10/29/07

We really need to get rid of Hollywood


I find it very depressing to read about the latest reality "star." I love this quote from The NYTimes about this bimbo and the entire phenomena of fame and celebrity:

How, one may ask, is it possible for a personality who great hunks of the citizenry never imagined existed to build up a social network more populous than Dallas? How can Tila Tequila have become enormously famous having done little of note beyond appearing as Playboy’s Cyber Girl of the Week? When exactly in the Warholian arc of fame did we arrive at a point where we create celebrities of people so little accomplished that they make Paris Hilton look like Marie Curie?

What does this say about us and where we are heading? I will not even use the word culture, as in pop culture or even low culture. There is no hint of any culture in this vicinity. Is it just me or is the world of porn rapidly being absorbed into this Hollywood cult of celebrity? The new porn aesthetique. Stripper poles and booty shots. Something once relegated to backrooms and brown paper bag economics has now become fixed squarely and defiantly under the spotlight. And we shouldn't be so dismissive by saying it is only a particular demographic that is the target. Thanks to the internet and other such technologies, Tila Tequila and her ilk are everywhere.

Sure we can admire her entrepreneurial initiative in selling herself and her sexual availability-- excuse me, the appearance of her sexual availability. We could. Does the product even matter? Just because she is selling herself rather than say, soup, does it make it more sleazy than Campbell's? Or is it all relative, and not about the product -- soup or sexual availability -- but rather the whole business of pimping selling process itself?

I am completely serious when I say that porn and Hollywood mainstream are totally merged. Why does Jenna Jameson (and her duck lips) walk the red carpet? Why is it cool to be part of the porn world? And not just cool as in "I hate my parents" cool, or "I am a total cokehead" cool and can't tell the real world from anything, but as in art and creative force and all that stuff.

navarro

Case in point, Dave Navarro. Let me just state for the record that I loved Jane's Addiction back in the day. And Dave Navarro was a bad mo-fo. Could he play that guitar?! He was no poseur, no douchebag, no sketchy looking ageing "producer" type. Now he has become a beacon of selling out for all sell out wannabees. Rockstar? His marriage with Carmen Electra? Does he do anything off camera? Maybe go to the bathroom ... hang on, what a great idea for other ageing hipsters who need colonics. Dave Navarro constipated! Let's watch him have his cancer/polyp checkup! But seriously, he has announced that he is now directly pornos. Yup, that's right. Once a talented tortured serious musician with gravitas now films people fucking. Here is his defence:

“Rock and porn exist to break taboos. Rock used to have that rebellious ‘up against the world’ creed . . . That doesn’t exist anymore in the music world - but it’s alive and well in the adult industry.” He adds: “It’s heartening to feel kin to a group of freewheeling individuals who don’t give a shit about approval.”

I agree about that whole music thing - cough Maroon 5 cough -- but come on! This was the ONLY alternative? Sure it's a free country and we can all do what we want bla bla bla but don't we have a resonsibility to elevate ourselves? The world? Tell me what bimbos like TT contribute to the world? And Dave Navarro?








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