Why Hollywood Hates Us

They are like us.

How many of you resent your jobs? Have an uneasy relationship with your employers and fellow employees that makes you dread every  Monday? Do you picture cashing your paycheck or imagine the smile of a loved one before you talk to yet another customer?

Many of us go home every day and occasionally have time off from work outside of vacations and holidays. Though our spending and resources may not be as large we also deal with things on a smaller scale. Possessions do not care if you come home every night but you would care if you came home and found one or all of them missing. Arguably we have fewer stressors and therefore may be easier to vent. In addition we can directly see those affected by our working. This feeling like part of a greater society, can provide support and reinforcement to our occupation.

You could look forward to every weekend, with your regular outing at your favorite hangout with your friends watching your mundane thing eating some nondescript meal and just letting out all the built up stress and angst from your job. So not only seeing the daily effect of your work  during it but can merge back into the general masses after.

As for the celebrities, our stars. Can they avoid knowledge of being famous of being good at not being themselves? They entertain. Show business. No downtime to unwind or vent, no real cues of a common reality and so many people reinforcing their eccentricities and whims. They innately know this is unusual. Look at how the generations or people that are coddled and spoiled in every day life lash out with claims of micro aggression and trigger warnings to things that are daily realities to most, it’s unhealthy. Now imagine that effect exponentially applied.

We are people that may be famous for doing this, they are famous people.

Infamously Invisible

They think they know us and don’t think we know them.

Think of the last time someone fabricated something about you or claimed to know who you were when they did not. Now imagine millions do this. Not in the sense that we are a different person in the reality tunnel of everyone that meets us but people actually think they have some close personal relationship with a given celebrity, while knowing not a thing about who they are, let alone having met them.

There is a bubble in Hollywood and celebrity in general. I would not choose a life of that level of scrutiny. They have and do with considerations for the child performers whose parents can be held mostly responsible. When you hear about horrifically cutthroat and uncaring environment, no wonder so many grow up and leave or are maladjusted. Many of us have our own challenges in personal and professional life but theirs are on a grander stage, that can be pushed to higher peaks of stress and lower abysses of depravity.

Think of many confirmed and rumored occurrences of illicit behavior, behind the scenes abuses, drug-use, infidelity and more yet the show must go on. It may appear to be glitz and glamor. It isn’t though. Think about the films some of these people make, with violence, sexuality and other themes that they claim to disagree with yet make millions from. The cognitive dissonance that must create is frightening.

How many of your colleagues are actually friends? Imagine almost all of them being competitors, ready to step over you at the slightest prompting. In fact, if your personalities are similar the very qualities that may increase your compatibility for friendship would likely be the same that would pit you in competition for the same limited things.

Just as an abused child learns to resent the world that smiles at them and pretends they are not living in hell, I believe celebrities have a similar sentiment. Even if it is mostly unconscious.

The Ties that Bind

They don’t think it’s a choice.

So just quit right? Sure, just stop and step down your lifestyle. I’ve been saying for years that as public figures they should not demand privacy only to insert themselves into as many aspects of public consumption when they have somwthing to sell us. Is that fair though? When you go to the bank the teller will be nice and cordial, may even be somewhat flirtatious, but do you expect the same if you walk by them in a grocery store? They may notice you and say hello but you would not be offended if they did not engage in banter about your day.

People that are not currently committing suicide think their life is one worth living. Despite how horrific the day to day life of a celebrity it is still their life. In addition to letting go the very tangible and visible perks from money, fame and access that many covet there is also the challenge to turn off a mentality and drive that enabled them to become as dedicated to their craft and adverse to other pursuits as many surely are. Doing so may make them feel even worse about the needs they have that are unanswered.

I imagine that many in Hollywierd know how gruesome life in that bubble is, yet have reasoned that they stay because it offers at the very least an above average quality of life. Hell, most of their detractors agree on this, when we say quit complaining you are living such a good life. So with this in mind they could or possibly must imagine the rest of the world to be this horrible cesspool that makes their daily loads worth bearing. If they could actually imagine that living as one of the masses was preferential if not outright better, how could they come to terms with their inability to have it?

Don’t Cry For Me

Certain personalities are attracted to celebrity. Certain may be misguided or others powerhungry. Certain cases these are people that have been groomed from childhood. Can you think of 5 happy well adjusted biographies of any celebrity? I know bad sticks out more than good but I imagine you can easily think of 5 or 10 sad stories of dysfunctional, abused, addicted or worse people that have varied levels of acting right enough when they need to.

Think about how out of touch these people are. Madonna for example, on a constant drive to stay relevant by being as abnormal as she can think to be.  Offering oral stimulation for votes at any age is ghastly, at hers it’s mortifying. Imagine waking up day after day thinking the most important thing I must do today is not be myself. Her fame came from being unusual. If Celebrities like her or Meryll Streep were more like us we would not hear about them. It does not make them victims, but there is exploitation. We buttress their unusual abilities via patronizing them, and they patronize us for not being unusual.

Something more frustrating than hardly ever being yourself is not even knowing if there is a yourself to be. I say this from experience that i can thankfully say is in the past.

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This was not intended to be a defense of celebrity rather more of an analysis or observation. Check out my Usual Jesters page where I track things public figures and entities say about other things. Just because someone appears capable at a certain thing does not make everything they say valid. I include myself in this.

He is more powerful so this is okay

Here is the Golden Globe speech by Meryll Streep. Believe and Listen. From starting witha  claim of loving everyone in attendance to ending being unable to say Carrie Fishers name in favor of a made up character she pretended to be decades…was Streep realizing she would not be remembered for who she was but one of the many people she was not? Our lifetime achievement awards are not presented in an industry infront of colleagues, that you know are there due to moslty financial reasons. They are not awarded but evidenced through the lives of our actual loved ones. Believe that she believes what she says and then listen to what she actually says.