Things the Internet has Ruined (Celebrity)
Image of Greta Garbo by photographer Arnold Genthe, courtesy Smithsonian Open Access.
There was a time when stars
were defined by something different than
their number of Instagram followers:
when actors loomed like glamorous galaxies,
remote,
rarely seen,
except for a perfectly-posed publicity-still
that floated down from the firmament
and landed on the cover of Life Magazine.
Decades before the Internet,
in the so-called Golden Age of Hollywood,
there were no mirror-reflected neon-green bikini shots,
no used-to-be-supermodel makeup-free selfies,
no thirst-trap pics,
no crass Toned “AF” Abs! headlines.
Even though we didn’t know her,
we all know that Greta Garbo
would never have been on social media:
The very notion itself
is as Absurd “AF”!
You see,
the myth, after all,
is always better for the celebrity
and the fan.
Take the time that I met
Mickey Rooney circa 2002
at a dinner theatre in La Salle County
after his One Man, One Wife show,
when I stood in a long line
with some octogenarians
just to meet the Mickey Rooney,
and to get his autograph.
When I reached him,
I said I thought he was great in “Killer McCoy,”
and that it was one of
my favorite boxing movies,
and that I had seen
“Boys Town” a half a dozen times, or more.
I thought, mistakenly so,
that he would be glad
to have a fan
who wasn’t born before WWII,
a relatively-young person who appreciated
the dancer’s footwork
of his boxing scenes;
but, instead,
he was rude,
and cocky, really,
and he didn’t even give me an autograph,
or a smile,
just a mug-faced air of disdain as if to say,
“Move along now!”
and I walked away thinking,
“I was just given the brush-off
by Mickey Rooney.”
And, later,
recounting the story to my brother,
he said:
“What did you expect?
He’s Mickey Rooney!
He’s Hollywood royalty!
He’s not like these actors today!
Mickey Rooney was a real star!”
My brother was right, of course.
The nature of fame has changed:
a lowering of the veneer of esteem,
a disintegration of the illusory barrier
between the celebrity and the fan—
because, in this century, anyone can be famous,
with a blog or a podcast or a YouTube channel.
And you add in a dash of reality TV,
or some CGI—
then, “Poof!”
memories of the real stars
are just illusory relics of a nostalgic past.
Frankly, it’s social media,
mostly, that’s to blame
for the loss of the value of celebrity;
the 21st-century bizarre exchange between the famous
and the anonymous public,
the revelation of entertainers’
mundane worries over stretch marks and aging,
and the cycling of PR-driven apologies
shows not that they are relatable,
but that they are irrelevant.
It wasn’t always so.
Before the Internet,
mystery could cling to the famous,
they could wear it like a magician’s cloak;
privacy was possible,
and image could be carefully-crafted,
guarded,
perpetuated,
such that minimal direct interaction with the public
was a good thing.
Ask yourself this:
If she were alive today,
would Katharine Hepburn
ever have taken a selfie
and posted it on Instagram?
Not likely.
Would Barbara Stanwyck
have posted a video of
herself doing planks at dawn?
Absolutely not.
(Enough of the yoga poses, 21st century celebs! Please!)
And, if Mickey Rooney were still around
it is unlikely that he would engage
with fans online,
and, this much is a certainty—
he definitely
wouldn’t respond to haters
who called him short or ugly or overrated.
He simply would not care.
The bravado is legendary:
a 5’2” leading man,
bold, brash, vaudevillian,
full of strut and brass,
eight marriages.
This was a man, after all,
who once upon a time was
married to Ava Gardner.
So what if it was only for a year?
Mickey Rooney was a real star,
just like my brother called him.
After all,
when I rattled off the names of his movies,
trying to impress that real star,
didn’t Mickey Rooney respond
with the performance
I had hoped for?
Unrepentant,
Unruly,
Unreformed.
Didn’t he brush me aside
with an arrogant wave
that seemed more like
an imaginary street jab?
Things the Internet has Ruined (Celebrity) Copyright © 2024 by Donna Kathryn Kelly