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by TODD LEVIN
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ALSO BY TODD LEVIN
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Vicestyles of the Rich & Famous: Come match the celebrities and their vices in this fabulous Shockwave feature!
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The TV Lounge:
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Isn't it ironic that each year the televised broadcast of the Academy Awards is preceded by one of Barbara Walters' one-hour A-List celebrity weep-a-thons? It is so inspiring to hear the Giants of Fame sit across from Babs, a single tear of dysfunctional childhood gathering in their well-trained eyes, apologizing to half the planet for some recent heavily publicized embarrassment/felony. Then, just a few short minutes later, we have the privilege of watching that same walking, talking anti-depressive endorsement clutching an Oscar instead of Miss Walters' matronly hand, gleefully thanking the remaining half of the planet. Express lane to redemption.
Calling all public figures: We're not your shrinks. And when I say "we", I mean the collective We — the TV watching, commemorative plate-buying Great Unwashed. Previously legitimate news programs — Dateline, 60 Minutes, Body By Jake — have side-carred the topical and the informative for the sensational and the self-piteous. And with the same sort of juvenile, morbid curiosity that begs questions like, "can Siamese twins share a weener?", we watch, glassy-eyed, as hang-dog celebrated wash-outs explain, in a series of meaningful close-ups, why fame is to blame for the recent incident in which they were discovered rooting around in the trash of an Encino couple, wearing nothing but a diaper filled with human hair and a Planet Hollywood pith helmet. Can't we be mercifully spared the parade of tears and let the national airwaves be dominated by slightly less sensational figures, like the President of the United States of America. (Um, scratch that. Change it to the Attorney General of the — wait, scratch that, too. Honestly, I'm sure there's some public figure who has sturdier moral fiber than, say, Roman Polanski).
Well, can't we? Not likely, as we crave the cycles of celebrity disgrace and redemption like the celebrities themselves crave engrams. There is a genuine captive audience for TV programs like VH-1's "Behind the Music" and E!'s "True Hollywood Story," which dedicate themselves to scooping marginalized Hollywood refuse out of the trash heap and hosing them down until they're squeaky clean, with a series of poignant childhood photographs and peer endorsements in place of a canister of Lice-Rid®. Who can blame Corey Feldman — inappropriately referred to over and over again in his private infomercial disguised as E!'s THS as "Former Hollywood Bad Boy" when they probably meant "Current Hollywood Bad Actor" — for trying to scrape together some acting work via a national cable confession? No one. Because Corey Feldman and the rest of the Coreys, Christians, Downeys, and Kissingers of the world have, in some way, chosen to live publicly. They celebrate publicly, picking out camera two on the Tonight Show to share a photograph of their newborn. And they are shamed publicly through their misdeeds — drugs, violence, dating Melanie Griffith. So should it really come as a surprise when they choose sweeps week to apologize for their malfeasance? I suppose not. In a way, it makes perfect sense. In fact, let's settle: Apology accepted. Now get off my TV screen; your tear-filled sideshow is preempting "Circus of the Stars."
Todd Levin writes a monthly column for Smug, and occasionally inhabits tremble.com.
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