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A reader writes to one of those people who answer questions about celebrities: "I find it ironic that Angelina Jolie works so hard to help the world but can't seem to reconcile with her father, Jon Voight. Are they still estranged?" Immediately, my bad self emerges. I myself find it ironic that the reader imagines herself qualified to judge the behavior of people she doesn't know. I find it ironic that the reader spends time pondering the ironies of Angelina Jolie's activities and writing to the newspaper about her when the reader could go help out at the homeless shelter or visit veterans at the old folk's home.
But then I begin to contemplate my own arrogance, to notice that if the problem is judging people you don't know, then I've just lost my ability to criticize. So let's quiet the bad self and try to get some insight into what's going on here.
The reader begins with a fairly standard criticism of do-gooder liberals: "Straighten out your own life before you try to go out and straighten things out in the wider world." But then she also wants to know the latest on the relationship between Angelina Jolie and her father. Hold on, just a minute ago AJ was a hypocrite; why should the reader care about whether AJ is talking to her dad? I'll tell you why. Because writing to the magazine is a way of establishing contact with the celebrity. Ideally, the reader contacts the celebrity expert who contacts the celebrity publicist who contacts the celebrity. Thus the reader has initiated a chain of events that actually includes the celebrity herself.
One might wonder whether this is like contacting God through a prayer to Jesus. But I don't think it really is, I think it's more like trying to be seen talking to one of the popular kids in the hall in Middle School. The reader is trying to establish that she and Angelina Jolie travel in the same circles, the question is a version of, "hey, tell her I said hi."
But of course the only reason that the reader wants to assert her connection to Angelina Jolie is that they really don't travel in the same circles. The reader admires AJ, she feels that the actress dwells on a higher plane than herself. In the end, the whole thing is just a little game, a version of the same game that is played by millions daily: The game consists of elevating the celebrity while at the same time claiming equivalence (or even superiority) to the celebrity. So, now the question is, why is this game so much fun for so many people? I'll answer that question next time, I promise.
Visit Peter G. Stromberg's website. Photo by David Muir.
