Read Online Not Cool: The Hipster Elite and Their War on You by Greg Gutfeld - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Greg Gutfeld
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down-home stability and common sense. Or be ridiculously rich. But if you’re a gorgeous actor or a sexy singer, by all means play up the irrational, the dark, the unpredictable side ofyou. Destroy the furniture in your hotel, like Johnny Depp or Christian Slater did until they had finally created evidence for the press of their “dark, brooding sides.” Destroying things makes you appear deep, which might lead to more substantial roles. It works—but only if you have dimples and carefully coiffed hair made to look unkempt. (It’s a vanity I notice Angelina Jolie seems to have grown out of. Take note, Hollywood. It’s called “growing up.” It is possible.)
If you read any contemporary book or see any movie where the antihero is troubled, the troubling part (his mental instability) is usually fetishized instead of feared. Hollywood has now made it cool to be uniquely psychotic—to a point where people pride themselves on their quirky diagnoses. In Hollywood all instability is just a charming scene in
Forrest Gump
,
Rain Man
, or
Silver Linings Playbook
. The patient is sweet, goofy, or really good at blackjack. Unlike reality, they never shoot up a school or hack up their parents. Just last week, the brother of an old drinking buddy of mine killed their parents. He was a mentally unstable felon; he did not look cool. He looked like a mentally unstable felon. But if they make a movie about it, chances are he’ll be played by Tobey Maguire, who is about as dark and deep as Lite-Brite.
In movies it’s the crazies who are cool and the decent folk who are demonic. And what you end up with is a culture more fearful of institutionalization than the people who need to be institutionalized. Only in the counter-earth of Hollywood could such BS be pulled off with a straight face (which could explain the massive popularity of Botox).
Try to track down any opinion on the deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill, and you’ll almost find a singular culprit: Ronald Reagan. Recently, ferocious frizzball Bette Midler blamed the Newtown massacre on double R, because he let all the craziesback out on the California streets around forty years ago. What’s forgotten in all this is that the rise of patients’ rights, combined with the softening glow added to the portrait of mental instability, made it impossible to help those who needed it by incarcerating them. I guess, of the two evils—mentally ill on the streets harming others versus mentally ill held against their will in hospitals—it was better to put the community at risk. Making the ACLU about as mentally ill as anyone out there.
So, why is craziness considered cool? Well, we like misfits. The idea of being an outsider creates a sense of depth that did not exist before. I love watching interviews of celebrities who say they were “outcasts” as teens, or “geeky” or even “ugly.” It’s almost certain that now, of course, they’re tall, gorgeous, and successful. They want you to think they aren’t just another pretty face—behind that pretty face is a sad clown, crying. Or perhaps self-mutilating or bulimic. All of which they’ll be “raising awareness” about as soon as possible. I have a hard time believing that all of these irresistible beauties were repulsive shut-ins up until age nineteen. Especially since many are twenty-one now.
This is pretty harmless, if you stay far away from the harmful. The glorification of the unstable has given us a fair share of unnecessary exposure to really rotten people. As cool as you think unorthodox types are, there’s nothing pleasant about the Manson Family. We can continue to elevate social deviance to a stature above your boring parents and your stupid siblings—but your boring parents and stupid siblings won’t gut a pregnant woman in her home and then write mocking messages in her blood on the wall. Your boring family is almost always the victim in these horrible events.
The infatuation with the eccentric
If you read any contemporary book or see any movie where the antihero is troubled, the troubling part (his mental instability) is usually fetishized instead of feared. Hollywood has now made it cool to be uniquely psychotic—to a point where people pride themselves on their quirky diagnoses. In Hollywood all instability is just a charming scene in
Forrest Gump
,
Rain Man
, or
Silver Linings Playbook
. The patient is sweet, goofy, or really good at blackjack. Unlike reality, they never shoot up a school or hack up their parents. Just last week, the brother of an old drinking buddy of mine killed their parents. He was a mentally unstable felon; he did not look cool. He looked like a mentally unstable felon. But if they make a movie about it, chances are he’ll be played by Tobey Maguire, who is about as dark and deep as Lite-Brite.
In movies it’s the crazies who are cool and the decent folk who are demonic. And what you end up with is a culture more fearful of institutionalization than the people who need to be institutionalized. Only in the counter-earth of Hollywood could such BS be pulled off with a straight face (which could explain the massive popularity of Botox).
Try to track down any opinion on the deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill, and you’ll almost find a singular culprit: Ronald Reagan. Recently, ferocious frizzball Bette Midler blamed the Newtown massacre on double R, because he let all the craziesback out on the California streets around forty years ago. What’s forgotten in all this is that the rise of patients’ rights, combined with the softening glow added to the portrait of mental instability, made it impossible to help those who needed it by incarcerating them. I guess, of the two evils—mentally ill on the streets harming others versus mentally ill held against their will in hospitals—it was better to put the community at risk. Making the ACLU about as mentally ill as anyone out there.
So, why is craziness considered cool? Well, we like misfits. The idea of being an outsider creates a sense of depth that did not exist before. I love watching interviews of celebrities who say they were “outcasts” as teens, or “geeky” or even “ugly.” It’s almost certain that now, of course, they’re tall, gorgeous, and successful. They want you to think they aren’t just another pretty face—behind that pretty face is a sad clown, crying. Or perhaps self-mutilating or bulimic. All of which they’ll be “raising awareness” about as soon as possible. I have a hard time believing that all of these irresistible beauties were repulsive shut-ins up until age nineteen. Especially since many are twenty-one now.
This is pretty harmless, if you stay far away from the harmful. The glorification of the unstable has given us a fair share of unnecessary exposure to really rotten people. As cool as you think unorthodox types are, there’s nothing pleasant about the Manson Family. We can continue to elevate social deviance to a stature above your boring parents and your stupid siblings—but your boring parents and stupid siblings won’t gut a pregnant woman in her home and then write mocking messages in her blood on the wall. Your boring family is almost always the victim in these horrible events.
The infatuation with the eccentric
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