I have long worried about our celebrity-crazed culture and how it celebrates dysfunction and brings ruin to hyper-celebrities and average people alike. Rather than challenging us to greater levels of virtue, service and achievement—that is, to the greater exercise of human exceptionalism—the popular culture celebrates licentiousness, lack of principles, selfishness, and a me-me/I-I lifestyle.
And now the actress Joan Collins has made the same point as reported in today’s New York Post. From the story:
Joan Collins says we’re turning into a world of idiots—and she thinks the celebrity magazines are partly to blame. “Our civilization has become extremely dumbed down, with shorter attention spans. All they want are sound bites,” the 75-year-old diva, who famously played super-bitchy Alexis Carrington on “Dynasty,” tells BlackBook’s Steve Garbarino. “The tabloid magazines are the same every week. People has the same cover as InTouch as OK! as Us Weekly as Star magazine. They’re exactly the same! It must be 100 to 120 people you read about all the time.” But why? “They are appealing to a young audience, or a rather dumb audience,” Collins theorizes. She adds that the magazines “go after those girls who exhibit more outrageous behavior. And, believe me, those girls love it. They call in items themselves—that they were at Nobu, some nightclub in SoHo. I can’t think of anything more horrible than that. Publicity can be a drug.
Add in Cosmopolitan, MTV, Madonna, and hip-hop, among many others, which and who push behaviors that literally destroy lives.
Of course, Collins benefited from that very paradigm during her career, but let us be charitable and acknowledge that age brings wisdom. And I know that I sound like an old man grousing about “in my day.” But when I look at the biggest mistakes I have made in my life and the pain I have caused others to my great regret, I can now see that most of my bad behavior resulted from my sometimes enthusiastic pursuit of the lifestyle promoted by the celebrity and popular cultures.
Collins is right. All of this garbage is hurting individuals and our society. Badly.
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