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Saturday 23 March 2013

Bleaching the ivories

As parodied by John Cleese in Rat Race

What’s this thing celebrities have about brilliant white teeth? Teeth should be the colour of ivory, not my ceiling. The eerie white glow spooks me every time they open their mouths - like long fingernails being dragged down a blackboard.

Physically attractive celebrities open their mouths and - ugh - is there something mechanical in that strangely glowing hole? Are they so frightened of the dark that they must banish it merely by smiling? 

Not that there is anything too demeaning about being afraid of the dark, but why are they so relentlessly shallow with it? Why so thoughtlessly addicted to fluffy causes with a totalitarian flavour? Why speak in Cliché or Moron - what's wrong with English?

Imagine a world where celebrities have interesting, even radical opinions to offer. I don’t mean the cheap jibes we hear ad nauseam from routine shows such as HIGNFY, but one or two flickers of imaginative depth would be a welcome change. The subject doesn't matter - interesting would be more than enough. A miracle even.

Calling Cameron a numpty is all very well, but even his friend must have done that to death. How about some insight for a change? Of course anyone may easily ignore celebrities, but their ubiquitous presence in the public arena is a kind of announcement:-

Stupid is here to stay - get used to it dude.

Now that may be quite true and not a bad, if depressing aphorism to carry around at the back of one’s mind, but being hit over the head with it all the time is a tad unsatisfactory...

...mind you, I found myself admiring tweed jackets the other day. With leather patches on the elbows.

5 comments:

Sackerson said...

I associate leather elbow patches with teachers of the old type; the profession has become so demeaned these days you need leather patches on the knees instead, because of all the begging and crawling.

Sam Vega said...

I think celebrities are neutral so far as intelligence is concerned. Celebrity is merely the desire for recognition, coupled with the means to achieve it. In the past, people more frequently achieved celebrity by means of their intelligence, but unfortunately technology has changed all that. It looks odd to us, because we have lived through the change. To someone in their twenties, it is entirely natural that large numbers of nonentities have a huge platform of publicity.

A K Haart said...

Sackers - yet from the outside it seems comfortable enough if a little fraught. Can't say I ever fancied it though.

Sam - I agree about the effect of living through the change. Celebrity now feels more like a focal point for markets.

Demetrius said...

Fifty and odd years ago in Covent Garden there was a long serving lady in Flowers, who was known as Big Winnie The Teeth. It is a long story but in those days it was rare to meet an older person in almost any class who could sport a full set of white choppers.

A K Haart said...

Demetrius - maybe that's why hi-vis choppers are so fashionable now.