The fame game and the new elite

Andy Warhol’s prescient vision of 15 minutes of fame for everyone has now become reality.  But, asks Mike Oliver, at what price and cost

It seems that as a society we value those who amuse, entertain and distract us more than we do those who inform, look after and protect us. A classic example of this is the recent film The Hurt Locker which won numerous awards. Why else do we pay one group of young men who pretend to dismantle bombs more money for a few months “work” than another group of young men will earn in their whole careers for actually dismantling these lethal weapons? Why do we pay footballers more than doctors, pop stars more than teachers, newsreaders more than the police?

More recently everyone is raving about the The King’s Speech which is about stuttering in the Royal Family. A very worthy film no doubt but in all the acclaim and rewards it has attracted, I have yet to see anyone point out that many thousands of people are currently being denied access to much needed speech therapy services. I wonder how many speech therapists could have been employed if the costs and the profits from the film had been used for that end?

We obviously value our entertainment and diversion more than we value our education, health and protection to the point where celebrities have become the new elite. Our media is now crammed with stories about people who are often only famous for being famous and even about those who are only relatives and hangers-on to those who are famous. Since the days of Princess Diana even the Royal Family have joined this new elite. Small wonder many of our young people when they leave school only want to be celebrities, footballers or WAGs.

So where does this rise of celebrity culture leave us as disabled people? In the past many of us have been a source of entertainment and distraction; from the medieval village idiot through the day trips to the asylums and onto the 19th century freak shows. Now many of our television programmes are becoming modern versions of these freak shows and we see more and more disabled people participating in them.

Perhaps this is a good thing and we should be pleased that disabled people are getting the chance to participate fully in celebrity culture. After all, full inclusion into all aspects of society is what we’ve been aiming for and we should be pleased that disabled people are enjoying some of the rewards for participating in the diversion and entertainment industries.

I don’t criticise individuals for doing this but I would wish to point out that there is a price to pay for entertainment and diversion.

Over the next few years the new elite will not be asked to pay the price for the recent failures of our global financial systems but one of the groups who will is disabled people. Our standards of living, our lifestyles and even our lives may be at stake in this and we face a difficult choice. We can be entertained and distracted through this economic catastrophy or we can try to understand what’s really happening so that we can do something about it.