We are so star struck by celebrities that we sometimes forget that they are real people. They are real people, right? The truth is, it's kind of hard to tell. We never see them get out of bed in the morning. We never see them making breakfast or some other meal. If they do go out of the house to go shopping then most likely they're so heavily disguised we wouldn't recognize them anyway. We certainly never see them take their kids to school. Most likely they've got servants for that chore. And heaven knows we never see them go to sleep at night. It seems like celebrities are up 24 hours a day, especially since many TV stars spend 16 hour days taping an episode of your favorite show. No, from what we see, it doesn't really look like celebrities are real people at all. They're some kind of plastic, celluloid hero, immune to tears, hunger, thirst, fear and just about every emotion that we so take for granted. In the 1970s, the Kinks came out with a song called "Celluloid Heroes". Ray Davies sings about these poor souls who suffered and struggled for fame. How some succeeded and some suffered in vain. But Celluloid Heroes, as he so beautifully put it, "never feel any pain. Celluloid Heroes never really die". That last line is just further evidence that celebrities aren't real people at all. Everyday on our televisions we see shows with stars who are long gone, such as "All In The Family" with Carol O' Conner, who passed away recently. But there he is, still sitting on that chair and still calling Edith a dingbat. Certainly he can't be real anymore, if he ever was. Did you know that Carol O' Conner lost a son because of drugs? He never really got over that. We also watch "Chico And The Man" reruns with Freddie Prinze. Now that was one talented man who had everything to live for. Maybe he thought he wasn't real too. Or maybe he realized just how real he was when he took his own life at the height of his popularity. Today, his son, Freddie Prinze Junior, is making appearances on "Boston Legal" as Denny Crane's son who's really not his son, just his pretend son. Denny Crane is played by William Shatner. He's still alive but so many of the people who he stared with in "Star Trek" are gone; people like Deforest Kelley who played Dr. McCoy and James Doohan who played "Scottie". Do you think Shatner feels his own mortality with so many of his friends passed on or getting older? But there they are, still up on our screens, still smiling, still telling jokes, still acting, still singing, or whatever it is they do. To us, it's all they do. No real lives, no heartaches, no joys, no dull days, nothing that we as regular people experience everyday. So obviously celebrities can't be real people. Or maybe we should just take the time to ask one. |
