“One of the great advantages of a celebrity culture is the way it siphons off so many of the narcissistic and dysfunctional into areas where they can do the least societal damage. Occasionally, the system goes awry and one of them winds up in a serious job (William Jefferson Clinton), but generally things work pretty well. One cannot say the same of Saudi Arabia, whose 7,000 princes are en masse at least as risible and in many cases more tastelessly accessorized than Liza [Minnelli]’s guests. But the crucial difference is that their subjects are obliged to pretend they’re useful and intelligent: If they laugh at them, they’ll wind up laughing their heads off. Likewise, Iraq, where the only celebrity author and musical-comedy star is Saddam himself: his romantic allegorical novel, Zabibah and the King, got great reviews — there’s a surprise — and has been turned into a lavish stage production, which is doing sell-out business — there’s another surprise. The tragedy of Iraq is that in order to make it big in showbiz Saddam had to make it big in mass murder first. Under the American system, his book would have been picked by Oprah, he’d have sold the Broadway rights to Liza’s husband, and they’d have signed Petula Clark and Mickey Rooney for the title roles. No matter how you look at it, that’s a massively superior system.
“New York will forget Liza’s latest wedding soon enough, so will Liza. But we should remember to savour this ersatz Royal wedding precisely because it’s ersatz; and those who defend America needn’t do it despite its “celebrity culture” but because of it.
“Better a fan than a vassal.”
Excerpt from Mark Steyn