On celebrities and sensibilities

JAKARTA (JP): A coworker complained that her daughter has decided not to go to college after high school. She wants to join a modeling school instead.

"What does she think she'll become?" he asked fretfully.

My eight-year-old niece, holding her "prom" Barbie doll, enviously told me of her classmate, who has become a sweetheart of TV commercials: "Because she's now a star, she acts really genit (coquettish) like grown-ups."

It is the same Cinderella story all over again. Girl wishes to reinvent herself and transform into a famous and a more beautiful version of herself.

The daily newspaper Kompas published an intriguing article early this year on a beauty pageant -- all hype and promises of fame and grandeur -- that revolved around the marketing of a particular soap brand.

View this: the four pageant contestants are on stage with pearly and meticulously fixed smiles (that looked rather pained, if you ask me).

"What is your aspiration?" asked the pageant host.

"I want to contribute something beneficial to society." (Smiling satisfactorily for having recited the line smoothly.)

The MC, instead of exploring what "beneficial contribution" that may be, continues to read from the list of questions.

"What is your priority in life?"

"God, family, study and career." (Actually, all four contestants say this, or something that sounds similarly cliche.)

At the end, the winner was crowned with a glittering tiara. Glassy-eyed and with the same fixed smile she waved ever so gracefully, and for the next week her name was splashed in tabloids' headlines. A dream comes true.

These days, wherever you turn, especially at traffic lights, you are bound to see TV starlet Desy Ratnasari gracing the cover of entertainment tabloids and women's magazines.

The 26-year-old actress cum singer cum TV show host, who is probably one of the most memorable faces in the country, filed for divorce recently from her husband of 13 months. Since then, she has created the same kind of media frenzy that she did exactly 13 months ago, when she swiftly married that obscure man.

Suddenly, every media with an entertainment section wants to publish her story. They boast of cover stories with confessions by both parties (Desy and husband Trenadi Pramudya). Desy, the young and fair starlet, is soon to be available again.

Am I wrong to think that this, despite an outcry over the media exploits of Desy's personal life, works to her benefit as well? What could possibly be a more effective way to regain one's fading popularity than by having gone through a personal, highly publicized tragedy? After all, she did get more gigs after the announcement of the divorce.

Celebrities feed on people's dreams. It is the adult version of the happily ever after prince and princess in fairy tales (though this version doesn't always end happily), and, to a certain degree, the modern and secular version of ancient Greek gods.

In the film Notting Hill, a man who gets his heart broken repeatedly by the woman he falls in love with, who happens to be one of the world's most famous film stars, is consoled with this bit of wisdom: "She's a goddess, and we're mere mortals."

But are the stars justly celebrated? Numerous young beautiful Indonesians are generally acknowledged as celebrities, but most of us never know why they are being celebrated.

Several names, for example, have become household names due to their media exposure, but their achievements or arts escape us. Unlike Christine Hakim (Cut Nyak Dien), or Anthony Hopkins (Silence of the Lambs), or even dangdut music star Rhoma Irama, I would go blank if someone asked me to name one teleserial Cut Keke starred in.

The media is partly to blame for nurturing our curiosity on the details of the celebs' lives. It doesn't take the death of a press-hunted princess to know that our insatiable appetite for the celebrated people can lead to a harmful end.

One sign is when kiddies television shows begin to resemble celebrity programs like Kiss, Kisah Seputar Selebritis (Tales of Celebrities). Only these ones are hosted by smaller and younger TV personalities, who prematurely dress and behave like their older counterparts.

Princess Di died in a most banal way, a car crash, but the tragedy ironically reverberated the same message of the cost of the irrational degree of fame she had attained.

The car chase, the trails of European paparazis on motorcycles added to the glam. But in the end, she, like other celebrated personalities, was just one of us: a mere mortal.

-- Devi M. Asmarani