Post-surgery Montag, trying to stay famous
If you have taste, a job, and a brain, or don’t read a lot of “Us” and “People” in doctors’ offices, you may never have heard of Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag. They were stars of the once popular TV reality show “The Hills,” and despite being two vacuous and shallow individuals of minimal common sense, talent or education, they presumed that they could ride the “famous for being famous” gravy train in celebrity-and-media obsessed America indefinitely. They couldn’t.
The Daily Beast features a horrifying interview with the pair, which is worth reading for its ethics lessons on several levels. For one thing, the degree to which the culture of dishonesty has progressed in America surprises even me. Allowing yourself to be presented to the public as a completely manufactured personality in exchange for fame and fortune has always been part of the celebrity experience, but the reality show phenomenon has removed it from everything else—now the lie is all there is. And there are thousands upon thousands of attractive, young dimwits who actually aspire to such ersatz enshrinement in the culture as their life’s pursuit. Paris Hilton and the Kardashian sisters are these deluded individuals’ goddesses, despite the fact that 1) there are not 500 IQ points among the four of them and 2) they all have the benefit of rich trust funds to fall back on, so their jaunts as pop culture comets are more like diversions than careers, though profitable ones.
Then there is the realization that beautiful dummies like Pratt and Montag are exploited and manipulated by Hollywood producers and writers, who fully intend to throw them away like used up candy wrappers as soon as ratings fall and their fling with fame is over. In this the fake celebrities are like child stars, except without the benefit of real talent, the excuse of youth and, usually, the curse of venal parents. Perhaps the better comparison is high school and college athletes, who gamble everything on making it big in professional sports when the odds say that few of them will.
Even athletes, however, can do something of value. Reality stars like Pratt and Montag really can’t, though as the interview reveals, they came to believe they had something to offer the culture in exchange for the millions they assumed would always be shoveled their way. When interest in them started waning, the couple began living their lives with the same disregard for the genuine and the honest as the supposedly real plots of “The Hills.” Montag, infamously, mutilated herself with over-the-top plastic surgery, becoming a human approximation of a blow-up sex toy, and just as realistic looking. Pratt, her husband, thought he could keep the tabloids interested with phony tales of discord between the couple, and even a fake divorce filing. Nothing worked. Now Montag is a mutant, and her husband is broke and bitter.
Yes, “That’s Entertainment!” But there is something else here. Living a lie has unavoidable consequences, the worst of which is being unable to survive with the truth. A culture, meanwhile, that attaches value to, and supports commerce in, shallowness, mediocrity, ignorance and boredom shares some of the responsibility for causing vulnerable individuals to believe that these are sufficient career qualifications, as long as they are accompanied by DD boobs, pouting lips, or killer abs.
A culture, or a significant part of it, that celebrates Kim Kardashian, Paris Hilton or even briefly, Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag, is losing its values at a dangerous rate. Pratt and Montag are warnings. I don’t feel particularly sorry for them, but they do frighten me.
Read the interview here, if you dare.
Ethics Alarms 
I can’t add much to that, Jack. It’s the pure, unadulterated (?!) truth. Shallowness joins hands with exploitiveness in framing the pop culture of today. While I pity these mannequins with the mentality of spoiled adolescents, my real worry remains with those who are still kids and being led down this road (and darker ones besides) as we speak in escalating cycles of teen and pre-teen exploitation. For many of them, becoming a Heidi Montag may be the best future they can hope for as truncated adults.
So utterly sad. I never thought I could be disturbed by these textbook examples of Hollywood voids, but the interview got to me. How awful, and what a self-made celebrity Hell! They are still young enough to do something with their lives, but can they?
It’s always possible, Jack. People have come back from worse situations, having plumbed the depths of depravity and found- from somewhere- the insight and courage to take a new direction; up and out. But first they have to come to the realization that their lives are, at best, hollow and without any higher purpose beyond maintaining a “celebrity” status for its own sake. It’s difficult to do when you’re in an occupation that glorifies this (while subsisting on the spiritual corpses of its celebritized victims) and carried out by willing minions who often include the victims’ own family members. And when this has been in play since early childhood (as is increasingly becoming the case) a celebrity grows up with his/her exploitation as a matter of normalcy. There are only two means (short of death!) taken together that can break this cycle. One is the removal of the celebrity from their toxic environment to allow them to look inside from the perspective of the rest of us… to be able to see the forest through the trees. Reclaiming a relationship with God is the other. This is how, historically, such people find their way out as have. All too often, though, it comes only after a complete collapse and abandonment… and a close brush with death along the way. The way to largely prevent this scenario in the first place is to re-extend the reach of child protective laws into the dark warrens of the entertainment field.
Participating in a reality show has been repeatedly demonstrated to be a loss in your ability to present yourself as you are. Conflicts, motivations, reactions, everything can be altered and edited to suit the needs of the producers. You give up your personhood, who you are, so they can make a character that everyone in the world will know and think is the real you. Some people will even voluntarily act out or pretend they’re more interesting in the quest for fame. They become famous, even if it’s as someone else.
In this era, I believe it is the closest thing we have to selling your soul.
And that’s not the end of it, Jeff. What’s worse beyond that is how far these “reality show” parents will go with their own kids to further their purloined celebrity status. Abetting them is not only the producers and networks, but the politicians and bureaucrats who will allow it by either avoiding the relevant child labor laws (by labelling the children as “participants” rather than “actors”, thus denying them legal protections) or by ignoring them outright in self-interest. These issues have been pursued in New York, New Jersey and in Pennsylvania (the home base of the Gosselins) and have resulted in some gains. There’s a long road to travel, though. This sort of thing has become deeply entrenched, with state rebate laws on film production costs being one of the driving forces. It should also be noted that, even when children enjoy “actor” status, it’s not much of an improvement.
Let me say this as unequivocally as possible:
Any parent who would place their child in a reality-TV environment for their own gain or fame deserve to have their children placed in protective custody and their reproductive systems confiscated and replaced with a clear piece of PVC tubing and a clothespin.
You might be surprised at how many are in agreement with you in your sentiments, Jeff. That includes, BTW, Paul Petersen- who’s been active in the challenge forwarded by the blatant exploitation of children in the Reality TV arena. It’s encouraging to see how many former child actors from the “golden age” are stepping forward these days to try to protect their modern day counterparts. During the recent hearings in Pennsylvania (lead by State Representative Thomas Murt) Paul, Jon Provost and Alison Arngrim- along with testimony from other Industry activists- helped revise the loopholes in the state’s child labor laws made evident by the Jon & Kate + 8 situation. I was invited to take part myself but, unfortunately, couldn’t make it. A lot of us are hoping that revised laws- or merely invoking unenforced child protective laws already on the books- will eventually put an end to this sort of thing. But if history is any guide, producers will come up with a new angle elsewhere, even if Reality TV runs out of steam. Nor does this address other flagrant abuses of children in other areas of the entertainment field. But one’s thing’s certain. Everytime these exploitive producers, agents and parents come up with another outrage, they need to be confronted. And they CAN be defeated.
You know, I came thiiis close to saying that, but I was afraid of sparking an argument between Steven and tgt over the existence of souls. Seriously, though—that a great observation. That’s exactly what it is like.
Life imitates art.
One quibble. 500 IQ points among 4 people would be an average above the 90th percentile. I know you said “not 500 IQ points”, but that still seems like a ridiculous upper limit for them.
That was sub 125 of me. My intention was to suggest that none of them were remarkably smart, but since the Kardashians all reside in the 80’s, I just made a genius out of Paris Hilton.
Frankly, I don’t give a good goddamn about any of them. Lots of morons get hooked on drugs and alcohol, have children out of wedlock and can’t take care of them, etc. Unless the semi-morons who follow this ridiculous pop culture care equally about the millions of unknowns who need help, I find the discussion shallow and pointless. (This attitude does NOT apply to talented child actors who are used and abused by parents, who really had something to contribute to TV and the movies (the arts?). Google Paul Petersen (late of the Donna Reed Show) and see what he is doing…
Meantime, perhaps I’m lucky to have a son… who decided on his own that Paris Hilton, et.al.,and NO reality show was worth one minute of his time and thought. If you’re raising girls, there are so many examples of wasted lives and health by moronic women that lessons can be learned early on.