Of course, you are right, Neocon.
I don't have much time at the moment, so a few brief comments will have to do.
Some "celebrities" do attain iconic status -- Elvis is the most obvious case in point. At the same time, that does not mean that they are "icons" for everybody. Personally, I never did understand the Elvis phenomenon. For one thing, I never listened to pop music, so I did not understand what the who-shot-John was all about. Not too long ago, however, I watched an Elvis biography (A & E??), and got a glimmering -- just a glimmering -- of what it was that made people worship him. (For one thing, he really could sing the blues -- which I like.) Part of it all may have been that he, too, was one of the "early departed" that I referred to in an earlier post.
Same thing with "Camelot." I, personally, never bought into that. Although I voted for JFK (reluctantly), he was, to me, the guy who hollered about a non-existent missile gap, and advised us all to build our own bomb shelters (!! I lived in NYC at the time, what a joke!). And Jackie had a teenager's voice. "Camelot" was originally just a media creation. What gave it staying power, I think, is that the central figures -- JFK, RFK, and now JFK Jr. -- died tragically, and tragically early. The early departed..."Camelot" as nostalgia for the Golden Age, which like all legendary Golden Ages, never actually existed... |
