The other day I was thinking about Sammy Davis Jr. It was because of a scene from Transporter 3 in which Jason Statham has a conversation with his onscreen buddy about Jerry Lewis vs Dean Martin. The moment made me think about how unfortunate we are to have only George Clooney and Brad Pitt. As I go through my inventory of talented entertainers only I can only think of Prince as multi-talented. Or perhaps Tommy Tune. The point is that nobody comes close to Sammy, and there are no American men I can think of who, like those in the Rat Pack + Hugh Hefner might by their presence and talent transform the degraded state of American manhood and style from its trajectory towards the aesthetics of Hulk Hogan. It's no wonder people idolize Barack Obama. He's got no competition.
I love Bruce Willis, but he actually has ruined it for the American film star. I love Daniel Craig as the new James Bond as well, but all of these guys are way too hard. What are we going to do? We have to buy Transporter 3 and watch Jason Statham as well and wait until perhaps Hugh Laurie makes a film. Until then, there will continue to be people in the movie business who get paid to handle facial scar continuity as our men in film bounce from explosion to explosion.
This has everything to do with Susan Boyle because her presence in a reality show demonstrates how little our star system deals with real talent. What we are stuck with is an entire class of celebrities who possess a little bit of everything and a giant chunk of nothing. That is, except on the margins. On the margins where talent still counts for everything we have a broad pool of insufferable savants. Race car drivers, for example, and young men who can flip motorcycles or snowboards 360 degrees in the air in the space between ramps. They are excellent to be watched, but not heard. Boyle is the opposite, she has, as they say, a face for radio. Excellent to be heard but not watched. And most singular talent is like that, singular. There are no CEOs in AIG who can stand in front of a camera and explain their value to a Congressional subcommittee, they just do what they do. There are no basketball or baseball stars who can articulate the style of their mansions or luxury cars. Let them just play ball. There are no counterterrorism experts who can get on the radio and explain exactly under what circumstances they work, passing a politically tractionable message to the masses. They just do what they do. We all, most of us, struggle mightily to do the thing that butters our bread as best we can - we don't have time to also look good doing it. Then of course there is that class of people who spend all their energy so that they can look good doing anything. These are the people who own our sense of talent, which is why Susan Boyle surprised everyone.
Susan Boyle inspired everyone because we all wish that talent will reward, and we all pray that our meritocracy finds all of the rough diamonds in time. We know that we suffer from a surfiet of mediocre multi-talent and from the stranglehold of the celebrated elite. As much as we actually do love Jeopardy's Alex Trebek, we shouldn't have to watch him in a celebrity sports car race. The man is 68 years old. There is no reason whatsoever that we should put up with Regis Philbin any longer. He already holds the Guinness Book record for most time in front of a television camera. Let go. We don't need presenters being presentable. We need the producers to produce.
If we could let the singers sing and the dancers dance, then maybe we can let people be respected for their talent rather than just making respectable appearances. Maybe we can let people be what they truly are knowing that in at least one way they are valuable in our society.
Instead we pretend that the crippled are not crippled and that through the artifice of language and tact that everybody's beautiful in the same way. We pretend that the weird are not weird, and that there's always a way to smooth over defects and make them all acceptable. We affirm. To affirm is to make true, and we live in an Era of Affirmation, and yet we know it's false. This is why we Americans crave reality shows, because we know at bottom that it can't all be true - we need to exercise judgment in a society that has gone too affirmative for its own good. We know that there are three judges on American Idol, but we know that only one really counts.
One day among our children we will see an entertainer who can sing and dance and act and look good while doing it all, because she actually can. And she will put Madonna, Paris, Britney, Lindsay and the rest of their ilk to shame. She will be Lena Horne reborn. And she will shame us all for putting up with their mediocrity for all this time. She will end debate. When she comes we'll all be a lot better off because then we'll know that be high standards our politicians can't dance their way out, our bankers can't act their way out, our teachers can't sing their way out and all of the people who are failing and trying to look respectable while doing so will have no cover. The era of affirmation will cease.
Until that day we will be reminded smartly that only the talent of having a pretty face has a pretty face, and that for the most part talent is singular. That Joe the Plumber is not a political commentator, that Barney Frank is not a banker, that Caroline Kennedy is only Caroline Kennedy, that Sarah Palin is only Sarah Palin; that things are only what they are and that no amount of affirmation can make them more. Let us recognize things as they are.
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