Infamous Pursuit of Fame Takes Spotlight in Summer Movies

The movies have finally caught up with fame. The long-held perception that audiences are not interested in the behind-the-scenes machinations of show business has changed in an era that finds the contestants in staged, unscripted TV shows like “Survivor” lavished with the kind of attention once reserved for seriously accomplished artists. And now, movies are getting back into the act.

Several films this summer, mostly set in the entertainment world, chart the slippery slope of celebrity and the desire “to be somebody,” which seems to have become a national, and even international, obsession. They include the current drama “The Anniversary Party,” starring Jennifer Jason Leigh and Alan Cumming; the Belgian comedy “Everybody’s Famous!”; Griffin Dunne’s mockumentary “Lisa Picard”; the new Julia Roberts film “America’s Sweethearts”; and the musical “Glitter,” featuring Mariah Carey in her screen debut.

Fame has become truly democratic, straddling all strata of society from the anointed “superstars” (actors, musicians, even models) to the average Joe on a TV show to what used to be known as the “infamous”--criminals, mass murderers, terrorists.

“Our society has made fame an important desire, an occupation,” says actor-director Dunne, “whereas the really important people, the people who are teaching our kids, are not seen as important because no one’s writing about them.”

And though it may appear to be a uniquely American phenomenon, it no longer knows any boundaries, according to Dominique Deruddere, who directed “Everybody’s Famous!,” one of this year’s Oscar nominees for best foreign-language film, the story of a young girl whose father kidnaps a celebrity so his daughter can have a shot on a nationally televised music show.

“These days in Belgium there are people who have become famous and if you ask them, they don’t have a clue why,” says Deruddere. “When you talk to young kids and ask them what they want to become, they say, ‘famous.’ It’s become a goal. Rather than being good at something and receiving attention for it, it’s all been turned around.”

Celebrity has always been a subject rife with dramatic and comedic possibilities as a fun-house-mirror reflection of the American Dream. Golden-era Hollywood filmmakers dealt with the perils of stardom in such films as “A Star Is Born” (more than once) and how it affects “just folks” is satirized in the film “Nothing Sacred” (about a woman who is celebrated when she fakes a terminal illness). In the Judy Holliday comedy “It Should Happen to You,” a struggling actress plasters her face on billboards as a way of calling attention to herself. And in Frank Capra’s “Meet John Doe,” a regular guy’s attempts to do good make him a national hero, with almost tragic consequences.

“We’ve always been fascinated with fame in movies, what it brings and what it does to your life,” says Laurence Mark, producer (with Carey) of “Glitter,” the story of the rise of a youthful singing star. What’s changed, he says, is that fame has become more elastic. “Lately, it seems that almost anybody can be famous.”

In a media-saturated culture overseen by the “me” generation, the desire to grab the brass ring has reached a hysterical peak with an endless series of chat shows, infotainment programs and celebrity profiles. “If an actor can become the president, then it’s not so ridiculous that actors have achieved such importance in the culture,” says Cumming, who co-directed, co-wrote and stars in “The Anniversary Party,” which pokes fun at self-absorbed actors. In a country without a monarchy, says the Scottish-born actor, celebrities have become royalty. And their every move is studied and emulated.

Deruddere says that television, particularly the recent craze for staged, unscripted shows, has raised the celebrity stakes, making the illusion of fame seem almost universally attainable. “At one time people who were famous were good at something. As the quality of television has come down, we’ve now reached a point where you see people on television who have no talent. So if those people can be famous, the viewer says, why can’t I?”

The dividing line between the justly celebrated and those who are just famous for being famous has blurred, according to Dunne. “I was once at an event where one of the guys from ‘Survivor’ was meeting a survivor from the USS Indianapolis [a World War II cruiser sunk in the Pacific] and it became a photo op. A guy from a TV show and a real-life war survivor were talking as if they had something in common.”

The glorification of celebrity has to do, in part, with the public’s desire for some kind of security in a chaotic world, says Leigh. “There’s the sense that if you’re famous you have everything and feel secure, when it’s actually the most insecure thing in the whole world. People become overly familiar with you based on the characters you play on screen and make outrageous assumptions about you. It doesn’t make you feel safe.”

Adds Dunne: “The moment you become famous you become depressed because you’re thinking, how long can it last? You have to feed it. It’s like a cranky pet that eats a lot.”

The downside of fame portrayed in these movies ranges from the predictable to the downright bizarre. In both “Glitter” and “Lisa Picard” the central characters lose friendships and romance on the way up the celebrity ladder. The characters in “Anniversary Party” are so involved in their own personas that at times they confuse their real and reel lives. In the Belgian film “Everybody’s Famous!” a father risks jail by kidnapping a celebrity just so his daughter can get her big break.

“In my film I play it all for comedy,” says Deruddere, “but [in everyday life] I think it blurs reality and makes people more narrow-minded because they are only interested in what’s happening to them or their neighbors. In Europe it has led to some extreme thought and even the revival of fascism. People think that reality is what they see on television, not what’s in their own lives. They imitate that reality and think it’s real.”

Unlike most trends, the obsession with celebrity and fame doesn’t seem to have a horizon. “I don’t see an end to it at the moment,” says Mark. “All I see is the media wanting to invent more stars, just to have new people to put on the cover. You can’t even knock it down by spoofing it because it’s become a spoof of itself. There’s no way to take it to the extreme because it’s already there.”