500 Words on Thursday | Written by Lee Schneider
Lindsay Lohan misbehaves. TMZ and Radar Online cover it and collect wheelbarrows full of advertising dollars. Arnold Schwarzenegger acts like an idiot and TMZ and Radar Online are all over it. More wheelbarrows of cash. Anybody catching on yet?
Did you know that TMZ is owned by Time Warner and that Radar Online is owned by the National Enquirer? There’s sweet money to be made in the business of trashy behavior. We have a lot of airtime to fill and a lot of media to create and a lot of platforms to satisfy, and well, that’s a whole lot of Charlie Sheen. Yet, in the interest of providing an unlimited stream of foolishness, some celebrities have actually caught on. They’re not avoiding the bad news. They are courting it.
There’s no such thing as bad publicity.
-Muammar Gaddafi
Actually, Gaddafi didn’t say that. It was Irish playwright Brendan Behan, and he didn’t know he was giving good advice to Michael Lohan, Lindsay’s father, master of the art of monetizing bad behavior using reality shows, clips leaked to TMZ, and general hell-raising for the camera. The tabloid economy is robust, and fool/tools like Arnold Schwarzenegger pump it up with a potent mix of adultery and real estate deals.
Thing is, I’ve grown hoarse from shouting at Access Hollywood on TV, so I’m switching my personal economy to the Inspiration Economy. There’s as much money to be made as in the other one, but with better costumes and choreography.
All individuals have a natural right to self-expression by any means, even if such means were insane and meant to prove a person’s insanity.
-Lady Gaga
Actually, Lady Gaga didn’t say that. It was Muammar Gaddafi. But we know that Gaga, like Gaddafi, is about self-expression, sometimes to extremes. And we know they share the same stylist. There is no “offstage” for Gaga or for Gaddafi. Gaga’s a show without an intermission, so she has said, and that sounds pretty terrifying. Truth is, I worry about her. She says she lives halfway between reality and fantasy all the time. This is also true of Newt Gingrich, but since he doesn’t change outfits as much as Gaga, he doesn’t hold our attention.
I believe a revolution can start with the actions of a single person. If you board that logic train with me, it means that somebody who says they can be the queen we need can be an agent of positive change, even if she wears meat sometimes, and somebody else can be an agent of negative change, especially if he wears funny hats. Individuality and inspiration, dressed in sparkly costumes, or even serving an out-of control ego, are better than marching along with manipulators who misbehave, cash in, and repeat. It’s about power, and how you use it.
Ninety-five percent of the people in the world need to be told what to do and how to behave.
- Arnold Schwarzenegger
Actually, that’s a real one. Maybe he should have a talk show with Gaddafi.
Camera image by Steve Jurvetson via Creative Commons License.
Written by Lee Schneider, founder of DocuCinema
I went to yoga the other night. The room was filled with so many acolytes their yoga mats were about a micron apart. It was like boarding the subway in NYC during rush hour and getting an intimate view of your neighbor’s armpit. Only in yoga it’s more exciting because the people are half naked and their sweat flies on you when they flail. That class lasted about 45 seconds for me. I had to leave. I don’t do flailing.
After suffering from downward dog withdrawal and getting a $61 parking ticket (“And things were going so well!”) I had plenty of time to reflect on the valuable lessons learned. This is kind of a game we play, trying to extract a valuable life lesson from every event no matter how annoying. (“A bee stung me on the ass. What valuable lesson can be extracted from that?”)
Why was I annoyed enough to bail out of that class? Well, for one thing, I have issues
with sweaty strangers violating my personal space. But I also don’t like cults of personality.
Some people actually come to a yoga class for the yoga, but a male teacher can become popular and female students will don the appropriate Lululemon yoga gear and crowd into his classes, never admitting out loud that they have a crush on him. Movie stars get people to buy tickets, usually not directors or scripts. Cults of personality. Charisma is king. 
But Arnold Schwarzenegger’s charisma isn’t enough to run this state, and charismatic people like Tony Robbins or Suze Orman can seem to me to be style over substance.
Let’s face it, though, charisma is a powerful force – maybe even a hit of life force. It can draw people in, pay the bills, get your message across and your cause followed.
I don’t care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members.
–Groucho Marx
Groucho aside, most people want to be members of something. They like leaders to help them join the tribe. Yoga people are their own tribe, and Vegas gamblers, and Michael Jackson fans. In Seth Godin’s book Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us, he describes how connecting with others is a powerful tool for shaping consumer desire and even changing the world. He and others have pointed out that your tribe has nothing to do with geography, your religion or blood type. It can be fellow Facebook users, Syrah lovers, devotees of Nike running shoes or iPods. In a fragmented world we look to tribal leaders. Charismatic leaders, like Steve Jobs of Apple, can really drive a consumer brand into becoming a movement. There’s that word again: charisma. Maybe it’s the mojo in leadership. Maybe, despite myself, I’m going to extract a lesson out of that crowded subway car of a yoga class.
Thing is, there’s more yoga being done because of charismatic teachers. Apple has inspired a generation of designs that matter. Charismatic social entrepreneurs like Jacqueline Novogratz fund the businesses of the poor by first listening and then building supportive communities around local entrepreneurs. Charisma, backed up with a plan, can really change the world. Ok, I get it. Just stay out of my space in yoga class.
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Larry Gelbart, writer of “M*A*S*H,” and “Tootsie,” wrote an HBO movie called “Weapons of Mass Distraction.” The title is one of the best things about it.
Mass distractions distract everyone from thinking about war, help us stop thinking about Dick Cheney or the share price of AT&T. Mass distractions help keep us focused on which guy with sticky hair will win “American Idol” and encourage us to become hypnotized by Britney Spears, a mentally unstable hillbilly.
I’m not coming at this from a cultural mountaintop. I’m a veteran of E! Entertainment Television, have produced bio-docs on Arnold Schwarzenegger and Warren Beatty and have been doing pop culture movie segments for ReelzChannel. I’m in this pop culture thing really deep, ok? Lots of my colleagues in cable are doing great things melding pop culture with science. Exciting pop media is on the horizon with iPhone and Motorola phone aps. I get that pop culture is a powerful engine. But who’s driving?
Diane Keaton: It’s so clean out here [in Los Angeles.]
Woody Allen: That’s because they don’t throw their garbage away, they turn it into television shows.
– “Annie Hall.”
It’s relaxing to watch garbage on TV, more relaxing than taking out the real garbage. (“Is that starting to smell bad, or is it the television?”) People say mass media is dead, but nearly 29 million people watched the finale of American Idol. The most popular video on YouTube has been viewed about 56 million times. The pop audience is big and it’s a cultural powerhouse.
“We need better shows.”
- Jeff Zucker, chief executive of NBC Universal, quoted in the New York Times.
Zucker’s network is struggling in the ratings so making better shows seems an admirable directive. But what does better mean? I’m willing to bet that for Zucker and his product placement guru Ben Silverman, better means servicing the advertisers who pay for the shows. Judging by the garbage NBC puts on they haven’t been thinking much about the viewers.
Why do they put garbage on TV, anyway? Because people will watch it. If people will watch singers singing off key, that’s what goes on. Network TV programming, like banking these days, is a remarkably morality-free occupation. There is no cabal determining what goes on. (Sorry, Dan Brown, no Illuminati.) It’s all market driven. So who’s driving the culture train? Nobody, really. It’s kind of driving itself.
Here’s the thing: I believe in editors. As in Managing Editors, as in people who make a point of figuring out what might be visionary, necessary and important to know. I believe you can do this and cater to pop culture and mass culture.
Now that I have trashed the soldiers of television and maybe irritated some hard-working and dedicated others who could pay me good money, may I issue a few retractions? Britney Spears is a good entertainer who can draw and hold an audience. Naked celebrities are entertaining. Some of the people on “American Idol” can carry a tune. The dry humor of “The Office” is almost as funny as a real office. Tyra Banks might not be completely evil. Kittens are really cute. Kittenwar.com is an important website that has sucked down hours of my time. Just another weapon of mass distraction.
