RECENT events have left Americans in a dazed and lethargic slump. However, it isn't from the war on terrorism, it's the paucity of juicy scandals of disgraced celebrities. The solution is quite simple - a coordinated public comeback of O.J., Clinton, and all the many other celebrities involved in media spectacles.
Like a reunion movie of "The Brady Bunch," these gone but not forgotten celebrities could make their comeback to the nightly news in new and more exciting scandals. A 24-hour television network would be dedicated to covering the unfolding events of O.J.'s next crime or Clinton's next affair with an intern. The media scrutiny on Tyson's next bite would be almost unbearable, but would provide just enough entertainment that the country's malaise would lift. Around the water cooler, Americans could talk about DNA evidence and stains on dresses rather than all this boring Enron junk.
This whole Enron scandal and President Bush's potential involvement in it bores the American public. They long for the days of Monica Lewinsky and the lurid and tawdry details of her relationship with Clinton. For years, a series of high-profile scandals has captivated the public. Michael Jackson's ambiguous relationships with boys, Tonya Harding knee-capping Nancy Kerrigan, O.J. "Trial of the Century" Simpson, Mike Tyson mistaking Evander Holyfield for a Taco Bell quesadilla, Lorena Bobbitt's snip-snip at her husband and a number of other notable stories, all drew record numbers of viewers. The dramatic unfolding of these and other scandals made us laugh, made us cry, and, above all, they kept us entertained. After all, we all feel better when we see celebrities getting publicly humiliated, because it takes them down a notch.
For years, social commentators have lamented the deterioration of American culture and the disappearance of taste, as witnessed by increased television watching by the public in general. A quick flip though the program guide shows a wealth of thought-provoking and educational programs such as ESPN's doubtlessly intriguing one hour documentary on the loquacious and outlandish Secretariat and FX's "World's Most Shocking Medical Videos 2." The true question is, what's more appalling? The fact that a major company produced a show on the subject or that they made a sequel? People obviously will watch anything that takes them away from their world. But these programs all pale in comparison to the impact of those infamous scandals of yesteryear.
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With all this abhorrent waste on television, the solution is a 24-hour channel dedicated to news on such living legends as O.J., Gary Condit, Robert Downey Jr. and the greatest of them all, Bill Clinton. The new channel could focus entirely on these scandals and promote the resurgent "careers" of these people as they return to the nightly news and criminal courts.
America has an intense and sometimes twisted fascination with celebrities. They are larger than life and their ups and downs are followed with great scrutiny. Television is the weapon of choice for Americans desiring an escape from the tedium of their lives. So let's get the American spirit flying high again and bring back those lovable felons that made the 1990s such a special time for Americans. Scandals always have been a part of American society, from McCarthyism in the 1950s, Watergate in the 1970s and Iran-Contra in the 1980s. While those scandals had far-reaching political and historical consequences, the scandals of personal depravity in the 1990s were watched with such dedication by people of all ages and walks of life. Watergate caused President Nixon to resign, but the Lewinsky scandal was far more ingrained in the public mind because of its explicit nature and the media saturation of the internet revolution.
Twenty-first century America is great because a nostalgic call for the "good old times" consists of the reemergence of disgraced celebrities. The growth of the telecommunication and internet industry has brought the whole world into every home, and also turned the public into a faceless mass. These celebrities became a part of our lives because they stick out from the general public and their problems shock us. The sad truth is that the reality just isn't as appealing anymore when compared to the picturesque and privileged lives of these fallen public figures.
(Brad Cohen's column appears Thursdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at bcohen@cavalierdaily.com.)
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