Ruminations

Blog dedicated primarily to randomly selected news items; comments reflecting personal perceptions

Monday, October 24, 2011

Happy Birthday, Mr. President".

Pretty pathetic, isn't it? People with vast fame and popularity, not to mention wealth that has resulted from their fame and popularity never seem quite satisfied with what they have acquired. Having become rich and fabulously celebrated, they keep looking for more and even more. More opportunities to become better-acknowledged, and more generously remunerated.

People whom you might think are deserving of respect turn out to be personally insipid idiots. It started out innocently enough. When Hollywood actors in high regard and great demand decided they would discreetly accept handsome offers from celebrity-mad and extremely wealthy Japan to lend their famous names and faces to advertising campaigns.

Some accepted and reaped immense fees in the doing. Allowing their handsome and beautiful faces and forms to be used by public relations and advertising agencies whose clients were happy to pay these big-time celebrities to advertise products and services.

All of this remained discreetly within Japan. Until it began to leak out and personalities were embarrassed, and then it became a free-for-all; anyone who could get an offer would grab it. There was no dignity in the process, but after the initial hiccoughs no one seemed to really care.

And that seems to be a little like what's happened in the latest Hollywood Grade A crew who don't need a hand-up in fame and face-recognition, nor in the swelling of their bank accounts. Elton John, Hilary Swank, Sting - do they really need to add to their holdings? Will an appearance at the 35th birthday celebrations of a dictator of a repressed country burnish their reputations?

"Why not? It's a paying gig. Just like any paying gig. It's just another audience to play for, it's another specified revenue stream, just like playing casinos, playing fairs and playing festivals." Is that the height of cynicism, of broken values, of selling out for gain, whatever it costs in moral, ethical terms?

Good luck with that and "Happy birthday, Mr. President". Sounds like Marilyn Monroe snuggling up to Jack Kennedy.

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