DECEMBER 5, 2009
Romy and Michele at the White House
By LIONEL TIGER
WSJ
Perhaps the most efficient way to understand the grandiose conniption caused by Tareq and Michaele Salahi's earnest devotion to the cause of international diplomacy is to refer to that classic American film: "Romy and Michele's High School Reunion." Cinema fans well remember this tale of two vigorously ditsy graduates returning empty-handed in the status department to their high school reunion. Played by Mira Sorvino and the irreplaceable Lisa Kudrow, the gals concoct a series of stories about their out-of-state triumphs to impress those former prom queens and quarterbacks who earlier scorned them, including a deliriously convincing description by Ms. Kudrow about her invention of Post-Its. Redemption triumphs when the class geek, Alan Cummings — who has made a real fortune in rubber — swoops in on a helicopter to extract Romy and Michele while unmarried pregnant prom queens and now-fat wide receivers puke drunkenly in the high school hallways.
The hunger for status can be, and often is, as profound as hunger for food. The serial inventions of the Salahis — from preparing for a fictitious Prince Charles at a polo match to prancing with Redskin football cheerleaders during halftime — is almost bewilderingly stupid. But they aimed high, used just-plausible techniques, and focused on a community in which management of impression is a thriving industry. The Salahis plunged zealously into the compote which has become reality. They sculpted an unreal invite to score their equivalent of the lie about Post-Its. Madam S donned a red sari, a costly hairdo, and confronted a Secret Service person who may very well have, because of their diversity-appropriate names, suffered a Maj. Hasan moment. Presumably he or she contemplated how offensive it would be to degrade someone named Salahi at the White House.
(snip)
So where is reality? Is it owned by the Bravo channel? Is it just yet another endless refraction of every human experience through a super-Cubist lens of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, texting, the 24/7 Housewives of Everywhere, and the sweaty lowland swamp of blogs? Of course it is. And the audience consuming the media has seen it as an exceptionally improbable entertainment perfect for contemplation, if only because of that driving fatuous vanity that should rightly land the Salahis in court.
But there is a brutal reality linked to the crashing of this first state dinner, which is that an earlier leader of India, Rajiv Ghandi, was killed at point-blank range by a young woman wearing a sari carrying a grievance and a bomb beneath her dress. The danger of this security breach was enormous. Everyone from the Obamas on down are more than correct to respond to it with fierce anger and some justified fear. We were fortunate that this time was just Romy and Michele at the door. But there is no guarantee about who might be behind them in the line next time.
(snip)
And finally, most arrestingly, the leading saint of golf, a Mr. T. Woods, has landed himself in The Worst And Oldest Sand Trap in the World. Golf is of course the core entertainment of the folks who run the country — a sport without sweat, without bodily contact, devoid of real competition except with oneself, and no passion except for winning. How this will affect those in Washington as they struggle to reperfect this economy is unclear, but possibly gloomily deep.
It's not been a good week.
—Mr. Tiger is professor of anthropology at Rutgers.
Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A21
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052748704007804574574173091592360.html
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
