| Making up perfection |
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Perfection is something which is never actually achieved in real life. I was put in mind of this the other day, when we went to a concert which included Saen-Saens' second piano concerto. We have it on disc. In fact we have two different recordings of it. I like them both and have listened to them many times. So many times that when I heard it played live, I was only too aware of the wrong notes. It was not that it was cacophonous or played badly; I think that if I had not been so familiar with the recordings of it I might not even have noticed. The point is that the versions on disc are highly edited and not a single wrong note is allowed to remain. In the days when Saen-Saens composed it, you only ever heard the piece when it was played live, warts and all. But now it's quite a shock to hear anything which is other than perfect. The people we see on the Television and on film are usually made up, in all senses of the phrase. The make-up department is there to remove the blemishes which affect us all and instead we see them as inhabiting a different reality where they are untouched either by the spots of youth or the lines of age. And we feel the more inadequate for it and, as a country, spend a fortune on cosmetic products and increasingly on plastic surgery in trying to emulate them; to achieve perfection. Their highly paid publicists are in the background making sure that we only see the aspects of their clients which will make us think that they are wonderful or sympathise with them, or rejoice with them that they have overcome some major problem, like cellulite, but above all keeping them in the public eye and therefore a valuable commodity. Film stars are of course required to be perfect from a looks point of view, but it doesn't to need to go any deeper. The idea that scandal was something to be avoided at all costs has long since disappeared. The magazine industry and many television shows depend for their very existence on the failure of the stars' personal relationships. Their marriages seem to end in divorce more often than those of the rest of humanity - although that does not stop them having highly remunerative spreads in Hello when the next marriage comes along. When it's so obvious that all this is happening, why are we so willing to be conned? After all the magazines sell, the chat shows are watched and old and wrinkly is no longer any good in public life. By our acceptance of it all, we ensure that the stars of stage, screen and football pitch are paid vast amounts of money. And ultimately we ordinary people are the ones who pay for their extravagant lifestyles with the money we hand over for those magazines, for the tickets, for the DVD's, and everything-else that the merchandisers can think of to sell to us. Does this collective gawping amount to anything more than a hobby - like collecting stamps or train spotting, only collecting instead information and sightings of celebrities? It's difficult to say. I have no evidence of the social profile of the people who get so involved in this apparent adulation of the rich and famous. I suspect however that they are living less than satisfying lives. It may be that they think that some part of the good fortune and good looks of Angela Jolie and Brad Pitt will rub off onto them. But this is not I think the whole explanation. The very fact that the stars, with all their wealth, go from relationship to relationship, can be regarded as a story or a series of stories with melodrama and tragedy but to which there is almost always a happy ending - the next relationship. It seems as though we need to believe that someone-else has a perfect life, defined as one where the downs are always followed by ups, so that we can in turn believe that our own dreams might just come true. |