Fame

Fame must be an odd thing.  Additive apparently.

I hit on Google News the other morning and found a news story about Amanda Bynes, who apparently has taken up publishing photos of herself nude or nearly nude, on the net.  All I know about Amanda Bynes is that she was a child actress with a show on television called, I think, Amanda Please.  I remember when the kids were young, they'd watch it, and like most shows of that type, I absolutely hated it.  It was extremely irritating.

I wouldn't expect a show like that to translate into adult success, so one would hope that somebody salted away some cash so that those early years paid off somehow later.  I have no idea if they did or not, but now it would seem she's imploding in the public eye, or so desperate for attention and the revival of her fame, that she's willing to exploit herself in the worst possible way.  Bizarre.

But not isolated.

Another child actress, Miley Cyrus is in the news a lot as well, and a lot of that has to do with presenting herself in as trashy of way as conceivably possible.  As a child actress (with another show that I absolutely hated) she had a pretty clean image, so in contrast she's presenting the opposite now. Why?  Who knows, other than it gets her name in the press a lot. It doesn't seem to be translating into work, however.

Also in the news it seems that some figure who was on the MTV show documenting the lives of teenage single mothers has been engaging in filmed pornography.  That's not only bizarre, but disgusting.  I suppose this is basically the prostitution of her image for cash, and perhaps indicates a certain degree of financial desperation, but my gosh, really?  Who would buy this. And did she forget how she ended up being eligible for a teen mother expose in the first place?

And then we have Lindsey Lohan, who is always in the news trying to get out attention.  She's busy getting arrested, getting stoned, or selling herself in print.  Why?  Again, she was a childhood actress and then a teen actress. That's probably more success of that type than a person can expect, so a person ought to be good with that.  No reason not to just retire and enjoy things from there on out. But apparently that won't be the case, and for some it's better to melt down in the public eye than just go on and live a dignified life. But why?

Closer to home, last week saw a weird, weird news story where a UW student anonymously threatened herself with violent physical assault.  Apparently there was a UW centered Facebook page where students could go on and publish their crushes on other students. That such a Facebook page would be monumentally stupid is self evident, but none the less, it apparently was.  Anyhow, a UW student threatened herself, in the guise of an anonymous poster, with rape.  Now why would somebody do something that stupid?

I don't really know, but what I do know is that the student in question came into the public eye with UW invited radical Bill Ayres to speak, and then dis-invited him.  That whole episode was pretty stupid also, but it sparked a lawsuit, in which this particular student was a plaintiff, and she had her moment in the sun as a sort of celebrity.  These things pass, of course, but she's apparently kept on keeping on as a feminist figure.

I don't know that this is about fame, and I don't care if she is a feminist campaigner. That's her absolute right.  I do feel sorry for her, however, as this misstep is a bad one.  People ought to back off and leave her alone, as it's just a silly youthful error and nothing more, and this moment will surely pass never to be remembered, but I do wonder if it's another example of the corrosiveness of fame.


Perhaps the worst example I can think of concerning the strange impact of fame is the entire Khardashian clan.  We're constantly being afflicted with news stories on the three (or four?) Khardashian sisters and their sort of icky lives. 

I have no idea what the Khardashians are actually known for. Their father was a well known California lawyer, but so what?  They aren't.  And lawyer fame dies quickly with the lawyer, with only a very few, and very rare, number of lawyers being remembered even shortly after their deaths.  I doubt, quite frankly, that most people even recall that their father was a well known lawyer.  As for this collection of sisters, what have they done?  I honestly don't know, but at any rate they're constantly in the news with marriages, divorces, pregnancies etc.  I think they're famous for being famous.  The problem with that kind of fame is that it trades on image alone. They're not bad looking, of course, but they have to sell that, and not even in the fashion with a model or actress might.  It's really unseemly.

Of course, none of this is new or even news.  People have traded in their fame for eons, or at least as long as there was some sort of media which could promote self-promotion.  As I'm not well versed in this class of folks, I couldn't give specific examples, I'm sure, but I am quite sure it's long occurred, and that that this isn't new.  Probably what is new about it is that it now seems to be a requirement to do something really shocking or really disgusting in order to get the spot light turned back on, no matter how brief that light may be.

But it doesn't have to be so.  I can think of at least a few actors or actresses who were child performers who have recently seemed to pass into real adulthood, some preserving careers, and others recognizing that the spot light is now off, and therefore moving into other things.  And in the past, there's been some examples of people who have gone on to much more dignified adulthood's than we're seeing here, just as there's been examples of those who have flamed out, self promoted, or just acted badly.  I suppose that this is just another example of the Internet allowing something to be sped up, and conducted more openly in the public eye, for good and ill both.