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Celebrity sickness is just the collateral damage of this mentality that perpetuates its contagion, “BITING THE HAND THAT FEEDS YOU”
…in so much as to that which regards your integrity, for it is that which you would not do that history will remember your name…
Recently on a business trip to New York, the flight attendant asked the person seated next to me, actor Renee Zellweger, if she would like some champagne. Not only did she not answer the flight attendant, she looked up at her with the most contumelious and reproachful look I’d ever seen. Indeed, Hell could have surely frozen over with the frigidly splenetic “No!” she answered the flight attendant with. Reduced to peonage, the flight attendant therein apologized profusely for doing her job and hurriedly disappeared. I don’t know where she went at 30,000 feet, but much to my amazement, as well as my annoyance, I did not see her again for the rest of the flight. Besides, who were we to expect service from the flight attendant. We were just mere ticket holders on the same plan as the flight attendant in Ms. Zellweger’s world. Though we paid the same price for the ticket as she did, it would have been selfish and malapert of us to request something from the flight attendant should it inconvenience Ms. Zellweger.
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After all, she was special and we weren’t. Soon after we landed, while I was waiting for my luggage, Ms. Zellweger who quite by happenstance, walked over to where I was standing to better espy her luggage as it circled the luggage carousel. As we were waiting for our luggage she was approached by a woman and her ecstatic teenage daughter who immediately went into a hysteric frenzy once they confirmed with each other that the woman standing next to me was indeed the actor Ms. Zellweger. While the young lady was vowing her undying devotion and eternal worship to her, Ms. Zellweger without so much as an expression on her face produced an index card that read “Do not talk to me or take my picture!” As this card seemingly had no effect on the two women, Ms. Zellweger flipped the card over in a desperate last attempt to shield herself from the two who had by now pulled out a camera and began to take pictures of her. “I do not want to talk to you!” the card silently pleaded with the two women. Totally oblivious and unaffected by the index card however, the women continued to snap away with their camera all the while 
Ms. Zellweger futilely tried to hide herself behind her card that she was thrusting like a rapier into the lens of the camera. Mother and daughter exempt, everybody around us including myself that still inhabited planet earth were dumbfounded, mortified, and above all embarrassed for us as well as for them. As you can imagine this caused quite a commotion around us as everyone had by now stopped what they were doing or where they were going to take note of this absurd scene. To be quite frank, I had never seen anything like this happen before in my life to say the least. My jaw was on the floor as I took it all in. Perhaps it was the sight of thirty frozen people with their mouths open displaying an expression of utter disbelief that caught their attention, I really couldn’t tell you, but no sooner than had I collected my thoughts did members of the paparazzi descend on Ms. Zellweger like a pride of lions who have sighted their prey from a thousand feet away. Pouncing on her like a pack of rabid animals, they started taking picture after picture and asking her the most fatuous and asinine questions I’ve ever heard anyone be asked. And believe me when I tell you that their questioning did not belie their presumed ignorance. Now let me sort this out for you, if not for you for the sake of my limited understanding then. Till this day I’ve never been able to, nor will I probably ever be able to, understand how this seemingly well traveled, well groomed, well read, and one would guess, owing to her profession and station, sharp individual I had seen on talk shows and interviews here and there in the past, could act so ignorant, classless, uncouth, and ill mannered as she was now acting. This was no performance either. Or was it? What balls this lady had! Being rude is one thing, but to be so obviously self-centered, self absorbed, narcissistic, megalomaniacal, and disgusting is another. I’ve seen better manners on the pigs that wallow in their own doo-doo on my friend Dewey’s farm! Who in the hell does this woman, or celebrities with the same philosophy as far as I’m concerned, think she is to treat the flight attendant and her two fans the way she did? To treat anybody like this period! Regardless of whom they are! Or who they’re not for that matter! Does this not have every thing to do with the fundamentals of social skills, social and personal civility and etiquette and not celebrity as she so mistakenly thinks. This has nothing to do, I repeat, nothing to do with celebrity. I don’t care who you think you are!! She should be shot!!! And that’s only what I saw in the course of 30 minutes. I can only imagine what people have to endure should they be forced to associate with her in any way for any length of time no matter how short or long. I guess it just goes to show you that you never know who someone is do you! Surely she realizes that the luxuries afforded her come partly if not directly from the young girls who pay to see her movies, wear her perfume, buy the dresses and clothes she endorses, and everything else she prostitutes herself for. From the soccer moms to the young ingénues who bankrupt themselves and their families trying to keep up with her and the Jones’s, surely she could afford to be a little more civil if being grateful is simply out of the question. She can’t afford to be as naïve as to think that she can have her cake and eat it too can she. Surely her handlers have polished her up at least a bit from the Texas HillBilly upbringing she is so quick to make obvious by her behavior. Surely these celebrities understand the price they pay and the freedoms they give up when they choose the profession. After all, we all know, or should know, that the biggest reason the majority of these actors choose to pursue the profession is for the attention itself. And no one can convince me otherwise! Now, I of course understand that just because they are celebrities, it doesn’t give us the right to intrude into their personal lives and expect that they be at the beck and call of our whimsies but does this have anything to do with being a human being. I’m quick to realize that being a famous personality, and that’s all they are, gets old and trying when everyone you meet expects you to behave or quote the same lines your characters on screen do. But it’s what they wanted wasn’t it. Wasn’t it the fame, recognition, and attention from the world that they so desperately craved reason enough to sell themselves out. (Here I may sound bias, but I won’t overrule it) Or the lack of Mommy and Daddy’s acceptance and approval that drove their ambitions to gain or replace what they so dearly desired from them? To be loved! Then of course you have the Sean Penn’s, whose work I admire greatly by the way, who have grown wiser and less mordacious with the public as time has gone on due to personal
growth and self discovery. Accelerated I’m sure by the nature and proximateness of the acting trade itself. Forgotten though are their early days, who think that by some merit of achievement we forgive all the ignominious and puerile stunts and abuse they’ve hurled on everyone. Indeed, I am one of the biggest fans of movies and admirer’s of actors like Penn and Nicholson yet don’t believe do I for one minute that their behavior when offensive or destructive is justified by their talent or fame. Ohh, the poor demented little geniuses! Besides, you have to know destruction intimately to learn how to harness and manipulate it. Just trashing a hotel room or womanizing because you can brings you no closer to it than it does me to some supermodel on the cover of some swimsuit magazine. But that’s something else. Especially to justify it from some Hick from Texas who obviously forgot where she came from. “I have a right to privacy!!!”, or “I’m a star therefore I’m special” they complain. Well sure, that’s easy to say when you have three hundred million dollars in the bank and houses all over the world with chattels whose sole job is to laugh at your inane jokes. By then, what need have you of any fans and autograph seekers that you once so eagerly catered to. Who do you think your trying to kid! Talk about biting the hand that feeds you. Or maybe it’s not Ms. Zellweger’s fault at all. No. Perhaps it’s we as a society’s fault. Yes! Maybe it’s ours. As all this I had witnessed set my mind in motion and I started asking myself these questions. I remember thinking at the time that any of these “hunted” celebrities, if you will, could easily veil themselves or afford to never be seen by the paparazzi, or anyone else for that matter, if in fact they so desired. But they need the paparazzi and the attention do they not. I mean, if not for the approval seeking weakness in them, a demand for them must be maintained by them for themselves so as to whet the fans appetite lest they fall into obscurity. This of course being easily achieved by mediocre talents like Ms. Zellweger who court the paparazzi with these public outbursts knowing full well it will land her on the covers of every celebrity gossip magazine and television show out there in Couch Potatoeville. Besides, anybody who hides behind the acting craft so as not to have to live out their own lives and face the world could surely suffer from the pangs of being a has been who never was. This would be the explanation I allowed myself upon wasting a fraction of a second on thought about it. There is surely more pressing things in the world that command my attention besides Ms. Zellweger’s opprobrious behavior.
As time went on I recall how baffled I was about this whole incident. I pondered how the catoptrics of this profession had given rise to a new multi billion dollar a year industry. Not only have we given rise to it but we allow a group of stalkers to hack, track, hunt, and stalk a celebrities every move for the purpose of the world’s subconscious desire to see people exposed and exploited with no regard for their personal lives or their family’s privacy. Notwithstanding the public’s safety and disregard for every citizen’s life, privacy, and our laws. Should this be illegal I wondered? No sooner had I forgotten the whole thing, did a colleague of mine who was very much an obsessed fan of celebrity, as apparently everyone in the world is, related to me what Ms. Zellweger had done to a paparazzo at an airport and TMZ aired on their television show last night. “What did you say?” I muttered curiously, as I was really in disbelief. “I said, good for her!” he retorted with a look of agreement thinking the dumbfounded look on my face was in concert with his. “It’s about time we start standing up for our rights to the paparazzi” he squealed while glowing with stupidity. I felt like I was in the twilight zone, so taken aback was I. Him too I thought. Obsessed with the every move of celebrities, to hang on their every word, to purchase their every product they endorse. This is when I started to take a good look at myself, more importantly, I began to really look at the state of affairs our society, culture, and country has fallen victim to. Considering we’ve come a long way since the Stone Age, why is it that we have started to regress in these modern times? We are living in modern times aren’t we. We’ve mastered nature, science, technology, medicine, industry, just to name a few, yet I feel we’ve yet to 
master one more thing. Ourselves!!! I’m moderately educated, moderately successful, somewhat polite, and well mannered for the most part, don’t get me wrong I have my demons too. I wasn’t always the easiest to get along with, but there did come a time in my life that I realized it was only me who was missing out on life. Not them, who according to my behavior chose instead to stay clear of me and my friendship, but me. I was missing out. Intrinsic to personal growth, I have realized this only to work on myself more and more each day as life goes on. But by comparison, I’m not a celebrity therefore not in the public eye like they are. Like they so much desire to be I shall keep reiterating. So am I a relic of antiquity living so far behind the times and current state of affairs that I’m shocked at all this. To be honest with you I’m not sure. I’ve always dismissed Hollywood and the liberal media purely as a brilliant marketing machine that solely advertises and exploits the masses for the sole purpose of the bottom line. And what’s wrong with that right! They’re a business and that’s what a business is supposed to do. Make money in a responsible way that is conducive to the growth of the company and its profitability. And should society and humanity benefit by their endeavors, then more power to them. Branding is what I’ve always called it and who they exploit as far as that went was always fine with me as long as I didn’t allow it to interfere with me, or my life. Who’s being naïve now? That’s pretty much how I look at everything and everybody. Besides, only a fool would believe that the persona an actor plays on screen is the same persona they have in real life. Only a fool would believe that if you bought and wore the same watch Brad Pitt did you would marry some beautiful and wealthy woman. Only a kid would save all his lunch money to buy a hundred and fifty dollar pair of sneakers Kobe Bryant told him would make him an athletic superhero or a famous ball player if he did. Or am I the fool being so naïve to think that this entitlement mentality doesn’t affect me. You see, it’s much, much, more than just media saturation, advertising, and consumer driven madness. Here in lies the root of the problem that I’m talking about. It’s the rapacious demand from the American public and audience to bridge and gap our lives with the lives of these celebrities and superstars that’s the whole problem. To live vicariously through these advertisers masked as celebrities live. Be that as it may, it’s not just here that this ideal’s Mission Statement and Action Item List has begun to show the decay that has eroded our very fabric of society today adding to its entropy. An inposse realization, I once thought, now only the plausibility is my certainty that this new ideal has completely possessed us. Celebrity Sickness is just the collateral damage of this mentality that perpetuates its contagion. It’s a mentality that is perpetuated and propagated by the loss of values that have been replaced not by our own personal set of values that we planted after having courageously eradicated the old traditional values that have no place or room for us now in these new times, values that exhibit the capabilities of actualizing our potentialities today in these now and here current times, but by a new abstract belief and televised idealism that says we are all special and we are all celebrities therefore we’re all entitled. I call it The Entitlement Mentality. So with that said is Renee Zellweger just another pig without manners as she is sure to behave as long as we allow her to or is she a product of our own celebritized environment. You tell me, because I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired of Celebrity Sickness!!!
TO BE CONTINUED IN CELEBRITY SICKNESS PART 2: “THE PATH OF LEAST RESISTANCE”