Covid-19 is the slow death of celebrity: As fame’s brilliance fades, we can see the real heroes clearly

Locked inside like any plebeian, celebrities have tried to stay relevant by telling the world we’re all “in it together.” But as their make-up went flaking, it became obvious how much we’re not – and who is really relevant.

I once had lunch with Charlton Heston at the Hyde Park Hotel in London.

We agreed with American historian Daniel Boorstin’s insight that there are few real heroes in the world today. Celebrity is a corrosive condition for the soul. I have tried to restrain its inroads on me, but there are odd corners of my character that have been harmed.

Byzantine emperors used to hire someone to stand behind them warning: “You too shall die” and I whisper that to myself as often as possible.

One wonders what the star of Ben-Hur would make of the current generation of celebrities.

Read more

Dear sports celebs: No, we don’t want your self-serving nude snaps in self-isolation, we want self-awareness

While the dreaded Covid-19 has America in lockdown, it has spawned a demi-plague; what celebrities do when they are yearning for attention and desperate to remain relevant.

Their making of home videos and the tweeting of their opinions on everything, it turns out, is irritating the proletariat. As we lumber pointlessly to day twenty-something of lockdown, these soi disant caring celebrities are becoming increasingly exasperating.

For some reason, celebrities believe their opinions are relevant.

It is as if by playing a doctor in a movie, you, by osmosis, have the skills set and knowledge of an experienced medical professional.

The last time we heard from Sean Penn he was in a cave interviewing a notorious drug lord. Now he is on US national television advising that the country should be under martial law.

A celebrity suffers in translation when taken off the red carpet. Without the maquillage, gowns, the baubles and the flash-mob, they are, well, just annoying.

The illustrious careers of some celebs, rather like the titles of an epic movie, go on…and on…an on. If the truth be told, we are sick of celebrities.

The media chronicle the most mundane of their activities. Pimples are transmogrified into –dare one say the word–  plagues. Tiffs between the Titans become front page furores. The whole situation begs the question: is there life after the final credit title? Until now, the populace was never allowed to find out because with these kinds of people, the performance never ends.

Recently, Madonna was sitting in a petal-strewn bath looking like a burns victim and telling us in a highly produced video that “this virus is the great equalizer.”

The media enable their delusions by quoting their philosophies on everything from popcorn to politics as though they were quoted from the Torah.

The first sign of the celeb-virus was actress Gal Gadot’s inspiration having her friends sing the words to John Lennon’s atheist anthem, Imagine.

Wonderwoman? More like Blunderwoman.

I admire Gadot for serving in the Israel Defence Forces, but she may want to consider social media distancing.

Her friends, a motley crew of entertainers, each mauled a couple of lines from a song that evokes a world with no religion, no heaven and no hell.

It’s a deep mystery.

Why would they, um, imagine that there is solace in pretending that Utopia is a godless place where no one has any possessions.

Not only that, there are no countries and nothing to kill or die for and no need for greed or hunger.

(Well that bit is true. But no-one has ever needed hunger?)

“We’re all in this together” practically every celebrity parroted insincerely. No, we are not. You are wearing a $10,000 bauble around your neck and living in a pointlessly big, characterless mansion. The great unwashed rest of us – well 330 million or so – have no jobs and are terrified of the uncharted waters that lie ahead as the collapse of the economy looms.

Why, mere mortals don’t know where their next loo roll is coming from.

We are not looking forward to working in a hotel owned by the Chinese. I, personally, don’t look forward to looking like a character in a Depression woodcut.

Imagine if all these celebrities had left America as they swore they would if Trump got elected?

These ersatz, pseudo heroes known only for being known, are being replaced by real heroes.

During these tumultuous times, a curious phenomenon has emerged.

In New York, London and Paris, at 8 pm every night, city-dwellers have taken to going on their balconies to beat a kind of tattoo.

Using any noise-makers they can, they are celebrating and thanking the heroic doctors, nurses, engineers, soldiers, police, care-givers and food providers whose names are unknown and whose mission is selfless.

Of course, there are those that will sneer. They always do at people behaving nobly.

The sun is setting on an epoch where bona fide heroes and heroines were rarer than bottles of 1929 Château Lafite Rothschild.

Perhaps there is something sanguine that will emerge from Home-aggedon. The slow death of celebrity worship and the rise of the true hero.

Like this story? Share it with a friend!