Did Celebrity Narcissism Kill Celebrity?

In discussing the decline of celebrity it is a commonplace to remark the many, many "faux pas" of the famous, and how all these have been amplified in the age of a 24/7 news cycle heavy on infotainment, and then online life with its social media and propensity for three hour tempests-in-a-teacup over absolutely nothing that all the same have their effect on perceptions. The narcissism of many a celebrity has been a factor here, of course, but I suppose that where most apparently identify this with a celebrity's more obviously unpleasant behavior--their exploding in rage on some occasion when the help didn't jump fast enough for the sake of catering to one of their petty whims (Coming next summer: Kanye West on a Plane!), or perhaps flakily throw their pampered existences in our faces in an Ugh-I-can't-pretend-to-be-someone-who-makes-twenty-five-thousand-a-year sort of way (says the literally-won-an-Oscar-for-pretending Gwyneth Paltrow)--this has not been its only dimension by any means, with much else that they do reflecting the same narcissism, and if not quite so obviously, making these figures wearisome.

One way is the insistence of so many of them on the whole world acknowledging them as three-dimensional human beings, and indeed, brilliant Renaissance Men and Women blessed with all the talents. Not content to be seen simply as a Master Thespian, and star of stage, screen and television, they insist that each and every human being on the planet Earth also validate them as, for example, an equally gifted and accomplished writer, director, musician, painter, martial artist, scientist, aviator, political analyst, humanitarian, activist, philanthropist, and of course, "entrepreneur." I don't have a problem with their doing other things, of course--it's a fine thing to try one's hand at different things, to stretch themselves, and finer still when people succeed at it, as sometimes they do, and few have so much opportunity. Nor are they obliged to be secretive about their "extracurriculars." Rather the issue is how strident they so often are about demanding the public's acknowledgment of their accomplishment on the basis of the most marginal, even flimsy, claims in all of these other areas, in spite of, again, their extreme privilege conferring on them opportunities of which many an aspirant scarcely dares to dream (as seen in the case of James Franco, the star of Zeroville and Why Him?, director of such masterpieces of world cinema as Future World). And of course, when they have been something else of note they never lets anyone forget. (Ever notice how it seems that Arnold Schwarzenegger can't go for two seconds in an interview without shoehorning into the conversation that he was "Governor of California?" As when, telling us that he wasn't in Terminator 4 reminding us entirely gratuitously that this was "Because I was Governor of California?")

Meanwhile they very readily decide that their life's journey is so unique, and reflective of such an exceptional personality, that while still far from retirement they not only insist on putting out a memoir, but make it double as a self-help book, a guide to living for all the Little People--in which doing the extreme opposite of what they apparently intend they actually reveal themselves not to have grown one iota as a human being since they, for example, started that feud with their colleague on the set of that sitcom they were in thirty years ago, before going on to ruin what was supposed to be the Big Night they had awaited for decades and pressed for by throwing a years-long tantrum by slapping the host of the awards ceremony right on camera before a disbelieving world that initially thought it was just a stunt to enliven a ceremony in desperate need of enlivening, and then having to devote their acceptance speech to a humiliating excuse for an apology as they hold their little statuette, with the result that it's pretty much all anyone can remember about that particular year's Oscars--including who it was that won Best Actor. (I suppose you can supply the relevant example yourself in this case, certainly to go by how in the run-up to the release of Bad Boys 4 people were, of course, asking "Does he get slapped in the movie?")

Even paying as little attention to the stupidity of public figures as I possibly can without hanging it all up and living completely off of the grid just yet I feel myself hit over the head with it again and again, and I don't imagine myself the only one to feel that way. But what seems to me even more relevant from the standpoint of how this may have undermined celebrity is how much it is at odds with that larger-than-life one-dimensionality that is the foundation of the concept--or even just the old adage that it's better to remain silent and be thought a fool than open one's mouth and remove all doubt. The result is that these fools so favored by fortune are not just too overexposed to allow for the old mystique, but also personally too obtuse, too unruly, too "Me, me, me" to adopt the public persona that celebrity conventionally required--ironically, even though the fame of so many of these personages literally rests on their claim to being able to play a part better than us nobodies watching at home, endlessly being assured that it isn't the nepotism of which they were such colossal beneficiaries but the raw talent and "hard work" that put them in a position to annoy not just a limited circle of personal acquaintances but the whole world with their idiocies.