One More Day Alive

Shakira –didn’t you know that you are supposed to be an egomaniac! You are not supposed to be tiptoeing around a university on your downtime expanding your mind by reaching outside of it and learning about others. You are supposed to be a totally self-absorbed, overly opinionated and undereducated narcissist like all the rest of the “stars”!

Oh wait a second – maybe it’s the other way around.

The most exciting thing about all the Shakira hoopla a few weeks back wasn’t the fact that she masqueraded as a boy to attend classes at UCLA last summer, although that seems to be what all the papers were talking about; it was that did so to blend into a classroom where she could learn something about history and about society because, in her own words, “’I needed a break from me. The universe is so broad, I cannot be at the center of it.”

That’s quite the contrast from the typical star mentality – one that really came to disgust me over the course of a decade long career as an entertainment journalist, one perfectly characterized by Ashley Simpson a few years ago when she declared, “I love to sing…I don’t do it for anyone else—I do if for me. I have had to learn that my voice is the most important one.”

Yes, it’s easy enough for most of us to dismiss stars like Ashley as nutty and narcissistic because we are adults and know they are. But what about our kids – they have not yet formed the confidence in their opinions and the knowledge needed to ascertain when an authority figure (yes stars are seen as such) is not only acceptable or not noble or worthy of their respect.

Where do you think Columbine killers Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris got the idea that their pain, their ideas, their anger, etc, were more important than the lives of those that they took? Could it be from the “stars”?

You see fame isn’t what it used to be. Once upon a time it was a byproduct of success owed to some great skill, craft or art; now it’s a goal to be achieved at all costs. Self-promotion has practically become an art form in itself. Actress and dancer Debbie Allen makes that point in the remake of the hit 80s phenom Fame.

I saw that firsthand from another perspective too after I quit my job as an entertainment reporter a decade ago and decided to lay low for awhile accepting a job teaching high school English for a year. I saw a whole lot of great kids who were being brainwashed by the media into thinking that they were at the center of the universe and that was ok.

Flash forward to 2009 and Shakira’s wonderful selfless quote. Now I don’t know how sincere she was when she said it, but it really doesn’t matter because at least she is trying to set a new standard, a new idea of what it means to be a star.

Is Shakira the exception that proves the rule of a self-absorbed media machine or could she be a harbinger of good things to come on the horizon of our fame and fortune front?

I don’t know but at least it is providing us some food for thought.

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