The Unambitious Red Carpet

I'm a bit of a VH-1 buff. It happened almost accidentally--cleaning the house or making dinner with the TV on I'd flip on a seemingly innocuous show that I could easily watch while doing something else.

I've been watching the network for years now, though I hardly consider myself a fan. Perhaps because the programming itself carries so little weight with me that I hardly identify with it. B-friend is the same way. He'd never sit down to watch a VH-1 program, and yet, if I am watching a show, he'll often say he's seen it before. Or he'll know some odd piece of celebrity trivia that could only have been absorbed in one of VH-1's snarky "Worst Of" programs. It's a network that has thrived on people's subconscious interest.

VH-1 has become so pervasive and indirectly powerful that it has coined new breeds of celebrities:

• C-list celebrities
• Reality Show celebrities
• Re-heated Reality Show celebrities--D-list celebs who proved they were so disturbed on a reality show that they got their own
• V-list--Vh-1's very own branded smartass celebs who star in all the snarky shows that re-hash the 1980s, or a film or music genre

VH-1 is the Diet Coke of Cable channels--fizzy, but empty calories. Some argue that the chemical content could make you stupid but no one has proven it. Still, I'm starting to wonder.

VH-1 provides an ongoing feed of pop images and celebrity dysfunction that we can absorb any way we please. We can feel jealous of these people; we can feel sorry for them; but we can't stop watching them.

And yet I do wonder if there is an effect of these programs that focus almost obsessively on celebrities. The celebrity news can be fun to watch, but other programs have become disturbing to me lately. Disturbing because, even if they are delivered tongue in cheek, they make the unadulterated acquisition of wheels, schwing, and bling seem obligatory of anyone with money.

One of the most tedious shows on VH-1 is The Fabulous Life, which details an A-list celebrity's homes, acquisitions, belongings, and overall expenditures. It's offered up by a snooty Robin-Leach impersonator who says every line with an underlying subtext ("It's one more thing that this person has that YOU DON'T!")

Of course, some of the things that these celebrities buy are so outrageous they are plain funny, and VH-1 knows it. These people have the means to live a life so beyond the average person's that you get a poor man's sense of superiority by thinking that money has made these people stupid.

But I no longer get a fun buzz off this show anymore. I'm not entirely certain why. But I can say that now when I watch it I feel such a sense of waste--of money and of the time spent spending it--that the show is starting to disgust me. It's like watching the Exxon-Valdes distaster, shrugging our shoulders and saying, "Those crazy nuts! What will they think up next?" I feel that by watching I enable celebrity sloth and one-upsmanship.

Some of the purchases disappoint me. In one episode on beauty treatments of the stars it was reported that Oprah Winfrey supposedly spent $100,000 on a supply of custom eyelashes. Assuming this is true I had to wonder why. She donates her time and money to causes all the time, you could argue, why can't she spend on herself sometimes? I agree, but I also wonder why she couldn't buy cheaper eyelashes. Or why Jennifer Lopes would spend several grand on an eyebrow waxing. Or why celebs have to spend top dollar on highly personal items like engagement rings or gifts for their pets.

B-friend tells me all the time what car he would buy if money were no object. I'm in no position to prove this, but I believe, if money were no object for me, I would buy nice things, yes, but I wouldn't waste my money. "Waste" is a highly subjective word, so I will try to explain what that means to me. "Waste" means buying something with little personal value, but rather for the status value, or because others find it valuable. I find it wasteful allowing others to profit from my desire to be viewed as wealthy, or powerful, or capable of buying something. If that were the case, I wouldn't be powerful, I'd be a chump.

Of course, there are plenty of celebrities too boring to make it into these programs that show a less material, more reflective way of living, but it seems no one is interested in hearing about these people, who took good fortune and made a difference with it. Very little is mentioned about Angelina Jolie's outreach work abroad; it's usually overlooked by the $135k she spent on hotel room nights with Brad Pitt.

But again, I'm not rich, so maybe my standards would change. In any event, shows like The Fabulous Life, while served up with a dash of irreverance, raises a model of wealth that I don't personally respect--a template of affluence for others less introspective to follow if they should have the same good fortune.

There must be a list out there of the necessary status symbols that must be acquired by rappers when they hit stardom, including the pimped out low-rider, the nouveau riche colonial mansion, blinding diamond necklaces and rings, and matching dental grill. Or for the barely legal teen ingenue: the starter Mercedes, five-pound temporary engagement ring, $1,000 shoes, tuition-sized spa treatments, and bar tabs at the hottest clubs that could, for us poorfolk, be down payments on homes.

I thought I shouldn't write about this--I'm just bitter, right? But I think that the underlying feeling is one of disappointment, of fearing a lack of imagination in our celebrities, unwitting leaders. There seems to be a large-scale focus of attention on the ordinary that worries me. Are we pointing our fingers so much at ordinary people that we mistake them for more deserving than others?

Jon Pareles of the NY Times wrote an interesting piece a few weeks ago about how 2005 was a year of "Pop Comfort," whatever musical entertainment required as few brain cells as possible to digest generated the most sales.

"Voting with its dollars, the public ignored the esoteric favorites championed by critics and went for music that offered a little comfort and dance beats. Entertainment, not ambition, was the priority...

...the most memorable blockbusters have aspired to something beyond popularity. They set out to inspire, to startle, to define an era or to defy it. For the likes of Nirvana, the Beatles, Pink Floyd, Madonna, Michael Jackson, Eminem, Alicia Keys, Metallica or Bruce Springsteen, catchiness has been a means rather than an end. ...in 2005: mass-market hits felt disposable, like a momentary pleasure rather than like something worth owning."

It seems we revere merely the catchy. I would love to see a new series on Vh-1: The Meaningful Life

Comments

[Stacie]

Here, here. When I hear about this sort of waste, I always am disgusted. Is a $25 eyebrow wax that different than a $13? Or a $7? (The going rates for my neck of the woods.) Perhaps my midwestern roots are showing.

[Joy Des Jardins]

Apparently the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree sweetie. I have the same reaction to this disgusting wasteful lifestyle. I simply can't watch it....and don't. Though I'm fairly confident that I will never experience the lavish lifestyles of these celebrities, I'm pretty sure my standards wouldn't change.

[Steve Sherlock]

"The Meaningful Life"... unfortunately I don't see that will ever make it to prime time unless there is some twist at the end where ... you can fill in the blanks...

In the mean time, we'll live humbly and read here, and at http://37days.typepad.com/37days/2006/01/teach_fear_to_h.html
for encouragement.

[Katherine Stone]

I spend $15 on my brow wax, and I'm telling you it looks equally as good as Jennifer's. So who's the smart one, here?

[Marilyn]

Is this where I should guiltily admit that if I surf by "The Surreal Life" or "Celebrity Fit Club" or Flavor Flav that I stop and watch? (And glare angrily at my boyfriend when he tries to switch it to The Golf Channel?)