A Bit Off-Target

The recent death of longtime Marvel Comics creator Stan Lee drew a lot of tributary words from folks in the industry he helped shape as well as others appreciative of his work.

Comedian Bill Maher, on the other hand, wasn't as complimentary about Lee's impact on modern culture. He didn't disparage Lee personally, but he did question whether or not the impact was positive. Comic books were primarily a kid's medium, he said, and their dominance of pop culture reflected that culture's a lack of seriousness. Only a culture that took comic books so seriously, Maher said, could have elected Donald Trump as president.

Now, the immediate low-hanging fruit would be to correct Maher and say that only a culture that took comedians so seriously could elect Donald Trump as president. The amount of truth in that depends on the comedians in question -- if we include Maher then the statement holds but that's only because he so badly combines comedy and social commentary. His career has been built on using sarcasm and smirk to try to deepen and fortify his satire, and on trying to sell a libertine as a libertarian.

But comedians who employ better perception, better understanding and, let's face it, better jokes in service of their own social commentary aren't hard to find. In fact, some of the best are good enough at their jobs that you laugh even when you don't agree with the point of view or the commentary. So we should probably dismiss that entirely understandable but off-target first response to Maher's remarks.

There's something that the remarks circle around, though, that's worth thinking about a little. Not just to see where they miss, but also where the truth might be more likely found. Maher's not so wrong in suggesting we have a shallow culture, even though I disagree with the idea that an interest in comic books is a symptom of that. I'd suggest instead that a better marker for the shallowness is our investment and interest in celebrity instead.

By "celebrity" I'm talking about people who are either famous for nothing more than being famous, such as the Kardashians, or people whose opinion is lent greater weight because of their fame. Using Maher's example, in this second case it would fine to give weight to Stan Lee's thoughts about the nature of responsibility, for example (Hint: it comes with great power), because Lee's own work and the work he helped oversee display some real thinking about these ideas. But I'd be foolish to consider his fame to be any reason to pay attention to what he says about, say, gamma radiation, because he probably didn't know any more about it than I do.

Yet our culture constantly weighs celebrity as a reason to pay attention to something someone says, even when there's no other reason to believe they know anything about whatever the subject matter at hand happens to be. That's fine when it sticks to advertising. Bob Uecker says Miller Lite tastes great and is less filling? Good enough for me! Even if he's wrong, the consequences are short-term and not very great. Matthew McConaughey says I should check out Lincoln automobiles for...well, I don't really know because I don't understand what he's talking about, but again, no biggie.

When celebrity infects politics and other matters, though, then a culture shallow enough to depend on it gets lousy results. In modern US politics, a lot of people would trace this thread to the first televised presidential debates, where John Kennedy's photogenic good looks contrasted to Richard Nixon's decided non-photogeneity.

Depending on your political persuasion, you blame a celebrity-led culture for the presidencies of either Ronald Reagan or Bill Clinton. While both men earn a share of blame for using celebrity to bolster their candidacies, it was more of an extra than the founding principle of their campaigns. Both men had serious governmental executive experiences in their respective governor's mansions. Both had well-developed views on public policy and the issues they wanted to address -- positions that demonstrated paying attention to some authority, whether or not it was an authority their opponents wanted to accept. Their celebrity -- Reagan's Hollywood career or Clinton's sax solo on Arsenio Hall, for example -- aided their campaigns but did not comprise them.

Now people's mileage may vary but I would suggest both President Trump and his predecessor relied far more on celebrity than substance. Neither former President Obama's time as an Illinois state senator nor his brief tour in the US Senate features any great distinguishing work or legislation. But not long into his 2008 campaign he morphed from "first-term US Senator Barack Obama" into "Obama," a one-named celebrity candidate who drew crowds, coverage and approval just by showing up. President Trump's record of public policy knowledge and achievement is even scantier, but his name-recognition from years of New York tabloid coverage and a successful stint as a game-show host meant his celebrity showing was very high. That was enough to get people to pay him attention even though he's never demonstrated expertise on much other than tacky gold leaf and serial extramarital affairs.

Now, fame and notoriety -- both earned and unearned -- have always carried some cachet, and using celebrities to sell things has a long history. It seems only in the last couple of decades, though, that we've become people who see them as signals of knowledge and trustworthiness on issues where they have no business doing so. What sparked that? What made us so ready to listen to actors, singers and others when it comes to matters where we should instead seek out the advice of people who've spent long years studying those matters? Who started giving them the platform to bring those opinions before us? To heck with reasoned analysis -- who do we blame?

Well you see, back in 1993 Comedy Central had this show called Politically Incorrect...