Does Hollywood have a negative impact on the world?

No

2 of 28

by Christine Whitmarsh

Write now Print Invite a writer™ Add to Favorites RSS Feed Contact this writer

A letter from a fictitious hybrid celebrity to the public: I think it's hysterical when the American people, led by their politicians, try to blame Hollywood for social patterns and violence. Hollywood is an industry that consists of less than 10% of the population of America, and is centered on a bunch of peter pans that play pretend for a living and treat it as a career.

Art is, and has always been, merely a reflection of society. If you don't like what you see change it but don't blame the people holding up the mirror. We're just a bunch of wackos who make up stories, find some grown up kids to act them out, and them film them for a living. We're a bunch of freaks that have decided not to grow up, make careers of it, and then proceed to make the other 98% of the population who has grown up, jealous of us. They watch us on TV, in movies, and at awards show living in our little fantasy world, not looking like them at all, living completely different lives than them, and they treat us like precious little puppets in a snow globe.

By choosing to be artists, we obviously have given every single person in the world a personal invitation into our homes, our lives, and our souls. If we have to endure being followed, harassed, gossiped about, and insulted, it's our own fault because by wanting to create art, we obviously wanted to be stalked by strangers.

Since we seem like fantasy people living in a fantasy world, they feel it is okay to treat us like their scapegoats. If they feel overweight, ugly, or boring, it's out fault since we don't seem that way at all. If their kids are acting out and misbehaving, it's our fault for setting bad examples for THEIR kids to follow. If the crime rate goes up and more people start shooting one another, it's our fault for giving them the idea. Hollywood makes up about 2% of the population, yet the other 98% can't seem to make a decision without us. We must be the most powerful minority that has ever existed.

What fascinates me is that of all groups to choose from to worship and model themselves after, America has chosen Hollywood. The average American woman is a size 10. The average Hollywood actress is a size 4. The average American adult gets up every day, kisses his wife and kids goodbye, and commutes to his office for a safe 8-hour day, from which he earns his stable weekly paycheck.

The typical Hollywood actor gets up before dawn to go to a backless set made up to look like the real world, to pretend to be someone else for 12-16 hours a day, only 3-4 of which sometimes consist of working. The rest of their day is spent sitting in a trailer eating snacks, sleeping and playing games, which in other parts of the country would make him a redneck but is somehow considered prestigious when it's done in a parking lot surrounded by giant wooden pictures.

The average American adult comes home from work after 8 hours, watches the above described actor playing pretend on the wooden sets, enjoys time with his family, and goes to bed. The average Hollywood actor arrives home after 12-16 hours, memorizes thousands of word and gets a restful 4-5 hours of sleep before doing it all again.

We're out here living in our cup of noodles to caviar, lemon to limo, poverty to paparazzi world, trying to make sense of each strange day as it passes, only to be faced with an even stranger day tomorrow. Up is down, black is white, and normal is impossible. The only thing that keeps us going is our insane love of making up stories about people who don't exist.

We're a bunch of kids living in a land of make believe and people are looking to us for guidance in their normal lives? What do we know about normal? Most of us haven't seen anything normal since college, if not before that. They want to look like us? Why would they want to spend their vacations and weekends in plastic surgery instead of at Disney World and on camping trips with their families? What if they looked out their window and saw photographers snapping pictures of their children as they played in the street? What happens when, on a warm summer night, they are making love with the window open and later see it broadcast on the weekly television tabloid show? What happens when they need to take a day off to be with their dying father and are told that if they do, it will cost the studio, their employer, ten million dollars? What happens when they see the latest burger created by the fast food people and think they might want to try it, only to be told that if they do, they will not fit into their intricately fitted costume?

We're the 2% who are living purely on our imaginations and childhood fantasies that we never outgrew. As soon as we do, we are dead in the water. But we cannot leave fantasy land because it is all we know. And we cannot stay because we no longer love to play pretend. This is not a world that you can gracefully retire from, exuberantly waving goodbye to the younger, weary masses who take over your office when you leave, eager to embark on your long awaited retirement and finally taking that trip around the world with your wife that you have been looking forward to without the 7a.m. alarm clock to dread. This is the world that you are addicted to like a drug.

Even when you are not a part of it, it still draws you in, and you cannot break away from it without withdrawal. It is a fantasy that you have been a character in for most of your life and you can't imagine live outside of it. Nor do you want to. After all, they will not accept you out of this world. They can't possibly understand you. You have been their puppet for your whole life here. They only know how to worship you and copy your every move. They have no idea how to help you become one of them. Watch who you make into your idols America We are your children who never grew up. Don't look to us for guidance on how to look, how to act, and how to raise your children. Find a better group to look up to. Perhaps a group that makes up more than 2% of your population.

Learn more about this author, Christine Whitmarsh.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.