LARRY BURRIS: What’s your name? Fame on The Murfreesboro Post

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LARRY BURRIS: What’s your name? Fame

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By: LARRY BURRIS, Post Columnist

Posted: Sunday, July 25, 2010 4:16 am

By now you’re probably saturated with “all Lindsay Lohan, all the time.”

Her arrests, trials, probations and interviews all made the news, and the fact that there was so much news was, in itself, news.

In many ways, Lohan is simply one more member of the cult of personality; someone who is famous for being famous.

O.J. Simpson and Michael Jackson also come to mind.

Historian Daniel Boorstein once wrote about what he called “pseudo-events:” events and occurrences that are created just to have an event or an occurrence.

Well, many, if not most famous people fall into the same category. They don’t have to do much of anything to generate news.

But what’s interesting here is that no matter what they do, people who are famous today will continue to be famous, even if they try to escape their fame.

Suppose, for example, that Lohan, decides to figuratively drop off the face of the earth.

Suppose she gets a real job and just goes to work each day, like the rest of us.

You can be assured that will generate a lot of news stories.

After all, wouldn’t you think it interesting someone as rich as she is would work at a regular job?

Of course you would.

So even if she didn’t court publicity, there would still be public interest. And the more she tries to drop off the news and social radars, the more news she will generate.

Plus, if she does a regular job, and gets a promotion, many people will assume it’s because of who she is.

If she doesn’t get a promotion, many people will assume that’s because of who she is.

So she can’t win, and it’s that way with all famous people.

No matter what they do, someone will find fault with it, and that will be newsworthy.

Something else we need to remember is that all of these famous people voluntarily put themselves in the spot they’re in.

And most of them actively court fame and publicity.

So does this mean famous people have no private life?

Of course they should be able to have a private life.

But they can’t be famous and not famous at the same time.

If someone wants to live a normal life, it’s axiomatic that they have to live a normal life.

I remember an old Peanuts cartoon in which Charlie Brown and Lucy are talking about growing up.

Charlie Brown says he wants to be rich and famous, but still humble and loveable.

Lucy’s only comment was, “good luck.”

How true that is.

Tagged under Larry Burris, Lindsay Lohan, Media Matters, Voices

Member Opinions:

By: SocEtTuem on 7/26/10
Saturation is a gorss understatement. People who have no lives of their own are usually the ones who concern themselves with the antics of pampered and classless Hollywood miscreants like Lohan.

In her case it's an old story, a matter of rejoicing over how the mighty have fallen.

Lohan's case is the typical tragedy brought on by fame and fortune: Too much money, too much alcohol, far too much drug abuse and way too many enablers hanging on for their pathetic little sliver of the pie.