Lately I've been reading a lot of magazines, you know the ones I mean, scandal mags - they make you think that money doesn't always buy you happiness! I kept reading these names, Lauren Conrad, Audrina Partridge, Heidi Spencer et al. It got me thinking who are these people? Why are they in the magazines? Then I sat and thought about the majority of the so-called celebrities in the magazines, WHO ARE THEY?
I enjoy reading about famous people, I really enjoy Autobiographies and Biographies, particularly ones about early movie stars, directors and people involves in the whole star system from the birth of Hollywood at the turn of the last century right through to I would say the 70's. Not just Hollywood though, New York, and London. I enjoy reading about the tough life that it was. Glamour on the screen and damned hard work off it. A time when films went into production and were filmed with military precision and completed within 6 weeks. When being a box office smash got you a few thousand a week - if you were really big, and yet by the time you had paid agency fees, and rented the big Hollywood mansion, because it was expected and you had an image to maintain, looked after other various hangers on you had little real cash to show for it. At the beginning of your career youu usually owed people left right and centre.
You kept working, one film finished another one started and inbetween you went out on tour to promote your last film. We may not appreciate the films from the twenties and thirties, we may find them a little overplayed and more than a little naff in this day and age, but the stars themselves worked for their stardom, they were discovered, hyped worked - to death in some instances - and expected to live exemplorary lives in private. Moral codes were highly thought of by studio Bosses, and people who broke the rules were punished. Careers were broken by scandal.
These days we still have 'Movie Stars', many of them. I just wonder how they really feel, when sharing the red carpet at a film premier with someone who has grabbed their fame through what is really notoriety.
I watched 'The Hills', a supposedly fly on the wall docu-style series which purported to follow a group of young people living, working, going to school in the Hollywood Hills area of California. It turns out it was heavily organised and arranged. Ok fair do's we are all at fault for watching these types of programme, and yes it is quite addictive, but the people in them are not STARS. They haven't worked at their craft or earned their fame, not in real terms.
Then there's Katie Price/Reid/Jordan - whoever she wants to be at this moment in time. A page three girl who decided not to just make the career that most page 3 girls have, which is fine, blokes want a pair of boobs pointing at them from their daily paper. No-one seriously thinks they're being exploited, good god kids are far to savvy today to be exploited, if anything the poor saps who buy the paper are the exploited. Jordan inflated her assets to ridiculous proportions and has changed her body and face untill she looks like a caracature of her real self. She has bled every opportunity to make money at every turn. Some might say 'smart business' move but is it really? Kerry Katona, who left Atomic Kitten before they became really big, is in our papers almost every week and for what? Bad choices in sexual partner, gaining and losing weight, having a naturally big bust, having it made smaller/perkier, and going bankrupt! Most normal people would be ashamed if the neighbours knew what was going on, she and her ilk seem to revel in the notoriety.
And dont get me started on Cheryl Cole!!!!!! The nations sweetheart. Huh as Jim Royle would put it 'My Arse'. yes she is in a sucessfull girl band, and has been judging on the X Factor, (which looked on as a comedy show is ok, but after Jedward please dont ask us to take it seriously), Oh an her hair extensions were good enough for L'Oreal to employ but really girls she's 'Not Worth It'. The worry with her divorce from another overpaid, over-egoed supposed sportsman, and then the hue and cry over her malaria. I was beside myself-NOT.
But bottom of the heap - Big Brother 'Celebrities'. A number of No-Hopers, removed from society, locked in a fancy house, allowed to drink themselves into stupidity 7 nights a week, encouraged to be promiscuous for the titilation of a tiny minority audience. We stopped people going round Lunatic asylums over a hundred years ago as it was deemed insensitive to the inmates, now we just put channel 4 on.
Real Stars/Celebrities have worked long and hard at their craft, they deserve some recognition, other than their paycheque and yes I like to read about them and their lives, but this endless line of nobodys famous for being famous are less deserving of their notoriety than say the Great train Robbers or the Kray Twins or Al Capone!
If a child says they want to be a singer or film star I can accept that, but if, as happens now a child just wants to be 'famous' I would have to express serious concern. This is the society we now live in and I for one think its awfull. Where are the Bette Davis', Kathryn Hepburns, Gloria Swansons and Jean Harlows? We are stuck with Jordan, Kerry, Cheryl and Aislyne. How sad.
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