And The Winner Is....Dieing To Be Famous

So Mickey Rourke won best actor at the Golden Globes, The Independent Spirit Awards and the BAFTA’s for his astonishing performance in The Wrestler. Does it matter that Sean Penn pinned him for the big one by picking up the Oscar for his portrayal of Harvey in Milk?
Not really. Just like the real WWE, the awards ceremonies are intricately calculated marketing carve ups, and while Rourke was deservedly the hip crowd’s champion, the Hollywood establishment has never truly forgiven him. Not for the wayward excess blighting his work since Angel Heart, nor the crappy movies he made to pay the rent as a consequence.
Yet what is more Hollywood than his story, snatching a victory from the jaws of defeat against all the odds? Darren Aronofsky’s film put Mickey in the middle of the ring, and he took the audience on a painfully inspired ride.
It was brutally honest in the depiction of the U.S. small town wrestling circuit, populated by the has-beens and wannabes who dream of making it to the pay per view Vince McMahon run circus. Or by some small miracle returning to it.
This so-called “live sports entertainment,” commands big arena audiences paying substantial ticket prices. Stunt men performing impressive athletic feats, punctuated by story lines that would make a hack soap opera writer wince and performances more wooden than a forest. The Wrestler was art imitating this life parody, with WWE superstars like The Undertaker (aka Mark William Calaway) well on the wrong side of 40-years-old.
Back in the suburbs, to keep the costs of the production down Aronofsky enlisted a number of players on the scene as extras. Just days ago, Scott Siegel who played the part of a drug dealer in the film was charged with real thing, having been arrested for allegedly possessing substantial quantities of steroids.
But at the fatally damaged heart of The Wrestler is a far more damning indictment of our celebrity culture, where 15 minutes of fame are eked out into an entire lifetime.
Those who have tasted a life less ordinary, normality becomes an alien concept.
Just as Rourke’s character Randy The Ram finds going civilian working behind the counter of a deli counter impossible to maintain, so do many of our reality television stars struggle to recover from being famous for being famous. With no discernable talent to sustain them beyond this fleeting public recognition.
Yet we continue to poke them through the bars of this 21st century Bedlam, savouring the tastier moments of their fall from grace.
I remember talking to the musician Bobby Gillespie in an Islington café at the time Primal Scream released the XTRMNTR album in the late 1990’s. He speculated that the logical extension of the then comparatively new reality phenomenon would be live executions on television, like a futuristic nightmare imagined by JG Ballard.
Now that is perilously close to coming true.
Jade Goody is the ultimate reality television personality. By finishing no higher than 4th in the third series of Big Brother, the Essex girl who thought Rio De Janeiro was a person and East Angular somewhere abroad, built an improbable career.
Her ignorance was bliss for many, the British public loved a “celebrity” they could patronise in every sense of the word.
She launched an autobiography and a fragrance. She had two children by another serial reality television personality, Jeff Brazier, a relationship which did not last.
The reality career has more staying power, with a succession of shows featuring the word “Celebrity” in the title and even a keep fit DVD.
Returning to the scene of her celebrity crime just over 2 years ago was a disaster on all levels. She took her mother Jackiey and toy-boy-friend Jack Tweed with her, neither having her peculiar charm, and displaying an altogether less palatable ignorance.
Jade became embroiled in a racist bullying row with Bollywood actress Shilpa Shelty, and had neither the wit nor diplomacy to fire fight the career implosion that followed.
Out of the house where she made her name 5 short years before, Goody faced a completely different set of circumstances.
Villified for the ugly public television performance some thought revealed her true colours, she embarked on a PR firefight.
Unfortunately Tweed’s immaturity led to altercations others may have had the experience to walk away from, but he just landed in jail for assaulting a teenager with a golf club.
And no, you could not write this shit.
Certainly not the cruellest plot twist of all which took Goody to the Indian version of Big Brother where she discovered her cervical cancer. The timing was deadly as the voracious nature of the disease.
Years became months became weeks. She swore to spend her last days earning as much cash as possible for her two boys future security. Laudable and sadly laughable in equal measure. Your mother then gets married for television, and to all intents and purposes intends to die on television. The chances of you having a trauma free childhood are virtually nil. Your dad and boy step-father are to be locked in a battle for custody with your maternal granny and great grandparents.
Your mother also wants you to be baptised. She believes God will make it easier to stay in touch once she is beyond the grave. May He help all of you.