Interesting blog I stumbled upon on CNN's website. It fits perfectly here!
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http://www.cnn.com/SHOWBIZ/blogs/marquee/index.html
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Why DO we care?
I have a friend, a former academic, who likes to quote a line about professorial infighting: The battles are so vicious, it goes, because the stakes are so low.
The same can be said about many entertainment stories. Few people would insist that Tom 'n' Katie's wedding or Madonna's latest escapade or Britney Spears' divorce mean anything in the larger scheme of things. And yet these are exactly the sorts of stories that attract the most emotional commentary -- and the greatest interest.
Which has me wondering, once again: So, why do we care?
(And no doubt there's someone out there saying, "Well, I don't care" -- though the people who say that belie their level of caring by writing the most vitriolic comments.)
Part of it, I think, gets back to what my colleague Dave Levine said about the Cruise-Holmes wedding. These are stories that tap into some universal archetypes: rags to riches, love's ups and downs, sin, forgiveness and redemption. (Michael Richards, as did many before him, is undergoing the latter series now. Depending on his future, either the event will be a single sentence in his obituary -- no more or less important than his performance in "Unstrung Heroes" or his role in "Fridays" -- or part of the lead.)
But there's also the matter of what writer Maureen Orth calls the "celebrity-industrial complex," the endless machine made up of the news media, entertainment companies, performers, handlers, advisers and consultants (and, yes, consumers) that's dependent upon such stories for its daily fuel -- and, like any capitalistic enterprise, only exists as long as interest continues. Which means there's a great deal at stake to keep the machine running.
People like Paris Hilton use the machine very shrewdly; and yes, we can all say we don't care about Paris Hilton, but her photograph sells magazines, her smell sells perfumes, and a headline about her on CNN.com invariably draws traffic. And her adventures (even the ones that seem, well, choreographed) remind us that no matter how well known we are or how rich our friends or family, we are all similarly vulnerable to being human.
Which keeps the machine in motion until the day that, for whatever reason, these things don't happen. And then the machine will move on to something else.
There's also a third element: art.
Sometimes art is produced by the machine: witness the Hollywood studio system or the Brill Building songwriting combine. Other times art gets lost beneath the machine, overwhelmed by the noise. Either way, it gives an added dimension to entertainment beyond momentary joy or distraction. (What is art? Well, that's a source of argument among those academics for whom the stakes are so low.)
With all that in mind, a knowledgeable consumer should be aware of how the machine works and what it means to society. So if you do care, try these three books:
"The Image" by Daniel Boorstin. Though Boorstin's book came out in the early '60s, it still has a lot to say about how news became "news" and how people in the news became "celebrities" -- in Boorstin's oft-quoted coinage, a person who is known for his well-knownness.
"Amusing Ourselves to Death" by Neil Postman. How did television, a great communications tool, become an even greater source of distraction? If you want to understand how complex issues got turned into black-and-white emotional hot buttons, Postman's 1985 book offers food for thought.
"Life: The Movie" by Neal Gabler. From the back cover of the paperback edition: "The story of how our bottomless appetite for novelty, gossip, glamour and melodrama has turned everything of importance ... into one vast public entertainment."
And if you're wondering where I stand, well, of course I care. I care about some topics because our readers are genuinely interested, and others because I am genuinely moved, as well. And it's my job to make sure that CNN.com's Entertainment page reflects the full picture.
Posted by Todd Leopold, CNN.com Entertainment Producer: 10:55 AM
