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Jewish World Review August 9, 2005 / 4 Av, 5765 What actors' ‘naughty’ tapes reveal about all of us By Karen Heller
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Another day, another celebrity home-grown porn tape, surely a growth
industry, if you'll pardon the expression.
As I write this, Colin Farrell, the Lusty Leprechaun, as the tabs
dubbed him, has sued a former Playmate "girlfriend" to block her
from peddling a 15-minute video produced "solely for their private
use and enjoyment." Question: If you record slap-and-tickle with a
Playboy centerfold, is it possible to be surprised by this
development?
Farrell is in danger of being better known as a swordsman than as an
actor, although the release of this tape might combine those
talents. I have yet to see any of Farrell's cinematic work — his
Kurt Cobain tresses in Alexander an assault on my aesthetic
sensibilities — but remain fluent in his gossip-column appearances,
as well as those of other boudoir cineastes like Pamela Anderson and
Paris Hilton.
OK, I promised I wasn't going to do this, but about the Paris Hilton
phenomenon, it's this simple: The common assumption is that she's a
socialite and old money, but she's neither. She's common with a
memorable name, so people take comfort in thinking someone superior
isn't.
This steady stream of embarrassing tapes reflects celebrities' need
to tape their every move, risking not only uncontrolled publicity
but mounting attorney fees. For actors, doesn't this constitute a
busman's holiday of sorts, and perhaps illustrate that they're most
turned on by themselves? And, in a follow-up question, are hair and
makeup people standing by to fluff and bronze?
Actors are better-looking, narcissistic versions of ourselves. An
ever-present camera reflects a belief that all life's moments are
equally special, an awareness of a potential audience greater than
those present, and an act that becomes bigger by being recorded for
posterity. In other words, they're always performing. They're there,
but cognizant of a future moment of secondhand experience.
Multitasking has become the dream sport of the small-minded.
Tourists regard the globe's grandness through a camera lens, as if
their eyes and memory were too antiquated to absorb nature, humanity
or art.
People talk and drive because they can, because they think it's
cool, a new bad habit with risk, like they're James Dean playing
chicken in Rebel Without a Cause, except they've got only the
without a cause part down.
The threshold of boredom is being lowered all the time. Nobody wants
to do one thing at once. It's so positively 20th century.
Every day, you see jerks in the gym with cell phones on the
treadmill or, worse, talking while walking their dogs, or they're
tapping away with laptops on the beach, trying to keep nature at bay
while feeling the cold, constant embrace of technology's stuff.
Nobody's content with a primary experience. We're all into secondary
and tertiary moments, and seeming busy when we're doing little. When
people look back on this moment of time, it will be a wonder that
there will be any memory of it all, only videotapes and Webcasts,
blogs and, in Farrell's case, lawyer's fees. There's no there there,
only people furiously cataloguing for the future.
It's saying something when even sex isn't enough.
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Karen Heller is a columnist for Philadelphia Inquirer. Comment by clicking here. © 2005, The Philadelphia Inquirer Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services. |
Arnold Ahlert | |||||||||||
