The Abolition of the Celebrity Status

[Weezer]

One of the more disgusting aspects of capitalism I think is the cult of personality around celebrities and their lives.

I view it as almost a human rights violation. Celebrities aren't treated as people. They're treated as animals, in particular the animals at the zoos that people love to taunt and throw stuff at. While celebrities are viewed as bourgeois by many socialists I know, we have to remember many celebrities in particular actors and musicians are in a sense proletarian. Musicians in particular often find themselves at odds with bourgeois record labels fighting for the rights to their art.

Is it any wonder that celebrities overdose on drugs? Lash at those stupid parasitic paparazzis and fans? Hero worship isn't meant for everyone and can be very stressful. We slowly kill celebrities.

Especially if virtually everyone is to be equal in postrevoutionary societies, I think some measures should be taken to secure the lives of artists (and bureaucrats too) to prevent cult of personalities, hero worship, and the mindset of the celebrity status. I think it's a destructive and a very strangley religious part of our bourgeois society that should be abolished.

[Flying Trotsky]

I don't know if that will be the case- there are always going to be people we idolize, gravitate towards, or admire. After all, doesn't Che have a kind of "celebrity status"? What about Lenin? Huey P. Newton?

I mean, I can get where you're coming from- Capitalism produces the absolute nastiest people as would-be idols to help placate the working class, but I'm not sure the basic concept of a person being admired is wrong- just so long as the person is actually admirable.

[Flying Trotsky]

By the way, nice Immortal Technique line- always great to see other IT fans around.

[Libertador]

http://profile.ak.fbcdn.net/hprofile-ak-snc4/195805_116196558467726_162767_n.jpg
There are people who we will look up to more than others; people we respect and people whose qualities we would like to imitate.

It's just regrettable that people would rather idolize rappers talking about "smacking ho's" and Justin Bieber.

[Weezer]

I don't know if that will be the case- there are always going to be people we idolize, gravitate towards, or admire. After all, doesn't Che have a kind of "celebrity status"? What about Lenin? Huey P. Newton?

I mean, I can get where you're coming from- Capitalism produces the absolute nastiest people as would-be idols to help placate the working class, but I'm not sure the basic concept of a person being admired is wrong- just so long as the person is actually admirable.

I sort of understand the hero worship of revolutionaries(though sometimes it can get really creepy), but mainly I'm talking about how society obsesses over the lives of celebrities(i.e. Kurt Cobain) and judges them for everything they do. I think artists are artists, and their lives are their lives, not to exploited for tabloid magazines and other assorted bourgeois media.

[Flying Trotsky]

Well, that'll naturally disappear with Capitalism. We have to keep in mind that the whole reason society produces celebrities is so the oppressed and exploited and vicariously experience the luxury-myth that Capitalism promises but naturally, can never deliver. It's the same reason people get such a rush out of watching celebs flame-out. We feel that justice has been done by watching the obliteration of people whose lifestyles we can never have.

Really you almost gotta feel bad for the celebs- they're whole purpose in society is either as a distraction or as a sacrificial animal.

[La Peur Rouge]

One of the more disgusting aspects of capitalism I think is the cult of personality around celebrities and their lives.


What is the point of defending these people? Why should they be given special treatment in post-revolutionary society? Fuck celebrities, if an individual in a socialist society wants to be an actor or musician in their free time (which I believe there will be much more of), cool, but acting and playing music are not jobs, nor is being a bureaucrat.

If anyone is treated like animals its the proletariat.

[CommunityBeliever]

Our priority is the immediate overthrow of our corrupt capitalist system, not the emancipation of celebrities, but we can deal with that issue eventually.

[Weezer]

What is the point of defending these people? Why should they be given special treatment in post-revolutionary society? Fuck celebrities, if an individual in a socialist society wants to be an actor or musician in their free time (which I believe there will be much more of), cool, but acting and playing music are not jobs, nor is being a bureaucrat.

If anyone is treated like animals its the proletariat.

Did I say that celebrities are treated worse than proletarians?

NOPE.

The thing I underlined in your post is exactly what I'm arguing, you misunderstood my post.

[Tim Finnegan]

...acting and playing music are not jobs...
Off-topic a bit, but this stood out to me: What do you mean by "job", and why are the performing arts (and whatever other arts you would bundle in with them) considered to be outside of that? And where in this do you draw the line- are you only referring to major public figures, or to anyone in those fields?

[Aspiring Humanist]

Talking about abolition of personality cult in a board full of Stalinists, Leninists and Maoists and that one Jucheist is pretty counter productive

[La Peur Rouge]

Did I say that celebrities are treated worse than proletarians?

NOPE.

The thing I underlined in your post is exactly what I'm arguing, you misunderstood my post.

I never claimed you did, comrade. I assumed from your post that you were arguing that certain people should be allowed to just become actors or musicians as their occupation, and deserved special rights for being such things. Sorry for the misunderstanding.


Off-topic a bit, but this stood out to me: What do you mean by "job", and why are the performing arts (and whatever other arts you would bundle in with them) considered to be outside of that? And where in this do you draw the line- are you only referring to major public figures, or to anyone in those fields?

I apologize, it was probably the wrong term to use and I should have specified. By "job" I meant the occupations that produce/distribute material things to the population, in a socialist society I don't think it would be fair to make art an occupation. I work in a warehouse, I play music also, but I always considered music just a hobby and a fun skill. I'm not arguing that making art (music, film, literature, paintings, etc.) is not "creating", but what it creates isn't material. I'm having a bit of a hard time putting my thoughts into words here.

[Weezer]

Talking about abolition of personality cult in a board full of Stalinists, Leninists and Maoists and that one Jucheist is pretty counter productive

Many of the Leninists and Maoists here are contemporary-minded and have moved on from the 1940's and don't have such a strong feelings for a cult of personality as some more creepier Marxist-Leninists, those who are stuck in the 1940's.

[Aspiring Humanist]

Many of the Leninists and Maoists here are contemporary-minded and have moved on from the 1940's and don't have such a strong feelings for a cult of personality as some more creepier Marxist-Leninists, those who are stuck in the 1940's.

Theres a thread about getting a tattoo of Che's face on peoples bodies

[Weezer]

Theres a thread about getting a tattoo of Che's face on peoples bodies

:laugh: True.

Che isn't a Stalinist or even Leninist exclusive symbol though. Most tendencies admire him. Even capitalists have cashed in on his cult of personality. :(

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

I think that as long as we are human, there are always going to be "personalities" that is, people who become in/famous and have large numbers of people talk about them as well as earning a place in the history books.

[Tim Finnegan]

I apologize, it was probably the wrong term to use and I should have specified. By "job" I meant the occupations that produce/distribute material things to the population, in a socialist society I don't think it would be fair to make art an occupation. I work in a warehouse, I play music also, but I always considered music just a hobby and a fun skill. I'm not arguing that making art (music, film, literature, paintings, etc.) is not "creating", but what it creates isn't material. I'm having a bit of a hard time putting my thoughts into words here.
I see what you mean, then, but I'm still not sure I follow. Why does producing that which is immaterial not constitute "legitimate", for want of a better word, production? The point of communist production is the creation of use-values, after all, not the production of material products as such. A song is a use-value as much as a sandwich.

[La Peur Rouge]

I see what you mean, then, but I'm still not sure I follow. Why does producing that which is immaterial not constitute "legitimate", for want of a better word, production? The point of communist production is the creation of use-values, after all, not the production of material products as such. A song is a use-value as much as a sandwich.

Oh, no, I do believe that it is legitimate production, just a different "type" of production is what I'm trying to get at. I guess my issue with it is that I personally would not feel like I was contributing enough to society if my only contribution was in the form of art.

[SHORAS]

The Society of the Spectacle Chapter 3: Unity and Division Within Appearances thesis 60 and 61 are worth a quick read re 'stars'. http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/debord/3.htm