Celebrities at their Worst - Too Far Gone or Gone To Far?
Have the recent incidents of Alec Baldwin and David Hasselhoff crossed the line between public and private or is it good that we see the unexpurgated humanity of celebrities?
In April, a recording of a phone message Baldwin left for his daughter was mysteriously leaked to the world. On the message, a fuming Baldwin blasted his daughter and referred to her as a “thoughtless little pig.” In May, video of an intoxicated David Hasselhoof, taken by one of his daughters, was leaked to the press. Neither incident flatters the stars but has the line between public and private been pushed too far?
Gossip and inane public behaviour is one thing, but does the public really need to know how these people act in their personal lives? In our daily lives, we are always involved in gossip about colleagues, friends, and neighbours. We all imagine what others might be like. We occasionally witness unfortunate moments in a person’s life, but rarely do we want to go any further. In the recent cases of Michael Richards, Don Imus, David O. Russell (who is shown in a video leaked on the net berating Lily Tomlin and behaving like a lunatic on the set of his film, I Heart Huckabees) and Mel Gibson, these were celebrities doing or saying something stupid in public. Tough break for them, but that’s life, whether you’re a celebrity or not.
However, the leak of Baldwin and Hasselhoff’s material takes us into a rarely seen private world, one that it likely too close to our own. In one sense, we enjoy gossip and idiotic public moments because on a relatively superficial level it shows us that these celebrities are just like us. However, the Baldwin and Hasselhoff tapes containing harrowing material that few of us want to see perhaps because it too shows us a side of humanity that we all know too well. Who hasn’t shouted at their kids or lost their cool in public? Let’s keep in mind that is always missing from the incident: context. Whether it’s Baldwin or Joe Blow down the road, an unfortunate incident is not isolated. Who really knows what prompted Baldwin’s rant? We only have a slice of a tape. Had his wife and daughter been playing games with him (as he asserts)? Had repeated efforts to reach his daughter been thwarted? If so, then it’s understandable that the man would get frustrated. With Hasselhoff, the video of his drunken ramblings isn’t really a bad thing. The guy has a drinking problem. Best thing to show an alcoholic is footage of themselves while they’re sauced. However, did it really need to go public? Wouldn’t it have been enough for Hasselhoff alone to see how pathetic he looked? Why should he endure public humilation? He didn’t commit a sin by being an alcoholic. These two men, it seems, are being punished, not because they have a temper or drinking problem, but because they’re celebrities. That seems unfair and unnecessary.
Conversely, this shows us of the problematic nature of celebrity. Celebrity filters out difference. It is homogenous. It paves over the rubble to make everything flat and smooth. Celebrity reduces people to types, removing the complexities and contradictions (or, as Jack D. Ripper called it in Dr. Strangelove, the “essence of their bodily fluids.”). We create false myths and elevate people to a status that filters out their essence.
We simple slugs often strive to live up to statures that are inherently false. As such, we continually chase something that isn’t there and never was. That’s where drinking, diet pills, television, botox and paxil come in. And yet, we’re not fools. The dirt of the hero constantly fascinates us because we know it’s there. We’ve been in the slime ourselves. Yet, when we seek it out in these ‘heroes,’ it’s frowned upon (because it’s reduced to gossip magazines); we’re called vultures, gossip mongers. But it’s wrong because we are just seeking a bit of ourselves in our ‘heroes.’ We don’t want to know how perfect they are, we want to know how faulty, fucked up and human they are. We want to know, paradoxically, that David Hasselhoff and Alec Baldwin are are just like us.
A cynic might say that neither argument is valid. The real motivation behind these private incidents is publicity. Does anyone remember Tommy Lee and Pamela Anderson’s home sex movie? This “accidently” leaked movie didn’t harm either career. In fact, it likely gave Tommy Lee new life. Alec Baldwin certainly wasn’t shy about grabbing some airtime on The View to discuss the issue and defend himself. Given that Hasselhoff’s career in North America was basically non-existent, the video can’t really do any harm. And if Germans (where Hasselhoff has carved out a successful music career) can tolerate his chintzy pop music, surely they can handle another embarrassing video.
Maybe we should all follow suit and start airing our dirty laundry. With all our faults, complexities, and contradictions out in the open perhaps we could get on with living our own lives instead of constantly desiring or emulating others.
Rough draft - June 2007