The Layoff Beard

Extended Thought ▪ Celebs: We Like ‘Em Dumb

By Matt Sussman | Tuesday, June 9th, 2009

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As a sign of my definitive ability to hide from trends simply by breathing oxygen, last week was the first time I heard of Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt, and it was from a joke in Conan O’Brien’s monologue. Neither the set-up nor the punch line provided any reference to who they were (or, what they were doing), but it was evident that neither of these two people were very well liked. (If there was a mental biathlon of Being Ignorant and Being Observant, I’d be a medal contender.)

So now I know who they are. As to why they’re famous, it’s beyond me. Then again, that’s pretty much how it goes. Paris Hilton was before her, and Britney before that. Kato Kaelin preceded them, and I guess before those people, the original celebrity trainwreck was Joan of Arc, the little tease. But these days, it seems that all the famous people making the rounds are just not people who are all that likeable.

Maybe that’s the point.

Imagine if all the people on television were learned, articulate Ken Jennings clones. You’d stop watching television and start reading books, exercising, and start talking to your loved ones, like, in person or over the phone and not through Twitter. TV stations can’t have that! They need brainfartin’ blondes and semi-sculpted adolescent men whose skin is capable of actually retaining its own douche. This is the only way the public can channel their anger toward distant idols rather than get the urge to bring a sledgehammer to the office and vent about unnecessary meetings or the new policy wherein every moment of your workday has to be documented and signed off by three managers.

So that’s one way that the general welfare is kept minty fresh. Of course, it can’t really be all that easy. After all, the average person ain’t that bright, so it may be difficult for television producers to find a character so behind the bell curve, climbing up to the median would put Sisyphus to shame. Case in point: most people aren’t quite sure what that last sentence meant.

It doesn’t seem to take much to find a catalyst for trash television. Sometimes all it takes for casting directors in New York or Los Angeles is to swivel one’s neck. And it doesn’t take arugula for brains to know that there’s good money in being hated, dim-witted, and beautiful. While the last one of those three can be hard to fake, the first two don’t even have to be organic, although it helps. Hey, if Angela from The Office can be cheerful in person, then antagonism can’t be that hard to toggle.

If you need more examples, I am wholeheartedly convinced that Ozzy Osbourne’s brain is not some sort of fine translucent paste that he makes it out to be. If he was, wouldn’t it be a little cruel to throw him on television to exploit him for endorsements ranging from Samsung to World of Warcraft? He knows exactly what he’s doing. He had an opportunity years ago to play the fool, because this was a time when people thought reality TV was more genuine than we now understand it is and the world took him almost too seriously, but they were captivated.

Even well aware that most of his songs were modestly intelligible, it was almost a given that his mind was last reported seen in 1982. Oh c’mon. He established relevance in a world where most rock stars from yesteryear are just trying to hang on. It’s not accidental fame.

The forehead-smashing reasons why certain people are famous don’t have to be revealed to us. But if more people were at peace with the fact that certain celebrities were hand-picked for a reason, it might help alleviate the headache a little bit. Most people seem fine with “pro” wrestling, because they know the outcomes are predetermined. It’s entertaining as hell, though, to some people. Network producers can’t fix the outcome of someone’s life, but they can script the characters and play the percentages that, for one brief moment, they’ll act like the insufferable bitch/prick of their dreams. And that’s all they need to keep their job and get another chance to find the next great beacon of antagonism.