Wednesday, February 24, 2010

No One Died

I love Ricky Gervais.

Yesterday, he was on The View, talking about his stint as host of the Golden Globes, and some of the little jabs he took at the celebrities, as well as the new animated series he has coming up. The cartoon stars Gervais and two friends just having totally off-the-cuff conversations. He unabashedly admits that one of his friends, who has "a completely round head" is inadvertently funny--meaning that sometimes he just says things that make no sense at all, and that's where the humor comes from.

So, summing it all up today, when asked how his performance on The View went, Ricky Gervais said, "No one died. That's about all you can hope for nowadays. No one died."

I love that he doesn't take himself seriously.

But you know who DOES?

The Jersey Shore cast.

I've never watched The Jersey Shore, but I'm familiar with Snooki and The Situation, mostly through parodies of them on Saturday Night Live. I didn't realize how close the parodies are to the real deal until yesterday.

Joy Behar went just nuts with them, grilling them relentlessly on serious topics (she admitted this morning to Barbara, as a matter of fact, that she has a personal issue with kids like this group, having been teased for being a smart kid when she was in school).

So, anyway, Joy was asking questions like, "Are you saving money?" "Do you use condoms" (!) and "Where do you see yourselves in twenty years?"

Which naturally had the Jersey Shore group, who after all are very young, looking blank and a bit defensive, though a couple stepped up to say yes, they had some money put aside.


But Snooki, when asked what she attributed her amazing popularity to, said calmly, "Well, just look at me!" She also said, basically, that she dressed stylishly and had nice hair (she looks like a commercial for those hairstyle things, Bump-Its).

And that was it.

She's famous for....not much.

And The Situation appears to be famous for having a nickname.

Yet the whole group is just so thrilled and smugly satisfied to be in the spotlight.

It was, to me, at least, a little sad.

I mean, this is just a group of kids who has stumbled into their fifteen minutes of fame, and they don't seem to realize that they are just famous for being famous. I can certainly understand they don't have a big long-range plan, but they seem to accept the fanfare and adulation as their due.

And it's so obvious to the objective observer that there just isn't anything to justify that attitude. Their fame is not going to last. It's a fleeting thing.

And when it fades out, The View will be there, I guess, to document the Next Big Thing.

But I still think it's sad that so many young people these days seem to aspire to have just what The Jersey Shore crew has--fame for the sake of being famous.

Thank goodness for comics like Ricky Gervais, to put it all in perspective when we start to take ourselves too seriously.

I am a participant in a Mom Central campaign for ABC Daytime and will receive a tote bag or other The View branded items to facilitate my review.

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