January 8, 2007 6:44 AM

If we're going to worship someone, how about someone who truly deserves it?

Painting of Jolie Draws Notice: N.C. Artist’s Heavenly Painting of Jolie Drawing Notice

RALEIGH, N.C. Jan 7, 2007 (AP)- A North Carolina artist intrigued by the public obsession with celebrity has found herself feeding that obsession with a painting of actress Angelina Jolie as the Virgin Mary hovering over a Wal-Mart check-out line. Kate Kretz has painted for 20 years but none of her previous work has garnered the attention given “Blessed Art Thou,” showing this weekend at Art Miami, an annual exposition of modern and contemporary art. The painting has gotten much attention from celebrity web sites and blogs. Since the buzz started, the number of daily unique visitors to Kretz’s own blog has jumped from an average of 30 to 15,000 on Wednesday….”My intention was to ask a question and get people to think,” Kretz said in a telephone interview Friday from Miami. “I had no idea so many people would be asking a question and thinking.”

I’ve often wondered what it is about celebrity that turns us as a society into irrational, hero-worshipping morons. That may sound harsh, but really, what is it about appearing on a movie or television screen that bestows a greater and more unique and worthy humanity upon a person? What, really, has Brad Pitt done to merit the sort of hero worship that has been bestowed upon him? Granted, Pitt is a talented individual with a highly developed social consciousness. That’s certainly a good thing…but worthy of hero worship? Not from where I sit.

I’m intrigued by talented and accomplished people. Success is a very special and precious thing, and achieving success is a difficult challenge. My concern, though, is that while there’s certainly nothing wrong with admiring success, Americans have taken simple admiration to ridiculous lengths. Perhaps when we worship those who prevent wars, or discover cures for diseases, or find ways to solve world hunger, I’ll be OK with the idea of the idea of placing such accomplished individuals on pedestals and regarding them as superior human beings. For me, actors, athletes, and musicians, while I may admire their talent and success, hardly qualify for anything resembling hero worship.

Are we so disappointed with our own middling, miserable existence that we must live vicariously through the accomplishments of someone whose only claim to uniqueness is appearing on a television or movie screen? I’m not about to believe that a celebrity is a better person than I am, nor are they any worse. They simply work in a field that affords them more exposure. If that’s their dream and they’re able to achieve a degree of success at it, then more power to them. I just don’t understand our collective fascination with them…and frankly, I hope I never do. I want no part of it.

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This page contains a single entry by Jack Cluth published on January 8, 2007 6:44 AM.

Because when you're a Republican, you get to weigh a life based on it's political value was the previous entry in this blog.

Apparently we have learned nothing from our Vietnam experience is the next entry in this blog.

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