The life of Mariah Carey sounds terribly demanding
Last week Mariah Carey turned on the Christmas lights at the Westfield shopping centre in Shepherds Bush, west London. That might sound like a trivial event of interest only to cretins, but remember: hundreds of thousands of brave men and women died in combat so the current generation could enjoy such freedoms. The assembled masses weren't simply taking mobile phone snapshots of a vastly overrated singer emptily promoting a commercially-appropriated religious festival celebrating the birth of a man who would have doubtless vomited up his own ribcage in disgust at the mere sight of the hollow, anaesthetising capitalist moonbase that is the Westfield Centre. No. They were honouring the fallen. Sort of. Vaguely. OK: not at all.
Anyway, any story featuring Carey has to at some point dwell on a list of outlandish arch-diva requests, and this one didn't disappoint. According to early press reports, she demanded to be driven along a long pink carpet in a vintage Rolls-Royce before arriving at the podium (also pink) at which point she'd activate the lights by waving a magic wand, accompanied by 20 white kittens and 100 white doves. Pink, butterfly-shaped confetti would shower all around her at the end of the ceremony.
In the event, that turned to be bullshit. She arrived in a Merc, burbled a few inanities ("Wow, I've never been to a mall in London before!"), shook hands with some charity kids, and sodded off out of there. In fact the most startling thing about Carey's turn was her outfit: a pair of jeans so tight she was virtually ingesting them. No kittens. No doves. Not even a pink podium. You could be forgiven for thinking the papers had just lazily printed a load of PR bibble cynically engineered to promote the event by playing on popular assumptions about Carey's caprice, and had done so without bothering to check any of the facts.
Thing is, even if Carey had made a string of crazy demands, I wouldn't blame her. I doubt many celebrities start out behaving like foot-stamping little Caligulas, but years of having their arses kissed left, right and centre - yes, even on that centre bit - steadily drives them insane.
I've seen it happen in my own life, in my own little way. About 10 years ago I was co-presenting a technology show on a niche digital channel with an audience of about six. This was my first time in front of the cameras. I had less screen presence than the Invisible Man and the sex appeal of a fatal headwound. Since the show was shot in the "zoo" format popular at the time, the camera often roved dangerously close to my face, which made the experience of watching me a bit like gazing through a security peephole to see John Merrick leering ominously on your doorstep. I was unfunny, uncomfortable and charmless. Things have changed since then, obviously. I'm fatter.
Anyway, during the first week of making the show, the runner would come over between takes to check whether I needed anything. A chair, perhaps? A glass of water? At first, this was embarrassing. I didn't want anyone making a fuss of me. But one of the primary rules of television is to keep "the talent" happy, and consequently there was no let-up. So you accept the proffered chair, sup the glass of water. And after several weeks of pampering, something snaps in your brain. You grow accustomed to the attention; like wireless broadband, it's an everyday miracle you simply take for granted. Before long, the moment you get thirsty, your first thought is no longer "I'll go and pour myself a drink", but something along the lines of "Where's that runner gone?", "Why haven't I been watered already?", or "Isn't this a disgusting breach of my human rights?"
And that's the treatment given to an ugly bloke on a cheap satellite show. I can scarcely imagine the level of forelock-tugging servility Carey must have encountered during her lifetime. Her record company probably employs someone to walk 10 paces in front of her, breathing on all the doorknobs in her mansion so they won't feel cold to the touch. Not that she'll have touched a doorknob in 15 years. She must think every door in the world opens by magic at the first sign of her approach.
Under those circumstances, you'd rapidly lose all respect for "regular people" and start issuing lunatic demands for them to follow, partly to keep yourself amused, and partly out of sheer disgust. After all, if you're going to bow each time I enter the room, I might as well make you kiss my feet a few times while you're down there.
Come to think of it, maybe that's why it's hard to detect much in the way of palpable feeling in Carey's music. Her singing voice wavers up and down through the octaves, like someone slowly tuning a shortwave radio in search of an authentic emotion. It's technically amazing, but almost impossible to relate to on a human level - possibly because she no longer experiences anything akin to regular human life. She might not even experience proper emotions these days. She might have people who do that for her. Aides who rush in and hitch up the corners of her mouth each time she starts to smile, and mop down her cheeks with tiny hand-knitted towels when she cries.
But is it Mariah's fault if she's over-indulged? No. It's yours. You specifically are to blame. Oh OK: it's society's fault. If society insists on treating celebrities like royalty, there's little point lambasting them for behaving like princesses. It's nurture, not nature. And besides, the press is probably making it up anyway. Tales of the cosseted few whistling through an unreliable sphincter into the eyes and ears of the many: that's entertainment news, that is. (The Guardian)
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