I watched the majority of the Oscars last night because I've fallen in love with a film I actually have yet to see: The King's Speech. I love Colin Firth. I love Helena Bonham Carter. I love Geoffrey Rush. Put them all together? Yes, please. I wanted to make sure they won as much as possible, so I stayed up. (I ended up getting even less sleep than planned due to thunderstorms and my well-meaning but incompetent cat who just cannot kill mice. Is there anything more silly or surreal than chasing a rodent around the house at midnight?)
With all these stars of the screen winning awards and praising each other, I thought about why I cared at all. It's not like Colin is my best friend, but I wanted him to win. Even if I met him, I'd be one of thousands-perhaps millions-of fans. What is a fan? Not a friend, not even an acquaintance.
It seems to me that the internet and its children, social networking and MMORPG, get unfairly pinned with the de-socialization of our society. I would argue that with the worship and affinity for celebrities, we've been having fictitious relationships for quite some time now via television and magazines. On that note, I remember reading about adolescent girls and their teenage heartthrobs; the point was simply this, too much attention paid to Leo DiCaprio distracts a girl from the real, in-the-flesh boys her own age. She risks missing that opportunity to socialize and learn and experience something far better than kissing a poster. I can't remember where I read this though. Maybe Seventeen? Well, maybe not...magazines like that were built on celebrity crushes, so why would they publish a statement of that sort?
Perhaps my own affection for celebrity stems from a need to get back into the thick of "it," in New York or any other city. (Just get me out of the country, please!) I did spot the occasional famous face in Manhattan, which gave me this oddly satisfying thought "They are real!" But so is my boyfriend, and my family. They're real too...more real to me than any face on a screen.
With all these stars of the screen winning awards and praising each other, I thought about why I cared at all. It's not like Colin is my best friend, but I wanted him to win. Even if I met him, I'd be one of thousands-perhaps millions-of fans. What is a fan? Not a friend, not even an acquaintance.
It seems to me that the internet and its children, social networking and MMORPG, get unfairly pinned with the de-socialization of our society. I would argue that with the worship and affinity for celebrities, we've been having fictitious relationships for quite some time now via television and magazines. On that note, I remember reading about adolescent girls and their teenage heartthrobs; the point was simply this, too much attention paid to Leo DiCaprio distracts a girl from the real, in-the-flesh boys her own age. She risks missing that opportunity to socialize and learn and experience something far better than kissing a poster. I can't remember where I read this though. Maybe Seventeen? Well, maybe not...magazines like that were built on celebrity crushes, so why would they publish a statement of that sort?
Perhaps my own affection for celebrity stems from a need to get back into the thick of "it," in New York or any other city. (Just get me out of the country, please!) I did spot the occasional famous face in Manhattan, which gave me this oddly satisfying thought "They are real!" But so is my boyfriend, and my family. They're real too...more real to me than any face on a screen.
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