Craving Celebrity

(Sorry for the delay in posting. A combination of traveling and computer troubles prevented me from posting. I will try to make up for it by posting twice next week! Yeah!)

Many people want to be famous. I can understand it to a point. Usually, celebrities don't have a lot of financial woes and it appears that they get pretty much what ever they want. However, the pressure to look good every time you leave your house would be a pain. Magazines would call it shameful if you ran to the corner store in PJs. Not to mention, the annoyance of cameras flashing in your face as you walk to that store. Your moments as a celebrity may be "glamourous," but you would have to share most them with a million people and not just your loved ones.

As much as I don't think I would like to be extremely famous there is one thing about celebrity that I envy greatly. That is that their voices are actually heard. They may be criticized, rightly or not, but there is no question they get their voice out there. When they care about an issue they can do something. No, they can't solve the problem by magic, but they can raise awareness and often coordinate some action.

Just think for a moment and many names and causes come to mind. (Please click on the names to find out more about the causes they support.)

George Clooney and Don Cheadle: Darfur
Angelina Jolie: Refugees
Bono: AIDS/African Aid
Oprah: Girls Education
Al Gore: Environment/Climate Change
Late Princess Diana: Landmines

This is what I envy. Celebrities can keep the paparatizzi, big houses, magazine covers, and red carpets (although I must admit walking a red carpet once in life might be fun, but it certainly isn't something I need to do to be happy.) What I really want is the means to get important information to the public and the means to moblize and begin change.

The celebrity culture of America has seeped into politics. Even as I write this, Entertainment Tonight is teasing an upcoming interview with John McCain. This aspect of the political process can be a good or bad thing. More people are interested in politics, but are they interested in issues or what is on the candidates' Ipods?

A big concern with politicians becoming “stars” is that the nature of celebrity isn’t one that requires much accountability. Movie stars make a living at playing a part, essentially not being themselves and telling a story that is usually fiction. We can’t have our campaigns becoming romantic-comedy or tragic screenplays.

Many political commentators get ratings from turning the election into laughs or dramatic yelling-matches. The popularity of Tina Fey’s spot on parody of Gov. Palin has given SNL a huge boost. ABC’s The View has produced some heated political arguments this season and it only takes 5 minutes of watching Bill O’Reilly to see the drama emerge.

However, there are more people registering to vote and real issues are being discussed more this year than I ever remember in the past. It is exciting that Obama was easily able to fill a football stadium with supporters/delegates while still thousands watched his acceptance speech at home. Hopefully, the excitement of politics will translate into the younger generations caring about issues, craving knowledge and demanding to be a part of the process. This is a great thing.

So is a celebrity political culture a good or bad thing? Time will tell like it always seems to do.