Entertained By Train Wrecks

Professor J,

You know how I love to connect stories and articles to our discussion and I came across a couple this week in the same paper. The first one about the annual trek to Graceland by fans who are often hysterical over the loss of "The King" all these years later relates to Hedges point about our celebrity worship: All Shook Up: Faithful Flock to Graceland. The second, about the woman who the plane The Memphis Belle was named after explains how war was romanticized and packaged for the public:

"When she realized that, despite his attentions, her boyfriend was a womanizer, Polk broke off the engagement but agreed to continue the charade as part of the nationally publicized tour orchestrated by the publicity division of the War Department." (Full story here)

Hedges could have been talking about that exact story when he wrote: (The illusion of war peddled in The Sands of Iwo Jima)" ...worked because it was what the public wanted to believe about themselves. It was what the government and the military wanted to promote."

I couldn't believe how accurate Bradbury's vision of the future was: "Life, Bradbury understood, once it was packaged and filmed, became the most compelling form of entertainment." (29) I find it depressingly fascinating that so many would rather mindlessly imbibe the lives of others, than live their own lives. Just thinking of how often viewers passively watch others do everything from exercise to fall in love is startling.  Not only are we not participating in the culture but instead as you point out are fiddling while the whole thing spins downward, but many are not even present for their own lives. We want to believe in something but somehow we can't have the thing we believe in be ourselves, or that our own lives unwatched, unfilmed, unpromoted may be worthwhile.


I found the connection of all this reality television nonsense (Where have all the writers gone?) and the rise of the surveillance in stores, at stoplights, or on public streets to be interesting: "Mark Andrejevic, a professor of communication studies at the University of Iowa at Iowa City, writes that reality shows like Big Brother and Survivor glamorize the intrusiveness of the surveillance state, presenting it as one of the hip attributes of the contemporary world' 'an entree into the world of wealth and celebrity, and even a moral good." (p39)

I like the phrase Hedges uses for all of this nonsense that we allow ourselves to be lured away from reality with: "This cult of distraction..." We are, it seems, quickly losing our grip on reality. And decency. And self respect. Of all the depressing examples the author uses, the Jerry Springer one in which a husband both allows and encourages his wife to make a public spectacle of herself, I felt was the worst. To allow her to be humiliated and degraded in a public setting was just sad to me. For her to allow herself to be made a laughingstock (surely when you are going on the Springer show you know what's coming) is just as bad. It seems to be a cultural phenomena for people to be so dim that they don't realize when they are the unwitting butt of the joke. Think cast of Jersey Shore.  What's worse is that at the end of the whole sordid episode Springer deems it "true love." Is this how low we've sunk? We can no longer tell the difference between idiocy and love.  The skinny cheerleader's mocking smile in the background without an ounce of compassion or understanding made me cringe. Her smug sense of superiority due to her looks was so familiar and nauseating. As if beauty earns her the right to be cruel. Painfully common, unfortunately. In this cowardly new world, character and kindness are often in short supply.


As Hedges points out, once celebrity or wealth is obtained one is held to a different set of standards, or rather a non-existent one. We see athletes who break the law and are found guilty and sent to prison only to receive multi-million dollar contracts once they are released, or in the case of Michael Vick a phone call from the president. Actors, super models,  and musicians are expected to misbehave and treat others poorly. Everyone is just supposed to be thrilled to work for/with them to the point that rules of common decency become things for other people. Not them. Sadly, they are often allowed to self destruct while posses of "yes" men hang on to the end making every penny they can. Parents of child stars allow their children to be ill used by publicists and agents so that they can keep being invited to A list parties and traveling in private jets. It's all so very "casting pearls before swine" as to be sickening. When the whole thing goes to hell a little more publicity and attention can be eeked out on some show about celebrity rehab or with a book deal (with a ghost writer, of course).

"Reality is complex, why deal with it; it makes our nutritionally depleted and shrunken brains hurt." Classic Professor J! I'm reading Eat, Pray, Love after seeing the movie several times and it is so refreshing to read Elizabeth Gilbert's words of careful introspection and mindfulness. Someone's thoughts and words on a page, the sharing of a solitary search for fulfillment and peace is like a balm on the open wound caused by this abrasive culture.