hibsbollah
29-03-2009, 07:51 AM
I love this article...Especially the Richard:grr: Gere bit
:top marks
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/mar/28/celebrities-public-figures-politics-aid
Say what?!
Time was when entertainers knew their place. Today they run riot, adopting orphans by the pramload, extolling oddball religions and even brokering peace deals. What's going on, asks Marina Hyde
On the eve of the last Palestinian presidential elections, a televised message was broadcast to voters. "Hi, I'm Richard Gere," smiled its star, "and I'm speaking for the entire world ..." Did you miss the meeting at which this got decided? Does it seem like an encouraging state of affairs? Do you find it confusing that Richard Gere should claim not simply to be speaking for himself (debatable), but for the whole of Earth? Then apologies for startling you, but this is your world. Try not to choke on it. In 1990 Richard was starring in Pretty Woman; 15 years later, he was making formal interventions into Middle East politics. The saddest part is that you weren't even in a coma for that period, so future generations are going to regard you as complicit.
Of course, we're not just talking about Richard Gere – although, as planet spokesmodel, he's certainly a reasonable starting point. We're talking about the entire celebriscape, which in recent years has seemed to be expanding at least twice as fast as the universe it inhabits. Once upon a time, the entertainment industry was an industry that made entertainment. Its workforce was required to do quaint things such as show up to movie sets, or make music, or go to wild parties. Today, that brief has expanded slightly. It now includes proselytising for alien religions, trying to negotiate with the Taliban, getting photographed in a manner that basically constitutes an unsolicited gynaecology examination, and being brought in to fix the Iraqi refugee crisis.
Are you familiar with the term "mission creep"? Mission creep is the expansion of an enterprise beyond its original goals, typically after initial successes. Hilarity does not usually ensue. What does ensue are things such as the escalation of the Korean war, or the Crusades, or Sharon Stone explaining that earthquakes are visited upon Chinese peasants because of "karma".
So keep your wits about you, stardust consumers, and prepare to tumble down the rabbit hole. Above all, remember this: if the entertainment industry is the solution, we're asking the wrong questions.
When celebrities share
We have seen a wholly encouraging proliferation in the numbers of ways celebrities can communicate with a public anxious for news. Where once a star wishing to share themselves would be limited to traditional outlets, it is now possible to telegraph one's state of mind via an exciting new range of communicative platforms. Tattoos, fragrances, snack lines – even sex tapes. And, in most cases, they're lucrative. Frankly, there's never been a better time to have nothing interesting to say.
Tattoos: Say it with body art
Where stars are concerned, tattoos exist for two reasons: to beam their powerful personal philosophy to the world, and to provide us with an aide-memoire of their romantic entanglements.
Falling within the former category are tattoos such as Billy Bob Thornton's "Remember the Alamo" and Robbie Williams' "Elvis, Grant Me Serenity". The latter category boasts entries such as David Beckham's earnestly misspelt Hindi triumph, "Vihctoria", and Eminem's belly-spanning tribute to his ex-wife, Kim, in which the words "Rot in Pieces" sit atop her open grave. Naturally, no treatise on this subject would be complete without running the rule over at the Zen mistress of tattoo affectation: Angelina Jolie, whose largest organ should be regarded as the Rosetta Stone of celebrity (http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/celebrity) body art.
In fact, we probably shouldn't rule out the theory that Angelina is simply adopting or biologically spawning children as backup for the inevitable moment when she realises she has no available flesh left. Yet it seems she will at least endeavour to fill up Brad Pitt's defaceable torso first. The first Brad unveiled was a forearm tattoo of Otzi the iceman. The second was a mysterious series of parallel lines that were diversely interpreted as a tribute to the great Nintendo platform games of the 80s, and a diagram of the New Orleans levee system. As it turned out, the speculation was way off target: Angelina herself had created the cryptic hieroglyph. "We went to Davos," she said. "One night we didn't have anything to do, so I was drawing on his back. It's meaningful in that it's us making angles and shapes out of each other's body, that kind of a thing." No. That is not why it is meaningful. It is meaningful because the kind of people who get so bored that they doodle on each other and turn the doodles into permanent tattoos are now attending the World Economic Forum.
Celebrity product ranges: A better class of tat
With the arguable exception of incontinence pads, there is no product some celebrity or other wouldn't slap their name on if they thought there might be money in it. Don't believe it? Then it's probably time we talked about the Kiss Kasket.
Kiss are not merely a rock band you could never care about, no matter how many more eternities they keep flogging their face-painted, catsuited, age-inappropriate act. They're the most rapaciously merchandising entertainers ever to have existed. Against their awesomely shameless record, even will-this-do product spewer Gwen Stefani is a merchandising pygmy. This lot have licensed their name to more than 3,000 products, from the Kiss toothbrush ("Rock your teeth clean") to Kiss studded condoms (let's not and say we did) to Kiss bathroom tiles (really?) to Kiss Cabernet Sauvignon (OK, just leave now).
But in June 2001 it became clear that Kiss were not simply scraping the bottom of the barrel. The barrel had a concealed basement. And so to the Kiss Kasket, the world's first celebrity-branded coffin. Have you ever contemplated falling into death's embrace and thought how much sweeter it would be if a member of the entertainment industry had ripped you off one last time before your surviving relatives began shovelling in the earth? Then let's hear some more about the product that could make that happen. The Kiss Kasket featured the faces of the band's four founder members, as well as its logo and the slogan "Kiss Forever". It retailed at $4,500 unsigned and $5,000 signed. Come on: this may be a difficult time for you, but an autograph's an autograph. It's what the Kasket's kargo would have wanted. As Kiss frontman Gene Simmons declared on its launch : "This is the ultimate Kiss collectible." High praise indeed. "I love living," he added, "but this makes the alternative look pretty damn good."
Celebrity religions
Mainstream religion is a party to which everyone is invited. Wolves lie down with lambs, princes mix with paupers, and as long as you're not gay or into science or anything, you can be as humbly subordinate as the next speck of dust. Casting their eye over such a scene, however, any self-respecting celebrity would simply hiss, "Get off my coat" at the favela nun kneeling on their Dior, then screech the age-old question: "Where the hell is the VIP room?"
Scientology – the religion with science right up there in the title
Our first port of celestial call is, inevitably, Scientology – the religion started by a man who once said, "I'd like to start a religion. That's where the money is." Yet while we could fill hundreds of pages with accounts of the moneymaking schemes, the grand-jury indictments, the secretive compounds and the jaw-droppingly malicious houndings of people who have criticised the church down the decades, we must limit our examination to the celebrity angle.
Gingerly, then, very gingerly, to Scientology's most famous face. Everyone knows Tom Cruise is a Scientologist, but there was a time when we knew it less alarmingly, if you will. That time was during the years that the formidable Hollywood operator Pat Kingsley served as his publicist, who somehow preserved his image as an intensely enthusiastic, but basically likeable guy. The kind of guy Katie Holmes, the actress who gave us wholesome little Joey on TV's Dawson's Creek, might have had a poster of on her bedroom wall.
But you really can't keep a lid on Cruise's brand of nutty for ever, and in 2004 Tom ended his relationship with Kingsley and installed his sister, Lee Anne, a fellow Scientologist, as his publicist. You may as well regard this as year zero in terms of the emergence of the Cruise you know today. The one who surfs sofas. The one who derides women suffering from post natal depression. The one whose public behaviour caused the owner of Paramount to sever his studio's 14-year relationship with the actor's production company.
Too long for hibs.net...the rest is in link above
• This is an edited extract from Celebrity: How Entertainers Took Over The World And Why We Need An Exit Strategy, by Marina Hyde,
:top marks
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/mar/28/celebrities-public-figures-politics-aid
Say what?!
Time was when entertainers knew their place. Today they run riot, adopting orphans by the pramload, extolling oddball religions and even brokering peace deals. What's going on, asks Marina Hyde
On the eve of the last Palestinian presidential elections, a televised message was broadcast to voters. "Hi, I'm Richard Gere," smiled its star, "and I'm speaking for the entire world ..." Did you miss the meeting at which this got decided? Does it seem like an encouraging state of affairs? Do you find it confusing that Richard Gere should claim not simply to be speaking for himself (debatable), but for the whole of Earth? Then apologies for startling you, but this is your world. Try not to choke on it. In 1990 Richard was starring in Pretty Woman; 15 years later, he was making formal interventions into Middle East politics. The saddest part is that you weren't even in a coma for that period, so future generations are going to regard you as complicit.
Of course, we're not just talking about Richard Gere – although, as planet spokesmodel, he's certainly a reasonable starting point. We're talking about the entire celebriscape, which in recent years has seemed to be expanding at least twice as fast as the universe it inhabits. Once upon a time, the entertainment industry was an industry that made entertainment. Its workforce was required to do quaint things such as show up to movie sets, or make music, or go to wild parties. Today, that brief has expanded slightly. It now includes proselytising for alien religions, trying to negotiate with the Taliban, getting photographed in a manner that basically constitutes an unsolicited gynaecology examination, and being brought in to fix the Iraqi refugee crisis.
Are you familiar with the term "mission creep"? Mission creep is the expansion of an enterprise beyond its original goals, typically after initial successes. Hilarity does not usually ensue. What does ensue are things such as the escalation of the Korean war, or the Crusades, or Sharon Stone explaining that earthquakes are visited upon Chinese peasants because of "karma".
So keep your wits about you, stardust consumers, and prepare to tumble down the rabbit hole. Above all, remember this: if the entertainment industry is the solution, we're asking the wrong questions.
When celebrities share
We have seen a wholly encouraging proliferation in the numbers of ways celebrities can communicate with a public anxious for news. Where once a star wishing to share themselves would be limited to traditional outlets, it is now possible to telegraph one's state of mind via an exciting new range of communicative platforms. Tattoos, fragrances, snack lines – even sex tapes. And, in most cases, they're lucrative. Frankly, there's never been a better time to have nothing interesting to say.
Tattoos: Say it with body art
Where stars are concerned, tattoos exist for two reasons: to beam their powerful personal philosophy to the world, and to provide us with an aide-memoire of their romantic entanglements.
Falling within the former category are tattoos such as Billy Bob Thornton's "Remember the Alamo" and Robbie Williams' "Elvis, Grant Me Serenity". The latter category boasts entries such as David Beckham's earnestly misspelt Hindi triumph, "Vihctoria", and Eminem's belly-spanning tribute to his ex-wife, Kim, in which the words "Rot in Pieces" sit atop her open grave. Naturally, no treatise on this subject would be complete without running the rule over at the Zen mistress of tattoo affectation: Angelina Jolie, whose largest organ should be regarded as the Rosetta Stone of celebrity (http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/celebrity) body art.
In fact, we probably shouldn't rule out the theory that Angelina is simply adopting or biologically spawning children as backup for the inevitable moment when she realises she has no available flesh left. Yet it seems she will at least endeavour to fill up Brad Pitt's defaceable torso first. The first Brad unveiled was a forearm tattoo of Otzi the iceman. The second was a mysterious series of parallel lines that were diversely interpreted as a tribute to the great Nintendo platform games of the 80s, and a diagram of the New Orleans levee system. As it turned out, the speculation was way off target: Angelina herself had created the cryptic hieroglyph. "We went to Davos," she said. "One night we didn't have anything to do, so I was drawing on his back. It's meaningful in that it's us making angles and shapes out of each other's body, that kind of a thing." No. That is not why it is meaningful. It is meaningful because the kind of people who get so bored that they doodle on each other and turn the doodles into permanent tattoos are now attending the World Economic Forum.
Celebrity product ranges: A better class of tat
With the arguable exception of incontinence pads, there is no product some celebrity or other wouldn't slap their name on if they thought there might be money in it. Don't believe it? Then it's probably time we talked about the Kiss Kasket.
Kiss are not merely a rock band you could never care about, no matter how many more eternities they keep flogging their face-painted, catsuited, age-inappropriate act. They're the most rapaciously merchandising entertainers ever to have existed. Against their awesomely shameless record, even will-this-do product spewer Gwen Stefani is a merchandising pygmy. This lot have licensed their name to more than 3,000 products, from the Kiss toothbrush ("Rock your teeth clean") to Kiss studded condoms (let's not and say we did) to Kiss bathroom tiles (really?) to Kiss Cabernet Sauvignon (OK, just leave now).
But in June 2001 it became clear that Kiss were not simply scraping the bottom of the barrel. The barrel had a concealed basement. And so to the Kiss Kasket, the world's first celebrity-branded coffin. Have you ever contemplated falling into death's embrace and thought how much sweeter it would be if a member of the entertainment industry had ripped you off one last time before your surviving relatives began shovelling in the earth? Then let's hear some more about the product that could make that happen. The Kiss Kasket featured the faces of the band's four founder members, as well as its logo and the slogan "Kiss Forever". It retailed at $4,500 unsigned and $5,000 signed. Come on: this may be a difficult time for you, but an autograph's an autograph. It's what the Kasket's kargo would have wanted. As Kiss frontman Gene Simmons declared on its launch : "This is the ultimate Kiss collectible." High praise indeed. "I love living," he added, "but this makes the alternative look pretty damn good."
Celebrity religions
Mainstream religion is a party to which everyone is invited. Wolves lie down with lambs, princes mix with paupers, and as long as you're not gay or into science or anything, you can be as humbly subordinate as the next speck of dust. Casting their eye over such a scene, however, any self-respecting celebrity would simply hiss, "Get off my coat" at the favela nun kneeling on their Dior, then screech the age-old question: "Where the hell is the VIP room?"
Scientology – the religion with science right up there in the title
Our first port of celestial call is, inevitably, Scientology – the religion started by a man who once said, "I'd like to start a religion. That's where the money is." Yet while we could fill hundreds of pages with accounts of the moneymaking schemes, the grand-jury indictments, the secretive compounds and the jaw-droppingly malicious houndings of people who have criticised the church down the decades, we must limit our examination to the celebrity angle.
Gingerly, then, very gingerly, to Scientology's most famous face. Everyone knows Tom Cruise is a Scientologist, but there was a time when we knew it less alarmingly, if you will. That time was during the years that the formidable Hollywood operator Pat Kingsley served as his publicist, who somehow preserved his image as an intensely enthusiastic, but basically likeable guy. The kind of guy Katie Holmes, the actress who gave us wholesome little Joey on TV's Dawson's Creek, might have had a poster of on her bedroom wall.
But you really can't keep a lid on Cruise's brand of nutty for ever, and in 2004 Tom ended his relationship with Kingsley and installed his sister, Lee Anne, a fellow Scientologist, as his publicist. You may as well regard this as year zero in terms of the emergence of the Cruise you know today. The one who surfs sofas. The one who derides women suffering from post natal depression. The one whose public behaviour caused the owner of Paramount to sever his studio's 14-year relationship with the actor's production company.
Too long for hibs.net...the rest is in link above
• This is an edited extract from Celebrity: How Entertainers Took Over The World And Why We Need An Exit Strategy, by Marina Hyde,