Celebrities Are People Too?

I wonder sometimes about the nature of celebrity. Are celebrities born, created, or willed into being? What is the demarcation line between them and us. How did they get to be "them" in the first place. What is their personal, or professional, life first walled them off from the world we live in?

I noticed this while watching The Buried Life on MTV. It's a show about four guys who are crossing things off of a "bucket list" before they die. It is an interesting concept. On this episode Ben, through a lot of madcap hi-jinx, meets Megan Fox on the red carpet at Transformers 2. She really warms to him. He is doing great. He is seconds away from asking her out. Then her publicist drags her away for another interview. Ben is only worthy of five minutes of the publicists time. No more!! He is part of the machine, in this case, the press part. When your allocated time is up, you are done.

What would have happened if they had had a chance to talk, and really hit it off? I know Megan would have probably blown him off, but she wasn't even given the chance to talk to a real person who was interested in her. That is sad. If the Hollywood hype machine is only geared towards getting celebrities face time in the digitized world, how real are they then? Do they only exist due to our rampant voyeurism? Will they disappear from memory like the Greek Gods of old? Why does this moat between them, and normal people exist anyway? Were they not once us?

I often wonder with celebrities, movie stars, actors and such where that line was drawn. Let's use Brad Pitt as an example. Was there a point where you could have sat down with Brad Pitt at the beginning of his career and had coffee? Maybe we could have discussed acting, or how hot that Angelina Jolie will be in fifteen years? I'm not saying we would be best friends, or anything of the sort. I am just wondering when that celebrity veil was pulled between who he was as a struggling actor, and who he is as an international movie star. Could you, as you, say hi to him now? Or, would the ring of people around him prevent this.


Here's another question. Do all of the people around a celebrity, protect them, or hinder them in interacting with the real world? does the celebrity need the people, or do the people make the celebrity? Are those people, the publicists, public relations, and assistants protecting the celebrity from you, or you from them? I'm not always sure myself.


I attend Comic Con International every year as a Professional. My wife is a teen librarian, and is writing a book about Graphic Novels in libraries. She hosts panels on these subjects every year at the Con. Because I am a listed Professional, I get access to the Pro Room for the industry types. It is usually people like us, professionals involved in the comics industry. But is does give you a small taste of celebrity. This year I met the Mythbusters, the guys from Rifftrax (MST3K), Jeff Smith (Bone), and the guys from Penny Arcade. They were all polite, and seemed happy to meet their fans.


I am not saying all celebrities are snobs, far from it. I am saying that the celebrity of today is more recognized, and further away from us normal folks than ever before.

Bejeweled Blitz... is Annoying!

I just tried the demo for Bejeweled Blitz on XBLA. I hate it.

This is why demos are a lovely thing. I like Bejeweled...a lot. I just think the interface for the new game sucks. The controls are unwieldy, the colors are irritating, and the soundtrack is too loud.

I will not be buying it. I am going to stick to Bejeweled 3 on my PC thank you very much. It is a better experience in almost every way. AKB :}