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Speculations on Talent & Fame
Looking around at the state of mainstream pop cultural endeavors, it’s clear that talent isn’t always king. (I’m tempted to say isn’t ever, but that would to overlook those real gems who do shine through from time to time) It may be instead that willing pawns are the ones who rise to the throne these days…
What I’m trying to say is that the marketplace is saturated with crap. Even if we don’t agree on what is crap and what isn’t, we can definitely agree that whatever it is, it’s as high as an elephant’s eye. Maybe higher.
So how does crap get popular? Sometimes it gets popular under the power of its own steam (sorry for all the crazy mixed metaphors). But more often than that, it seems that someone out there is choosing what crap gets popular and what does not. And only very occasionally is it in any way linked to what is actually good - in other words to talent.
And what is talent anyway? It’s sort of a slippery animal somehow connected to beauty and truth and the ability to make things that are complicated and difficult seem simple and natural. We could even speculate, if we were so inclined, that talent has something to do with divinity, with acting as a channel for all the things that are good and important in the universe.
It doesn’t sound like a great way, necessarily, to make money - does it? A lot of time true talent gets in the way of money because money has to do with markets and audiences and analysis and prediction and profit margins. And talent is slippery and divine and boundary-shattering. It takes a businessman gifted with talent to direct an artist who has talent - with the two being put together an even rarer occurence than either one individually.
So instead what do we see? We see the American Idol model of talent and fame. We see the hunt for those people who have the rare talent not of necessarily calling down the divine, but the marked ability to fill themselves up with some other human’s brand image and business plan. Simultaneously, we seem to see people who have a gentler, subtler - maybe truer - kind of talent belittled and ridiculed endlessly, and made to feel jealous of those whose only real skill is doing what they are told and towing the party line?
What if the people who get famous are only that - empty vessels through which other energies flow? They may be mingled with divinity but more often they seem to not be. They are pawns turned suddenly into kings and queens in the eyes of the public, but kowtowing before the hidden royalty who put them into that position. What if people are only made famous and pulled up from the vast pool of hopeful creatives because their work fits into someone else’s agenda? It could be financial. It could be some kind of cultural script that some secret conspiracy cabal is trying to push out into the world. It could be both.
It would certainly be the ultimate prank to pull on creative people the world over - to entrap us into this struggle to become successful and “famous” and get us to chase after and lust over the elusive traits which make these things happen. When all the while, the only thing that matters is whether our work can be effectively used to promote or fit into someone else’s existing agenda, so that it seems to have broad cultural support… Something tells me that if this isn’t quite the literal truth, then maybe it is not far off and the vast majority of creative people have been hoodwinked out of connecting to that divine source from which our true talent and power really comes…
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August 23rd, 2006 at 6:46 pm
There are so many creative talented people out there in the world who will die with out their work being known. Or who will work crummy jobs while they look at in resentment at symbolic Britney Spears.
But a lot of creative people have pretty big egos. I am sure most think at one point they think they will be famous. But divine creativity is when the ego is set aside and life is allowed to flow through the person.
That is why I feel a person has to find their creative vision, express it and let it be a joy in their lives. Not expect anything more in return- not worry one way or the other if they are successful or not. What does it mean to be successful anyways? To be content?
Talent-capitalism is an empty system- it encourages the ego to strive in ambition to make the self known. It is good bit of advice for these people to remember the absolute truth that everything is impermanent.
Anyways I am grateful for Tori Amos and the Flaming Lips.
August 23rd, 2006 at 10:01 pm
Wow. Nicely said.
I have heard it said that genius resides in almost all of us. “We” are the majority, in fact. This leads to a type of elitism that allows crap to flourish.
Crap is also popular because it caters to the lowest common denominator. One must also take into account that taste grows and develops with character so in the beginning, when people are young, crap is actually appealing on some levels.
August 24th, 2006 at 11:08 am
I have been wrestling with this topic forEVer. It’s sad, but I’ve noticed that amongst my fellow grads from NYU in the Dramatic Writing program, the good stuff goes unrewarded, but people’s inelegant toss-offs get picked up and produced and not only that, given GOOOD productions. At first I was distressed by it, but over time, I see that we live in a “junk” culture. Junk food, junk drugs, junk stuff, junk bonds, junk boinkings, junk religion. Empty calories, empty highs/lows, empty possessions, empty investments, empty fucks, and of course, [unmodified-because-”empty”-would-be-redundant] beliefs.
When I moved out of the compulsion to eat junk calories, and started spitefully to eat nutritive foods, a different sort of spiritual awakening started to emerge. I don’t send out my plays and poetry and scripts much these days and I’m at total peace with it because I’ve decided I don’t want to participate in the perpetration and perpetuation of junk culture. Anything happening on a national level or that is “American” at least is not worth my time. I can’t help but think of what Thom Yorke of Radiohead said in a recent interview in the NY-Whore Times Magazine, about why Radiohead never signed with a major label: “Why would I sign a contract with an industry that’s imploding?”
Instead, I’d like to hook up with other theater artists and any other kind of artist, actually, and create “nutritive work.” Call it “Community Sponsored Big Cheap Theater.” It’s a germinating vision for the moment, but there ya have it.
August 24th, 2006 at 11:58 am
Excellent post. I’ve often thought along these lines. What your describing is the made-for-tv world.
Pax. Kimberly
August 24th, 2006 at 12:17 pm
You can see artists taking issue with this process, as well:
1) Pink Floyd: The Wall, “The Machine”, “Have a Cigar”, The final cut, etc.
2) Neil Young: Just about everything he’s done.
3) Ani Di Franco: Who has always skirted the main methods of distribution and production.
And a host of others. One of my favorites is “Smokin’ with Superman”, a local Madison band who, in their songs, say “F-U” to Radio airplay.
August 24th, 2006 at 1:37 pm
I dont know if HBO qualifies as pop or if a tv show qualifies as pertinent to this topic but the show ‘Deadwood’ on HBO is unsurpassed for artistic genius.
August 24th, 2006 at 8:07 pm
I used to be an adamant observer of the posts & comments on in order to investigate similar questions that popped up in my head. The talent is such a small component when it comes to fame as we now know it that it is not even brought up on these rags, or on any others online such as or. Talent is no longer necessary to be famous.
Famous for being famous. Yet, what does fame really entail these days? Heightened scrutiny by the watching eyes of every single bored & obese blogger out there. Not being able to trust anyone to not divulge secrets to newspapers willing to pay sweet money for a good story. Having to live in gated estates to avoid the papparazzi who would do anything for the perfect photograph (if you have achieved a consistent level of fame and can milk off of it, that is). Having every single move photographed & documented (once the constant level of fame is in place, otherwise the paps get bored pretty quickly).
There is also no genuine respect anymore for the famous. One may still have his 15 minutes, but he will have to lower himself to such a shameful level in order to even have that (isn’t it now everyone will have his 5 minutes?) From softcore porn to pop star! From “I’m so dumb, watch me in Wal-Mart” to Fashion Goddess!
These people are merely pupets, devoid of any spark of being a HUMAN, let alone of containing any divine energy. They would be lost without their handlers, spokespeople, publicists, the PEOPLE WHO DRESS them on a daily basis. We can blame it on a number of factors: the marketers who need to come up with more subtle ways in which to try to sell products, the newspaper & television pushers, the bored people at work who have nothing better to do but read gossip rags, the tweens who think is the way to be, the parents who pay for this to continue, youtube for allowing any idiot with a video camera to do something stupid, myspace for saying “hey, anyone can be a rockstar! even if it’s just on myspace!”, the movie studios who allow these twits to be in mainstream movies, perfume companies for allowing products with NAMES (brands in their own rights) to be placed on the creations of others, the list goes on & on.
Will these people ever wake up out of their “wishing to be famous” stupor? Will they ever realize that they are inherently boring and lacking creativity and anything meaningful? That their acts of degrading themselves and fellow humans for tv ratings & to sell other people useless junk are flawed acts and do not lead to actual fulfillment in their own lives? Will they allow the real actors to come back and be ugly & fat, yet act their asses off? Sing like there’s no tomorrow? Allow actual creativity & talent to shine through and just sit quietly on the sidelines in order to enjoy it all? NO. Not at this point. Each person thinks that he has something special to offer the mainstream population, and it costs less to film these people than to pay writers to make good shows, or to reverse the perceptions in a normal person’s head that being different looking (unlike every girl looking like Ashlee Simpson or what have you) is okay.
I choose not to dwell on these topics anymore, because it scares me that there is little chance of anything respectable being put into the mainstream anymore. Yet, with the factors above being involved, who would really want to be thrust out into that world anyway?
August 24th, 2006 at 8:08 pm
my links didn’t go through in the first paragraph, but they were referring to: livejournal.com/users/ohnotheydidnt www.perezhilton.com www.pinkisthenewblog.com
November 12th, 2006 at 5:40 pm
[…] It seems, in some sense, that all celebrities - not just sports stars - fit this same purpose: to demonstrate class mobility. Shows like American Idol teach us that if we adhere to a particular aesthetic (ie, learn how to fill ourselves with someone else’s brand image), then we too can cast off the shackles of the under-class (and increasingly police state) world we live in. I remember watching a documentary on VH1 about Biggie Smalls rise to fame, and this theme featured prominently. As a result, how many young musicians and young artists and creative people out there have had it bred into their bones that if they just work a little harder, they too will become rock stars, living a wild life on the edge… On the edge of what is the question… Read Similar Articles: […]
October 3rd, 2007 at 2:30 pm
[…] But maybe no one needs to. Maybe modern musicians have been lead around by the nose to push a corporatized system of music which is not natural and not realistic. Everyone is trained (courtesy of American Idol, etc) to want to be the biggest rockstar of all time and make a bunch of money. When maybe all we should be doing is making music for our friends and families to enjoy: music that simply celebrates the fact that we have come together as people in the same space in the same spirit. […]