Fame: Stripping Celebrity Bare
David Gritten
London: Allen Lane, 2002.
£14.99, 188 pages, ISBN 0-71-399536-X.
Georges-Claude Guilbert
Université de Rouen
David Gritten is a writer, critic and broadcaster. In 1998 he published Tom
Jones: The Biography, which he wrote with Stafford Hildred. He writes in
the Radio Times, the Daily Telegraph and the Los Angeles Times.
The first thing I checked when I received the book was whether it featured
an index. It did. Then I looked for "Madonna" (the most famous woman on
the planet) in the said index, and found that she appeared on thirteen pages.
Thirdly, I looked at the back-cover, and was pleased to find that superimposed
on a rather uninspiring photograph of a red carpet and legs were five quotes
from five personal favorites of mine: Marilyn Monroe, David Bowie, Tony Curtis,
Julia Roberts, and Madonna, who said: "Fame? I wouldn't wish it on my worst
enemy's dog." So I began reading with a positive bias, in spite of the horrendous
cover: the lower part of a woman getting out of a limousine—the legs are
gorgeous, but the shoes and dress are ugly, cheap-looking and tacky in the
extreme, without the least tongue-in-cheek element to redeem the photograph.
Fame: Stripping Celebrity Bare is composed of twelve chapters whose
titles systematically come with subtitles that are "rules." For
instance, Chapter One is entitled "The Fame Dilemma," and is subtitled "Rule
One: Fame's consequences are always complex." Those rules are on the
whole convincing, and it is easy to trust Gritten, who has a keen eye and
a keen ear
and has spent a great part of his adult life observing famous people. "I
have lost count of the number of truly famous people I have encountered,
though it easily runs into hundreds." (5) In the introductory chapter
you realize with pleasure that Gritten's book is totally unpretentious: it
does not profess
to be a Cultural Studies or sociology treatise, and though it is often analytical
it never annoys nor bores the reader with I-know-better and I-alone-hold-the-truth
attitudes (see my somewhat negative review of Chris Rojek's Celebrity in
Cercles). This book also happily avoids sensationalism altogether.
Gritten simply asks what it is like to be famous, then proceeds to answer the
question. He ponders the often transient quality of fame, wonders what happens
after Andy Warhol's fifteen minutes, looks at the people who are famous for
being famous, and generally speaking examines the downfalls and advantages
of "fame
[which] is a complicated phenomenon." (9) Besides, he addresses the intriguing
fact that "television and the print media airbrush out of existence the
inconveniently complex and undesirable side-effects of fame." (9)
The case of Stephen Hawking is particularly striking. As Gritten writes, "A
Brief History of Time [1988] remains one of the great all-time best-sellers
largely unfinished by its readers." (11) Practically everyone I knew bought
it: my relatives, my friends, my colleagues, my neighbors, my doctor; everywhere
I went I saw that book, in English, in French, in Spanish... And indeed, I
do not know a single individual who finished it. Jostein Gaarder's Sophie's World (1991)
is a very similar case, although I know a couple of colleagues who finished
it, and Gaarder never quite became tabloid fodder the way Hawking did (notably
because
Gaarder was not disabled). Hawking never quite understood that "continuing
celebrity is a form of narrative, in which achieving fame is just the first chapter." (12),
but he realized that "fame resembles a spring-loaded door that slams behind
you after you walk through it." (12)
"The famous people [he] meet[s]," writes Gritten, "seem as
a group less well adjusted and more ill-at-ease than the norm." (13) He
proceeds in Chapter Two, "Fame Becomes a Problem," to demonstrate it.
His Rule Two is that "in fame's wake, lives get ruined—and sometimes
prematurely ended." Now let us for a minute consider your sister-in-law,
Nancy, the one who identifies with celebrities so much. We know that the
identification process in her case works on two levels, I call them first
degree identification
and second degree identification. For the second degree identification to
thrive, Nancy buys glamorous magazines like Vanity Fair. She beholds gorgeous airbrushed pictures of a heavily made-up X, wearing
designer clothing and holding
her head high just so as to catch the right light by her swimming pool—and
she dreams, wanting to be like X. For the first degree identification to thrive,
Nancy buys vile tabloids. She beholds horrible pictures of X wearing an ugly
jogging suit and pumps, washing her car or shopping for groceries, fat rolls
and double chin undisguised—and she thinks, hey, that's me, I'm exactly
like that! This feeling is comforted, naturally, by the gruesome tales of
woe and illness that the tabloids offer, which allow Nancy to reconcile herself
to her existence as a suburban non-entity: celebrities suffer just like her,
they
are human beings too, they are not so different; and after all, fame can't
make you happy. Let Gritten's reader be reassured, Fame: Stripping Celebrity
Bare was not written in that spirit; although I suppose it may also function
as such
a consolation—as a bonus. In the same order of idea, Gritten writes in a later
chapter about the way famous people sometimes admit to "personality disorders,
dysfunction, addiction" and observes that "the admission of such 'weaknesses'
helps to humanize celebrities." (35) Now I know I should not feel too sorry
I never became a wealthy rock star and had to settle for academic obscurity and
a paltry salary instead. And after all, money can't buy happiness, can it? Gritten
begins with Lord Byron and nineteenth-century fame, then moves on to the changes
brought about by moving pictures and the development of the popular press. "Readers
preferred being entertained to being lectured." (18) Mary Pickford,
Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, Fatty Arbuckle, Clara Bow, nobody is
missing and
there are echoes of Kenneth Anger's Hollywood Babylon. Occasionally
Gritten indulges in a bit of facility (though he never writes anything silly
as far as
content is concerned), as when he states: "The fame virus had taken hold
shortly afterwards, and was now spreading uncontrollably, voraciously consuming
celebrities, would-be celebrities and fans alike." (27)
Chapter Three is called "Who Needs Fame?" Rule Three goes: "Celebrity
Behavior is rooted in a type of personality disorder." The beginning is
rather pleasantly clinical. There are well-chosen examples of celebrity behavior,
celebrity demands, a few interesting anecdotes about people like Richard Dreyfuss
or Leonardo di Caprio (I won't say anymore, read the book). A passage about
Madonna and David Bowie begins on page 32 with the hugely famous quote from
the movie Truth
or Dare (1991), when Warren Beatty says: "She doesn't even want to live
off-camera, much less talk." Everyone quotes this sentence in their book,
I quoted this sentence myself. But then I don't quite subscribe to everything
Gritten writes, notably when it comes to the postmodern aspects of Madonna's
art and the comparisons he establishes between Madonna and Bowie and the various
personae they've adopted through the years. I virulently disagree when he deems: "At
times, she resembles a small girl let loose in her mother's old clothes closet,
trying on costumes at random, then throwing them off because they fail to make
her feel sufficiently pretty or content." (34) On the contrary, every
single one of Madonna's looks has signified more than all the looks of all the
British and American female pop performers of the past twenty years put together.
There are interesting pages about the differences in death rates and suicide
rates among the "normal" population and the celebrity population, about
all the catastrophes that befall the latter, and their degree of transparency.
A lot is known about the private life of celebrities. "The one notable exception,
shamefully, is the admission of homosexuality; if we were to take today's population
of famous people at their word, they would represent the most determinedly heterosexual
population in the western world." (36) Then as far as mental imbalance,
drugs and alcohol are concerned, comes the inevitable chicken and egg question: "It
may be that the effects of fame destabilize people, or it may be that unstable
[…] people are more likely to be famous in the first place […]." (37)
Chapter Four looks at fan behavior, at the blurred frontiers between adoration
and hostility, and at the fake intimate relation that is forged between the
celebrity and the fan. Here is a splendid Tony Curtis quote: "It's like having Alzheimer's
disease. You don't know anybody, they all know you." (45) There are reminders
of particularly vivid illustrations of psychotic fan behavior, like Mark David
Chapman who shot John Lennon, John W. Hinckley Jr., Andrew Cunanan, or the stalker
Ricardo Lopez who tried to bomb Bjork's house and then "filmed himself on
video blowing his brains out with a pistol. Playing in the background was a Bjork
song called 'I Miss You.'" (53)
Chapter Five deals with the media. Without actually saying so, what Gritten does
in this chapter is define myth, its nature and its functions. As I never tire
of exemplifying, Aphrodite or the Virgin Mary are premodern myths, Marlene Dietrich
is a modern myth, and Madonna a postmodern myth. They all serve the same purposes—providing
the same sort of narratives—as far as the worshippers / fans are
concerned. Gritten does mention classical mythology and the New Testament,
quoting from Joseph Campbell and speaking of "a diluted version of a hero myth." (62)
He looks at different ways of fueling one's celebrity narrative to feed the public,
such as "serial monogamy" (Elizabeth Taylor) or perfectly timed relationships
that publicize a product (Madonna and Warren Beatty); he illustrates the reporters'
lack of delicacy. "There is a widespread notion among journalists, even
some extremely thoughtful ones, that all publicity is good publicity, that attaining
fame is automatically a good thing, almost irrespective of circumstance." (68)
Gritten interestingly concludes with O. J. Simpson and Michael Jackson: "It
was as if fame had thrown a protective blanket around [O. J. Simpson], and his
celebrity placed him in a kind of vacuum where he was not to be judged as other
men. […] Michael Jackson is another celebrity who appears to exist in this
blessed moral vacuum." (70)
Chapter Six's Rule Six nicely paraphrases Warhol: "In future, anyone will
appear on television if they want it badly enough." Drawing from Joseph
Campbell again, as well as from psychotherapists like Nan Beecher-Moore, Gritten
turns from actors ("at least Cruise and Roberts have a skill") to "reality
TV" shows such as Big Brother, Survivor or Loft-Story. "Ordinary" people
are locked together in some secluded place and scrutinized by millions. "They
talked incessantly at a consistently banal level, their minds rarely troubled
by anything so complex as an idea." (72) Shows of that sort, writes Gritten,
mark "a turning point in the progression of modern fame," (76) and
I agree. The title of this chapter is "Everybody's Famous", and it
offers amusing examples: Victoria Beckham's manicurist, diet advisers, "pet
doctors to the stars," etc. There are even fake celebrities, made up from
scratch overnight as hoaxes who became truly famous. The chapter concludes
with digital celebrities (Lara Croft) and people who leave their webcam on
twenty
four hours a day.
Chapter Seven shows the different ways celebrities behave in public and are
affected by the reactions of people on the street. This chapter makes much
of Madonna,
whom Gritten calls "the doyenne of recent uber-celebrities," (93) and
ends with the Beatles. Chapter Eight examines "involuntary fame" and
(initially) reluctant celebrities. Gritten notably mentions Patty Hearst, Charles
Webb (author of the novel The Graduate), Sean Penn, Greta Garbo, and
the story of Canada's Dionne quintuplets. Chapter Nine deals with celebrities
who
handle fame well, often given to immense generosity, such as Dolly Parton,
Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder, Mick Jagger or Oprah Winfrey, "once described
in Vanity
Fair as having more influence on the culture than any politician or university
professor, and second only to that of the Pope"—a terrifying
thought, of course (117).
Chapter Ten is entitled "The Pitfalls of Fame." Rule Ten goes: "Despite
the allure of fame, it barely registers as a factor in determining quality of
life." It is well illustrated (taking in the excesses of some whose ego
becomes dramatically inflated and the disillusions of others) with the examples
of Victoria Beckham, Lisa Stansfield, Val Kilmer, Bruce Willis, Elton John, Hugh
Grant (and Divine Brown!)… And here Gritten does finally mention Kenneth
Anger's Hollywood Babylon (131). The most extraordinary story in this
chapter concerns the British ventriloquist Keith Harris, who was huge in the
1980s, but I won't spoil the reader's enjoyment by revealing here what eventually
befell him. "Katherine Hepburn once remarked: 'Fame gave me everything—except
what I wanted.'" (134) Chapter Eleven is concerned with the lack of privacy
of celebrities who are notably pursued by paparazzi. Naturally, it mentions Madonna
and Princess Diana, and describes the supply and demand concept that rules tabloids.
This chapter makes much of the fame of the British Royal Family, American presidents,
and President Mitterrand. In the U.S. journalists used to "respect" the
private life of White House residents more. The rules vary according to time
and place. JFK's womanizing went largely unreported in his lifetime, whereas
Clinton's certainly didn't. Gritten is right to explain that the French media
are less eager to invade the private life of politicians and showbiz people.
It is true that "rigorous privacy laws have long existed" (143) in
France. Gritten discusses Mitterrand's cancer and the way it was hidden from
the public. I was even more amazed myself by the very late revelations of his
double life and hidden daughter (who of course has since become a famous writer
of sorts). Gritten asks the right sort of question, regarding the political implications
of secrecy about the sex life and health of the people who govern us. The Monica
Lewinsky case, of course, is sociologically speaking fascinating, regardless
of the intern's own personality or lack thereof. The short conclusion, Chapter
Twelve, is as it should be about the fact that "fame is a dual-edged sword,
with profound drawbacks for each of its advantages," (153) and rounds
off a perfectly enjoyable book.
