Monday, April 18, 2005

The Stars in Twilight

Wel, well, well. I was just contemplating how I was going to end a half-a-weeks worth of blogger's block. I get back to my web browser, hit refresh on Drudge, and get a glimpse of this little chestnut: Land of the Freeloaders.

Rule #1 of Economics: Everything obtained must be paid for!


Something can be paid for with barter, with money, or with work. It can be paid for by you with you're resource, by someone else out of charity, or stolen from a victim. But it will be paid for!

So who paid for all this swag? Ordinary people, albeit through a chain of transitions leading through the multi-media, telecommunications, advertising and entertainment business.

Why do they pay for it? Out of a misguided sentiment for entertainers which can only be described as "idolatry". Yet even the First Commandment doesn't do justice to describe the psycho-epistemological crime being committed, both by the worshipper and the worshipped.

Media consumers are paying money to people portraying the virtues they wish they had (but have not the passion to obtain them), and vices they wish they could commit (but know they can't get away with). Rather than achieve these states of being--through thought, planning and action--they take the shortcut and live vicariously through other people pretending to do these things in unrealistic ways. Meanwhile, the stars gobble up all the perks available in a state of quiet desperation, internally struggling to convince themselves that they're actually achieving what they're pretending to achieve. Supposedly, when she went crazy at the end of her life, Vivian Leigh actually believed she was Scarlet O'Hara. By behaving in the manner described, these Hollywood stars are trying to steal their own piece of Tara.

At least on the production end, the party can't last forever. As the world economy improves, cheap foreign films are getting better in quality. As world techonology improves, "indie" films are getting much better. As IT improves, the humor, genius and passion of ordinary people is more and more vividly on display; the TV is becoming the background noise for the websurfing. As AI improves, all attributes of an entertainer--voice, image, improv and imitation skills--can be replicated by software. In a generation, maybe in this generation, the beautiful people are going to go the way of silent film and AM radio stars.

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