BY BRET STEPHENS
Friday, December 29, 2006 12:01 a.m.
"The Pop-Up Book of Celebrity Meltdowns," published last month, features a
cut-out of model Kate Moss literally rising from the page to snort a line
of
cocaine, actor Tom Cruise bouncing off Oprah's couch, Mike Tyson taking a
bite of Evander Holyfield's ear, O.J. Simpson's Bronco riding down an L.A.
freeway, Michael Jackson dangling his infant from a hotel balcony in
Berlin,
and Paris Hilton filming herself while making, er, a phone call.
But after 2006, the book, which features meltdowns from years past,
already
needs a sequel.
Such has been the pace of celebrity meltdowns in recent months. Just
consider: Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears. Floyd Landis and Zinedine
Zidane. Mel Gibson and Michael Richards. Judith Regan. Celebrities
behaving
badly in matters of morals, judgment, taste and sense. Celebrities
behaving
****ographically badly. Celebrities behaving badly, badly. When Demi Moore
poses **** in a coat of body paint for the cover of Vanity Fair, that is
the
right way of being "bad." But Britney fla****ng her unmentionables at
dailybuzzer.com? Wrong way.
All this is excellent news for what I suspect is the silent majority of
Americans--myself included--who detest celebrity culture and the people
upon
whom it lavishes its attention, privileges and riches. For a while, we
were
losing the battle. So-called celebrity "meltdowns" had a depressing way of
becoming "melt-ups," in the sense that any act that attracted widespread
notice, however crass, illegal or vile, merely served to enhance a
celebrity's celebrity. Ms. Hilton, for instance, was not a household name
until her video hit the market. Since then, she has branded a successful
line of perfumes, nightclubs and now a cartoon series for children.
Then something flipped. Celebrities got ahead of themselves, and of the
times. Maybe they assumed that the old boundaries that once regulated
public
behavior had vanished completely. In fact, they continued to exist, just
over the horizon. Racism and anti-Semitism turned out to be one such
boundary, as Messrs. Richards and Gibson discovered. Gynecological
overexposure was another, learned Mlles. Lohan and Spears. So was
attempting
to cash in on a double homicide, a thought that apparently did not occur
to
Ms. Regan until the day she was fired, and perhaps not since.
There was also the fact that, in at least some of these cases, the
celebrity
meltdown was accompanied by a celebrity smackdown. Viacom's Sumner
Redstone
performed not the least of his services to the nation when last summer he
fired Tom Cruise for "behavior unacceptable to Paramount." We can thank
Rupert Murdoch for squa****ng Ms. Regan's O.J. Simpson book-and-interview
project (and presumably Ms. Regan herself). And we are indebted to movie
producer James Robinson who publicly reproved Ms. Lohan as a "spoiled
child"
and threatened to hold her "personally accountable" for "hundreds of
thousands of dollars in damage" to the movie they are making.
Talent, or the lack thereof, has also been a factor in many of these
meltdowns. The songwriter Joni Mitchell long ago complained that Madonna
had
"knocked the im****tance of talent out of the arena." That's true of more
than a few present-day celebrities, who, like travelers bumped up to
business class on an overbooked flight, seem to owe their success less to
any virtue or effort of their own than to whatever combination of
accidents
put them there.
But now that the Internet allows the efficient streaming of audiovisual
content, the accident that once put Ms. Lohan in the camera frame (and
puts
you out of it) is no longer quite as determinative as it used to be. A lot
of people are now casting themselves in YouTube videos, and a lot of
people
are now watching them--not necessarily because they are better than the
Lindsay Lohans of the world but because they're usually no worse. The
competitive field has broadened while the currency of celebrity has been
cheapened. No wonder it's become easier to knock them off their pedestals.
Will it last? Charlie Melcher, publisher of "Celebrity Meltdowns," argues
that the success of his book is owed to the fact that "we really do
idolize
our celebrities" even as we relish the moments in which "they reveal
themselves to be human." I wonder if he isn't selling his own concept
short.
Perhaps we relish celebrity meltdowns because we hate celebrities, and
relish the moments when they reveal themselves in all in their foulness.
Mr.
Melcher also says that he is mulling a pop-up book of political meltdowns.
I'll bet there's a market for it--and not because we love our politicians.
* Mr. Stephens is an member of The Wall Street Journal's editorial board.
--
"The sky was low and heavy, like the brow of a retarded child."
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