So Robbie is out of rehab, though his purging continues in the form of an 'after-care programme in Los Angeles'. At the Brit Awards the assumption was that he'd timed his rehab to upstage his old buddies in Take That. Never mind, doubtless his problems are real enough. Celebrities of all kinds now routinely submit themselves to this rite of purging. Rehab has become the equivalent of the Catholic confession, a way of cleansing the self of its evil. Or, perhaps more accurately, it is a retreat, a removal from the world. Either way, it is a religious procedure. Of course, like confession, it is abused. Get wrecked and then go into rehab the better to get wrecked again is the usual formula. There is also a vicious commercial circle involved - the celebs often get hooked on expensive prescription drugs and then have to pay for rehab in expensive clinics. The underlying idea that there is something uniquely difficult about the celebrity life that obliges to endure these constant purgings is, of course, absurd. These people are sick because they have been deliberately made sick or been told they are sick.
PS I was going to post on this and this, but I did not because of the wounding comment of A Girl on Naomi: First Day on the Job to the effect that this blog was like a Frat House. Tomorrow: the make-up tips of the stars.
Thursday, March 08, 2007
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.
I have to say, Bryan, the tone is lowered somewhat on occasions. Not so low as to seriously offend, but puerile enough for one to cringe just a little. In my case, anonymity would probably be a good idea. That said, it is rather fun and yesterday's high jinks got me through the day with a smile on my face. I bet you can never tell what way things will pan out when you post? Although Naomi was sure to stir it up.
ReplyDeleteVery insightful. Being told you're sick makes you sick. More of them should follow the example of my current heroine, Amy Winehouse, and just say: No, No, No.
ReplyDelete(And Bryan, don't worry about Germaine. She only wants to be in the gang...)
Just so, Neil, I'm waiting eagerly for this thread to turn into a debate on Hegel's phenomenology. And yes, Brit, that is the way it so often is with girls.
ReplyDeleteForget Hegal. If we are talking about sickness, may I humbly (maybe not humbly, he wouldn't like that) suggest Nietzsche. Now there is a fellow who knew a bit about illness - physiological, spiritual, moral, societal, you name it. With a dodgy digestive system, chronic headaches and nausea, increasing blindness and incipient madness, he still claimed to be the healthiest man in Europe at the time. And in many ways, he was. I suppose health isn't always merely the absence of sickness.
ReplyDeleteYou really do not know much about rehab; it's about pain and sadness, desperation depression numbness and despair; it's about suicide and terrible burdens for those around you; it's about a shadow over one's life, following you every where so that every pleasurable moment can cloud over before the moment is even finished.Please don't be facile about it and just be very thankful you have had no direct experience. Surely there are enough other newsy things to write about?
ReplyDeleteJanejill, I wasn't underestimating the seriousness of rehab. I was referring, perhaps rather hurriedly, to an argument advanced by Ian Hacking in his superb book Rewriting the Soul. In essence, he studied multiple personality disorder, a condition that did not exist until it was defined in the late nineteenth century. He does not conclude from this that people were not ill, he concluded that illness expresses itself in the symptoms offered by the age. This is not in any way a cruel insight. People suffer and seize on certain culturally-determined explanations of their suffering.
ReplyDeleteI glimpsed Robbie in one of the tabloids this morning, showing off his new tattoo to waiting photographers. Facile? Janejill, nobody can deny that what you say about rehab is true. Addiction is an appalling thing. I for one have direct experience of it both personally and professionally. However, the celebrity rehab scenario is a million miles from the down-in-the-gutter stuff I'm familiar with. In the case of celebs like Robbie, my sympathy wanes a little and my scepticism is heightened. Sorry, I can't help it (maybe I should seek help).
ReplyDeleteI thought celebrities went into rehab in order to get their pictures in the papers.
ReplyDeleteRehab has been trivialised by tedious celebrities who use it predominantly as a way to revive flagging careers - and you can usually guarantee it'll be swiftly followed by an obsequious "Exclusive: My Struggle" whine in a gossip mag.
ReplyDeleteIn the same way - and this may say more about me - I find it extremely difficult not to be cynical about the latest 'troubled' Z-lister and their alleged suicide attempt - when it appears either as "emotional" tabloid interview or "sensational" extract from the latest autobiography that we're assured will "shock Britain".
I don't dispute that the likes of Robbie, Britney et al have very real problems. That much is clear. But I struggle to feel sympathy for someone who, for instance, shaves her head in public and, when the store staff try to shut the blinds to the buzzing papperazzi, has her minder keep them open.
I, too, have had all too close experiences of the battle with addiction of one sort or another. The human will, with support, can be an amazing force once the mind catches up.
But I see little evidence of any real desire to change with many of these stars. It obscures real suffering, undermines the very process of rehabilitation, and has the knock-on effect of reducing the issue to this level of debate. (Although the esteemed Mr Gallagher, I fear, has a point buried away in there.)
And, of course, here we are rabbiting away about them.
Neil, I love you boy. You are a peacemaker. Janejill is earnest but she's right, too: Rehab ain't for sissies and it's usually that or suicide: the fast way or the slow way (by latter I mean drug/booze of choice; see "Leaving Las Vegas").
ReplyDeleteI speak as the sister, daughter, niece, granddaughter, cousin and virtually every other relation (except, thank God, wife) you can think of to alcoholics. I also think it's genetic: Every male in my family who is part Irish has gone a round (or several) with addiction. On a happier note, it also seems to be linked to creativity, at least in my family.
Bryan, you're a weenie (I use that word advisedly!) to say that girls want to be in the boys' gang, but you're also right. I grew up with all brothers and *always* when I was a little kid wanted to be a boy. Why? Because that extra dollop of flesh meant they could do *everything* and I, being a mere girl, could not. (Mind you, I grew up in the Deep South, too: If you were a girl, or gay, or black, or even Catholic, you were often a second-class citizen.)
I gotta say, though, if you make this -- your blog -- into a boys' club, you're gonna miss a lot of what makes life fun. (Vive la difference!) Surely you're sharp enough to note very few females have been commenting on some of these topics....
Which came first? The tabloid/public interest for all the details of a celebrity life? There is a lot of low-level, low-life journalism around and I cannot work out why- a universal sickness, emptiness or boredom maybe. Probably these are just the same enabling conditions for addiction to develop. And, yes it was ever thus regardless of the "props" I did over react, but a child's addiction is very hard to endure. Neil you don't sound as if you need help at all , or at least not the therapeutic type..
ReplyDeleteSusan - what's this about Irish people having addicitve tendencies?? I am three quarters Irish so I didn't stand a chance.. Just one addiction to kick now
ReplyDelete