What's the Deal with American Celebrity?

As we’ve gone on this trip, we have encountered several examples of celebrity. Looking back over our time spent on the road I think it’s a bit funny who we choose to honor and how we honor them.

In Memphis our class went Graceland and observed how people paid homage to “the King.” It’s interesting because I started out as a skeptic, but after meandering through the socially constructed maze, I began to like Elvis and even appreciate him as an artist. I quickly came back to my senses, but still acknowledging that he was an exceptional entertainer. But most of the visitors were still in awe as they walked around his memorial where flowers from all over had been carefully placed. I have nothing against Elvis, and I’ll admit that going through Graceland did make me realize that he was a much more effective entertainer than I thought he was, but at the same time he’s just a man, and I couldn’t help but wonder if all of that was really necessary.

Then Michael Jackson passed away and I was extremely sad. I was sad because of the fact that he actually was a talented person, and yet had a reputation for being a bit crazy. Putting child molestation allegations to the side, so what if Mike was crazy? So what if he liked strange things? Is that our business? Just because he shared part of his music and his talent with us doesn’t mean we have a right to his entire life. With that thought in mind, should it even matter if he or Elvis had drug problems? People in our group were upset at the fact that the Graceland Memorial didn’t tell the truth about his death. His drug addiction shouldn’t be that big of an issue. It shouldn’t matter to his fans, because it didn’t affect them, and they also shouldn’t put him on such a pedestal that the mention of his vices makes them lose heart in their celebrity. The same thing goes with Michael Jackson and every other celebrated person. I think that people don’t realize how dangerous it is to celebrate a person.

Our group was fortunate enough to be able to go to a Roots Concert while in Cleveland, and it was great. I absolutely loved it because I was watching great hip hop artists perform live. That is until the celebrity showed up. Granted, Black Thought and his crew had been on stage for a while, but “the celebrity” didn’t show up until the end of the show. Some of the guys in the band were feeling the crowd and then somebody threw out a towel. A plain white towel. It floated over to the left and a group people about fifty feet away from me went crazy and started reaching for it. This happened several other times with towels, hats, and even a pair of drum sticks. I didn’t think much of it until after the concert when I over heard someone mention how they got hurt because people were jumping for a towel. A plain white towel. I’m not faulting The Roots, or the crowd. It was great show and I loved it, and if I would have been closer I probably would have reached for an item as well. However, I do blame society for conditioning us to celebrate artists so much that we are wiling to fight over towels.

While we were in DC touring the monuments, part of our group headed over to the World War Two Memorial to see what the drama was about, because Dr. Stepnick mentioned that a lot of people were upset about the way that it was crafted. I didn’t have much of a problem with it, except for the fact that I questioned what this memorial was memorializing, because there were so many references to “winning” and “victory.” I decided that the architect probably thought it would be nice to include such words to alleviate the pain that WW2 may bring up for some people. I thought that seemed understandable because war is a tough thing to think about. So I kept walking around to see more and I noticed that there were several people standing by this loud gushing fountain that feed into a type of reflecting pool. I thought for a second about the loudness of the fountain and then I focused my attention on the fact that people were standing around enjoying the pool. Some were even sitting next to it, with their feet in the water, and that made me slightly happy to see because some of my classmates did the same thing in Love Park. I thought it was nice that people were trying to connect with history as I passed to young ladies with their feet submerged and I even thought about dipping mine until I saw a sign. It was about 8 feet away from these girls and I could read it from where I was.

It read: “Please Respect the Memorial. Keep out of the Pool Area.” I looked around to see how many signs were posted and how many people were ignoring them. It was depressing. There were signs up everywhere asking people to keep out of the pool and yet dozens of people were dipping their filthy toes into that pool. This pool wasn’t filled with any special water or anything, but my offense was based principle. The sign plainly instructed people not to do something and yet they did it anyway.

My mind automatically went back to Graceland and the level of reverence that people approached Elvis’s memorial with. Where was that reverence in DC at a Memorial honoring countless men lost in war? What does it mean when we honor those entertain us over those who keep us safe? What does it mean when Elvis, Michael Jackson and the Roots are honored over Private Michael DeWitt, or Sergeant Thomas Morrison or Lieutenant James Marshall? Maybe the lack of appreciation for history is the reason why so many parts of history can be left unnoticed and the world unchanged.