Chevy Chase on the Downside of Fame

Photo Credit: Alan Light

I am currently reading Tom Shales & James Andrew Miller's book, Live From New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live, a book of interviews with those associated with the show during its nearly forty years of existence.

I came across the following quote from Chevy Chase, a breakout star from SNL's inaugural season who went onto become one of the biggest comedic movie stars of the 1980's. Having personally gone from obscurity to fame seemingly overnight when SNL became a breakout hit in 1975, Chase says this about fame:

"I think if there is one perception that the public feels about people who become famous, it's that it is a great, wonderful, marvelous, magical thing. And that's true up to a point. But in fact it's also a very, very frightening thing, because it's one of the most stressful things. There's a certain amount of post-traumatic stress involved in being regular guy and then suddenly an extremely famous one.

By and large, people who are looking for some sort of immediate gratification to being with, some validation of what their identity is, who they are, some acceptability. They're not novelists who are waiting after ten years to see how they did. They want it right away. They're children, basically. And in all children there's this reservoir of self-doubt and guilt and sense of low self-esteem, I think. And so one lives with this kind of dualism, this disparity between the marvelous magic of becoming accepted by so many so fast and, at the same time, a lingering sense that one doesn't deserve it and sooner or later will be found out."

Fame is fleeting for most who find it and most people will never achieve the kind of recognition that television and film stars find. But true satisfaction and meaning is not found in the applause we get simply for making people laugh or by being really good at pretending to be someone we're not.  We can take comfort in knowing that there is a God who knows everything about us and still offers a love to us that is not based on our performance. To find out more about this God, please click here.

Michael Jackson & the Cost of Celebrity

It's been a handful of days after his unexpected death and the news coverage on Michael Jackson has yet to slow down. The tributes, commentaries and retrospectives seem endless as his fans and admirers seek to cope with the reality that a larger than life superstar is now dead.

I've already written about my thoughts on Jackson here so I won't reiterate all of that but I was intrigued by Doug Gross's article on CNN.com about the price that the King of Pop paid for his fame. A performer since his earliest days, Michael never was able to experience childhood as others do. In Jackson's own words:

"The public at large has yet to really understand the pressures of childhood celebrity, which, while exciting, always exacts a very heavy price," Jackson wrote in 2000 in a column for the religious Web site beliefnet. "More than anything, I wished to be a normal little boy. I wanted to build tree houses and go to roller-skating parties. But very early on, this became impossible."

Gross refers to the heavy demands Joseph Jackson, Michael's father, placed on Michael and his brothers and how his odd behavior over the years likely stemmed from this disfunction in his formative years. It's been argued that many kids have had harsh, demanding fathers with unreasonable expectations so why did Michael turn out the way he did? I believe the combination of his talent, money, fame, denied youth and inability to connect with others likely all played a role in who he grew up to be.

Michael admitted that he just wanted to be a normal little boy and lead a life that other kids have. He wanted to laugh and play and have a life without pressure. It's sad that a path was chosen for him that he could never really get out of because it was all he knew. In a culture that rewards those that seek fame simply to be famous I wonder how many more Michael Jacksons we may be creating as we use children for entertainment and spit them out when their cuteness wears off and we move onto something else. It's at least something to think about...