One of These Days

Hey, Mr. DJ – put a record on, I wanna dance with my past… If I can’t do anything else, then I’ll dedicate my artistic mission toward describing what it’s like to grow up somewhere between the bourgeoise and the rebel… If I can’t seem to make it through to the populace; if I can’t make it to the print presses or the airwaves; then maybe I’ll just have to settle for letting the folks who surf the ‘net know how I feel about how I was raised to feel…

I’m not the only one. Neither are you. If you’re alive enough to read this right here and right now, then you’re one of us. You’re one of those who was raised on the Myth of A Star Is Born. It doesn’t matter of it’s Streisand or Garland you associate with the role. The truth is, if you remember either (or worse, like myself, if you remember both), then the Star in question is none other than yourself.

Rising to fame is the late 20th/early 21st Century equivalent to an immigrant’s arriving from another land, after passing through Eillis Island, onto streets paved with gold. It is the current American mythos. It is the umph upon which the majority of several industries have been thrust, and then built.

Don’t know what I mean? Then take a look-see at American Idol, or So You Think You Can Dance, or even at the mothers of all “Reality” TV: The Real World or Survivor. They encapsulate, in less than 60 minutes (gotta reserve ample time for commercials, after all), the sheer reductivist version of Darwinianism that America likes to call its own.

It’s survival of the fittest, that is. Which equates, in camera-ready terms, to an unspoken unilateral agreement to put to contest only the most beautiful of people. Hence the first line of Darwinian deliniation, in American terms, equals beauty – according to how the camera sees it. (Beauty has, after all, been determined differently according to various variables throughout Western history; i.e.: how one looks whilst lounging along a riverbank or on a chaise, or how one appears on stage.) Don’t tell me Richard Hatch isn’t handsome. True, he might not look like Tom Cruise, but if his nose had cast any unnessecary shadows on that, the first of the screen tests before any of the contestants had landed on the first of the Survivor islands, then you can be damned sure he’d never have gotten the opportunity to saunter around, however robustly, in his birthday suit.

See, these days (ever since the dawn of Hollywood and the utterly critical aspect called depth-of-field), beauty has been determined less by one’s facial features and more by the lack of them. Because features cast shadows, and shadows – in the film/video world – are problems. It started somewhere around Garbo and has continued right up to Pamela Anderson. The former had no features whatsoever, other than what the camera gave her, and the latter? Ditto – except for her “titto’s.” You see, bodily features are just fine. It’s the close up that’s the problem. Unless, of course, you’re utterly featureless. Then it’s no problem at all.

Which is not to say that one can’t possess any physical features whatsoever. Quite the contrary. Coloring is critical (no matter what any make-up or lighting “artist” wants to tell you), as is the shape of one’s head. Lash length is a factor, as is one’s ability to raise one (and only one) eyebrow. And of course, there’s the ever-important head width, and forehead hieght, and jaw structure, and chin size, and then the eventually adjacent neck length. These factors work together in an indescribable and transcendant ability to suggest meaning and context when framed within any of the industry-standard Pythagorean ratios. (“Letterbox” and “pan-and-scan” are the primary two – have a ball looking up these terms, among others, those of you who’ve magically managed to avoid encountering them).

Factors that no longer matter include but are not limited to: height, stature, strength, endurance and – let’s certainly not forget – intellect (the capacity to which one would need in order to memorize an entire script so that one might perform it from beginning to end without ceaseless interruptions and/or retakes). (Note: WEIGHT remains a critical factor, as in, “the less the better.”) Otherwise, today’s cinematic standards of beauty remain identical to that of previous generations.

So, if you’re “on board” for the pursuit of the current American mythos, sooner or later you’re going to have to evaluate yourself on this beauty scale. If you’re lucky enough to be honest enough with yourself not to try to compete with the likes of Cameron Diaz and Antonio Banderas (don’t know why I jumped immediately to the pseudo Latin American talent pool for that comparison, so in the interest of racial equality, let’s also throw in Halle Berry and Denzel Washington; and then Angelina Jolie and Colin Farrel), then you’ll be immediately prompted to recognize yourself as a “character actor.” Good for you. You’ve just joined the ranks of Rhea Perlman and Danny DeVito (who happen to have been married at one point – don’t know if they still are).

I don’t care if you’re an actor, a musician, or even a writer or a fucking painter – at this point in history, America wants all of its celebrities to be pretty. If you’re not pretty, then you’d better be friggin’ funny, like Marty Feldman. Or you’d better be rich. You can be as ugly as you want as long as you’re funny or rich. But no one ever got rich by being ugly (Feldman is no millionaire – he’s not even still alive), and getting rich AND famous is what we’re talking about here… So if you’re ugly and rich and famous by now, that means you’ve been working at it for a good 30 years or so and your time has just come… Kinda like “The Donald.” (So fire me already. I wasn’t even gonna apply.) If you’re just ugly and famous right now, just wait a few months… (Case in point: Every day I see “de plane,” but when’s the last time we saw Tattoo?)

Still willing to pursue today’s American dream? Then you must be talented.

Ha, ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!!!!!!!!!!

How nice for you. So one of these days, as they say, your ship will come in. If you just keep plugging along, despite all the odds against you and despite all the cosmetic surgery that your “younger-than’s” and “lesser-than’s” are currently undergoing (not to mention the subsequent contacts that their surgeons will be able to put them in touch with), then you might just be able to make a name for yourself. You might just get through to the populace. And then maybe – after all that work and if the Good Witch of the North just happens to meet you at an art opening or a movie or theatre premiere after she’s downed a few too many Cosmopolitans – you might just become a star. Well, then, of course I apologize for sounding too cynical. Of course you were right in persuing the mythos of our time. Good for you. You beat the odds.

I’m sorry – just who are you again?