Heroics

Celebrities. Media. Hollywood limelights. Shelves of colourful magazines. They form a partnership that intrudes on our every day, for which they are for the most part greeted warmly. But it's more than a partnership. They don't just coexist, perhaps a sybiotic relationship where they both feed off and nourish one-another equally. They can't survive without eachother, yet are still little other than two thirds of one larger obscenity.

Without a celebrity to fart in public or light up a cigarette in a popular cafe (or, heaven forbid, both at the same time - wouldn't THAT be a story!), the media struggles to fill its time slot or find material to assault us with its seemingly endless army of full colour glossy magazine pages. Similarly, those celebrities would have to rely on their often meagre skills to gain popularity if the papparazzi weren't there to do it for them. It's a good thing for both of them that we provide such a perfect, loving, and comfortable breeding ground in which they can thrive.

Maybe I suffered a few too many knocks on the head while I was still developing, but for whatever reason I just can't seem to get my head around it. I'll draw some puzzled looks, but I have to ask... why?

Why are the day to day lives of such relatively uninspiring strangers so deeply entwined with the lives of so many? Why, for example, do so many have an opinion on the brief incarceration
of someone like Paris "Living Proof That Darwinism Doesn't Always Pan Out" Hilton when there are people all around them in everyday situations doing great things that garner no notice. Why do so many women line up yearning to be used by (or to use?) known womanisers like Robbie Williams - the same women who whine about being used; that all men are bastards... never mind the nice guys, they're just "friend material" and that doesn't count.

Like him or not, we would all recognise a picture of Tom Cruise, but how many know what a Medal of Honor looks like or how many have been awarded? Who was the guy who suffered severe disfiguring burns while pulling strangers from a burning car - not in a hollywood blockbuster, but for real - and would do it again fully knowing the consequences to the remainder of his life. Do you spare more thought to the latest celebrity in the latest media sensation or to the local guy who, despite a lifetime of personal tragedy and grief, is always friendly, upbeat, and helpful with no thought of personal gain?

I know which one I admire, and he's not in magazines every other week. The real heroes rarely are. It's a shame that they don't occupy more of our thoughts and inspire better actions from the rest of us.