FEATURES & ARTS

Fanning the fame The cult of celebrity has gone too far, writes Jack Robertson.

Here's a celebrity joke I got Jamie Oliver to prepare earlier.

St Peter is at the Pearly Gates watching Survivor II when Madonna rocks up in her limo, pouts for the heavenly paps, and presses the celestial buzzer.

"Name?" he calls, eyes glued to the screen (some dork from Kempsey is about to be voted off the Outback).

"Name?" Madonna shrieks.

Reluctantly, St Pete turns to peer at her.

"Name, sweetie. You all look the same to me."

"Madonna, loser."

St Peter swivels back to the box, relieved.

"Sorry, honey," he mutters vaguely. "We've got one of those already."

The critic A.A. Gill once described celebrity as the most useless invention of the 20th century, and he was being generous. Useless inventions are invented only once. Celebrities are like imperial stormtroopers - no matter how fast you kill 'em off, there's always a clone to take their place. And like nuclear fission and Germaine Greer, celebrity is a fundamentally unpleasant concept that can't be uninvented, either. Instead, we've devised a way of making it ubiquitous.

Welcome to Andy's Revenge, Episode Infinity: The Reality TV Show. In Which Boring, Talentless Morons Become Stars! In Which Hungry Wannabes Strike Ironic Poses! Most of all, in Which the Currency of Celebrity is Whittled Away to Naught. (Let's face it - who wants to be famous when Richard Hatch is the benchmark?)

Sorry, but I'm all celebritied out. I'm bored by artist celebrities, singer celebrities, writer celebrities and actor celebrities. Through with celebrity generals, businessmen, politicians, cops, murderers, victims, love triangles, circles and squares. We've had celebs who aren't even born yet (any "celebrity bump"); celebs who've been dead for decades (take your pick), and celebs who never even existed at all (Bart Simpson, Lara Croft, Courtney Love). We've seen everything celebrity has to offer, and if we parody any more parodies we'll disappear up our own collective bum. So, sorry to disappoint all you budding Britneys and Brads out there, but whatever "next big thing" you're planning to become, don't bother, because we've got one of those already, thanks.

Immortal fame only creeps up on those who are too busy in their day jobs to go chasing it. Celebrity is the nasty pox you catch if you're stupid enough to have unprotected sex with that smarmy oik, Mr Modern Mass Meeja. It's fatal, too - once you're famous for who you are, not what you do, your only career option is self-parody. Check out the fate of Bardot. Those girls could all sing, and they all looked great. And that past tense says all there is to say about the flame of instant fame. It doesn't just burn, it cremates.

And so here we are looking back at the most fame-loving century of all time, stuck with the unfunniest fame joke of all: the celebrity nobody. They come and go at speed now, and they don't just look the same, they are the same.

Mass Celebrity is the logical dead-end of the "Me" generation, a great big full stop on the most self-obsessed and creatively sterile sentence humanity ever wrote. Andy Warhol would be enormously relieved to note how hypnotised by celebrity we all remain today. Because if we ever realised that his fame joke was no funnier, cleverer nor more profound than mine, the chances are that posterity wouldn't remember him as a genius who predicted the future, after all.

Instead, Warhol would be famous forever as a silly old queen in a ludicrous wig, who tried - but ultimately failed - to sell humanity a never-ending row of dull, painted clones.

Jack Robertson is an aspiring playwright who lives quietly in Balmain.

[October 2000].