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Morgan Freeman - Source: Reuters -
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Oooh, see how they ooze!
Somewhat gleeful, and just a little more purple than is truly seemly: those reports currently filtering from the US gutter press that Morgan Freeman, a man who has parleyed his excellent impersonation of the Voice of God into a lucrative movie career, might have been a little too close to his lovely step-granddaughter.
But he seems so wise!
I don't want to speculate about the nature of Freeman's relationship with his young charge , as much as to offer a somewhat more leaden confession of my own: When I saw the headline, I immediately wanted to know more.
Gossip is like that, particularly salacious gossip. One definition of journalism is that it is "paid gossip". But the nature of actual gossip is a presumed awareness of its juiciness, generally shared by the gossipees.
That is computed, automatically, on a factor of just how elevated the subject is, and thus, how far (if said scurrilous allegations are true) he or she has fallen.
It would be quite a height. Freeman won an Academy Award for Million Dollar Baby. And he got an Oscar nomination for acting very helpfully to poor old Tim Robbins in The Shawshank Redemption, after he was so rudely buggered by those non-white collar criminals.
How are we to greet this besmirching of such a celebrated name?
Joyfully, perhaps.
For too long, it's been said, gossip has been the preserve of the young (the fetchingly trivial Spencer and Heidi from The Hills, or "Speidi" as they're known), the bonkers (Lindsay Blo-han whose Dad is once again calling for an intervention), and the wealthy (Paris; I'd almost forgotten her until I recently saw a grainy photo from a night club of a young woman with a star where her underwear should have been; it was like seeing the Goodnight Kiwi and wondering how you could have ever let that go).
Morgan Freeman is old, sane-ish, and while he's wealthy it's true, he also has a career. He's not famous for being famous.
Perhaps Mr Freeman is the sacrificial lamb that portends the mechanism of gossip is about to change. Perhaps we are about to enter a gilded age when the people who do allegedly-foul things are people who have actual talents, aside of omitting to wear knickers. Perhaps the Gods are about to prove they're human, rather than what we've been forced to put up with until now, i.e. humans proving they can behave like swine.
You hear this kind of thing sometimes, that the subjects of contemporary gossip are unworthy. That we are being traduced by second rate bad behaviour. That it wasn't always so.
Which is why the following gave me pause:
"People in our day become famous who are no more than advertisements, and they advertise not genius but existence.
They are famous for stopping hotels, for holding hands in public, for speaking to each other, for having babies, for getting invited to parties... So deep is the limbo into which industry, politics and overpopulation is shoving us, that we ask of fame that it makes us aware of men rather than supermen.
"A depersonalised citizenry avid for identity has invented this new type of fame. The lonely city dwellers, whose human faces are lost in the shuffle of world problems and mechanised existence elect representatives to live for them."
This is from page four of A Child of the Century, the
autobiography of Hollywood screen-writing icon Ben Hecht, published
in 1954.
Comment on Tim's blog on the message board
below.
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Post new commentNewzgal said on 2010-01-03 @ 15:46 NZDT: Report abusive post
Hi Tim, great blog. I agree right wingers have a Hobbesian view of existence, and like many I welcomed Obama’s presidency. However I always watched Fox News just to see how they were framing up the news (which far too many people rely on). I now find it more useful than ever to tune into the right just incase there is a kernel of truth in their rants as it seems the media and world have been far too soft on the new president and democrats, perfect recipe to slip things in!
jackdoitcrawford said on 2009-09-11 @ 23:24 NZDT: Report abusive post
Please don't label all people you disagree with, and put them in the same camp. Ayn Rand was pro abortion, achievement, reason, freedom, capitalism and happiness. She was definitely neither a conservative nor a libertarian. She also didn't want to live under a dictatorship. I see nothing wrong with this at all.
Kiwi in USA said on 2009-09-11 @ 17:58 NZDT: Report abusive post
I would have to disagree with Tim saying Bill ORielly is a right wing loon as if it were. He is defintly a independet and he always tells his viewers that. I know that there is plenty of loons like rush but come on, Obama is really turning America in the wrong direction. He has spent more money than all the presidents have combined. America is in trillions of dollars worth of debt.