BVLGARI VVLGARIS
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| BVLGARIS VVLGARIS - The writer explains where his is coming from in this RADIO INTERVIEW of the column - plus Daren gives his takes on the upcoming election and makes his baseball predictions! |
BVLGARI VVLGARIS
By Daren Foster
On the flight back from Rome with nearly 3000 years of civilization freshly under my belt, what lingered most is why the hell Hollywood celebrities who wouldn’t dare sully their artistic credentials hawking commercial wares in plain sight for North American eyes seem perfectly comfortable doing so abroad. Yes, yes. Call me shallow. Call me obsessed with trivialities. While I still should be in thrall with the glories of ancient empires, humbled by the excesses of religiosity, wallowing in the grandiosity of perfectly cooked al dente pasta, I just could not shake the image of Edward Norton and George Clooney as watch salesmen.
It was even worse when I visited Japan last year. High-falutin actors and actresses shilling products everywhere including a Godzilla sized billboard of Nicholas Cage showing off a baroquely designed watch that stopped me in my tracks as I turned a Tokyo corner. (If my understanding of the term ‘baroque’ is correct. Glitzy. Busy. Over-the-top. I couldn’t keep a handle on the art history terminology, distracted as I was with looking out for celebrity advertising). Or maybe it was a pen the former-actor-now-glorified-stunt-man was exhorting the Japanese to buy which seems laughable given the quality of scripts Cage has brought to the big screen in the last decade or so.
While I accept the fact that the very nature of being a Hollywood star is in itself a form of advertising -- flogging a brand as it were -- it’s the hypocrisy of only doing ads overseas that rankles. A whore in Bangkok does (mostly) the same things as a whore plying her trade in upscale Manhattan hotels, only for less money or the hopes of Julia Roberts portraying her in a blockbuster film. Why would pitching exorbitantly priced jewellery or desk accoutrements to Asians or Europeans be less demeaning than to North Americans? Are we, here in the New World, really so discriminating that we demand absolute purity in our movie stars? Like the Italians who would never allow banners bearing the Golden Arches to hang from the walls of the Colosseum, are we similarly protective of our, er, National Treasures?
It wasn’t that long ago when Hollywood film hot shots wouldn’t dare show their faces on television for fear of threatening their A-list status or soiling their elevated reputations. Actors who were stranded in the TV ghetto would take the first opportunity that came up to jump ship to the big screen. I’m thinking John Travolta and Welcome Back, Kotter. Chevy Chase and Saturday Night Live. David Caruso (gulp) and NYPD Blue. The advent of HBO and the diminution of seriousness at the major film studios helped alter that landscape so, with the right vehicle, movie actors don’t wave off a television role out of hand anymore.
Yet, for North American consumption, performers with any pretensions of high-mindedness view commercial advertising as dirty work. Of course there’s a difference between taking a juicy part in TV series and, say, telling audiences what burger they should ingest. Or, at least, telling audiences on their
So either Hollywood stars who offer their services shilling overseas think highly of their foreign audiences, assured they will be able to distinguish between the artist and the salesman, or they view them as the great unwashed, unable to get enough of their American magnificence. Si, Si, Senor Clooney. I bery much like to buy watch which so beautifully adorns your handsome wrist, Senor Clooney. Dats a bery nice suit you wear, too. Should I also buy it?
Out of sight (har, har), out of mind, they must figure, believing that Americans who throng to their stateside releases and read about their personal lives in People never leave Fortress USA. So what they don’t know won’t harm a celebrity’s reputation. Judging by the low percentage of passport bearing Americans, there may be some truth to that but there is this thing now called the internet and very little goes unnoticed anymore by anyone who has access to broadband. With such a breech in the dividing wall, the time may be at hand when big names bring their pearly whites to a billboard near you, telling us all how to make our lives as fantabulous as theirs.
By my very unscientific computations, the situation has already reared its wonderfully coiffed head and smartly made up face. Big name female performers are much more prevalent here in North America, trading their names and reputations for a little extra pocket money especially in the beauty products line. Unsurprising really, as the objectification of women is never really very far from the surface in all aspects of the entertainment industry. Product selling product. Hell, if Catherine Deneuve can cash in on her image why shouldn’t Scarlett Johansson get an early start at it? Besides, many more collaborations with the increasingly sclerotic Woody Allen will drain any last drop of marketability from her. Get it now while the getting’s good, sweetheart.
All of this begs the bigger question. Why on earth are well-to-do celebrities doing commercials anyway? A steady diet of Woody Allen movies may not be earning Ms. Johanssen top dollar but does she really need to promote artificial womanhood to make ends meet?
And George, Serious George, of the very politically-minded Syriana and Good Night and Good Luck, is the world going to be a better place if everyone can tell the time more stylishly? I thought the Ocean's 11 variations went to buying that palazzo in northern Italy. And Nickie C., well, he joined the Legion of Whores not long after securing his Oscar. What good name he’s hoping to maintain by keeping his sales pitch overseas is a mystery to me.And spare me the conjecture that maybe the advertising stash these celebrities make goes directly to charity. If you want to be kind-hearted and magnanimous, do what everybody else does who doesn’t have a big name to trade in on. Dig into your own pockets. What the grand churches of Rome used to call ‘tithing.’ Better yet, if you truly want to make the world a better place, stop pimping your images out, promoting a lifestyle few can ever hope to achieve but who will turn their existence upside down in a vain effort trying. Give over the public space your hawking mugs presently inhabit to something that is truly beautiful and much more gratifying. Something earlier generations of Romans knew a thing or two about.
May 1 2008 - AN ARRESTING DEVELOPMENT
April 24 2008 - Just TWEEN you and me
April 17 2008 - A Day at the Movies
April 10 2008 - Stop the (March) Madness!
April 3 2008 - Heaven's Gate Revisited
March 27 2008 - ACTING OUT - A great actor working with sub-par material
March 20 2008 - TECHNO ROBBER BARONS - When daylight savings time ruins my taping of The Wire
March 13 2008 - DAMN AGES - Growing up is hard to do
