Gonzovision
fame & the shit slap
The global village is turning into a jungle for today's celebrities. People must've started figuring that out since Tom Cruise went nuts on Oprah's couch. Back in the old days that episode never ever would've seen the light of day. Tom's high powered handlers would've corralled Oprah in to deep 6ing the tape with the promise of something really good; the way Tiger Woods handlers reached an arrangement with the National Enquirer. Of course that's a hold over from the days when Celebrity images were carefully cultivated and protected as the corporate assets they were! Nowadays there's no point. Even if Oprah had killed the Cruise episode about a dozen cell cams would've captured the fiasco. By the time it would've got posted to Youtube, Oprah would've lost all credibility.
So the whole mediascape has changed. It's changed in a way that allows everyone to know everything. When it come s to celebrity knowing to much, instead of what you're meant to know, can be lethal to the business, To put this in plain English - for a change (that 3rd beer is kicking in), it means the minute a celebrity fucks up the world knows and they're toast. Just like those former entertainment gods of yore Mel Gibson, Michael Richards, John Galliano (This isn't supposed to be racist themed but more celebs have turned out to be racist than we imagined - Oliver Stone is one text message away from being lower than Roman Polanski on the shit scale, let's put it that way. A black actor I once heard interviewed recalled meeting Stone at a party and telling him how much he liked Scarface. Stone replied "All you n****rs love that film", and walked away. The guy made a lunge at Stone, but his best friend and his manager held him back, reminding him that his future was on the line at that moment. I can post that here, and even post the video of the young actor, if I could find it, but it won't have much impact unless there's a video or audio of Stone himself running off at the mouth - that's entertainment!). They were all ruined when stuff got out into the public that destroy their image.
That makes the Internet a 2 edged sword for starry eyed little monster with an agenda of self fulfillment and bent on their own version of world domination (Lady Gaga?). The new media can make you faster than you can say Balloon Boy (Richard Heine had been trying to land a TV series ever since Box Time and figured that he'd finally found the way. Nowadays he's too shy to show his face in public!). It gives you a lot to work with like immediate access to a global audience. However it's still very unforgiving of mistakes. If you don't know exactly what you doing you could fall off of the mercury surf board into one hell of a nose dive tail spin!
That means celebrities may have to re-access things. After all the rules of their game have radically changed. They still blunder around like their just starting to figure that out. When some former star falls from grace the rest of the pack are only too happy to score points by pouncing on the corpse before it's even had time to hit the dirt and cool off. Like Natalie Portman with John Galliano (I'm not nominating Galliano for the Nobel Peace Prize, the dirty stinker! - but I think his problems have more to do with anger and alcohol than racism). Meanwhile they themselves are only one text message or youtube video away from joining him in the dog house. They're so busy trying to make image points out of it that they've overlooked a basic question "Who's next? Maybe me??"
