POP PHILOSOPHY: Dance, celebrities, dance!

Every Wednesday, Ryan Carey tackles a different topic relating to the contemporary pop culture scene. This week, he takes a look at our generation's "celebrities" and the the stupid things they do to stay in the spotlight.

options

POP PHILOSOPHY: Dance, celebrities, dance!

POSTED: Wednesday, May 11, 2011, 12:00 PM

Filed Under: TV

The old model of celebrity was one of veneration. Hollywood stars from the '40s were larger-than-life heroes that we looked up to — the role models epitomizing coolness or strength or glamour. Musicians of the '70s wrote the soundtracks of peoples' lives. Television stars of the '90s were emulated for their wit or courage. We were inspired by all these folks and held debts of gratitude for their positive impact in our lives. Now, celebrities are people we haven't met but who we know just enough about that it's extra funny when they fall on their face.

Dancing With the Stars is the inverse of a show like American Idol. Idol's entertainment springs from watching the extremes. Both the most pathetic and most amazing unknown singers vie to skip the long career arch, going straight to famous. The middle, the people who are just okay, are left out. Idol may be a celebration of creative complacency — a glorified karaoke bar — but at least it provides a real product.

Dancing With the Stars is purely a leverage-gala for TMZ and other celebrity gossip magnets. The competition format of DWTS couldn't exist if the contestants were regular folks, the same way nobody but you would watch TMZ if they were stalking your dentist. Dancing With The Tax Preparers would flunk faster than the XFL because there'd be no pre-existing relationship between the viewers and the contestants. Notice how everyone from So You Think You Can Dance is so amazing? It's like they're from another planet. Notice how the only thing amazing about Marie Osmond is that you've heard of her?

I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but the word "scam" comes to mind when I see shows that market unremarkable feats, featuring people who might only be famous because they were on a different reality show, or their mother ran for vice president. When a network puts on a show like this, they're inflating the value of the people who are on, which inflates the value of morning radio the next day as the funny DJ's make cracks at their entertainment-news girl. More ad revenue goes to the radio stations, the celebrity gossip magazines and shows on Vh1 and E! that subsist entirely on entertainment commentary. And, with all these satellite outlets (owned by the same few companies, remember) pointed back at the series, the value of the series inflates. The value of entertainment inflates.

A television event like Dancing With the Stars makes a handful of people an insane amount of money by simply fueling this vapid pop dynamo. What does it say about our viewing public that we take pleasure in watching people we're sorta familiar with dance like our neighbor's niece in a recital? And what does it say about minor celebrities, that the desire to remain famous is so pressing that they're willing to dance like monkeys and get paid? It says that we're all floating on a continent-sized raft of pop garbage, and it's time to start demanding actual entertainment instead of water-cooler, safe talent-show-gossip.

Posted by Ryan Carey @ 12:00 PM Permalink | Post a comment

Comments (0)

Behind the scenes of local film A Man Full of Trouble
What we're trying to do this weekend
CONCERT REVIEW: The Postal Service @ The Mann 6/17
ICEPACK ILLUSTRATED: Sunny, Tony and the return of Do No Harm
NOW SEE THIS: Salinger film trailer
ICEPACK ILLUSTRATED: Indian fare rules, Dunder Mifflin lives on, Tom Jones is a god
REVIEW: Archer Live! @ the TLA 1/11
CONCERT PHOTOS: The National/Dirty Projectors @ The Mann Center 6/7
CITY PAPER WRITING CONTEST 2013: Send stories! Send poetry!
ICEPACK ILLUSTRATED: Pink. Diner en Blanc 2. Breaking Glass and Milkboy at the movies. And so on.

About this blog

Featuring everything from event roundups to concert reviews and sex talk, City Paper's Critical Mass is a space for off-the-wall coverage of Philly's A&E scene.

Follow Critical Mass editors Patrick Rapa and Emily Guendelsberger on Twitter:

@mission2denmark | @emilygee

Search this blog:

Topics:

Blog archives:

June
May
April

March
February
January

Past Archives: