Echoes: Hollywood
Comment from Brian:
The other night I was wathcing Casablanca on TV and after I read this I realized that one paticular issue I have with Hollywood, is the need to measure one's ability squarely on looks. I know that if (God forbid) they ever decided to remake Casablanca, They'd have forskae charm and talent and hire someone like Lindsay Lohan and Ashton Kutcher for the leads, and because they're already desacrating it, they might as well to finsih it off by casting Dave Chapelle to be Sam. So now everytime you want him to play a song, he'll throw in a quick liner... But I digress. If you compare Hollywood to day with Hollywood 50 years ago, you'd see without question how talent is forsaken for visual appeal. Hollywood is crap, the idea of Hollywood as we knew it from it's legends and it's repect and honor is nothing more but a memory... what we have now... I couldn't even call it a shell of it's former glory because then it would imply that Hollywood now HAS some connection to what once was.
Hollywood has always been about looks. (With the exceptions of Jerry Lewis and Steve Buscemi, perhaps, but we've given Lewis to the French and Buscemi is a very talented actor, so he's cool.) And unfortunately The Industry has a significant amount of power in shaping our perceptions of people and life. We sublimate film and advertising's definitions of health, beauty, power, and success, and few people in real life can measure up to those standards.
But, thankfully, when we consciously think about the discrepancies between what we see on TV we can accept knowing and dating the "regular-looking" people like us. After all, if we all refused to hook up with anyone who couldn't fit in on some red carpet, the American population would be dwindling down to practically nothing (well, Brangelina's fifty million adoptees notwithstanding).
All the same, it's still something of a shock when I watch local TV commercials. I think, "Wow, that person is ugly!" and then have to try to view the person the way I would if I ran into them on the street. Most often, I'd think many of them were reasonably good-looking if I saw them down on Pacific Ave. Media really distorts your perception, but (for me at least) the high standards of appearance that Hollywood creates only apply to what I see on a screen.
IDK why ur so hard on famous people, they help make the world a little brightr. all this war is sooo bad, y'know and Ashton is totally hot!! (yum) laters xxxStacyxxx
You are definitely right. God knows I've changed the channel over from MSNBC News to laugh over E!'s The Simple Life.
A Comment Submitted by Harlean Carpenter Re: "TMF: Hollywood":
It's been said that the need for sleep has as much to do with the physically restorative properties of the process as it does with the mind's need for a break from reality; that is, the time to dream. In dreams we give the subconscious the time to sort out the events of the day, to tackle the challenges our conscious minds may not even be aware that we are facing, to square things away in the cellars of our souls, the dark places we can be so hesitant to even acknowledge, much less face, challenge and resolve.
It seems to me that the Hollywood Obsession is a similar process. The very fact that we can't relate to these people in any real way only enhances their appeal, allows us to view them as though they aren't real at all, and creates about them the dreamlike quality that is so necessary to the human mind. Horrific events occur every day. People are murdered and raped and tortured, cities collapse beneath earthquakes and floods, children are starved and beaten, the list goes on until one can't bear to read it any longer and one turns away, for just a moment, a break from the ugliness of unmitigated reality. My personal escape is in my poetry, to try and create perhaps one beautiful drop in a sea of ugliness before I have to swim in it again. Everyone needs an escape route when life gets to be more than they can handle, and for some it is to be found in the lives of people who have made careers of imitating life, through music and movies and books and paintings and whatever they choose to create. The works themselves may touch too close on the reality that one is trying to escape in the first place to be satisfactory for that process, but the lives of the creators of those works are still unreal, if only because they have become so sensationalized that one can't really take them seriously.
I'm definitely with Marie as far as not feeling this particular hobby, but I think I can understand from whence it came.
-HC
Very elegantly put. There's nothing I have to add to what you've written. Thank you very much for your input!
All right, that's it for tonight. Thanks for reading!
The other night I was wathcing Casablanca on TV and after I read this I realized that one paticular issue I have with Hollywood, is the need to measure one's ability squarely on looks. I know that if (God forbid) they ever decided to remake Casablanca, They'd have forskae charm and talent and hire someone like Lindsay Lohan and Ashton Kutcher for the leads, and because they're already desacrating it, they might as well to finsih it off by casting Dave Chapelle to be Sam. So now everytime you want him to play a song, he'll throw in a quick liner... But I digress. If you compare Hollywood to day with Hollywood 50 years ago, you'd see without question how talent is forsaken for visual appeal. Hollywood is crap, the idea of Hollywood as we knew it from it's legends and it's repect and honor is nothing more but a memory... what we have now... I couldn't even call it a shell of it's former glory because then it would imply that Hollywood now HAS some connection to what once was.
Hollywood has always been about looks. (With the exceptions of Jerry Lewis and Steve Buscemi, perhaps, but we've given Lewis to the French and Buscemi is a very talented actor, so he's cool.) And unfortunately The Industry has a significant amount of power in shaping our perceptions of people and life. We sublimate film and advertising's definitions of health, beauty, power, and success, and few people in real life can measure up to those standards.
But, thankfully, when we consciously think about the discrepancies between what we see on TV we can accept knowing and dating the "regular-looking" people like us. After all, if we all refused to hook up with anyone who couldn't fit in on some red carpet, the American population would be dwindling down to practically nothing (well, Brangelina's fifty million adoptees notwithstanding).
All the same, it's still something of a shock when I watch local TV commercials. I think, "Wow, that person is ugly!" and then have to try to view the person the way I would if I ran into them on the street. Most often, I'd think many of them were reasonably good-looking if I saw them down on Pacific Ave. Media really distorts your perception, but (for me at least) the high standards of appearance that Hollywood creates only apply to what I see on a screen.
IDK why ur so hard on famous people, they help make the world a little brightr. all this war is sooo bad, y'know and Ashton is totally hot!! (yum) laters xxxStacyxxx
You are definitely right. God knows I've changed the channel over from MSNBC News to laugh over E!'s The Simple Life.
A Comment Submitted by Harlean Carpenter Re: "TMF: Hollywood":
It's been said that the need for sleep has as much to do with the physically restorative properties of the process as it does with the mind's need for a break from reality; that is, the time to dream. In dreams we give the subconscious the time to sort out the events of the day, to tackle the challenges our conscious minds may not even be aware that we are facing, to square things away in the cellars of our souls, the dark places we can be so hesitant to even acknowledge, much less face, challenge and resolve.
It seems to me that the Hollywood Obsession is a similar process. The very fact that we can't relate to these people in any real way only enhances their appeal, allows us to view them as though they aren't real at all, and creates about them the dreamlike quality that is so necessary to the human mind. Horrific events occur every day. People are murdered and raped and tortured, cities collapse beneath earthquakes and floods, children are starved and beaten, the list goes on until one can't bear to read it any longer and one turns away, for just a moment, a break from the ugliness of unmitigated reality. My personal escape is in my poetry, to try and create perhaps one beautiful drop in a sea of ugliness before I have to swim in it again. Everyone needs an escape route when life gets to be more than they can handle, and for some it is to be found in the lives of people who have made careers of imitating life, through music and movies and books and paintings and whatever they choose to create. The works themselves may touch too close on the reality that one is trying to escape in the first place to be satisfactory for that process, but the lives of the creators of those works are still unreal, if only because they have become so sensationalized that one can't really take them seriously.
I'm definitely with Marie as far as not feeling this particular hobby, but I think I can understand from whence it came.
-HC
Very elegantly put. There's nothing I have to add to what you've written. Thank you very much for your input!
All right, that's it for tonight. Thanks for reading!
Labels: Echoes
posted by Marie at 10:52 PM
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