So Arnold has a love child? Some will demonstrate outrage to this revelation, and others will respond with, ”Big fucking deal.” All condolences to his family, but I at this point have become desensitized to the climate of super powerful male celebs coming out and admitting to, or being caught having, infidelities. And being, for lack of more eloquent phrasing, complete fucking assholes.
How far should we go to vilify the former Governator? That is all up to you. If you’re deeply religious or have moral scruples on this issue, the 1st Amendment engenders you to publicly out roar against all the man’s sins. Go ahead, make a spectacle in the media. Call him a monster, his mistress a whore and his career a joke. We’ve had Tiger (alright, yeah, he’s a pig), Sheen (no surprise here if you’ve at all paid attention to celebrity gossip over the last 25 years), Roethlisberger (who un-married, was accused of rape, and yet is already playing in NFC championships again. Does this mean our warped social climate is more disgusted by rape than infidelity? Gross), and countless other former (some cases, current) American heroes falling from graces due to getting laid out of wedlock.
I’m sitting here. I’m 23, just out of college and living a bit of a bohemian existence. I’m working oddjobs here and there, until I find a writing gig of a more reliable nature. My habitat is my mom’s basement in my terminally dull hometown on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. I spend my days checking my email, working out, hanging with the same group of friends I floated through high school with and looking for jobs. I don’t think it needs to be stated that meeting a nice girl, or even just getting old fashioned laid, is not as easy as it was just four months ago.
People talk about the “dark side” of being a celebrity, the easy money and widespread recognition that comes along with parties, drugs and plentiful sex. Sounds terrible, doesn’t it.
No, of course not. It sounds amazing to myself and any other deluded 23 year old with a dream and a boring living situation.
“The dark side” is most certainly provided some of the inspiration for these rich and successful men to have worked so hard to be where they are. At least in the beginning, every man daydreams of a day he’ll be able to by-pass a line at a swanky club, start a massive drink tab, have everyone kiss his ass and at the end of the night pick the most beautiful women to come back to your place of living and show you a wild time. It is unquestionably the most endearing aspect of being a celebrity. Do you think these men work their asses off so they can one day have cameras shoved in their faces and have their personal lives being speculated on by people they have never met? If that were the end game, the goal of becoming a professional athlete, or actor, or politician or any sort of public figure, would seem an exercise in counter-productivity. Passion is a factor too. Whether you are passionate about sports or acting or music plays a factor in the tireless work it takes to make it to the big time. But passion will only get you so far. There are adult leagues for men who still passionate about sports one way or another. Pessimistic as it may sound, I truly believe the money and the fame becomes the great motivator for these guys once they see their goals coming into fruition.
Arnold, arguably one of the most accomplished men of our time, finally finds himself admidst a heap of controversy. The details are still a little sketchy, but what seems to be clear, Arnold has a love child with an as-yet-to-be specified woman, who happens to be close with the family. C’mon Arnie, there have to be hundreds of thousands of women out there who would willingly see you to bed, no strings attached. And you have to go there and shit where you eat. Bad move.
As Jimmy Barret said to Don Draper in Mad Men, “You want to step out, do what we all do, go to the whores.”
Jimmy was referring to Don’s infidelities with his wife, but it applies. When there is an emotional aspect to the infidelity and the sex inherent in the deceit, it becomes so much more devastating to everyone involved.
It seems the guys who are able to flourish into their elderly years as celebs are those that do one of two things; stay a bachelor, or just grow the hell up. If I was to get famous now, I have to admit, I would go absolutely nuts. I would indulge in every debauched luxury that came my way. I would sleep with models, porn stars, waitresses and maybe try out a couple high-level tabloid fodder romances along the way. But this is coming from the mind of a young, decent looking and college-educated 23-year-old male who is having trouble with the ladies as of recent. And there is no denying by anybody that fame makes sexual conquest a lot easier to come by.
But how long can you do this? There are fellas who seem to have maintained a long life of bachelordom while keeping relatively impeccable reputations.
Look at Clooney. The man has a new young beauty on his arm seemingly every Oscars ceremony. Despite this, he is still thought of as an extremely talented actor and beloved philanthropist. Why? Because he does not hurt the women he’s been with by marrying, and then cheating on the. His polar opposite is a guy like Charlie. The man who claims to be #winning is actually has five kids from three women. Though I find his uniquely narrow minded and self-centered viewpoint mildly endearing, it’s hard to fathom the emotional wreckage this guy has tolled on his many kids and the women who birthed them.
There’s Robert Downey Jr. For over a decade, the man was a tabloid staple with his incessant runs ins with the law brought on by excessive use of hard drugs. The guy damn near lost his career. Instead of creating a media spectacle around himself ala Charlie, the man actually got his act together. He sobered up, married a well-known film producer and has starred in a string of highly successful, and mostly critically acclaimed films. He was able to flush out all that youthful idiocy just in time, and he now finds himself a more recognizable actor than he ever was in his 20s
I’m beginning to wonder what this essay is actually about. I started it wanting to write something witty about Arnold, but I realize at this point it’s more about the psychology of a man who literally is on top of the world. In theory, I would love to meet a fantastic woman and start a family, but there is still that dark animal instinct in me that tells me I should be running around bars and clubs, getting wasted and sleeping with as many women as humanly possible.
In his recent (excellent) interview with Neil Strauss for Rolling Stone, the great Howard Stern offered his own insight into this aspect of celebrity life, referring to his divorce with his first wife.
Stern said, “I realized, "Oh, wow, I can go have sex." And I was running around, picking up women. Then all of a sudden, it dawned on me that I really didn't need that much sex. I just wanted somebody with me every minute. When I tapped into that, it suddenly became very childish behavior. And really, was it so great fucking every night? They're using me for my fame, I'm using them for their beauty, and the whole fucking thing seemed empty."”
This statement summarizes the “dark side” of celebrity life perfectly. Yes it sounds great, and inevitably it probably is great for a little while when you first achieve massive success. But at the end of the day, every man must realize there is some kind of a void in his life. And that void is not much different than the one I feel as a 20 something post graduate living in mom’s basement. Both lifestyles are inherently lonely and empty; one is just a lot more fun.
Arnold is just one of the countless male celebrities to find themselves in a sex-induced media spectacle. He also admitted to his failings, ala the still successful and revered David Letterman. But with a confirmed love child under his belt, the apology could prove too little to late. This one may have come as a bit more of a shocker to the American public, considering the 25-year marriage of the bodybuilding governor and his Kennedy family-related spouse. But I am above being shocked by any celebrity scandal at this point. For many men, easy sex is a powerful lure. The strong and the weak alike can succumb to it.
America’s obsession with celebrity creates a climate in which Arnold and the countless other male celebrities getting caught having affairs are deeply punished for their sins. Not only are they wracked with the guilt that justifiably comes from the anger and sadness of their loved ones, they also are scorned upon by the entire public.
So is this the “dark side” of celebrity? Not the wild lifestyle that so easily arises out of money and status. But instead, the humiliation that results when a celebrity lifestyle being lived to its deepest extremes has been revealed to the world.
One can only hope, and apparently Maria and Arnold agree on this, that their families are kept out of it. Good luck Arnie, if your criticism during your tenure as governor was rough, I can’t imagine what you have in store for yourself over the next few months.
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