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Hmmm, David Letterman jumped into the sack with some of the female staff on his TV show. Excuse me while I yawn. Am I the only one weary of these tempests in a teapot?

Sex scandals among Hollywood celebrities are about as common as house flies and equally annoying. (At least we can swat the flies and be rid of them.) As usual what interests me is the subtext behind the headlines.

Let’s start with the media and their feeding frenzy when they catch wind of a scandal. The earthquake in Indonesia and the devastation it causes rates only a few days coverage before it slides off the radar screen. But they’ll ride the David Letterman sex scandal bandwagon until the wheels fall off. And you can bet they’ll recycle their stories on other celebrity sexcapades to get some extra mileage out of them.

Media moguls will tell you they’re just giving their viewing/reading audience what they want. It is a business after all. But that’s too convenient an excuse. Appealing to the lowest common denominator of your audience isn’t particularly laudable. We’ll drink cheap beer if that’s all you offer us but we’ll respect you more if give us wine.

Second, there’s the issue of our sometimes lurid fascination with celebrities. It’s a strange cocktail of emotions – hero worship, envy and awe. We wish we could walk in their three hundred dollar shoes for one day. Or collect just one of their six figure paychecks.

But truth be told we secretly want to see them fall from grace. When they do we’re all too quick to become high and mighty: What a jerk. He has the world on a string and this is how he behaves! He deserves what he gets.

Perhaps the most interesting subtext is the celebrities themselves and what makes them tick. The David Letterman’s of this world beat the odds to reach the pinnacle of success. Sacrifices – and no doubt compromises – had to be made along the way. Fortune plays a role as well. The perfect storm of talent, timing and tough choices.

But with great success comes great temptation. The temptation to cross the lines of morality simply because you can.

Letterman must have known – with his every itch recorded in print or on film – that the odds of getting caught were great.  But perhaps, when everyone sees you as bigger than life, you begin to see yourself that way too. The rules cease to apply. You begin to believe you have carte blanche to indulge your every whim – until you’re caught with your pants down. Suddenly being in the public eye isn’t so glamorous anymore.

The Letterman sex scandal will eventually run its course and be filed away for the year-in-review features come December. Letterman will see a spike in his ratings and smile off camera all the way to the bank. The world will go on as it always does.

But will we learn from the experience? I hate to be cynical but I doubt it. You see, the Letterman sex scandal, and its infinitely more interesting subtexts, are a metaphor for our perpetual love-hate relationship with Hollywood and its icons. Can’t live with them. Can’t live without them.

I have to go now. I don’t want to be late for the movie.

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Tags:   celebrities · David Letterman · Hollywood · sex scandalNo Comments