Today’s popular culture has borrowed much from the famous and infamous notables from years gone by, but it seems that many of today’s “famous people” seemed to have misunderstood what they were seeing and believe that they are copying. Many of today’s pop culture icons seem to have no real grasp on what it took for those who came before to actually achieve their fame and notoriety, and as such, are famous for all of the wrong reasons.
During her career, Marilyn Monroe was an accomplished actress and singer who took classes at the Actor’s Studio and studied with Lee Strasberg in order to perfect her craft. In many of her films, she played a dumb blonde, and it became her trademark. Many of today’s pop culture celebs have heard of Marilyn Monroe, but have no idea about her career and how hard she worked to get to where she was. All they seem to know about her is that she seemed to be a dumb blonde, she was married to a famous baller (Joe DiMaggio), was romantically linked to the rich and powerful (her alleged affairs with John F. and Bobby Kennedy), and was photographed with her skirt blowing up, even though the skirt shot was a scene from a movie, and Marilyn took precautions to make sure that her privates were not shown to the public.
In attempting to become famous, young girls feel as if all that is necessary is to get involved with someone rich and powerful (or a famous baller), or be photographed half-clothed (or the extreme, be filmed having sex), meaning that they fully misunderstood what it was that made Marilyn famous. All of the things that she is known for were byproducts of her talent and hard work, and her beauty was simply an asset, and was not the product itself. Many of today’s “pop culture icons” are actually quite talented, but choose to be known for the extra instead of letting the talent rule the day.
Years ago, there was a young comic named Richard Pryor, who thought that he needed to be the next Bill Cosby (a wholesome storyteller) in order to succeed in comedy. When that style didn't work for Richard, he elected to allow people to laugh at the pain that he experienced as a youth. Pryor used profanity to illustrate what he saw and heard, but the next generation of comics heard Richard curse, and thought that cursing was the key to the success of his act. They misunderstood what Richard was truly all about.
Though Pryor would curse during his act when speaking as himself, much of the cursing was him quoting one of the many characters who he had come to know during his life. However, over the next few generations, comics felt that cursing was the act. As Eddie Murphy said in his comedy film “Delirious”, “You can’t do not cuss show. I do manage to stick in some jokes between the cusses”. The misunderstanding comes from the notion that the more cursing that is done in an act, the more “hip” a comic is, and the more likely Hollywood will take notice. Unfortunately, the reality is that there has to be some talent mixed in with the ability to use profanity and make fun of other races.
The point of all of this is that there will never be a substitute for talent. Pop Culture and Social Media have made it possible for people to become famous just for being photographed half-naked, for getting arrested while having a song on the charts or a movie on DVD, or because they are the offspring of someone who has already done all of the necessary work to be famous. While I fault no one for achieving a level of success and fame, the fear that I have is that this level of fame has the potential to have a short shelf life, and when that runs out, it will be necessary to attempt to rely on something that might not exist.
