Ian Farwell Misc Post #5 - Products of People (Magazine).

In my television symposium class, which I often mention for supplemental posts, we had another set of actors attend our class. The theme revolved around the HBO Miniseries "The Pacific," and thus one of the actors Joseph Manzello (USC Alum) attended. I must say I was a little disappointed, because I was really hoping for one if not both of the executive producers (Steven Spieberg or Tom Hanks). But, oh well. So, I want to talk about Joseph Manzello, but first I need to talk about the dichotomy I have seen emerge for me.

I learned a lot from this class. We had significantly more behind-the-scenes guests in this class than stars, but I got to see the dichotomy between the two types of people that make the film and tv industry run, stars and everyone else. I realized that although maybe talented, stars are a different breed that the rest of the creative team that really make a movie function. It seems from my limited experience that stars are often far less interesting than the roles they play on screen. Thus, I think it is fitting that upon real interview, the audience of these Q&A session leaves unfulfilled by these stars. However, the creative teams behind the scenes are so fascinating to listen to. Clearly, it is too dry for the cover of people magazine, but so interesting none-the-less.

Upon listening to the stars over the course of the semester, I found them to be self indulged. Almost like they were similar to the rest of the world in that they indulged in the lives of People Magazine, but the life was not some unknown star's, it was their own. The creative teams were able to speak about so much more than what they felt by something. All the stars would do is talk about "I felt this..." and "I felt that....." - Creative teams would talk about how something was done or what they did, not about their personalities, emotions, or personal life. It was quite interesting to see, and I apologize because my explanation does not do the phenomenon I experienced justice.

So, back to Joseph Mazello. An interesting and nice individual, but typical of what I have been talking about for these stars. I want to make it clear that I don't fault them for being relatively naive and self interested, because I think they are products of what we demand of them, but it is just so interesting to see them talk about themselves like it is their favorite thing. Much the way people talk about them like they are their favorite things. Joseph Mazello was like this, and I think a lot of lifelong stars are too.

So, I guess as we have moving toward the end of the semester I have learned this... I have always known that I don't really care to hear about the lives of stars. However, I think learning about what star constructs and depicts say about our culture can lend awesome insight into many many many avenues of knowledge, especially in the social sciences. And, I feel bad for any star that feels they have to live up to the perfection of the characters they portray in film.