Culture Shock: Entertaining the Masses

"You are not what you are. You are not what people think you are. You are what you think other people think you are."

This quote hung on the wall of my high school English classroom. The quote is about identity, and the very fact that someone took the time to voice those thoughts reflects the American preoccupation with personal identity. Furthermore, the quote suggests that the way one presents oneself to others is integral to one's identity--a phenomenon peculiar to this era and this country, according to Neal Gabler.

In his new book entitled Life the Movie: How Entertainment Conquered Reality, Gabler traces the development of our society's obsession with entertainment and entertainers. He advances example after example, until even the skeptical reader can't help but wonder whether our society is going down the tubes.

Well-known cases of celebrity stalking and worse--e.g., Lee Harvey Oswald, et al.--are included, but Gabler has also recorded, for instance, the story of Robert O'Donnell, the fireman/paramedic who rescued little Jessica McClure from a well in 1987 and achieved instant celebrity. This public hero became angry when his fame quickly faded, and he subsequently became a victim of migraine headaches and a painkiller addict, lost his job, was sued for divorce and committed suicide. O'Donnell, as Gabler puts it, "had been addicted to fame, and the true cause of his death was his withdrawal from it."

This is just the type of story Life the Movie is loaded with. Gabler has uncovered case after case of the extreme and bizarre effects America's preoccupation with entertainment and celebrity has produced.

Extensive thought and research has clearly gone into this book. Gabler supports his arguments with quotes from other relevant works. He is obviously well versed in American history and makes use of it in his arguments. Unfortunately, Gabler did not use his exhaustive and insightful outline of historical events and processes to draw conclusions about cause and effect relationships which would have enriched his narrative.

Gabler's command of the history of television, theater, cinema and journalism in America is exceptional. He extends his claims to fields such as religion, sports, publishing, visual art and even education. It seems that even Harvard is subject to the magnetism of celebrity: "Academstars like ...Cornel West and Henry Louis Gates, Jr.," Gabler writes, "built their reputations the way stars usually did: by gaining media attention, in this case writing articles for newspapers and magazines and appearing as experts on television programs, or glomming onto the latest academic fad or controversy."

Once he has tracked the evolution of the phenomenon, Gabler shows us the extent to which Americans have gone to sculpt and alter their own identities, with examples such as the market for professionally written term papers, a retirement community in Florida designed to offer its residents a 24/7 Disney World experience, celebrity quick-change artists like Madonna and Michael Jackson and a woman who underwent 20 plastic surgeries to remake herself in the image of a Barbie doll. He points out the difference between the "inner-directed" character valued in America's past--composed of personal qualities and goals inspired by one's upbringing--and today's "other-directed" character, in which a person attains value through the opinions of others and through emulating those one admires.

He holds things up to the light which we take for granted. For instance, most of us probably would say the Hard Rock Cafe succeeded through the simple combination of innovation, good advertising and luck. Gabler reveals the craziness of it in a way most authors would not be able to pinpoint. "The Hard Rock," he writes, "had been so celebritized that some people went there to buy a souvenir to commemorate the time they went to the Hard Rock to buy a souvenir which, in turn, broadcast to others that they had been to the Hard Rock to buy a souvenir."

In just about any sentence from the book, chosen at random, one finds use of an unusual but exactly fitting word. Gabler possesses an unusually large vocabulary. His word choice is always precise and ingenious and leaves the reader wondering why most of these extraordinary words are not more common in writing and speech.

For instance, Gabler claims that the Gulf War was a cinematic production. He cites the musical themes and news coverage titles (NBC's "America at War," ABC and CNN's "Crisis in the Gulf") developed by each network and the reporters who became stars overnight.

It seems flagrantly immoral to make sheer entertainment out of something that is so real and so horrifying for the people involved. Yet, one wonders whether, if the coverage had been different, less entertaining, Americans would have cared at all. If turning life into a movie helps us to understand what is going on and sympathize with others in situations far from our own, perhaps this approach is the best, the most morally upstanding, course of action.

Reading the book, one must keep in mind that we are all products of the very culture Gabler describes. Alongside the frightening examples are everyday occurrences that stem from the very same attitudes. It's scary to see a bit of Jeffrey Dahmer or Monica Lewinsky in yourself.

It is tempting to try to formulate a grand plan to turn society around and save everyone from the lunacy that can result from the American preoccupation with fame. However, every society changes, and every society has its deviants. A swing in the opposite direction would probably be just as detrimental as anything caused by the current state of affairs.

Gabler does not preach reform. He advocates awareness, and he is good at what he does. Although on one level it might be nice to have a book outline the best course of growth and correction for our society, that is difficult and dangerous. Life the Movie is not rhetoric or propaganda. It is simply a searching and clear-sighted analysis of American culture, and it will change the way you look at your surroundings and yourself.