“Sarah Palin, Kim Kardashian and our poisonous celebrity culture: Shame, fame and the American way - New York Daily News” |
| Posted: 20 Dec 2010 01:55 AM PST  Cozolino/Everett; Gerber/Getty; Las Vegas Metro Police Dept Kim Kardashian, Sarah Palin and Paris Hilton have all found fame instead of experiencing shame.In our time, we do not so much get a blast from the past as we are prodded into reflection by something we cannot ignore. High-profile events take place, blasting us back to a time less clouded with constant lies and distortions than our own. Though I have disdain for suicide, I was impressed by Mark Madoff, son of Bernie, for hanging himself because it was too painful to carry that name around. He was obviously deeply affected by all those who had suffered at the hands of his father, the high-stakes hustler who bilked many of their nest eggs and hard-earned savings. Suicide is often described as an act of fatal rage that leads to self-destruction. However, deep shame of the sort felt by Bernie Madoff's son has been replaced in our so-called celebrity culture with self-promotion and heavy panting in pursuit of television cameras. Even fine actresses want the chance to dress like happy hookers while male stars prefer looking like gigolos or clowns. In a more civilized age, Paris Hilton would've remained sequestered while doing charity work in order to redeem herself and be forgiven for drunkenly performing sex acts on tape, along with other lewd behavior. But forgiveness moves in the express lane now. No penance was required, and Hilton never felt the deep shame Madoff experienced. In fact, Hilton inspired childhood friend Kim Kardashian to make her own sex tape. It led to a reality show, and now Kardashian is more popular than Hilton. And just as shameless. That's how our culture works. Fame next found the perky Sarah Palin, one of whose great gifts is the unwillingness to ever admit a significant mistake. She has a reality show, too. Palin's outlook is no different from that of Enron executives who pretended nothing was wrong until their financial house of cards came crashing down. That investigation into Enron's hanky-panky was followed by the suicide of Cliff Baxter, who had a high position in the company's command chain. Baxter was troubled in the way that Madoff's son was. Unlike the Paris Hiltons of this world, he could feel shame - and did. We don't expect that from the men who brought Wall Street to its knees in 2008, but are now thinking once again about where they would spend their huge, undeserved bonuses. Most important to Wall Street's corporate culture is maintaining a relationship with the Republican shills who victoriously presented them as no better off than the millions of middle class people in need of the Bush tax cuts. What does the addition of $700 billion to our national debt mean when we have the chance to do right by our wealthiest Americans? As oil baron Nelson Bunker Hunt once said, "A billion dollars isn't what it used to be." Americans must be more discerning about the low-down ways of the financial world and the speed with which celebrities will sell out to pornography and self-exploitation. But our time is so decadent that vulgarity - whether it comes from Wall Street or Hollywood - is wrongly thought a sufficient rejoinder to a corrupted culture. As our nation looks forward to the holidays and the new year, we can remain confident that as the cookie crumbles, stale bits in the form of lies and excuses will shower down from the right and left. That is why the Constitution is based as much in paranoia about the potential abuse of power as it is in anything else. The Founding Fathers were more right than they could have known. Stanley Crouch's column appears in the Daily News every Monday. Stanley, who has written for the paper since 1995, has received many awards for his writing, including a MacArthur Foundation "genius" grant. His books have been widely praised and he was recently inducted into the Academy of Arts and Sciences. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php |
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