The Celebrity Culture

Perhaps one of the worst things about our world today, in my estimation, is the all-pervasive, wall-to-wall, round-the-clock celebrity culture that dominates so much of our society, much more than it ever did in the past thanks to our modern means of instant mass communication. Singers, actors, sportsmen and public performers of all kinds represent the new pantheon of gods of our age and we pay them the homage we are led to believe is their due. These are the quintessential idols of the 20th century before whom we prostrate ourselves. We praise them, honour them, extol them, and worship at their altar, holding them up as paragons of humanity. Lacking the awe-inspiring super-heroes, real and mythical, of ancient Greece and Rome, having foresaken the prophets of old, these are their modern-day equivalents. Somehow I feel we have lost out in the exchange.

Today the Industry of the Vain is healthier than ever. A huge number of individuals who are pretty-much useless to society in practical terms are rewarded with astronomical sums for singing, acting or practising sport. It is thought that they must be richly compensated for playing games and essentially doing what they love to do because, obviously, they would not do what they love to do if they were not paid for it, would they? By contrast we pay chicken-feed to those workers who keep our society and our bodies functioning, whilst we pay a bunch of self-absorbed hedonists fortunes for prancing about on a stage and singing out of tune, or pretending to be someone they are not in a film, or kicking a round object about a field. Those who provide the indispensable services without which our society would fall apart overnight and those who nurse and treat us without which we ourselves would fall apart are paid pittances and have to struggle to survive.

The rows of palatial mansions that line the verdant boulevards in Beverley Hills and Hollywood in general are an eloquent testimony to what we prize in today’s world and who we reward the most. If you are a pop singer, a movie actor, a footballer, we will ensure that you have a grand lifestyle that befits your status as a useless member of society but if you are a teacher, a nurse or a bus-driver you will be treated with the contempt you deserve and your wages will reflect this. If you are doing something you enjoy and which basically is a game or a pretence, then riches are your reward, but if you are providing an essential service to society, expect low wages, long hours and hard times. (If you are a banker, of course, you will be helping yourself to rich pickings in the way that only bankers know and, providing your artifices and scams go undetected, you can expect to rake in millions over the course of your working life, followed by an exceedingly generous pension and retirement benefits to last you the rest of your selfish life – but that’s another story.)

Today our young people, not to mention the not so young, have as their life models and exemplars the products of the Industry of the Vain. Fame and fortune are the key words here, and shallowness and selfishness are their ugly sisters. We think people are wonderful because they are rich, because they have big houses and big cars, because they are physically handsome, because they sing or act or play sport, because they live the high life, have many lovers, go on lots of holidays, wear expensive clothes and jewellery – in other words, we admire them for all the wrong things. We praise the superficial and condemn the profound. Vanity is mistaken for value. As the saying goes, we know the price of everything and the value of nothing. Everyone wants instant fame and envies those who achieve it, even if it only lasts an instant!

This is borne out in the Big Brother series where people, young and old, famous or unknown, give us first-rate examples of selfishness, arrogance, greed, vanity, boorishness, gluttony, aggression, and self-indulgence. Unpleasant and distasteful individuals delude themselves into thinking that they are ‘precious worthies’ who should be loved and adored by everyone. Their inevitable petty arguments and brattishness expose them for what they really are and, had they just half a brain, they would have opted for the sensible course and stayed away from BB exposure in the first place. But, their overweening vanity and conviction of their own worth and their unquenchable thirst for fame, if not riches, leads them to join such a very public circus. And in the majority of cases, by the end of the whole charade, they have provided ample proof of what the kind of sorry individuals they are: pathetic self-adoring misfits whom no-one in their right mind would want to befriend outside the BB house!

But fame and fortune are not enough for the lovelies that make up the starry firmament of Hollywood and its round-the-world imitators. The ‘stars’ must have their corresponding dose of adulation and quota of accolades from peers and the public. They must have their public ceremonies recognising their services to... themselves... oops, sorry... I mean the film and music industries, the performing arts, etc etc. They must be given awards, prizes and trophies, and speeches must be made to let the world in general know what wonderful wonderful darlings they all are: kind, modest, generous, big-hearted, worthy individuals with a heart of gold. Prizes are handed out for Best This and Best That and Best Other. They all congratulate themselves, pat themselves on the back, tell each other what wonderful people they are, shed a few tears of emotion for their talents having at last been recognised by everyone and look forward to yet more award ceremonies that have sprouted up in recent decades to ensure that the greatness of all these Hollywood lovelies is duly

And this is the world we have created in the year of our Lord 2010. This is where Jesus’s teachings two thousand years ago have led, it would seem. This is the heritage we are leaving our children. This is the culmination of several thousand years of civilisation. All roads have led to this. The frenetic pursuit of fame and fortune would seem to run counter to all religious and moral precepts and teachings. The bloated celebrity culture we have today, the pursuit of money, the longing for public adulation and flattery, the sexual promiscuity, the loudness and brashness, the shallowness and fleetingness of everything, and the adoration of ostentation and excess would appear to represent all the evils that Jesus warned and railed against. Today we live in a godless and amoral (not to say 'immoral') society where Mammon rules worldwide. We believe in nothing, we have no moral convictions, no ethical foundation, no certainty of anything anymore. We have set before us all the wrong role models, all based on self-aggrandisement, self-promotion and self-enrichment at the expense of everything else and we are buffeted from side to side by the slightest cultural breeze or wave of fashion that is churned up by one or other group of self-interested individuals intent on making a fortune for themselves.

In conclusion, I would like to make one thing perfectly plain. Though I mention Jesus here, my intention is neither to promote religion or a belief in God or any god or to put forward any particular doctrine or dogma or argue for sexual abstinence or or any other practice. I am merely suggesting that we have created a society that is morally bankrupt, that has produced a celebrity culture which has set before us all the wrong role models based on pure materialism, greed, self-importance and self-advertisement. We have a society today in which it is apparently perfectly acceptable for a priest to come on a show where contestants endeavour to win thousands of pounds for themselves! How can this be squared with his calling, I wonder? How in God’s name can this be justified with reference to Jesus’s ministry on earth? I have not yet worked this one out and I think I never will.