Recently there was an interesting addition to an Obama speech. While I don’t pretend to be a political communication expert, I would like to think that I know a thing or two about celebrity culture. This moment made me think about what our obsession with celebrities means and how it is affecting all aspects of our culture. Looking up to celebrities isn’t necessarily a new thing, but the US’s current obsession with celebrities and obtaining celebrity status is interesting, considering we often aren’t sure why people are famous in the first place. (I don’t want to give Kim K. more publicity, but you must admit she’s a darn good example.)
I don’t think that Obama turning a portion of his speech into an American Idol audition is weird. It is incredibly smart on his part. Along with his appearances on late night talk shows and Saturday Night Live, this snippet of an Al Green cover shows the president’s awesome ability to connect with a large portion of our population. What I do think is that this performance demonstrates the fact that our celebrity obsession has grown so much that we not only accept this behavior, but we welcome it with open arms. In my mind, this only provides more evidence to our loss of objective standards on all fronts. Does Obama being a good singer make him a better president? I highly doubt it. But, does his singing make people like him more, feel more connected to him and therefore be more likely to vote for him in the upcoming election? I think so.
But now I find myself in a catch 22. If Obama’s singing leads to him to be reelected, then logically couldn’t we say it did make him a better president? If the man relates to his constituents and gets them to vote for him, thus staying in the White House for another four years, I guess people could argue that his singing has made him better. This is where the danger lies for me. If people find themselves relating to the President of the United States because he can sing well, true political platforms begin to become moot. “What did he talk about in that speech?” “I don’t know, but he can really sing, huh?”
Once again, I don’t intend to make this idea of building a parasocial relationship a new one. We all know about the JFK/Nixon TV/radio story. Maybe this is simply a changing of the times, just as converting from radio to television was. Yet, instead of TV, our new technology is social media. Facebook allows us to at least pretend we have reached some kind of celebrity status. We can take pictures of ourselves and write about our “interesting” lives, acting like our own paparazzi. (Yes, I did just give a shameless plug to my own academic work.) We can build a fan base and anxiously await the moments that we can count our “likes” and comments. We see the ease with which some “stars” reach celebrity status and truly believe we will “make it” one day, whatever that means.
I suppose that I could be extreme now and suggest that in the future we may have Britney Spears as president. Oh wait, she can’t sing. (Yea, I went there). But, that’s not really my point. I am more interested in what kind of insight we can gain from Obama’s serenading. What will our basis for presidential candidates be in 10 years? 20 years? What will our expectations for ourselves be in 10 years? 20 years? I know what you are thinking. But, I am not that naive. I understand that seemingly irrelevant characteristics such as physical appearance and “niceness” will forever guide our decision making process when electing a new president. However, I am trying to stress our growing inability to realize how obsessed our society is with celebrity culture. And, how media are using it as much and as often as they can to exploit our ignorance.
With all other things aside, I admit it; I’d put him through to Hollywood.