. But it goes beyond that, to sports figures, movie and music stars, the ultra-rich, to gangsters, and to whatever special attribute the Kardashian family has. If I understand it correctly, they are famous for being famous which makes them famous.
What we really like is gossip. There are characters that emerge into public view and to be culturally competent one needs to know what others are talking about.
I follow political and media celebrities, not royal ones or the Kardashians, but I am acting out the same human impulse. I don't pretend that my fascination with Trump, in all his cheesy malevolence, is entirely serious and important while the Kardashians are not. Trump is a character and subject of gossip, just like reality TV stars.
I had gotten along fine for years knowing and caring little about Elon Musk, but now he has burst into view, almost rivaling Donald Trump on center stage. One of the insights I have is that we most enjoy watching celebrities when they are messing up. Elon Musk is messing up, but he doesn't seem to care and he is doing it with broad bold strokes. He fires people then hires them back. He says he welcomes dissent on Twitter, then bans people who cross him, then lets the banned people back in. He is acting like an impulsive child knocking over Lego buildings. It is fascinating.
I watched Breaking Bad, where the protagonist made meth. I watched The Americans, where the protagonists were murderous Russian spies. I watched The Godfather, where the protagonists were mafioso. I recognized that what the protagonists were doing was morally wrong. Yet in watching I found myself caring about them and hoping they survived the incidents and suspenseful close calls of the story line. I got into the characters.
It shouldn't surprise me that people have gotten into Trump and hope he gets away with everything he has done.
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10 comments:
The Kardashians are famous because their mother, Kris Jenner, is exceptionally greedy and shameless, like you-know-who. It appears that she has instilled these qualities in her children. (God help the grandchildren.)
Kris pimped out her three daughters. Kim, the middle daughter, made a "sex tape" (homemade porno film) and has altered and exploited her body to the nth degree. Apparently many people enjoy the spectacle.
But the only reasons that they got any attention initially is because 1) Kris and Robert Kardashian were friends with OJ Simpson and Nicole Brown Simpson. After she was murdered, Robert K., a successful Hollywood lawyer, was part of OJ's criminal defense team.
2) (Fast forward) Subsequently momma Kris married Bruce Jenner, the famous Olympic athlete. Kris had 2 more daughters with Bruce Jenner (now Caitlyn Jenner, who is transgender).
They all had a reality show on cable that capitalized on and exploited the girls' looks, bodies, celebrity connections and "family drama."
I’ve never understood the attraction of the Kardashians or the Royal Family, much less stories with no good guys like “Breaking Bad.” If the protagonist is as bad as the antagonist, who cares about the outcome? They lost me when they were dissolving the body in the bathtub.
Trump is another story: the power and appeal of the demonic. It’s a classic tale of good guys vs. bad guys, and I’m still rooting for the sheriff to take him down.
The purpose of celebrity is to make money.
If there is a skill attached, that's a plus, but it isn't necessary. One can be "celebrated" for their achievements, but also for their lack of same as well. Celebs appear to live charmed exciting lives, every moment scrutinized, doing things most of us can't afford to do so we live vicariously through them. At the same time there is a secret desire to see them suffer misfortune as well, something I'll leave to a shrink to explain.
Norms of behavior are established so society can function, and if one exceeds or flaunts those norms they will be noticed. Mostly it is harmless distraction, some of it moves the culture forward, but bad behavior is a danger to the overall health of the society. Guess who is a poster boy for that point?
The "Royal" family are entertainers, on a scale competing with Kanye and the Kardashians. It's not accidental that "H" married an actress. If they weren't subsidized it's questionable whether they could maintain the "Firm", for instance they are largely exempt from taxes and the state pays for all their residences.
Yes, we watch celebs, but don't forget they spend a good chunk of their income making sure we do.
“We”, as in readers of The Guardian? Meanwhile, conflating the British royalty with the likes of the Kardashians, the Trumps, and various and sundry American pop-culture figures is a callow vulgarian’s pursuit, an ingrate’s folly, bereft of informed historical context. Sure, it’s trendy these days to deride or marginalize the legacy of Western civilization. Try doing without it, warts, scars, sins and all. Better put, imagine life without its contribution. But perhaps we should indeed decolonize North America, beginning with written language and the wheel.
The millennium-old British monarchy already represented the most influential culture and most powerful nation-state in world history before the United States even existed as such, and only surrendered (some of) that status in the twentieth century. For what it’s worth Harry via and Meghan has unfortunately Americanized himself, much as did Harry’s predecessor in ignoble self-indulgence, the abdicator Edward VIII. Elizabeth Windsor was one of the greatest women of the past century, period. Today, the monarchy earns back many times its cost to British taxpayers from associated tourism alone. Finally, all history’s luminaries have been an object of gossip, for some. Big deal.
I think that celebrities resonate with Jungian archetypes, and that's what gives them the ability to attract so much attention. The fact that we are so advanced in fields like the physical sciences blinds us to how little we know about human motivations.
L.D. Does a good job exposing comment-readers to a deeply conservative frame of mind, in which traditition is respected. Authority means something. That orientation is comfortable with monarchy, with a Pope, with Latin Mass, with prescriptionist grammar rules, and typically with nuclear families, cis gender roles, and strict law enforcement.
People with that orientation must feel dislocated. The Catholic Church has liberalized, Republican judges praise precedent and then overrule it, executives type their own emails, and Einsteinian relativity has upset not only physics but social hierarchy. As with time and space itself, the power relationship and proper words all depend on one's relative position. The GOP, which supplied a home for the straight and narrow Churchgoer has become even more downscale and vulgar than Democrats. Worse, it succeeds by having a vulgar con man lead it.
I urge Democratic-oriented readers to observe LD not as a whiney royalist in the wrong country and century. He is, in fact orphaned by his party and if he is not annoyed by too much scolding may find his way to an institutional politcian like Joe Biden or his successor. Biden is attempting to repair institutions. The GOP is still dismantling them, and proud of it.
A comment in praise of Royalty is reveals a voice in transition. He is an educated citizen concerned about law and respect. He is becoming a Democrat, whether he knows it or not yet. Patience.
Peter Sage
Peter,
Most of the institutions of this country, controlled by the college-educated class, are not serving or reflecting the interests of the non-college educated class. If those institutions continue along their current path, the coming backlash may well destroy them.
I hope those institutions wake up (as opposed to being woke) and change course while they still have time.
It’s not just troglodytes who are opposed to the current woke version of “progress“. Anyone who cares about freedom of speech and intellectual integrity should also be opposed. Take “progress” too far, and you end up with Mao Tse-Tung and Pol Pot.
No one in the U.K. has had to be truly “concerned” about the monarchy in the sense of despotic intolerance since the Glorious Revolution in 1688. I understand the riposte about stubborn affinities for authority, but honoring history and heritage, in so many still-valuable facets, is not the same as insisting upon tradition for its own sake. I was in England again just two months ago, so maybe I’m still sentimental. But I think I’m standing for mature appreciation in this connection, as opposed to unsophisticated dismissiveness. What was it again that some local sage urged the other day, reminding us not to let the perfect be the enemy of the good?
Mr. T is spot-on concerning the reductionist equalitarianism of the modern Left. Pol Pot, Mao and their ilk not only sneered at traditional institutions and sources of knowledge, but considered their utter devaluation to be a precondition for “progress”. I say correcting the past as needed need not—should not—include demonizing the past, like ISIS Muslim philistines do with world heritage sites. Yes, the concomitant of much we’ve valued in the West has been harm and exploitation. Show us place before, since or elsewhere in which that has not been the case. (I do understand the Afro-futurism of the Black Panther films is understood as docudrama by many). Back on the ground beneath the ivory tower seminar rooms, however, human history ain’t beanbag, never will be, and the bedrock accomplishments of Western civilization represent the most net progress for all humanity, and the best hope the world has ever known.
Unless of course social “justice” is located at a lowest common denominator of material mediocrity, ignorance and squalor, as administered by a cadre of selfless elites to whom by practical necessity the regular rules do not apply. Sounds familiar somehow….
Woke – adjective: aware of and actively attentive to important societal facts and issues, especially issues of racial and social justice.
I can see how such progressive notions would be seen as a threat to the American Way by reactionaries.
Regarding western civilization (or syphilization, as Joyce described it), it reminds me of the story told about Gandhi when he went to London. As he stood in front of some imposing building, a journalist asked, “So, what do you think of western civilization?” Gandhi responded, “I think it would be a good idea.”
First, they demonize people.
Referring to the FBI and DOJ, Trump is telling his cult folllowers: “These Weaponized Thugs and Tyrants must be dealt with…!!!” Mr. T and LD equate progressives with “Pol Pot, Mao and their ilk.”
Then, anything can be justified.
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