Saturday, 10 February 2024
Low Wattage Celebrities
Anyone paying attention will have noticed this, so it’s not original, but many celebrities don’t seem to be particularly bright. They imitate fashionable memes, phrases and topics of conversation but don’t venture beyond the safety of the orthodox and the banal. The media pretend otherwise but that’s their job.
The obvious suspicion is that many celebrities stick with vapid chat because they aren’t equipped for anything else. As if their status as a celebrity is only maintained by the team behind them, manager, agent, publicist and so on. They have something which can moulded into a celebrity, but not without help and they don’t have much else beyond the job of being a celebrity.
Putting aside the issues surrounding him, Prince Harry is a prime example. He clearly isn’t equipped to be a public speaker, raconteur or capable of holding an audience by his wit, wisdom or comedic talent. He is where he is because of what he is, but isn’t able to take it an inch beyond that. Meghan’s mistake.
Similarly there are famous actors who can act but cannot extend their public persona much beyond the acting. Even the most gushing interviews tend to bring this out, the banal nature of their views on life, a tendency to imitate fashionable sentiment and topical outrage while adding nothing of their own. Not that fans generally care of course, but a few must wonder.
Many politicians are much the same, even senior and well-established politicians. Far too many are professional imitators and plagiarists, not originators. Not adept enough to have veracity and reform work in their favour, they end up trying to make political theatre and lies do the job instead. Starmer is one of those.
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3 comments:
Those who hang on the words and opinions of actors seem to forget that they earn their crust by doing what they are told: no advanced thought required.
Long ago, it was possible to be a very successful and useful politician without having any "celebrity qualities" whatsoever. Clement Attlee is a good example, and we can list many politicians who did well but of whom we know nothing of their personalities.
The change seems to have been led by TV and the subsequent electronic media. In our kind of representative democracy, appearance is more important than actual competence, at least for getting into office. So we now have two new phenomena. Dangerous shyster criminals, like Blair and Johnson; those who have "celebrity qualities" and can connect with people. And talentless mediocrities like Starmer, who can't even connect but beclown themselves by trying to do so.
Jannie - that's it, learn the lines and deliver them in character.
Sam - yes it does seem to have been led by TV and now electronic media. One day historians may look back on TV and conclude that it was an even bigger disaster than it seems to be now.
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