“It is one thing to suck up to a celebrity. It is another to be told that it is a privilege to do the sucking.”

I just came across a great little essay Eric Burns of Fox News Watch wrote back in 2003 about the gag-inducing celebrity worship that epitomized “Inside the Actors Studio.” In it, he mentions an episode in which James Lipton’s guest was Tom Hanks. At the end of interview, Lipton turns to the students in the audience and says, “Tonight, you have been privileged to spend a night with Tom Hanks.” Lipton then wags his finger at the students and says, “In the years ahead… earn this!”

Burns writes:

It is one thing to suck up to a celebrity. It is another to be told that it is a privilege to do the sucking. It is yet another to admonished that one must work hard in the years ahead to be worthy of that privilege. . . I would like to think as well that, when Hanks heard Lipton tell the students to “earn this,” he thought, if just fleetingly, just for a moment, that young Americans do not need to earn the right to be in the presence of actors, even superb, Academy Award-winning actors like Hanks. Rather, they need to earn the right to be in the presence of scholars and statesmen and people who have achieved notably in science and medicine and engineering and the management of civic affairs.They need to earn the right to be in the presence of men and women of character and conviction, of integrity and dedication. They need to earn the right to be in the presence of those who found charities and are in other ways boons to society.

Read the whole thing here.

~ by The Oracle on November 23, 2007.