Tuesday, October 18, 2005
George and Terry
Terry Gross interviewed George Clooney today. Clooney has the easy charm of someone who was moved around a lot as a kid and had to adjust to the stresses of new schools, new kids. His father, working in TV news, was constantly on the move with his family. Clooney said, about himself, that he “wasn't bright enough to be a TV news correspondent”; this is an occupational requirement I hadn't realized existed for news readers. I've never seen evidence that such a standard does exist in all the years I've watched TV news. In fact, the exact opposite seems the more reasonable conclusion.
(Mel Gibson had said in an interview awhile back that he wasn't smart like his father. Gibson's father is a Holocaust denier.)
Terry Gross' worshipful demeanor had its own issues for this long time listener to her show. You sort of want this excellent interviewer to acquire a shred of a clue about context. The guy is a movie star who just said he isn't bright.
You can understand the context for Clooney, and his aspirations: Clooney is getting the rewards our society has to offer. He is famous and wealthy and for many, like Gross, unquestionably interesting and engaging. George has status; just because he is George. You can understand that someone with such a flood of unmerited benevolence thrust in his direction by society would want to validate it in some meaningful way. To reassure himself. “Maybe I am serious and important. I should deal with 'serious issues'. Then people won't think I'm just a fluffy entertainer, but that I care and have depth.”
Clooney seems, as I said, a very likable do-gooder. I don't think he has much to say. But then again, that didn't stop him from talking for an hour, nor Gross from asking him, or herself, why she was talking to him at all. We all have to ask ourselves that question: why do we listen?