I've been to some training and will attend more on how to tell personal stories on behalf of gay rights. Voters and decision makers aren't swayed by the elegance of an argument, they want to know how a proposed law affects actual people. Thus, we learn about narrative with a purpose -- the incident, how it made me feel, what I learned from it, how all that affects the issue at hand.
You then might wonder why I then say I pay very little attention to celebrities and their latest shenanigans. I bring it up because Newsweek, in response to the Tiger Woods mess (which I'm studiously ignoring), has a cover article on the modern uses of celebrity. And ideas behind a phenomenon are interesting to me. So, here are a few ideas that Neal Gabler wrote about.
Celebrity stories has become the new art form, competing and superseding the traditional stuff (movies, novels, plays). Celebrity narratives distract us, sensitize us to the human condition, provide us with life's lessons, and create a shared experience. We are so fractured as a nation right now that a shared experience is important and comforting.
Celebrities are that only as long as they maintain an interesting narrative. Tiger's mistresses will vanish. Brad Pitt keeps his personal story going (to the point that he can't disappear into a movie -- the actor overshadows the character).
Novels and movies strive to be real. Celebrities don't have to strive. Stories have endings. Celebrities leave you in suspense for much longer.
I'm still going to ignore the lot of them. So much for shared experience.
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