Authenticity from musicians, actors, athletes, etc...

You gonna stalk me now, Vers? I think it dealt with authenticity perfectly fine, not that I need your stamp

 

As Versatile said, this doesn't really have much to do with why I started this thread.

There is a large spectrum between how Verse views famous people and how many Penn Staters view(ed) Joe Paterno. I'm interested in where people fall on the spectrum and why.

 

Stalking you? I posted in this thread first, and you followed me in the Oscar thread. Get over yourself.

I was simply pointing out that you reduced a complicated subject to one dismissive blowoff. Do you really think dreunc1542 was attempting to say he only listens to bands that "keep it real"?

 

And I said I don't care if a singer lived what he wrote, or whether its a Prefab Five. So, no, authenticity doesn't matter, at least with musicians

 

I like the question, but I really like waterytart's answer of looking for honesty over "authenticity," which is more about the perception of motive/intent. It's hard enough to judge authenticity among people you know well, let alone people you've met once (or never.) It's like an MVP debate -- totally subjective based on your definition of valuable/authentic, which kind of makes the whole thing silly.

I think this only matters in music*, and even then, I'm not sure how much it matters at all. Music is such a personal thing ... we all take away something different from each song that means something to us. So maybe the backstory matters ... for one artist, or one song ... and maybe it doesn't.

And maybe it changes over time. Consider the famous example of Pearl Jam's "Alive," which meant something far different to Eddie Vedder when he wrote it than what it meant to fans who took it very differently ... and ultimately changed the meaning of the song to its own writer. Is that still authentic? Who gives a shit? That's the whole point of music anyway — listening to a song is as valuable an experience to that person as creating the song is to that person.

* This question clearly doesn't matter in film, since actors by their nature aren't trying to tell a story authentic to themselves; they're telling a scripted one, in character. And I would argue it doesn't matter much in sports, either, where most fans (including myself) root for laundry uber alles and overlook most flaws (of authenticity or otherwise) on the part of those athletes. Although some of us might prefer to root for athletes who happen to be good people, it's impossible to know who's "authentically" good people and who's Kirby Puckett. The truth is, we don't know any of these people at all.

 

This doesn't really have anything to do with Sea Change, but Beck's PR people did a very good job of hiding his parents' entertainment industry connections and the fact that he's a Scientologist during the early part of his career. Not that any of that takes away from his music.

 

Look at all the argy bargy here and elsewhere in the wake of Pearlman's Payton book. Loads of Bears fans didn't want to believe that Sweetness was a pill-popping, womanizing, absentee husband and father who could be a selfish teammate.

 

Buck, I mostly agree with you on film. At the same time, there is talk on the Oscar thread, and I've seen this elsewhere as well about how awesome Jennifer Lawrence is, so people do seem to care or appreciate when they think someone is an awesome/good/likable person.

 

You know, I was going to post on that here this morning before I even saw your post.

I do get some general enjoyment out of funny famous people being funny famous people. I like Gregg Popovich's interviews and Nyjer Morgan's personas and Antonio Cromartie's inability to remember his children's names. But I don't really associate that with their play. That's a separate compartment in my brain, and I don't find myself rooting for the Mavericks because Dirk Nowitzki is hilariously goofy.

 

An actor doing a public appearance is still 'performing'. Some of the most unpleasant people wouldn't seem that way until you actually work with them. Just my experience - I have no empirical data to back this up.

 

I don't think athletes are 'authentic' anymore, if ever, especially the ones everyone wants to talk to the most because they're media-trained from the beginning. Exhibit A, bland Tiger Woods.

As others have said, music is so personal and any two people listening to a song, even if both love it, take different lyrics to heart or seek different meaning in it. I think the authenticity of music resides in your own heart.

 

How did you pull Menudo out of your ass? That is one of the greatest bizarre references in SportsJournalists.com history. You didn't go with One Dimension or even NKOTB. You pull out Menudo. Fantastic.