America's Royalty: Celebrities

"Every man I knew went to bed with Gilda...and woke up with me." Rita Hayworth

Celebrity status has become America's royalty. Everyone wants to be rich and famous and everyone wants to be loved by everyone else. The real purpose of celebrity seems to be to bring people together who have nothing else in common. Tabloids are the high school lunch room of the adult world. Made for gossip, envy and the popular kids sitting at the best tables.

As a child I had many favorite celebrities...Delta Burke because of Designing Women, Jason Priestly because of 90210, and everything from Full House because as a child, nothing was better than that show and that family.

I had a few major obsessions as a child though. The first was Jonathon Taylor Thomas and I was madly in love with him for years and years. I had poster covering every inch of my walls and this included my ceiling because I ran out of space. I was also crazy about my idol Reba McEntire. She sang all my favorite songs, she was a red head just like me and she was the only person I could actually read an entire autobiography of at 11. When I was in the 6th grade I went to her concert and cried because I couldn't meet her at the end. It gets worse.

I believe my number one obsession as a child was the television series Xena Warrior Princess. I started watching because I was bored waiting for my friend to get home from church every Sunday morning. By the end of the first season when Gabrielle died and Xena brings her back from the dead by inventing CPR, I was hooked. I was hooked not only by the show, but the character Gabrielle played by Renee O'Connor. To be honest this is an embarrassing revelation, but not yet the worst part. I spent hundreds that I earned (yard business and baby sitting) in elementary school on Gabrielle and Xena merchandise at the comic book store, which included comics, cards, magazines and toys. This was also my go to Birthday gifting ideas. I also joined the ROC fan club and started collecting every coin from the year of her birth 1971. It gets worse than that because my darkest secret is I used to RP (role playing) online as Gabrielle.

There are several reasons why this last part might be extremely embarrassing, but it kind of shaped my current life. First, I made a life long friend from those RP days. We met as Xena fan geeks, but we still talk and we're still good friends. I also discovered I like to write, even if according to my friend, I was a terrible Gabrielle. I also made another amazing friends just by having been a Renee fan at one time. When I was in Iraq, I was looking for a DVD of a short she starred in since I was interested in what she had been doing these days (Iraq is boring!). The director and a friend of hers contacted me, sent me several copies of the DVD to show while I was there and he is now a much loved friend.

Many people might consider this a good way in to meet my previous idol, but no it really is not. For starters, you never something like that to a friend. Second, I believe the saying never to meet your idols. Truthfully, I really didn't care so much for the actor because I really loved her character, which are two separate people. One real, one not so much. My Xena friend tried to explain this to me and I never got it before now. They aren't the same person, which only means disappointment. I think that's what Rita Hayworth meant by her comment. She's not the person people fall in love with. In reality, she is someone the studio blatantly changed in to something else.

She went from being latin Margarita Carmen Cansino to Rita hayowrth on the right. People are jealous of celebrity, they want fame and fortune and they want everything they can't have. People are jealous of celebrities and think they have no real problems. If this were true, it seems Marilyn Monroe may have had quite a different ending to her story.