The Academy Awards have always amazed me. And for that matter, so has Hollywood. It's not for all the glory that comes with being a movie star, but how we make them stars in the first place.
Our first problem is that we think we actually know these people.
It wasn't too long ago that the only time you saw these movie stars was in the movies themselves or with Johnny Carson. The digital age has certainly changed all that. If you haven't watched enough of your favorite actors on a variety of different television interviews, well, not to fear. They can be seen and heard....EVERYWHERE.
They have Facebook pages and Twitter accounts. It's like they're personally telling us about their day. Just like one of your friends. Not into social media? No problem. They can speak to you right on You Tube. That's right. They'll send you one-to-one video messages the morning after one of their celebrity parties. Or maybe they want to discuss a new project they're working on, so they post a video blog...just for you.
Do we actually believe this crap?
The truth is we've bought what Hollywood has been selling for decades. Just think about the relationships we've formed with the actors. At their core, these people are playing people that they're not. Except maybe Jack Nicholson and Jason Statham. For the rest of them, a writer creates a character, the actors play a role, eventually get typecast, and we suddenly think that archetype is real. Was John Wayne really a cowboy? Nah, just an alcoholic. Is Liam Neeson always trapped somewhere? No, my Father once took a leak next to him before a Broadway show, and he successfully made it out of the bathroom. Could Ryan Gosling be that disturbed? Alright, he might be.
The point is that these thespians are best known for being people that they're not. (Again, with the exception of Jack Nicholson.) But to the majority of us, they are their characters.
Our naiveté continues at the Award shows, and right on the Red Carpet. For almost two hours, people sit riveted to commentators discussing what the women are wearing. I can tell you what they're wearing. Someone else's dresses. They're given away by designers so they can be showcased on television around the world. So, even their clothing isn't real. The same goes for many of the shoes. Next, we move on to the jewelry, which is also a corporate "donation." So when you think about it, the last genuine thing that these actors will do before the Academy Awards is take a shower. Unless they took one at a hotel, and then the soap and shampoo would also be a donation.
Alright, so let's review. These actors play people they're not, put on dresses that aren't theirs, and wear someone else's jewelry. Well, at least they use their real names, right? I mean, nothing could be more genuine than your birth name. Marilyn Monroe is Norma Jean Baker. Whoopi Goldberg is Caryn Johnson. Cary Grant is Archibald Leach. Helen Mirren is Ilynea Mironoff. Demi Moore is Demetria Guynes, and Ben Kingsley is Kirisha Bhanji. Actors aren't even who they say they are.
One final layer of now you see it and now you don't is the pervasiveness of plastic surgery. On tonight's Awards show you're bound to say at least once, "wow, she's really aged well." Hey, cheese ages well. It's called a facelift. But for some reason, we delude ourselves into believing that with exercise and the right diet, you can be 70 and have skin like a baby's ass. I'm not sure if we're that stupid or the plastic surgeons are that good.
So, tonight we'll all be tuned to a very real show with fake people and their fake faces wearing their fake dresses and faking that they're actually happy to be there. It sounds like the plot of a great movie.
But I guess we're not that different. After all, many of us play several different roles each day. We're husbands and wives, parents and grandparents, lovers, employees, coaches, business owners, speakers, and community leaders. We get dressed up in different uniforms, change our personalities to cater to whatever situation we find ourselves in, and some of us even change our names. We don't do this for fortune and fame, but for survival. So, in a way, we're all actors.
I think the Kinks said it best in "Celluloid Heroes."
Everybody's a hero
And everybody's a star
And everybody's in movies
It doesn't matter who you are
There are stars in every city
In every house and on every street
And if you walk down Hollywood Boulevard
Their names are written in concrete
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