Choosing the wrong idols

I was among the few people who didn’t watch the final episode of “Friends” the other night and didn’t cry at its passing. Though well done, there is something essentially unattractive about a show featuring thirtysomethings acting like teenagers. To live one’s life vicariously through them is no life at all.

I didn’t watch the final episode of “Sex and the City” for that very reason, or the last episodes of “Seinfeld,” “Dallas” and “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.” Their goodbyes also were preceded by hype equal to what one might expect from either a second coming of Jesus or a Mel Gibson sequel.

It may be that I have aged beyond the demographics of the target audience to whom some shows appeal or that I am more discretionary when it comes to watching TV. “Friends” seemed cute and funny 10 years ago, but then it became a parody of itself, like children of limited imagination spending an afternoon together on a playground running in circles.

Part of my disgruntled attitude toward these shows is a reaction to the growing importance we’re placing on whatever Hollywood turns out, including its stars. An indication of this was a recent issue of People magazine in which the face of Jennifer Aniston, one of the “Friends,” dominates the cover, while up in a corner is a very small photograph of Pat Tillman, the man of incredible honor who gave up fame and money to serve his country, and died doing it.

That a TV show is more important than a person of such high conscience says something about our obsession with celebrity. Editors might argue that Aniston, with her long blond hair and clear blue eyes, will sell more magazines than the square-jawed Tillman, but it is also true that this skewed attitude is one more reason why we are a culture in freefall. Nothing makes much sense anymore. We worship the wrong gods and celebrate the wrong heroes.

I don’t mean to come off as a gloomy enemy of the pop culture that turns pretty female bodies without heads into the icons of our age. I meant to say pretty bodies without minds, because they do have a head, one head, which they all share, with dreamy eyes and collagen-puffed lips framing a half-opened mouth. The bodies are pretty much the same too, with similarly enhanced breasts yearning to be free.

What I’m trying to say is that they all look more or less alike, because that’s the look, I guess, that excites the average 16-year-old, who determines the future of Hollywood’s icons and the direction our culture should take. The stars may not last long, but while they’re around, they’re big-time, commanding more money than a high school full of teachers.

On the night that the cast of “Friends” was throwing kisses to millions of sobbing viewers, my wife Cinelli and I were having dinner at one of the city’s finer restaurants when we spotted a celebrity. “Look,” I said, “that’s... ,” I paused, realizing I didn’t know who it was, “ ... someone.”

Cinelli looked hard at the pretty young woman and the pretty young man who were exchanging pretty young looks in a corner of the establishment. “I think it’s one of the Olsen twins,” she said, “or maybe Lindsay Lohan, who is currently an American hottie.”

It was a word I had never heard her use, although its growing popularity is placing it right up there in the American lexicon with “boss” and “bitchin’.” I asked a teenager if “hot” were now replacing “cool” as the adjective most employed to describe something desirable. She replied that they were used interchangeably, adding that one hot is generally composed of two cools, which, while defying the laws of physics, makes teenage sense.

We glanced at the young couple in the corner off and on during the entire dinner, speculating throughout who the girl could be. We knew it wasn’t Britney Spears because her navel was covered; and it wasn’t Paris Hilton because she lacked a vapid smile; and it wasn’t Jessica Simpson, a photograph of whom I saw once, although I haven’t a clue as to who she really is.

“Maybe it’s Kaley Cuoco,” Cinelli suggested, referring to the overacting adolescent in the NBC miniseries “10.5,” possibly one of the worst productions ever to appear on television, which I watched, God help me, in a moment of weakness. It was about a series of earthquakes that destroyed cities and killed people and ruined the careers of anyone involved in writing the script. Trust me: That’s all you have to know about it.

We never did decide who the girl-woman was with the boy-man, but did it really matter? If America loves her, it’s all that counts and all she needs to make millions of dollars. I may see her on the cover of People someday. In a lower right hand corner, partially covered by the address label, will be a thumbnail photograph depicting the blood and fire of the apocalypse.

Al Martinez’s column appears Mondays and Fridays. He’s at al.martinez@latimes.com.