Scandal, scandal, scandal, just in time for the Oscars we’re up to our tits in scandal. Faggot film critic Rex Reed with pilfered CDs in his fanny pack and Robert Downey, Jr. high (too high) in the neighbor’s house is old news. Now we’ve got the Whitney and Bobby show, Ms. Dionne busted at an airport, Wynonna shoplifting, and a kiddie porn bust for Pee Wee (this time his ‘tasteful erotica’ had titles like ‘Naked Teenage Boys.’ Go figure.). It gets juicier … Homophobe rocker Axl Rose trashing his comeback tour, MS. Ross’s DUI and night in the slammer, R. Kelly and the little girls, M.J. and the little boys (again), Pete Townsend’s kiddie porn web search … . Darker still is William Shatner’s very dead wife floating in that swimming pool, the Robert Blake murder case, and the Phil Spector murder case. Of course it’s fun for normal everyday non-celebrities like me and more likely you because these ‘stars’ with all the attention and cash can’t keep their shit together and it makes us feel … GOOD. I mean after years of having Tom and Nicole force-fed to us as THE beautiful, talented, perfect couple it was reassuring to find out that they have fucked-up relationships just like the rest of us.
But the allure of scandal isn’t in the facts but in the media’s manipulation of our perspective. Prime example: Liz Taylor. A child star, serial bride and homewrecker (maybe Debbie Reynolds forgave her but I don’t), she cashed it all in based on celebrity (diet books, perfume, her face—Liz hasn’t made a great film since 1966) and is now considered an icon in old age. Granted, becoming a spokesperson for safe sex at a crucial time deserves its due, but in reality Liz is a tramp. The latest, Halle Berry, isn’t nearly as irresponsible. She’s the darling you love to love. Fuck that baseball player who nearly drove her to suicide and her current husband who is a sex addict (not with her), straight boys and gay boys and girls sympathize with her. Straight girls want to be her.
Better than all this tabloid trash is when Hollywood depicts on screen and reveals itself to be even more bizarre than the Enquirer ever lets on. There are numerous juicy films that rip Hollywood, fame, celebrity, and the price paid to get it (Sweet Smell of Success, A Star is Born I, II, & III, Day of the Locust, Inside Daisy Clover) and you can name your favorites. After a lot of debate here are mine. Frances (1982). Hollywood as a trap leading to … far worse. A Mel Brooks-produced biography on doomed actress Frances Farmer, it’s the ultimate star-bio downer and it made a star out of Jessica Lange. Recruited from high school, Farmer was signed to a lucrative film contract based on her looks and intellect and was poised to be 1938’s next big thing. From there it got ugly. A disastrous affair with Clifford Odets, violent alienation from the film community, and a minor traffic violation snowballed into incarceration in the state mental hospital. Made a ward to her looney mother (played by Kim Stanley with steely resolve), Farmer was subjected to numerous ‘therapeutic treatments,’ exposure, rape, and lobotomy with the state’s blessing. The gang-bang episode near the end of the film says a great deal about fame at its darkest (one of a number of servicemen lined up to participate snarls, ‘She don’t look like no movie star…’). Not a pleasant experience, especially since the film is a gloss on what really happened to Farmer (Brooks said, ‘We couldn’t put everything we found on her in … nobody would believe it.’), and you realize that this happened not too long ago (the 1950s) and not too far away (Farmer is buried in Indiana).
Sunset Boulevard (1950). Billy Wilder’s dark, satiric, hilarious comedy about a dead screenwriter (William Holden) floating not unlike Shatner’s wife in a big Hollywood swimming pool and the bizarre chain of events that got him there. There’s a lot of sniggling camp along the way; a funeral for a chimp, a bed shaped like a gondola, Erich Von Stroheim as a butler, and especially Gloria Swanson as faded demented screen icon Norma Desmond. Swanson is the personification of over-the-top camp (Carol Burnett had a ball parodying the performance on her TV show), but like Bette Davis’ turn in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, it’s camp that morphs into art through brilliant acting (ironically Davis and Swanson knocked each other out of 1950’s ‘Best Actress’ race; Swanson for Sunset Blvd., Davis for All About Eve). But Wilder’s smirking cynicism—voiced through a young, uncreviced Holden, is what sticks. Brilliant, haunting, and happy to laugh at itself, it’s the perfect portrait of the everyman’s view on where too much fame and money leads. Well worth the brand spanking new DVD refurbishing. Wonder if Michael Jackson has a copy … .