LARGER THAN LIFE AND TWICE AS UGLY: If I were going to post something smart or at least intellectually interesting today, I think I'd try to write something about how the nature of celebrity is changing in this world of reality TV and blogging and US Magazine. It seems somehow harder for celebrities and their corporate coteries to manage their own images. Instead, the public is playing judge and jury on issues like the Tom/Kate romance or the Jessica/Nick marriage. We no longer idolize Tom Cruise so much as we watch him like a dangerous intersection. He appeals to the evil voyeur in us moreso than to our need for a role model or an idol.

We're willing to embrace reality personalities like Omarosa or even Jonny Fairplay or that drunk girl from the Real World, so long as they know their place (whipping boys and girls for the not-so-famous rest of us -- "there but for the grace of Mark Burnett go I" stand-ins for our own shadow elements) and as long as they continue to deliver on their own brand ("She's the bitch," or "He's the affable man's man," etc.). But when they try to play against type -- in other words, to confound our sense of who they truly are -- as when Jerri Manthey (the bitch from Survivor who wanted to get wit' Colby but tried to pretend otherwise) goes on SURREAL LIFE (a meta-show about a meta-show) and tries to come off as sweet, they become the butt of rather than the wielder of the joke. They have to remember, it seems, that they are funny like a clown, that they are tailless donkeys for the public to stick with pins.

(That there is a SURREAL LIFE...that alone is worth a lengthy college course littered with readings of French philosophers and Joel Stein.)

I'm meandering here, as usual. There's likely a good essay in here, but this is what you get for now.

What I want to say is that, well, I believe we actually do have some sense of who our celebrities really are these days. It's become almost impossible to "manage" anybody's image anymore.

When we watch CRIBS and SURVIVOR and SURREAL LIFE and IDOL and whatnot, we do gain some insight into what kind of people these stars really are. If you're an asshole (ala J. Lo), the public's gonna know. Assholes tend not to have a long shelf life in the popular culture these days, unless they're content being the Famous Asshole (ala the aforementioned Mr. Fairplay).

I mean, could any John McEnroe fan watch his talk show a few times and not lose some of their enthusiasm for the man? Johnny Mac's problem was he tried to be nice to his guests and his audience, and we all saw through it. Had he mined his own natural contempt for people who are not him, then maybe he'd still be on the air.

Pried loose from the mythology of advertising and the packaged chatter of late-night talk shows, we can make Malcolm Gladwellian snap judgements about our stars and discern that Britney and Kevin really are that vapid, that Tom and Kate are faking it, and that Nick and Jessica are on the rocks, no matter how much shit they shovel. We know that Scott Savol, despite a great voice, is way too unstable and insecure to be our American Idol, and we can see that Paula and Randy are both in over their heads as "judges." (Judging what, for God's sake? They're not supposed to be judging quality, which they seem to forget. They're simply supposed to be lubricating the public so that they vote -- which is the ultimate judging, the judging of marketability.)

In a reality culture, in an everyman-a-publisher culture, criticism dies and popularity ascends. More mentions, more links, more awareness, more popularity. More is more. This is where we are. And despite a lot of handwringing from various quarters, I think it's actually a pretty interesting time. Talk about your free markets...