Are you sitting down? Good, because I have something shocking to tell you. Get ready. It has come to my attention that certain celebrities have begun doing drugs. Gasp! And not just the harmless kinds they’ve done for years, like marijuana, cocaine, pills, the occasional bit of heroine, plus gargantuan amounts of alcohol. No, I’m talking about something far more insidious: steroids! Allegations have surfaced recently that a number of celebrities, including Tyler Perry, 50 Cent and Mary J. Blige, illegally ordered steroids and human growth hormone. Clearly the desire to perform like Roger Clemens and José Canseco is too tempting for even the rich and famous. Oh, the humanity!
I think we’ve lost nearly all perspective when we find it necessary to investigate whether Madea is juicing. I know steroids are illegal, but I simply cannot muster any outrage that 50 Cent isn’t naturally as cut as he appears or that Mary J. Blige is using HGH to slim down.
Major League Baseball says it needs to root out steroid use because it damages the integrity of the game. But Hollywood, which has no integrity to begin with, has no such problem. The argument against rappers and actors using steroids seems to be that it sends the wrong message to children, possibly encouraging them to use steroids.
Here’s the problem I see: These kids that might be encouraged to use steroids had no idea that their favorite celebrities were using steroids until it was discovered in the investigation. Until now, if a kid looked at 50 Cent and wanted to look like him, he assumed that he could if he worked out and ate right. Now that the secret is out, that same kid starts thinking that maybe he should use steroids too.
There was a time when celebrities’ dirty little secrets stayed buried. For years, no one knew that Spencer Tracy was a drunk and carrying on an affair with Katharine Hepburn. The public had no idea that Rock Hudson was gay. George Reeves took pains to make sure that children never even saw him smoke.
Those days are long gone, however. Everything any celebrity does is instantly public knowledge, thanks to OK! Magazine, Us Weekly and especially TMZ. And while some stars are such train wrecks that they cannot even maintain appearances, the constant attention and exposure certainly isn’t helping anyone. And for those that try to live more modest lives? Well, if you dig hard enough, you can find dirt on almost anyone.
I don’t want to sound like Chris Crocker here, and I am certainly not advocating that stars be given license to do whatever they want. I’ve railed against our celebrity-obsessed culture before, but clearly not all of America reads my column. My point is that we need to give up the idea that celebrities are going to be role models. That ship has sailed.
These people are artists, more or less. That lifestyle has always attracted the more Bohemian elements of society. Should it surprise us when they misbehave? Moreover, we project our desires onto them. They try to live up to impossible physical standards, and sometimes, they need a little juice to do it. It’s all a show anyway. Steroids are just the special effects.
Okay, so I may be going a bit far here playing devil’s advocate, but I’m not totally wrong. People have long speculated that professional wrestlers and American Gladiators are not coming by their impressive physiques naturally. But they’re entertainers. If they were there to be role models, they’d be our parents and teachers.
It’s part of the magic, and if you explain how it’s done, it ruins the show.
Patrick Thompson is a senior in the College and a former senior Guide editor. He can be reached at thompson@thehoya.com. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes appears every other Friday in The Guide.